Chapter 14
Sky
No book I had ever read had prepared me for quite how slow quests go, and we spent another day plodding along behind Clover, until we reached a bigger town with a bridge, where we resupplied and enjoyed a private bed not in a bunkroom.
After that, we crossed the river and headed back into the remote, isolated mountain territory of before.
But he made it all bearable with his cute little whimpers and his big cock, and the hopeful look he got in his eyes when I pulled out the bag that held his favorite paddle.
I was insatiable for Moerrven, and he seemed to feel the same for me.
My perfect slutty submissive gave me all the play I wanted and at least two orgasms’ worth of troll cum every night.
I was holding Clover’s reins while teaching him about cockwarming nearly a week after we’d left Frostholm.
Moerrven was very pro-cockwarming, especially if I kept one hand on his trolgar point.
A city rose out of the mountain as we rounded a bend, sudden and wonderful.
It was like a Tibetan monastery on steroids, towers and terraces climbing a massive mountain in tiers, built into the cliff in an incredible marriage of innovation and sheer force of will.
Each level was connected by stone bridges and stairways older than anything I’d ever seen, and waterfalls threaded between the buildings where springs had been channeled through carved aqueducts that caught the afternoon light.
“Holy shit, it’s beautiful,” I said, which was the most inadequate thing I’d ever said about anything.
“Welcome to the grand trollish city of Highmark,” Moerrven said. “We have come to our library. The Great Archive.”
“I’ve never seen anything like it. Your people carved an entire civilization out of a mountain.”
“Very many trolls were involved, not just ones related to me. It was built over the past eight centuries, from a fortress cut into the mountain during the wars.”
I stared up at it and something in my chest went quiet and wide. Not my usual reaction to things. My usual reaction was to make a joke. But Highmark didn’t want my jokes. Highmark wanted me to shut up and look.
We rode through the lower gate and up through the city, until we reached a small inn built into the mountainside. We stabled Clover and settled Poppy into our room, which was the most luxurious we’d stayed in, complete privacy with its own water closet and a bathtub I wanted to fuck Moerrven in.
He eyed the bathtub, then eyed me. “We spent nearly a week coming here, we should do what we came for, and fuck later.”
“Fuck later?” I asked. “Does not compute.”
He laughed and took my hand, leading me out of the room and locking the door behind us, leaving Poppy purring on the bed.
We picked up hand pies from a market stall and ate them as we walked higher up the mountainside, passing homes and shops.
I looked at the stonework, the workshops, the market stalls, the massive facades of troll businesses.
The library was the size of a city block.
It occupied the entire eastern face of the upper tier, with polished gray stone, columns carved to look like stacked books, a doorway tall enough for the biggest troll to walk through without ducking.
When Moerrven looked at it, his chest expanded and his eyes went soft, like a man in front of something holy.
We were the same about libraries, it seemed.
We climbed the steps. My hand found Moerrven’s as we walked through the doors, and I’m not sure he even noticed, because the reading room had opened up in front of us and his attention was gone.
Three stories of vaulted stone ceiling arched overhead.
Shelves were carved into every wall, floor to ceiling, with rolling ladders and narrow stone walkways to reach them.
Light poured down through skylights cut into the mountain itself, catching dust motes in angled shafts.
Books were everywhere, leather-bound, cloth-bound, stacked on reading tables where scholars sat in concentration.
“Holy shit,” I whispered. “Moerrven, this is like if the Library of Congress and a dwarven stronghold had a baby.”
“I do not know what those things are, but I will accept the reverence in your tone.”
I squeezed his hand. He squeezed back. And for a moment the quest, the road, the sex, the complicated question of what we were to each other went quiet, and there was only this: a room full of books and the man beside me.
I wanted answers. I wanted to find out what happened to me, whether it had happened before, whether there was a way to control the mirror.
Whether I could travel freely. Whether I could see Connor again.
This place might have those answers.
The head librarian’s office had a brass nameplate that read RUNHILDA STONEGRIM, HEAD ARCHIVIST, and beneath it, in smaller letters, KNOCK FIRST OR LEAVE.
Moerrven knocked. A voice from inside said “What?” in a tone that suggested this was the only greeting she’d ever offered and she was not open to feedback.
Runhilda was tall even by troll standards, gray-skinned, spectacles perched on a nose designed for looking down at people. “Mossren. Long time no see. You know where the good books are. Go.” She waved us off, and went to turn away.
“Hello, Runhilda. We are here for more than books. We have research to do,” Moerrven said. “This is Sky, my traveling companion.”
“The children’s section is on the ground floor.”
“I’m not a child. I’m twenty-five.”
“You say that as if it’s some advanced age.”
I liked her immediately, but I pretended to be grumpy about it, because that was part of the fun.
“My friend here comes from a different land,” Moerrven said. “And we are wondering if you may have any texts that cover his circumstance.”
She eyed me. “Like County Farrend? Those folks sure are different.”
“No. He came here by magic, through a mirror that was perhaps some sort of portal or passage. His world is entirely different from ours, with no trolls, no magic—”
“No magic? Well, I find that hard to believe. Magic is the very essence of us. How is he even alive with no magic?”
“Runhilda,” Moerrven said, “I’m asking if you’ve heard any stories similar to his. Stories where someone comes from a world they describe as quite different from our own, and arrives in our land confused and alone.”
I stepped forward. “I’m not the only one who has been transported via this portal, you see. A friend of mine is somewhere in Qoksmere too, alone and afraid.”
She tapped her pencil on her chin, studying us both. “It’s interesting you ask today, because I had never heard of such a thing, and not a fortnight ago, the Queen sent a missive, asking me to look into a similar circumstance.”
I perked up. “Do you, by any chance, know if this top secret matter might be named Pip? Pippin Crane. He’s a dancer like me, very cute.”
Moerrven narrowed his eyes at me.
“Not as cute as Moerrven, of course.”
Runhilda’s eyebrows shot up and she stared at Moerrven, eyes running up and down his tall frame as if she was trying to figure out how he might be cute.
“Runhilda,” Moerrven said. “Do you have news of Sky’s friend Pip?”
“Doesn’t sound familiar, but who knows? They didn’t bother to tell the poor librarian why they were requisitioning four shelves of her catalog.
Something about a top secret matter which I must not share the details of.
Such a bother, all of it — the crates, the paperwork, the interruptions to my reading.
Oh! Do you think this counts as sharing details?
I’ve heard the Queen has a penchant for ordering executions. ”
“Don’t worry, your details have been so vague that I’m still not even sure what you’re talking about,” I said. “I’m sure the Queen could find no faults. And by requisition, you mean…”
“I’ve handed them over, dear. Straight into the claws of the Queen’s top advisor, Lord Frost. Came to collect them in his other form, he did.
And it’s been decades since anyone’s seen him stretch his wings.
He wouldn’t breathe a word about why, just said it was a matter of utmost importance to the Crown.
Swept in and out before I could ask half my questions. ”
I blinked. “To the Queen? But why?”
“No idea, like I said. Top secret!” Runhilda mimed zipping her lips. I was beginning to wonder if she knew what top secret meant.
“So can we have him fly the books back?” I asked.
Runhilda gasped, horrified, and Moerrven gave a polite cough. “We cannot request anything of the Queen’s most trusted advisor, Sky. He is dangerous, powerful, and not to be trifled with.”
“What about other copies?”
“These are old texts, and copies are very rare. Only a few exist in all the world, so the Great Archive doesn’t keep spares,” she said.
“I had intended to transcribe them eventually, but one focuses on the realistic accounts first, you know, not the wild, impossible stories of traveling through a hole in space and time to a land occupied only by giant lizards. Of all the things to imagine!”
The hope that had been building in my chest collapsed.
“So the information isn’t here?”
“The originals are in the royal collection at Feravael. However—” Runhilda frowned at us. “If you’re looking for substantial material on this subject, I’m surprised you didn’t stop at the library in Frostholm.”
Moerrven’s mouth pressed into a thin line. “Frostholm?”
“Yes. The village library there is small, but the librarian is my cousin Kethilda. She has had a particular academic interest in unusual travel accounts for decades. I’m sure they’re fairy tales, but sometimes you find a gem of truth inside the myths.
She has her own copies of every text she can find on the subject.
” Runhilda looked between us. “You came through Frostholm and didn’t stop at the library? ”
“It is a very small library,” Moerrven said.
“Size is irrelevant to a collection’s value, Mossren. I would have thought a novelist would understand that.”
“So six days’ travel, all wasted?” I asked. The light, the wonder, the hand-holding were all draining away, replaced by the cold arithmetic of lost time. Pip had been without me for six days longer than necessary.
Moerrven’s face went pale.
“Six days?” Runhilda said. “It’s less than a day, just across the Gorge.”
I turned to look at him. He would not meet my eyes.
“Less than a day,” I said. “Are you extending our journey for some reason? Don’t you understand that this is urgent?”
“The Greymere route can be—”
“Why didn’t we take it, Moerrven?”
“The new bridge is quite beautiful. Have you not been that way yet?” Runhilda asked. Then her eyes landed on Moerrven, and she blinked. “I will let you two discuss this.”
With that, she turned and shut the door to her office.