Chapter 36
Belle
For a second, I thought the king would reconsider, that he’d laugh and pull the slim thread of hope he’d offered from my grasp.
Instead, he nodded, his jaw tense. “The beasts that haunt these woods are tormented creatures, driven by rage and hunger. No two are alike, as if each were a different nightmare taken shape.”
I frowned. “Where do they come from?”
It didn’t matter what I had to wear, to do, or see him do. I was finally getting answers, and that was all that mattered.
The king stepped toward an ebony table with crystal decanters.
His fingers hovered over one that was dark red, then he diverted and poured himself a glass of amber liquid.
“The beasts are creations of the curse. It twists what is good and natural into monstrous forms, and there are things far worse than them in the woods—trees that devour flesh, marshes with creeping tendrils that fish for men, and haunting voices that cry for help, luring you to your death. The deeper you go, the more perilous it grows.”
A shiver crept over my skin. “And what of the curse? What do you know of it?”
“It was an act of dark magic created long before my time. When our kind laid claim to the Bloodvale, the woods were already cursed. It’s why the borders of the Bloodvale end where they do—it was too costly to push further.”
The human uprising occurred three hundred years ago, and the immortals had come into the Bloodvale before that. I racked my mind for some memory of the royal history, quickly doing rough calculations in my head.
“Then the curse could be four or five hundred years old?” I asked.
“That, or far older. This castle is all that remains of whatever kingdom the curse destroyed, and the architecture is ancient indeed.”
My thoughts raced. A lost kingdom.
“There must be records of what happened,” I said as I maneuvered around the king and drew close to a stack of books he’d collected on a shelf.
I ran my fingers over their spines, discounting the potential of each in turn.
“You have two huge bookshelves in your study. Is there anything useful in there? Histories? Folktales?”
The king took a sip from his glass and set it down. “No, not there.”
The tyrant must have a hundred books, maybe two. It was a veritable hoard. There had to be something. I turned back. “Would you permit me to look through anyw—”
My words broke off. In the back corner of the room, my tattered copy of A Cage of Shimmering Glass sat on a small table beside a resplendent, high-backed chair with cushioned arms.
I hurried to it. “That’s my book!”
Before I could pluck it off the table, it was in the king’s hands. “It was your book.”
“Give it back.” I grasped for it, but he held it away.
“When I’m done with it, you can have it back. If you behave.”
My outstretched arm dropped, while my lips parted in disbelief at the implications of his words. “You’re reading it?”
“I can read, or did the stack of books in my study not give that away?”
“No, I mean—it’s a fairytale. About a mortal girl with magic. I just didn’t think that was your type.”
“Isn’t it?” The king stepped close, his expression changing, and voice smoldering with implications I refused to ponder. “You might be surprised at my type.”
His seemingly eternal warmth filled the narrow gap between us, a stark contrast to the relentless chill of the castle. My breaths grew shallow. I wanted to pretend he was talking about the book. That would be safe and familiar. But he wasn’t, was he?
The king looked down, eyes slowly searching for something I couldn’t name, then he pulled back and turned aside, the book clasped behind his back.
“The centuries grow long for an immortal, and after a while, true novelty becomes uncommon. I read everything I can get my hands on. It’s a chance to see what life is like beyond these walls. ”
Confusion lapped against the edges of my thoughts.
This male was a cruel and ruthless tyrant.
A beast by every measure, except for horns and claws.
And yet…that was exactly why I’d fallen in love with books—they were an escape, a chance to experience things I would never have a chance to see within the prison of the Bloodvale.
“If I were an immortal, I would see the world. Why stay in this place?” I asked.
“I’m king. My duty lies here.” He looked back, expression drawn and dark, though a little light danced in his eyes. “Someone has to keep the beasts away, after all.”
It wasn’t the first time he’d spoken of his duty to his kingdom and court, and even his staff. It was almost as if he cared, but that flew in the face of everything I’d been led to believe. I stared at him, unable to reconcile the hints of kindness with the cruelty.
Before our dinner, everything had been clear. He was a monster. A selfish brute. The source of the curse. Someone I could hate, even kill. But now…
Valen grinned, as if it was all a grand jest, and placed my book out of reach on the top of the shelf.
There he was: the bastard I’d come to know. I gave him a pinched smile, then reached out and connected a thread of my magic to the book. “Come to me.”
It flew off the shelf.
The king snatched it from the air with a thud, and the connection snapped, the book now a dull void in his hands, and out of reach of my magic—just like the fire iron had been.
Irritation rankled me.
“A noble attempt.” The king grinned darkly, then made a show of flipping through the pages. “How about we make a trade?”
This was just another game to him.
I held out my hand. “That book is the last thing I possess from home. I want it back.”
The king cocked an eyebrow. “Are you certain? I have something that might have the answers you’re looking for.” He held my book out to me. “You’d rather have this instead, so you can read it for, let me guess—the seventh time?”
He was gallingly close.
My gaze hung on my well-loved book, temptation gnawing at me. “What are you offering?”
The king simply smiled, as if somehow I’d fallen into his trap.
I followed Valen through the ancient halls of the castle, seeing them for the first time. It had been here before the curse. How old could the stonework be? It was heavy, almost rough compared to the delicate vaults of Castle Silverthorn back in the Bloodvale. How had I never thought of it before?
We turned down a narrow corridor, and I looked back. I’d expected him to lead me to his study, but this was the opposite direction. Distrust wormed beneath my skin. “Where are you taking me?”
He answered with silence, and I didn’t bother asking again.
The king stopped before a pair of engraved doors.
Like the stonework, they were ancient, the wood dried and cracked from the long centuries.
He unlocked them with a heavy iron key, then looked back, a gloating smile hovering at the edges of his lips.
“Prepare yourself, princess. I don’t need you fainting on the floor. ”
“What are you—”
The doors swung wide, and my words died in my throat.
Crimson sunlight flooded the room, filtering through tall leaded windows. It fell across shelves upon shelves of books of every shape, size, and binding. They pulled me forward like sirens in the stories of old.
My foot scuffed on the top step, and the king’s hand touched my arm to steady me, but I barely noticed as I descended into the vaulted room, utterly spellbound.
He’d sent me books before, but it had always been to taunt me. This was different. A treasure hoard like I’d never imagined.
Dust motes drifted upward in the light, as the scents of leather, ink, and parchment wrapped around me. How many times had I buried my face in one of my father’s books and breathed in, letting the scent transport me away?
His gaze heated my back, his silence filled with expectation.
Something in my chest squeezed as I turned slowly, taking in the impossible room—not hundreds of books like his study, but thousands upon thousands.
There were reading tables stacked with books where I could imagine scribes and scholars working.
A pair of ladders leaned against the towering shelves to reach the volumes piled high out of reach.
It was beyond anything I’d ever imagined.
“By the gods…” I whispered in prayer.
“The gods have nothing to do with it,” he said, his voice thick.
I hurried to the nearest bookshelf, quickly scanning the titles. Many were in a fancy script I could barely read, others in foreign languages that I couldn’t possibly identify. I felt lightheaded, dizzy with the possibilities. “This place must rival the library of Eradessa.”
The king paused beside a shelf, pulling off an ancient tome, and leafing through it with a delicacy and near affection that I found…startling. “Not in quantity, not yet, but I have things their scholars would die to get their hands on.”
“Where did it all come from?”
He reshelved the book and stalked through the stacks as if hunting. “Many were here—they should have crumbled by now, but Locke claims an ancient enchantment dries the air in here. I added the rest, sourcing them from neighboring kingdoms, and buying whatever I could from passing merchants.”
Was that why books were so rare in the Bloodvale? He’d hoarded them all?
Rather than neat rows, the books lounged in piles and precarious stacks on the shelves with no semblance of order. “How do you find anything in here?”
“I read what draws my attention—but the organization is clear enough, if you care to look.”
I choked on a laugh. “You can’t possibly know where things are. This is a hoard, not a library.”
He crossed his arms, a glint of challenge in his eyes. “Try me. Anything you can think.”
An image of Port Amara leapt into my mind, as I’d always imagined it, with its tall cliffs and sea of brightly painted vessels. “Bring me a book on Amara, or the Cerulean Sea.”
The king inclined his head subtly, then made his way to one of the sliding ladders at the back of the hall, and I hurried after him. He locked it in place and climbed the steps to the uppermost shelves. “Foreign lands are on this wall. The eastern reaches on the top shelf, southern on the bottom.”
He held up a thick book with an azure blue binding. “This is a history of the sea and its kingdoms, but ironically, it’s rather dry.” He set it aside in favor of a thin green folio. “Take this instead.”
The king tossed it down to me. My magic connected out of instinct alone, and it floated down, gently into my hands.
Siren’s Songs and Legends of the Fish Eaters.
I opened it, flipping through the delicate pages, marveling at the woodcut prints.
My brows arched in surprise. “This is a book of fairytales.”
“It seemed more in line with your tastes, though I only have the one example to go by.”
He knew my tastes—or guessed them, at least. I didn’t know what to make of that.
I looked around, stunned. “You really know where everything is?”
He stepped off the ladder and landed beside me with a thud. I jumped, my heart skipping. We were suddenly close, the heat of his body warming my cold skin.
He arched one eyebrow, his eyes a warm amber rather than the sharp gold from earlier. “Care to test me again?”
I narrowed my eyes at him, certain he’d startled me on purpose. “How about a book on the methods and manners of killing an immortal?”
The king clucked his tongue, a playful smirk twisting his lips. “Sorry to disappoint. But I do have something you might find enlightening.”
He snatched up a book from the middle of a topsy-turvy tower, then held out the golden tome, his features relaxed except for the barest flicker at the corner of his mouth.
I yanked the book from his grip and angled it to read the spine—Immortal Kingship: Why Human Self Rule is Destined to Fail.
My fingers clenched on the binding, and I shoved it into his abdomen. “A waste of ink and paper, for certain.”
His eyes sparkled like crackling embers, the way they always did when he was tormenting me—a look I was becoming far too familiar with.
“What about the beasts?” I asked. “You said there were answers here.”
“I said there might be. No book I’ve procured has information about the curse or the beasts. As for the ancient ones…” He gestured slowly to the expanse. “Even with the years at my disposal, I haven’t had time to read them all.”
My gaze drifted across the endless bindings. It was the first time the thought of immortality had ever appealed to me. How many lifetimes would it take me to read it all?
Valen looked around, as if taking it all in anew, then turned and headed up the stairs to the door. “Good luck with your investigations, princess. Perhaps you’ll have better luck at finding answers than I.”
I stared at him in shock. “You mean I’m free to stay here?”
He paused at the door, looking back. “Now that you know this place exists, I doubt I could keep you out without physically restraining you myself. I imagine you’d threaten your guards and have them march you back here the moment my back was turned.”
“Maybe. Actually, yes, I would.”
“Your escort will bring you here anytime you wish, but the rest of the castle remains off limits.” He took one last look at the room, and his eyes narrowed. “Don’t steal anything.”
Shock and a thread of guilt cut through me. “I would never.”
A knowing smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “You would. Let’s call it…borrowing. I’ll permit you to take two books at a time to your chambers. Return them, or I’ll commit your precious book of fairytales to the flames—once I finish with it, of course.”
I stared, horrified and furious, as the door slammed behind him.
The utter monster.