Chapter 14
Elara
The sunlight slowly started to fade out of the library as dusk approached. It wouldn’t be long before I had to light a candle or two in order to find my way around.
The Palace of Levernia hosted a large library, something that didn’t mean much to me considering my distaste for reading.
Dark shelves not only lined the walls but stood prominently in one row after the other.
On the left side of the library, from the entrance, there was a desk and a fireplace, which created a nice working area.
There were also a few reading chairs within comfortable distance of the fireplace, making it the perfect reading spot.
But other than that, and a few paintings, it was books as far as the eye could see.
It was hard to believe I’d been here all afternoon.
But ever since Cai and I came across the king’s letters that mentioned the diary, I couldn’t help the feeling that this would be the best place to keep something like that safe.
That was to say, if the diary still existed and hadn’t been lost to time.
The royal library had thousands of books on hundreds of shelves and going through all of it alone would take months.
I couldn’t spend too much of my time on this task.
Not when we had to ready all our forces to defend Everness in the event that Aries decided to attack.
There were meetings to attend and documents to go through and sign.
Which was why I had both Cai and Rhen help me by going through some parts of the library.
I had the entire afternoon to myself, so I opted to tackle the sections that Cai and Rhen had yet to look through.
Cai had originally come across the writing about the diary in here, but there was nothing like a journal in any of those shelves.
I flipped through the books, looking behind them at the wood of the shelves, until I started to squint because of the lack of light in the room.
But I wasn’t ready to give up on my search.
I was surprisingly far from tired and had more than half of the library left to go.
A small light emerged from the door behind me, and I turned to see Rhen step into the room with a candle in his hand.
“I was wondering where you’d disappeared to.”
I quickly stood up from where I’d been kneeling next to a shelf and dusted off my skirts.
“Is something wrong? Does someone require my presence?”
“No, thankfully. Anesta mentioned something about you being in here and I thought I’d come and check on your progress. I certainly haven’t had much luck today in that area.”
“I’m afraid I don’t have any good news either.”
Rhen stared at me for a moment with a curious expression.
“What?” I asked, looking down at my blue dress and back up at him.
“Just reminiscing, I suppose.” He shrugged.
“About anything in particular?” I turned back to the shelf I had been looking through.
“It doesn’t feel that long ago that you were just a thieving girl whom I chased across a rooftop, and yet, so much has changed.
You went from a prisoner to a queen and now we’re searching for the journal of the first king of Everness in the hopes that it could give us the information we need to go up against the King of Argon.
” Just hearing him say it out loud felt somewhat surreal.
“Probably because it wasn’t that long ago,” I reminded him.
“You might not believe me,” he said, crossing his arms. “But I think the palace life suits you in some ways.” It was undoubtable that the bandit in me would never truly leave.
But I’d tried to take on this new role with all its responsibilities as best I could.
I wanted to be the queen the kingdom actually needed.
“Well, the food is certainly a lot better.”
Rhen ran his hands along one of the shelves, inspecting the books.
“You know, I’ve already tried looking there,” I commented, but Rhen continued his search.
“Probably won’t hurt to look a second time.”
“I suppose not. Though it would be a very obvious place to hide it.” I moved on to the next shelf.
“You might be surprised to find that not all kings are very creative,” Rhen said, placing the candle on a nearby table.
“You’re right. But do you really think it would just be lying around these books so randomly?”
“I don’t know. It’s very old. It would need to be more protected, if you ask me.”
“More protected?” I mumbled to myself, scanning the library. “Where are the oldest books and the archives kept?”
“There.” He pointed to the far back. “But Cai and I have already looked there.”
I started making my way to the back shelves and Rhen followed behind, bringing the candle with him. We stopped in front of the shelves that lined the wall, and I eyed them with suspicion, not looking at any of the books specifically.
“What?” Rhen asked.
“Cai and I were looking through Magnus’s rooms and he told me something interesting.” I reached for one of the shelves and started pulling at it. “He mentioned the secret passageways in Mistwood Palace, and it’s got me thinking.” I yanked again and Rhen put the candle down.
“It’s too heavy. Let me help.” We both pulled at the wood, but it would not move.
“Not this one, then.” I huffed and moved on to the next one. Rhen and I tried each of the shelves but none of them had a secret door hidden behind them.
“I really thought I was onto something for a moment there.” I stepped back with a disappointed sigh.
“It was a clever idea,” Rhen tried to reassure me. “With a palace as old as this one, it really isn’t that far-fetched to think the library might have a secret room.”
I scanned the walls again while biting the inside of my cheek.
Most of the shelves went up quite high but there were some places where the walls were bare of books and had a painting or a piece of weaponry or armour displayed.
My footsteps creaked over the wooden floor as I made my way back to the shelf in the corner.
Next to it, steel armour had been erected to look like a knight standing there holding his sword.
The wall behind it had some decorative panels and I let my fingers trace the edges.
There was a small gap between the wall and the bookshelf, almost unnoticeable, but it was there.
I sucked in a breath and pressed both my hands to the wooden panel, and suddenly a door popped open. I looked over my shoulder at Rhen, whose eyebrows were a little raised.
“Well, I’ll be damned.” He helped me to pull open the secret door, and after some effort, we stepped into the secret little room. It was dark and dusty, with books and scrolls lying on shelves in disarray.
“All the kingdom’s secrets must be locked away here,” I said, more to myself than him.
“Too bad we don’t have time for that.” Rhen and I looked through all the written material, but nothing resembled a diary. I didn’t want to believe that after all our effort this was just a dead end.
“I might have found something,” Rhen said, just as I was beginning to feel all the hope inside me slip away.
“You found the diary?” I turned to face the shelf that he was looking through.
Not the diary, but a small cupboard in the wall behind the bookshelf. I was quick to yank on the handle, but it wouldn’t budge.
“I suspect you need a key,” Rhen replied with some sarcasm. “Unless, of course, your lock-picking skills haven’t gone out of the window.”
“I can still pick a lock.” I gave him a flat expression over my shoulder after inspecting the lock. “But not one like this. These mechanisms are different, older.”
“So, a key, then,” Rhen said, and our momentum came to a halt. I decided to step back into the library, trying to think of any place where we might find a key. The desk near the fireplace caught my attention and I dashed over.
“What are you doing?” Rhen asked.
I felt under the desk and pulled open all the drawers. “Kings aren’t very creative, remember?” Rhen watched as I fiddled under one of the desk drawers and pulled out a small metal object with a slight smirk.
“Surely it can’t be that easy.”
I wasn’t going to wait to find out. We hurried back over to the secret room, and I bent down to unlock the little cupboard. There was a satisfying click as it unlocked.
Inside the cupboard was a small selection of books and scrolls, lying on each other in an unorganised fashion, as if someone had stacked them in there while in a mighty rush.
Rhen bent down and the two of us slowly started looking through each book and piece of paper.
“Looks like historical archives of the kingdom,” I said while scanning. “Nothing about a diary yet, though it does mention King Evrin a few times.”
Rhen looked up from the book in his hand. “Anything about treasure or Myrgonite stones?”
“Not yet.”
“How many documents did you find that mentioned the old king’s diary?” he asked.
“Three, technically.”
Rhen thought about it for a second. “Everything that’s led us here so far has not been in obvious sight.” His eyes met mine and slowly we both looked to the cupboard.
“Could it be?” I said.
He carefully took out the remaining books and placed them on the floor next to us. I traced the back of the hidden cupboard until I felt a dent in the wood.
“Is there something?” I tugged on the wood until a little wooden box fell out, spluttering some dust into the air. We both sat staring at the box for a moment.
“What do you think the odds are that this is what we’re looking for?” Rhen asked, and I reached for the old wooden box and gave it a little shake. Something rattled inside. Something that sounded an awful lot like it could be a book of some kind.
“I think the odds are looking pretty good right now.”