A Storm of Shadows (Shatterborn Book One)

Chapter XI, Discord

A/N: This chapter is dedicated to Angus for a pretty simple reason: his wattpad rants. Finally, I've found someone who has the same opinion as me regarding the shit that happens on Wattpad. I suggest you check it out! 

The picture is a hint to a teeeerrible joke I made in this chapter. if you get it, I will go through every single one of your stories and vote on all your chapters, but you have to PM me what the joke is. Got it? :D In other news, whilst searching youtube for epic writing music, i got turned into a brony; thus, the music. You're welcome, everybody!

The insides of Emmaline’s eyelids scratched at her eyes as she woke up. Her mind was a groggy blur and she had to focus hard to clear it away. As she opened her eyes, the scratchiness didn’t disappear, and she blinked several times to try and lubricate her eyelids.

After a few seconds, she could actually move her eyes without feeling the need to scream in pain. She twisted onto her side and blearily took in her surroundings.

She was in her old room in Herondale. Frowning, she slid herself up into a raised position. She was still wearing her clothes from the night before, and…

And the last thing she remembered was sitting back down underneath the Relic. Pirra left, and she was alone in the clearing, wondering why Pirra was so afraid of the Black Dawn. Emmaline let out a cold shudder. No, she had definitely fallen asleep at the Relic.

With a sigh, she stood up out of bed and stretched. Her feet had dangled over the edge of the bed the night before and she could barely feel the rug beneath her numb toes. She smiled at the sensation.

Then she noticed that she was fully clothed in what she’d been wearing the night before. The morning had started off strange and was only getting stranger. A stray twig caught on her hair and Emmaline, grimacing, tugged it out.

“A twig,” she muttered dubiously. “Now isn’t that a cliché.”

She flicked the twig across the room. Her travelling clothes were disturbingly unclean against her skin, slightly stiff with sweat. She grimaced. “I’ll have to buy some new clothes,” she muttered to herself.

Emmaline looked around the room that had been hers, all those years ago. There was still the small bookshelf, stacked with her very favourite books. On top of the shelf, there was a picture in a frame. She’d forgotten it when they left for the Hidden Temple.

Emmaline walked over to the bookshelf and lifted up the picture, studying it. When she had realized that she left it behind, she’d sulked sullenly for a good few days, until Azrael finally told her that there was simply nothing they could do; it was gone now. That was the first time her newly developed powers had manifested, when she punched him in the arm with such force he was thrown back several meters. Emmaline remembered the anger she felt before, and the terror just after the punch. She smiled slightly at the memory, her hand drifting to her neck where the Mark of Imprinting hung.

As it did, it also brushed against the other pendant hanging there: the sapphire. Her hand tingled slightly as it touched the gemstone. She flinched away from it, and the sensation faded. Emmaline frowned and looked back at the picture.

It was an Imprinting, but it was more than that. Certain Artisans of Weaving – no, they were called thaumaturgists, Emmaline had to remind herself – could create a Weave of Imprinting that captured the very essence of a memory and then, when they cast it as a Mark, it took the form of a picture of stunning detail. The task was demanding, and only a very few thaumaturgists had the skill to cast it.

This particular Imprinting depicted her sitting between Azrael and Sephy, outside their cottage in Nemetia. Emmaline smiled pensively at the image, then slid it out of the frame and put it inside Sephy’s journal.