Chapter Thirteen #2
Nesta opened the door to a rectangular cell of a room, occupied by a desk on the far side and two bookshelves lining both long walls.
A small pallet lay to the left of the desk, a blanket and pillow neatly aligned.
As if the hooded priestess with her back to Nesta sometimes couldn’t be bothered to return to the dormitory to sleep.
No sign of Gwyn. Nesta wondered if she’d already been dismissed for her so-called failure.
But Nesta took a few steps into the room, surveying the shelf to her right before she said, “I brought the books you requested.”
The female hunched over her work, the scratching of her pen filling the room. “Fine.” She didn’t so much as turn. Nesta scanned the other shelf.
There—volume eight of The Great War. Nesta had taken a silent step toward it when the priestess’s head snapped up. “I didn’t ask for any more books. And where’s Gwyneth? She should have returned half an hour ago.”
Nesta asked as blandly and stupidly as she could, “Who’s Gwyneth?”
Merrill turned at that, and Nesta was greeted with a surprisingly young face—and a stunningly beautiful one. All the High Fae were beautiful, but Merrill made even Mor look drab.
Hair white as fresh snow contrasted against the light brown of her skin, and eyes the color of a twilight sky blinked once, twice.
As if focusing on the here and now and not whatever work she’d been doing.
She noted Nesta’s leathers, the lack of any robes or stone atop her braided hair, and demanded, “Who are you?”
“Nesta.” She hefted the books in her arms. “I was told to bring these to you.”
Volume eight of The Great War lay mere inches away. If she just stuck out a hand to her left, she could snatch it off the shelf. Swap it out with volume seven from the stack in her arms.
Merrill’s remarkable eyes narrowed. She looked as young as Nesta, yet an ornery sort of energy buzzed around her. “Who gave you those orders?”
Nesta blinked, the portrait of stupidity. “A priestess.”
Merrill’s full mouth tightened. “Which priestess?”
Gwyn was right in her assessment of this female. Being assigned to work with her seemed more like a punishment than an honor. “I don’t know. You all wear those hoods.”
“These are the sacred clothes of our order, girl. Not those hoods.” Merrill returned to her papers.
Nesta asked, because it would piss off the female, “So you didn’t ask for these books, Roslin?”
Merrill threw down her pen and bared her teeth. “You think I’m Roslin?”
“I was told to bring these books to Roslin, and someone said your—her office was here.”
“Roslin is on Level Four. I am on Level Two.” She said it as if it implied some sort of hierarchy.
Nesta shrugged again. And might have enjoyed the hell out of it.
Merrill seethed, but returned to her work. “Roslin,” she muttered. “Insufferable, inane Roslin. Endless prattling.”
Nesta reached a stealthy hand toward the shelf to her left.
Merrill whipped her head around, and Nesta snapped her arm down to her side. “Never disturb me again.” Merrill pointed to the door. “Get out and shut the door behind you. If you see that silly Gwyneth, tell her she’s expected here immediately.”
“Apologies,” Nesta said, unable to keep the glimmer of annoyance out of her eyes, but Merrill was already twisting back to her desk.
It had to be now.
One eye on the priestess, Nesta moved.
She coughed to cover the whisper of books moving. And by the time Merrill whipped her head around again, Nesta made sure she wasn’t so much as looking toward the shelf. Where volume seven of The Great War stood in place of volume eight, which now sat atop the other books in Nesta’s arms.
Nesta’s heart pounded in her entire body.
Merrill hissed, “What are you lingering for? Get out.”
“Apologies,” Nesta repeated, bowing at the waist, and left. Shut the door behind her.
And only when she stood in the silent hall did she allow herself to smile.
She found Gwyn the same way she’d found Merrill: by asking a priestess, this one more quiet and withdrawn than the other.
So trembling and nervous that even Nesta had used her most gentle voice.
And been unable to shake the heaviness in her heart as she’d walked to the first-level reading area.
Across the hushed, cavernous space, it was easy to hear Gwyn’s soft singing as she flitted from table to table, looking at the piles of discarded books.
Trying desperately to find the missing tome.
The words of Gwyn’s merry song were in a language Nesta didn’t know, but for a heartbeat, Nesta allowed herself to listen—to savor the pure, sweet voice that rose and fell with sinuous ease.
Gwyn’s hair seemed to glow brighter with her song, skin radiating a beckoning light. Drawing any listener in.
But Merrill’s warning clanged through the beauty of Gwyn’s voice, and Nesta cleared her throat. Gwyn whirled toward her, glow fading even as her freckled face lit with surprise. “Hello again,” she said.
Nesta only extended volume eight of The Great War. Gwyn gasped.
Nesta threw her a wicked smile. “This was shelved improperly. I swapped it with the right book.”
Gwyn didn’t seem to need more than that, thankfully, and clutched the book to her chest like a treasure. “Thank you. You’ve just saved me from a terrible tongue-lashing.”
Nesta arched a brow at the book. “What’s Merrill researching, anyway?”
Gwyn frowned. “Lots of things. Merrill’s brilliant.
Horrible, but brilliant. When she first came here, she was obsessed with theories regarding the existence of different realms—different worlds.
Living on top of each other without even knowing it.
Whether there is merely one existence, our existence, or if it might be possible for worlds to overlap, occupying the same space but separated by time and a whole bunch of other things I can’t even begin to explain to you because I barely understand them myself. ”
Nesta’s brows rose. “Really?”
“Some philosophers believe there are eleven worlds like that. And some believe there are as many as twenty-six, the last one being Time itself, which …” Gwyn’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Honestly, I looked at some of her early research and my eyes bled just reading her theorizing and formulas.”
Nesta chuckled. “I can imagine. But she’s researching something else now?”
“Yes, thank the Cauldron. She’s writing a comprehensive history of the Valkyries.”
“The who?”
“A clan of female warriors from another territory. They were better fighters than the Illyrians, even. The Valkyrie name was just a title, though—they weren’t a race like the Illyrians.
They hailed from every type of Fae, usually recruited from birth or early childhood.
They had three stages of training: Novice, Blade, and finally Valkyrie.
To become one was the highest honor in their land.
Their territory is gone now, subsumed into others. ”
“And the Valkyries are gone, too?”
“Yes.” Gwyn sighed. “Valkyries existed for millennia. But the War—the one five hundred years ago—wiped out most of them, and the few survivors were elderly enough to quickly fade into old age and die afterward. From the shame, legend claims. They let themselves die, rather than face the shame of their lost battle and surviving when their sisters had not.”
“I’ve never heard of them.” She knew little about any of the Fae history, both by choice and because of the human world’s utter lack of education on it.
“The Valkyrie history and training were mostly oral, so any accounts we have are through whatever passing historians or philosophers or tradespeople wrote down. It’s just bits and pieces, scattered in various books.
No primary sources beyond a few precious scrolls.
Merrill got it into her head years ago to begin compiling all of it into one volume.
Their history, their training techniques. ”
Nesta opened her mouth to ask more, but a clock chimed somewhere behind them.
Gwyn stiffened. “I’ve been gone too long.
She’ll be furious.” Merrill would indeed.
Gwyn twisted toward the ramp beyond the reading area.
But she paused, looking over her shoulder.
“But not as mad as she would have been with the wrong book.” She flashed Nesta a grin. “Thank you. I am in your debt.”
Nesta shifted on her feet. “It was nothing.”
Gwyn’s eyes sparkled, and before Nesta could avoid the emotion shining there, the priestess sprinted toward Merrill’s chambers, robes flying behind her.
Nesta made it to her room without collapsing from sheer exhaustion or Merrill realizing she’d been duped and coming to kill her, both of which she considered to be great accomplishments.
She found a hot meal waiting on the desk of her bedroom, and she’d barely sat down before she tore into the meat and bread and medley of roasted vegetables. Standing again was an effort, but she made it to her bathroom, where a hot bath was already steaming away.
Getting into the tub required all her concentration, hefting one leg at a time, and she moaned with relief as the delicious heat soaked through her. She lay there until her body had loosened enough to move, and fell into the warmed sheets without bothering to put on a nightgown.
There would be no trying the stairs tonight. No dreams chased her awake, either.
Nesta slept and slept and slept, though she could have sworn that her door opened at one point. Could have sworn a familiar, beckoning scent filled her room. She reached toward it with a sleep-heavy hand, but it was already gone.