Chapter 36
Finally, I sat up with a heavy sigh. No. Enough. Panicking wasn't going to fix anything; it was just giving me a headache. If my heart wanted to act like an absolute fool, I would simply keep it too busy to think.
?I needed a distraction. Grueling workouts, impossible translation homework -anything that took enough brainpower to drown out these highly inconvenient emotions.
?It was a flawless plan.
And so, over the next few days, I did what I do best: I buried my problems under a mountain of homework.
I threw every annoying thought into training, reading ancient texts, and trying to stop my own magic from developing a bratty personality.
Whenever my mind drifted back to those stupid words he'd said, I forced it somewhere else.
Usually toward translating symbols that looked like a spider had dipped its feet in ink, had a seizure on the page, and called it a language.
It worked. Mostly.
Right until I showed up at the training grounds one morning and found the place totally empty.
I frowned at the vacant courtyard. This was wrong. Rhaevan had an obsession with being on time. If the world was ending and the apocalypse showed up ten minutes late, he'd probably start without it.
I waited. Five minutes. Ten minutes.
Nothing. No footsteps. No dramatic, sweeping black robes. No disappointed sighs when I accidentally blew something up.
Instead, a young trainee came sprinting toward me like his life depended on it.
"Lady Cassiane!" he gasped, sliding to a halt.
"Yes?"
"Master Rhaevan told me to tell you he's going to be... delayed."
I blinked. "Delayed? Rhaevan?"
The kid nodded fast. "He's really sorry. He said you're free to spend the morning however you want."
"However I want?" That sounded incredibly suspicious.
"Yes, my lady."
"Did he happen to mention why he's breaking his lifelong vow of punctuality?"
The kid hesitated, his eyes darting sideways-the universal sign that the truth was going to make me mad. "He... had an urgent matter of state to attend to."
My eyes narrowed.
Oh. I knew exactly what this "matter of state" was.
I'd heard the mages whispering in the hallways yesterday.
Princess Lysenne-my perfect, gorgeous, so-called sister-was back at the Tower.
She basically lived here now. Or maybe Rhaevan lived at her palace.
Either way, the two of them spent a lot of time finding "urgent" reasons to stare into each other's eyes.
"Thanks for letting me know," I said, forcing a fake smile that practically cracked my face.
The kid bowed so fast I thought his head would hit his knees, then bolted.
I stood alone in the empty courtyard with the wind blowing hair into my face. Great.
My perfect plan to use him as a distraction to forget about him had just backfired. He had ditched me for the golden princess.
Fine. If my heart wanted to sting, I'd just drown it in dust and old paper.
I marched straight to the library.
Over the past few days, the library had become my safe zone.
It was quiet, and most importantly, books never ditched you for a princess.
I stepped inside and let the silence wrap around me.
Huge, spiraling shelves stretched up to the ceiling, and glowing golden lights floated through the air like magical bugs.
I stormed over to the ancient languages section, ready to learn a dead language out of pure spite. I yanked a massive book off the shelf. Then another. And another.
Too bad my spite didn't help me read. I opened the first book and read the same paragraph four times. I understood exactly three words. One of them was cauldron, and the other two were just .... adjectives? Prepositions? Whatever!
I slammed the book shut with a loud sigh. Defeat tasted like old paper.
I spent another ten minutes aggressively shoving books around, which is how I found the weird one. It was a skinny little notebook squeezed between two massive, volumes on advanced magic. It looked totally out of place-like a housecat hiding between two lions.
I pulled it out. The cover was plain leather. No title, no author, not even a library sticker.
Naturally, I opened it.
There were no chapters. No helpful pictures. No boring magic theories. It was just pages and pages of beautifully written, incredibly long spell names.
I turned a page. More names. Another page. Still just names.
I frowned, pulled out a chair, and slumped into it. Who makes a book like this? It was just a magical index with zero instructions.
I started flipping through the pages, reading the bizarre, massive words under my breath. Some of the early spells sounded like someone trying to talk with a mouth full of marbles.
Aethelgard-Vesperis-Brum.
Ignis-Vorago-Vaelestrum.
Tenebris-Kyran-Torrenth.
I had no clue what any of them did, though the second one sounded like it might set your pants on fire if you said it wrong.
Then I hit a section where the ink turned bright red.
Ignis-Malakor-Vestra-Vael.
That one sounded fiery. And shady. Probably the kind of spell that leaves a massive crater where a house used to be.
Selene-Lumina-Aethel-Vara.
I paused. That one actually sounded kinda nice. Like moonlight and soft music.
I turned the page, and my eyes locked onto a spell written in ink so dark it practically absorbed the light.
Nex-Mortis-Kalyth-Gorgoroth.
I stared at the words for a long, quiet moment.
Now that sounded creepy. That was the exact kind of spell whispered by guys in hoods standing around a campfire at midnight. The kind of spell that either puts a permanent curse on your enemy or accidentally wipes out a small village.
I read the name again, letting the sounds roll through my head.
Nex-Mortis-Kalyth-Gorgoroth.
Potentially very useful. I memorized it immediately. You never know when a massive, apocalyptic curse might come in handy-especially if, say, a certain master mage and a certain princess happened to walk past.
I flipped through the rest of the book, hoping for a footnote or an explanation. Nothing. The book was stubbornly unhelpful. No descriptions. No warnings saying 'Do not read out loud or your arms will turn into snakes.'
I looked at the page. Then at the blank cover. Then back at the text.
"This is a terribly written book," I told a floating orb drifting past.
The orb just bobbed lazily and gave me no answers.