Chapter 30
“There’s more,” I said quickly.
Before I could think better of it, I dropped into the empty chair opposite Rìan. He didn’t object.
I reached across the table and tugged the book from his hands before setting it back down between us. I turned the page, revealing the strange two-page illustration, colored ink slashing wildly across the parchment. I pointed to the three downward-pointing arrows.
“These marks…” I said, flipping back to the drawing of the well. I pointed at the star. “I think they have something to do with this.”
Rìan said nothing, though his mouth pursed slightly as he leaned closer.
I tapped the bottom point of the star. “There’s an extra point here where there shouldn’t be.”
He still hadn’t moved, but he followed my hand across the page, intent now.
“I think the wells are marked.”
“So you’re saying…” he said slowly.
I thumbed back to the picture one last time. “I think this is some sort of map.” I grinned, barely able to contain myself.
When I looked up again, Rìan was watching me.
The look on his face made something inside me falter. There was something unnervingly searching in his gaze, as though he were seeing me properly for the first time. Heat climbed unexpectedly up my neck, and I looked away first.
“Veylan,” Rìan said quietly, though there was something different beneath the calm of his voice now, an energy I’d never heard there before. “Go wake Segolayne.”
Veylan inclined his head and dissolved, the shadows thinning where he stood.
Silence settled between us. Alone with him like this, simply sitting together, I found I didn't know what to say.
He cleared his throat and bent back over the book, his hair falling forward to obscure his eyes.
My gaze drifted past him to a narrow cot pressed against the far wall, the blankets atop it rumpled and carelessly thrown aside.
So I’d been right.
He did sleep down here. In the ruined belly of the library.
Suddenly, I was painfully aware of my slippers, my nightdress, and the fact that I was sitting half-dressed and breathless in the very chamber where Rìan slept. I crossed my arms tightly over my chest.
His chair creaked as he straightened.
“You’re reading now,” he said finally, breaking the silence. He was looking at me again.
“I’m not stupid,” I snapped. “I just needed to be taught.”
He hummed quietly in the back of his throat, neither agreement nor disagreement, though he lingered on me a moment longer before returning to the book.
“Have you heard of the Gates of Othyr?” I asked.
“No.”
“Any magic wells?”
“Also, no.”
Disappointment sank heavily in my chest.
“But that doesn’t mean I can’t find them.” He tilted his head slightly, studying the currents of ink before turning back to the sketch of the well.
“Do you know what it is?” I asked, as he peered at the symbol more closely. “Have you ever seen an eight-pointed star before?”
He was quiet for a moment. Then, without a word, he reached for the knife at his belt. Leather whispered softly as he unsheathed it and laid it across the table between us, the bone hilt catching the glow of the fae light. My knife.
He didn’t look remotely apologetic for taking it from me. If anything, the look he gave me suggested he expected an explanation.
“Don’t look at me,” I said, stiffening. “I’d never seen one before either.”
“Veylan?” Rìan asked without looking.
A shadow detached itself from the wall behind him. Veylan had returned.
“This thing again,” Veylan stepped forward to peer over Rìan's shoulder, unusually thoughtful. He'd taken it from me in Thistra. “I did find the symbol peculiar. It must be meaningful if the Bone-Wrought carved it.”
I blinked. “What?”
Rìan looked at me evenly. “There’s magic in this bone. Didn’t you feel it when you held it?”
The warmth whenever I touched it. The hum beneath my skin. That strange sense of recognition.
He read the answer on my face and sat back. “The Bone-Wrought made this piece.”
My mouth opened. Then closed again. I stared at the knife lying between us. The eight-pointed star suddenly looked far more ominous.
“You said it was a gift.” Rìan’s deep voice pulled me back.
I nodded slowly. “To my father. From the Carroway family.”
“Perhaps your shadows should find the original owner,” he said to Veylan over his shoulder. “If this knife is connected to the wells, he may know something useful.”
I gave a humorless huff. “That may prove difficult,” I said. They both looked at me. “My father took his head.”
Rìan’s brows lifted slightly. Veylan looked disturbingly impressed.
“Lon Carroway was Infected.” I explained. “He couldn’t be saved. His wife was pregnant and she gave my father the knife as payment afterward. She said it was a family heirloom, but I doubt she knew much more than that.”
“She offered a family heirloom after you killed her husband,” Rìan said slowly, as though trying to understand the shape of it.
“Perhaps he was unpleasant,” Veylan murmured under his breath.
I shot him a look. “It was payment for a job well done. We stopped the sickness before it spread to his wife and the child she carried.”
Neither of them said anything.
“We took one life,” I pressed, folding my arms, “but saved two. Beyond the Veil, that was considered priceless.”
At the mention of the Veil, something in Rìan shifted. It was easy to forget, sometimes, that the Veil had never been some simple barrier between worlds. It had once been a person.
Him.
He pushed back from the table. He stood in silence for a moment, his gaze sweeping slowly across the chamber, over the many cells lining the walls.
Only then did I notice he was barefoot.
Something in my chest stuttered. Standing there in loose trousers, his dark hair mussed and the faintest shadow of stubble darkening his jaw, he looked less like the feared Dark Prince and more like a man who’d simply been interrupted in the middle of the night. The sight was strangely intimate.
The Dark Prince wasn't supposed to look... normal.
I looked away quickly, not wanting him to catch me staring.
Without a word, he crossed the chamber toward one of the recessed rooms. Circular niches crowded the cell from floor to ceiling, each one fitted with tightly rolled scrolls.
He paused before them, scanning the rows.
After a moment, he selected one and unrolled it partially, eyes moving quickly over whatever had been inked there.
He rolled it closed again and slid it back into place before reaching for the next one. This time, he carried it to the table and spread it carefully across the cracked wooden surface, weighing down each corner with a smooth stone.
I leaned forward, instantly transfixed.
A map of Elantis.
I’d never seen one before, but there was no mistaking it.
The parchment had been rendered in astonishing detail, each Court marked by elegant borders. Even from where I sat, I could make out tiny inked forests, each tree painstakingly hand-drawn, streams winding gracefully through valleys, entire mountain ranges rising in bold strokes across the land.
To the west lay the island kingdom of the Court of Dusk, surrounded by the dark waters of the Virellan Sea. Half Moon Bay was unmistakable, its perfect crescent shape curving along the coastline, Noctharis sprawled beneath the tiered cliffs, the castle perched above the city.
I leaned closer, unable to stop the spark of excitement that rushed through me at seeing the world for the first time in its entirety, from above.
My eyes traced Courts I’d never seen, land I’d never set foot on.
It was easy to spot the Court of Flame near the center of the map, flanked by the Court of Stone to the east and Frost sprawling to the northwest, where Isvaldr rose at the northern edge like a city of ice.
My gaze snagged on the Cauldron. My stomach clenched painfully as I took in Solmire built around its lip, sketched in such fine detail it stirred memories of sun-warmed stone and winding cobbled streets.
Dheren was nowhere to be found, its existence hidden even from the knowledge of the mapmaker.
The giant trees and wild growth of the Thornlands were so dense that I recognized the landscape at once, as though I were still standing at the window atop Hyperia’s manor.
Beyond the Court of Thorns lay the mortal lands, and they were… green.
I’d only ever known it as a dying realm. Forests sparse and withering, rivers dwindled to muddied streams, settlements worn by time and hardship… But here the land was lush and thriving, rivers winding full and bright across the countryside, cities standing whole, untouched by ruin.
It took me a moment to find Midland, and it looked… alive.
At the time this map had been drawn, the mortal lands had still been flourishing. Back when there had been no Veil. Back when humans had belonged to Elantis just as much as the Fae.
Rìan reached for the book again, dragging it forward until it nearly touched the edge of the map.
His attention flicked rapidly between the illustration and the parchment spread across the table, comparing the two before his hands joined in, tracing invisible lines between the marked points.
He grabbed a charcoal nub and began scribbling notes onto a spare scrap of parchment.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
He didn’t answer. Instead, he leaned closer to the map, squinting at the sweep of lines in the storybook before measuring something with his fingers.
Footsteps echoed faintly down the corridor. I recognized the clipped, self-important sound of Segolayne’s bootheels before she even appeared.
She stepped into the chamber, her clothes clearly thrown on in haste. The moment she spotted me, she stopped short, her lip curling.
“What’s she doing here?”
Rìan didn't so much as glance up at her brazen tone.
“She found something.” He beckoned her closer.
He turned The Book of Old Tales toward Segolayne, holding it up so she could see the two-page illustration properly.
“Levinica’s gates may very well be what this text refers to as the Gates of Othyr.” He held the book out toward her. “Can you replicate this?”
Segolayne stepped closer, studying the mess of lines and color. Then something in her expression shifted, her eyes widening slightly.
“Is that—”
“Maybe.” Rìan cut in. “It’s important that you follow the direction of the strokes. And the motion of the lines.”
She considered the drawing for another long moment before finally straightening and lifting her hands.
Light slipped from her fingers in thin strands, the glowing threads lowering carefully to the page.
I leaned forward despite myself as the magic pressed against the parchment, tracing each complicated sweep of ink one by one, following every curve and slash with painstaking care.
At last the threads withdrew.
Segolayne exhaled sharply and spread both hands wide—her magic erupted outward.
I sucked in a breath as the illustration rose into the air between us.
Not flat, but suspended and life-sized—glowing strands twisting into shape as they rebuilt the strange picture in three dimensions.
Color bloomed through the magic itself, violet deepening into green, gold, blue, and silver, the light playing across all our faces.
Rìan gave a small nod, apparently satisfied with the replication. “Animate it.”
At once the currents began to move.
They came alive all at once, curling and shifting around one another, each line following its own invisible course before crossing and folding back again.
I gaped, my eyes watering against the brightness of Segolayne’s magic.
Rìan stepped back, his head tipped upward, his face awash in shifting color. “You were right, Eidra.” He remained transfixed, something in his expression changing—a glimmer there that looked dangerously close to victory.
“This is a map.” His gaze landed on mine, silver catching in his eyes. “A map of the Veins of Elantis.”