Chapter Thirteen #2
I am not sure what I’m looking for. I pick up the first book I see and blow it lightly to expel the dust and reveal its title.
‘Sun Gods and their Gifts’. I flick through the pages and see each God and their respective Gifts, not one says anything about dream walking or potentially setting people on fire.
My eyes drift to the next pile. “Damien Solice - words of an immortal”.
Interesting, but not what I’m looking for.
I lightly skim through each book waiting for a certain buzzword to capture my attention and jump out at me, but so far, there is nothing.
Not a single book or page about any secrets of the Sunkind or about any different abilities other than the Gifts of our Gods.
‘The Enhanced Power of Twins.’ My curiosity gets the better of me as I flick through its pages.
‘Twins carry twice the amount of power as singletons because they can channel energy from one another no matter the distance. Always connected.’ I have yet to meet twins, they really are a rarity, so I don’t know why I can’t stop reading.
‘Twins have the power to keep each other alive in the instance of one’s death; when in close proximity to one another, the surviving twin acts as a conduit, creating and transferring energy. ’
The books cry out to me with interesting but useless knowledge.
I feel hopeless, but a glimmer of possibility pulsates in my eyes as they lock onto the door in the corner, the secret door that needs to be opened with a secret book on the shelf.
If the Sun people are going to hide anything, of course it would be in there.
I think back to last night with River and make my way over to the same bookshelf.
I pull the book titled ‘The Evolution of Enchantra’ and, sure enough, I hear a faint click behind me.
I crack open the door and slip into the office, pulling the door closed behind me.
I walk towards the great oak desk Ty had lounged on, and position myself in front of it, tracing my fingers over the drawers on each side.
I can’t help feeling like an impostor. I give the first drawer on the left a little tug.
It’s stiff and pulls open with a grunt, but it’s empty.
Then, I try the next one. It’s empty too.
All the drawers in this column are empty.
A sigh escapes my mouth. This may be harder than I anticipated.
The right side of the desk has two large drawers.
I pull at the metal looped handle, but it doesn’t budge.
I try again harder, but there is no movement whatsoever.
The next drawer is just as stubborn, its wooden face taunting me as I fail to open it.
They are both locked. My fingers trace the wood, inspecting the oak for any ridges or holes that might resemble a lock.
Nothing. I slump onto the chair, admitting defeat, but my eyes are intrigued by some wood carvings etched into the top of the desk.
A sun and moon have been scratched out on the surface; their deep and precise crevices look like they were made with the tip of a very sharp knife.
In between the carvings there is another etching of a small star, however, this does not look as precise, more like it had been scratched as an afterthought; its lines are messy, as if an angry child had done it.
My fingers dance over the smooth indents of the sun and moon and caress each shape lightly.
The star feels rougher and, as I run my finger over it gently, a splinter embeds itself into my skin.
Instinctively, I yank my hand back towards me.
My finger throbs as a drop of blood beads on its surface, and I put it in my mouth to ease the bleeding.
I look back at the carvings, their wooden lips cradling my blood like a vampire.
Somehow, it looks like my blood is oozing or pulsating as it ripples through each indent.
I move in for a closer look. It appears to be shaking and moving, as if it is alive.
It bleeds through each crevice, flooding its labyrinth.
I feel movement in the desk as my thick blood soaks into the thirsty wood, leaving it bone dry.
My body startles, and I jolt back in confusion.
A click echoes around the room followed by the scraping of wood from beside me.
The drawers are opening…by themselves. It dawns on me that this could be like the enchantment scroll, Influenced to open only with a drop of Sun blood.
I overcome my shock and kneel before the drawers, my knees cold on the hard stone floor.
I glance over, its contents now exposed.
A thick pile of old papers lay undisturbed, their once white sheets now yellowed with age.
I rummage through the paperwork and dust dances off each page, making me cough.
I wave the thick air out of my face and glance back at the pages.
A lot of it is written in Enchantra, of course it is.
I find it hard to translate, but I can recognise a few words.
I think it is a list of names - ‘Moonkind born from Sun’.
This must be a record of all the Sun people who gave birth to Moon babies.
This isn’t spoken about often, as it is considered shameful.
There are stories about people cutting their babies out before sunset so they don’t birth a Moon.
The RHE created laws stopping all expectant mothers from interfering with the birth times of their child; ‘All births should be natural and follow the Gods’ plans, anyone that interferes will face the wrath of the Gods’.
If a Sun has a Moon baby, it is taken from them and housed in a Moon orphanage, where it will be adopted by a Moon and vice versa.
My knees weaken as I skim through the names, and the pain of a thousand mothers in distress hurtles over me, their own flesh and blood taken from them, leaving a child-shaped hole that can never be filled.
We had neighbours that birthed a Moon in my village; we could hear her screams haunting the streets that night.
She was never the same after that. I shake my head and snap myself out of those memories, filtering through the pages until one stands out.
It looks like a newspaper article. A man and woman share the front page, looking expressionless in their mugshots. The page reads:
‘Moon Child fed to Sky Serpents by Sun Parents!’
I gasp as I read. How could someone do this to a baby?
‘Raye and Phoenix Stormwood of North Palidonia were caught throwing their child into Sky Serpent territory.’
Wait. I know that name.
‘When questioned the mother had no remorse and claimed the child was ‘no child of hers.’
That child was Ryder.
‘The child, bitten by a serpent, is thought to have enough venom to kill two grown men running through his veins. Healers are working on him as we write this, though it is unlikely he will make a full recovery.’
My body goes cold while reading this. I scan the rest of the page, then flick through the rest of the pages.
There are more; more names and more convicted parents brutally murdering their children.
I didn’t think Sunkind were capable of such evil.
I put the pages down and shut them in the drawer, encasing the sickness inside.
Do I even want to know what’s in the other one?
My curiosity gets the better of me. I slide open the stiff drawer slowly, not wanting to peek over its edge.
I hastily glance over its wooden wall and stare inside, bracing for the contents to scar my mind, but it isn’t what I was expecting.
A dark wooden box is the only thing in this drawer.
It has metal straps draped over the top of it, almost in a medieval-type design.
I pick up the box and blow the dust off it.
It’s heavier than it looks. Studying the box, I see more carvings littered on its outside around the rim of the bottom half of it.
I look back at the desk and mentally align the carvings; they’re the same.
An enlarged sun, moon and stars surround the box, repeating themselves the whole way round.
It looks like aged oak, the same that is used all around the castle.
This could be hundreds of years old. There is a clasp on the front of the box.
It’s not locked, but the mechanism does have to be twisted in order for the clasp to be released.
It is star-shaped, and I pinch my fingers around its points and twist it in a clockwise direction until the star’s points line up with the gaps in the metal.
I lift the clasp over the mechanism and lift the lid.
A thick black hardback book resides inside.
How mysterious. Why does a book need such armour?
I delicately pick it up, its cover is almost velvety; I trace my fingers over its title: ‘The Soldark’. Why does that name feel familiar to me?
“Slow down, Ty, the archives aren’t going anywhere,” I hear a voice chuckle in the distance. Shit, that’s River. I can’t explain myself being down here alone.
“You know me and my char root,” Ty explains, a symphony of laughter echoing around the archives.
I hear the click of the door and know they are coming this way. Startled, my instincts take over, and I slam the drawer and run to the only place I know they wouldn’t dare to go: The door that leads to the Moon Castle.
I crouch down behind the door and let out a quiet exhale as they enter the office.
That was a close one. I turn my head towards the muffled voices.
There is a small crack in the door, and I can just about see River and Ty lounging on the burgundy sofa.
Ty has the rolled up char root pursed between his lips, he struggles with his lighter, flicking it a few times before it sparks and a bright flame burns at the end of the rolling paper; he breathes in deep and sinks his back into the sofa, taking a few pulls before passing it to River.
The faint smell of burning char root wafts into my nostrils.
How long are they gonna be here? I lean my back against the cold wall of this lengthy corridor and a chill runs down my spine.
It feels as though it is made up entirely of darkness; the only thing breaking up the shadows are the needles of light sneaking through the cracks in the door.
I sit for a moment, trying not to breathe too loudly and turn my head away from the door, staring into the darkness.
I think about the distance from Campus A to Campus B; where the sweet cherry trees meet the thick and twisted pine woods, and the combat platform where I first saw Ryder, and then their courtyard.
It must be at least a fifteen-minute walk through this tunnel of darkness to get to Moon Castle.
I gulp at the thought of this. In the distance, I can hear the faint tapping of water dripping from the ceiling and onto the hard brick floors.
The air feels damp and cold, each brick like an ice cube that refuses to melt.
I begin to shiver as the cold vibrates through me and my teeth start to chatter.
I can’t stay here, the sound of my teeth clanking will surely expose me, and my brain is tormenting me with thoughts about sneezing or coughing and alerting them to my presence.
I’ve got to keep moving. I stand up and tread carefully into the unknown, the darkness swallowing me up.
I can no longer see the needles of light creeping through the door or even my own hand in front of my face.
The deathly silence is interrupted only by the shuffle of my footsteps leading me further into the shadows.
What am I doing walking into the abyss? It is still dark outside, so the Moons will definitely be awake.
I need to go back. My brain tries to reason with my legs, but they ignore her, my feet dragging us closer and closer to Moon Castle.
Time is disoriented here. I can’t work out whether I have been walking for ten minutes or ten hours.
I can feel the walls of the corridor on either side of me now.
It wasn’t this narrow at the start of my journey.
I could spread my arms out level with my shoulders and only just about reach both sides before, now I can only lift my arms out a few inches before they are met by the cold brick.
The narrow walls squeeze me in, and the brick path continues.
If a group came down here, they would most definitely have to walk in single file.
I carry on ahead. Until I can see the glow of a thin rectangle shape outlined in the shadows ahead.