Chapter 19
The library smelled clean, floral, and with a hint of incense, but the deeper areas still smelled like old parchment, wood, and vanilla—an amalgamation of smells that brought back memories from her childhood.
And, unfortunately, the day when she had snuck in here and Nikator had found her.
That day felt like forever ago, even though it had only been a few short weeks.
So much had happened in that brief span.
A month ago, she would have never though she would be sitting at one of the tables, with a handful of scrolls in front of her, and Minos, Vita, and Nikator seated around her with their own stack of literature.
Nikator had thought it was a good idea to research on how to break the marriage bond—or more like curse—and for some reason, Vita and Minos had tagged along since, in Minos’s words, “Four heads are better than two.”
It had been over an hour of reading, none of them really speaking.
Biyu unfurled her current scroll and scanned the contents for something deadly.
Truthfully, she didn’t want to break the marriage bond yet.
The longer they were bound together, the more likely that whole can of worms would be revealed, and the more prolonged her punishment for using magic.
But she did need to find a lethal spell.
Her efforts thus far, however, had proved to be futile.
Most of the scrolls were about historical events, war, the study of magic, philosophy, etc.
The spells that she did encounter were useful but also useless in her current dilemma.
Spells for laundering, spells for water manipulation, spells for healing scrapes, and many more.
Nikator unfurled his scroll. The entire time, he seemed to be avoiding her.
She could only imagine why—she had acted irrationally the day before, she had leaned in as if to kiss him, and she was absolutely unstable.
No wonder he wanted to keep his distance and rid himself of the marriage bond as quickly as possible.
Minos flicked through the leather-bound book in front of him, his blue eyes glossing over the tiny, cramped words. A frown twisted his lips and he squinted at a diagram. She could see everything on his page since she was seated in front of him; next to her was Vita, and across from her was Nikator.
When Minos raised his head, their gazes caught. A sly grin curved up his lips. He propped an elbow on the table and rested his cheek on his closed fist.
“Bored?” he asked.
Biyu blinked quickly and averted her attention back to the scroll. “No.”
“What about you, Vita?”
Vita’s silver eyes flashed to him. “No.”
“Liar.”
“Am not.”
“Are too.”
Nikator scoffed, dropping his scroll. “What are you both, children?”
Minos groaned and dropped his head on the book, slouching in his seat.
“This is so fuck—freaking”—he shot her an apologetic look, perhaps thinking that she didn’t like hearing curse words since she was a refined lady— “boring. I thought we’d have some fun!
Take a peek at mages doing mage stuff. Ya know, the exciting mundane stuff.
But this isn’t what I thought when you mentioned we’d be with the princess in the library. ”
Vita’s light brown eyebrow notched up. Today, she was dressed in dark leathers just like Nikator, the clothing hugging her lean figure and the various straps holding weapons of all sorts. Her bluntly cut light brown hair reached down to her shoulders, unrestrained by any hairpins.
“We didn’t come here to fool around,” Vita said.
“That’s right,” Nikator said with a frown. “You offered to come, not the other way around.”
“Why can’t we pass this task onto a mage or something? Or, better yet, why not ask a mage for their expertise on the matter? They study this stuff all day long. I’m sure there’s a few out there that know a spell to undo it.”
That was the last thing Biyu needed. She wanted to kick the man for speaking so much sense and logic, but Nikator saved her when he clucked his tongue.
“Any mage will directly tell His Majesty.” He pointed to Minos’s book. “If you don’t want to read or help, that’s fine. I don’t need—”
“What if you make the mage swear a magicked oath?”
“No mage will agree to help and bind themselves to an oath,” Vita interjected.
“Plus,” Biyu said. All three heads turned in her direction.
She licked her lips nervously, all too aware of her position.
“If any mage concurs to an oath, isn’t that suspicious in itself?
No loyal mage would agree to something that could potentially harm His Majesty, the palace, or … anything, for that matter.”
“That’s very true.” Vita bobbed her head, appearing surprised to be agreeing with Biyu.
She could feel Nikator’s gaze burning the side of her face, but she avoided him by looking at her opened scroll and then back at Minos, who sighed loudly.
Minos dramatically laid his head back down on the book.
“You’ve changed, Nik. You used to be so much fun.
Now you’re boring—and gone half the time.
Did you know he used to be fun, princess?
” He raised his head so his chin was sitting in the center of the cracked book.
His black, wavy hair fell over the table, wreathing his handsome face.
In the bright lighting of the library, his eyes looked a shade lighter than their usual dark blue.
“I can’t imagine it,” Biyu said, shifting in her seat. She cast a quick, furtive look his way, only to find him staring at her. She looked back at Minos. “He seems serious most of the time.”
“Nik and I used to be the fun ones in the group. Every group needs to have a goofy one, right? Now it seems like I’m the only one with the unbearable weight of making people laugh.
” He sighed louder and crossed his arms on the book and popped his head on them.
“Atreus and Vita are the serious ones. Thera’s the kind one.
Remus is the dumb one. Nik’s the carefree one. And I’m the beautiful, funny one.”
Vita snorted and said a word Biyu didn’t recognize, but by the woman’s amused expression, she could tell it was something along the lines of horseshit.
Nikator’s eyebrows pulled together and he said something to Minos in their native tongue, and Biyu had a hard time seeing him as anything but serious and threatening, because that was mostly what she saw of him.
He rarely cracked jokes. He didn’t talk to her much.
And he wasn’t fun to be around. Quite the opposite, actually.
But seeing him with these two, she realized she didn’t know much of anything about him.
“I’m still the same as I always am.” Nikator leaned back in his seat and scowled at Minos, who was quietly chuckling to himself.
He crossed his muscular arms over his chest and Biyu had to physically turn her head away so she wasn’t staring at his bulging forearms or his biceps.
“Just because I’m busy and I don’t have time to fool around like you doesn’t mean I’m suddenly a different person.
Remember when Atreus had to go on a mission for two months and was gone?
I don’t recall you calling him weird names. ”
“I definitely recall that.” Vita smiled, and it was such a rare thing that Biyu could only stare at her. Her silver eyes, which reminded Biyu of a dagger’s edge, lightened up. “You weren’t here, Nik, but Minos whined back then too.”
“I didn’t whine.” Minos glanced at a passing mage, who shot them a curious look. He grinned at her. “But I did ask Muyang why he sent him away for so long.”
“His Majesty,” Vita corrected.
“Ah.” His attention skated to Biyu. “I meant His Majesty.”
It was strange to Biyu how the Peccata called the emperor by his given name so casually when they were amongst one another. In public, they kept up the image of being loyal subjects, but they were closer to Drakkon Muyang than they let on.
“We should get back to work.” Vita rolled up one of the scrolls by the metal handles and nodded at Minos’s book. “If you’re too busy, maybe you should go elsewhere so you’re not distracting us all.”
“Hm.” Minos reclined in his seat and folded his arms over his chest, too, mimicking Nikator. “Well, how about this? You two can get to work. How about I take the princess out for a bit? I’m sure you’ve grown bored of being stuck in this musty room. What do you say?”
Biyu blinked at the earnest question and didn’t know how to react—leave somewhere?
Where exactly? Did he intend to take her out of the palace?
She didn’t see where they could go that would be permitted.
Although the idea of leaving did stir some unwanted feelings within her—most notably curiosity and longing—she did have a deadly spell to find.
She opened her mouth to tell him she’d rather get back to work, but Nikator beat her to it. His mouth twisted into a frown and he snapped, “You’re not taking her anywhere.”
“Oh?” Minos lifted a pretty brow. “Why not?”
“Because …” His sharp gaze flitted to her and she didn’t miss the feral gleam, the ferocity that told her he didn’t want to give her away to someone else. Her heart hammered in her chest, her cheeks warming up. He ripped his attention back to Minos. “I don’t trust you not to do something strange.”
“Oh?” That seemed to trigger mischief in the warrior, because a sly grin curved up his lips and he leaned forward on his arms. “Are you scared I’ll sweep her off her feet while you can’t even get a smile from her?”
Biyu’s blush intensified while Nikator narrowed his eyes at him.
“Are you kidding me?” he scoffed. “You’re not sweeping anybody off their feet with that shit-eating smile of yours.”
Minos’s smile only grew wider. “And neither are you with that perpetual sneer you’ve got on yours.”
What were they both saying? They couldn’t be arguing over her. No, it must have been an ego thing, showing how they were better than the other. Men liked to do things like that.