Chapter 12
The climb to the Great Library carried them into one of Beinn Ork’s quieter quarters. Inside the library, Mael sat at the central table, already surrounded by a fortress of open texts.
“Ah.” He lifted a brow. “The mountain trembles. The High Chieftain’s son graces my hall. Should I bow, or brace for collapse?”
Khaeric’s grin deepened, one corner of his mouth lifting in that familiar, unbothered way. “If I meant to bring it down, scholar, I’d have done it years ago.”
“Indeed,” Mael said, leaning an elbow on the table. His nostrils flared, subtle yet unmistakable. His eyes sharpened once they fixed on her, the faintest hum of recognition escaping his throat.
“Are you smelling me?”
“Confirmin’ a rumor,” Mael said.
“Well, stop it.”
Mael’s mouth curved, faintly amused. “Cannae help what the air carries, Lady Aeryn. Ye’ve changed it simply by walkin’ in.”
The brief flick of Khaeric’s gaze toward Mael was warning enough.
“What? Ye’d rather I pretend no’ to notice?” Mael said, lifting one brow, unbothered.
“Notice, aye. Announce it, no,” Khaeric said quietly.
Mael exhaled with theatrical length, leaning back in his chair. “Ancestors preserve us,” he said, lifting his hands in mock surrender. “We’re meant to sniff in silence? Next, they’ll be bannin’ breath altogether.”
Aeryn’s jaw tightened.
Mael studied her expression with the slow, deliberate curiosity of a man watching a fuse burn. “Ye’ll have to forgive me, Lady Aeryn. I forget how delicate human ears can be.” He paused, with a glint in his eyes. “Elf-blooded, aye, I ken. But ye wear the human half louder.”
“Gríos gan ingne ort!” Aeryn hissed in Elvish.
Mael blinked once, then let out a soft laugh. “I dinnae ken the tongue.” His tone was maddeningly calm. “But I’ll wager that was a blessing of sorts.”
“A curse,” Khaeric corrected, a trace of pride in his voice. “And a fine one at that.”
Mael’s quill tapped once against the page. “A curse, is it? I was wonderin’ when it’d show. The part of ye that isnae court-trained or council-bred.”
Aeryn folded her arms. “If you were wondering whether I had a temper, you could have asked.”
Mael’s grin sharpened. “And rob myself of the joy of discovery? Never.”
Khaeric’s low laugh rumbled at her side. “Careful, Mael. She’s quicker than ye think.”
“I’m countin’ on it,” the scholar said, settling back in his chair. “Makes my lessons less tedious.” His gaze returned to Aeryn. “Now, since ye’ve already shown a fine grasp of orcish temperament, let’s test yer grasp of orcish history.”
Khaeric exhaled. “Aye. That’s my cue to slip out before he starts lecturin’ about the sea crossin’ again.”
Mael didn’t look up from his notes. “Ye’d learn somethin’ if ye stayed.”
“Heard yer version more times than the mountain’s seen winters,” Khaeric said. He turned to Aeryn then, the teasing fading from his expression. “I’ll be back when yer lesson’s done.”
Aeryn nodded. “Of course.”
He hesitated for just a heartbeat before leaning close, brushing his lips against her cheek. “Midday,” Khaeric murmured, his breath warm against her skin.
Behind them, Mael cleared his throat. “If ye’re finished scent-markin’ my workspace, Warchief’s son, I’d like to reclaim my student.”
Khaeric glanced at Mael, one brow arching. Mael’s quill moved across the page, unhurried, indifferent. Then Khaeric faced Aeryn. The kiss he gave her was slow and deliberate, lingering just long enough to turn Mael’s quill-scratch into silence.
“There,” Khaeric declared. “Now it’s properly marked.”
Aeryn blinked, breath catching between surprise and amusement.
Mael sighed. “Ancestors, save me. Ye two are determined to turn scholarship into spectacle.”
Khaeric’s grin flashed, wicked and unrepentant. “Only tryin’ to make yer day less tedious.”
“Consider it accomplished. Out,” Mael said, gesturing toward the door.
“Midday,” Khaeric repeated, the mischief in his tone softening.
“I’ll be here,” Aeryn responded.
When the door closed behind him, Mael dropped his quill and dragged a hand over his face. “Every day, I ask the ancestors for students. Every day, they send me theater.”
Aeryn straightened. “You’re the one who provoked him.”
Mael glanced up at her, eyes glinting with dry humor. “He has a gift for disruption. And ye have a talent for standin’ in the center of it.”
She smiled faintly. “The cost of peace, as I keep discovering.”
He groaned, though a thread of respect flickered behind the exasperation. “Sit down, Lady Aeryn. Let’s get back to the part of my day that involves fewer spectacles and considerably more history.”
His fingers drummed on the scroll. “Three clans united to birth this place,” he said, raising three fingers for emphasis. “Ye know their names, but I doubt ye grasp the shape of their bargain.”
“Druin, Tarrn, and Kairn. The Founders.” He rose and retrieved a thick codex bound in battered hide from a shelf. He set it before her. “Starting wi’ Clan Druin, yer clan.” Mael opened the book, running his thumb down the side until he reached a page worn with handling.
“Druin of the Deep Sight and his mate, Serathen of the Silver Bough.”
Aeryn’s lungs stalled in her lungs. “Serathen of the Silver Bough?”
Mael’s face remained composed.
“There must be a mistranslation,” she said. “Silver Bough? Are you sure of the name?”
“Ye think I’d trip on a name that’s older than any of us? I could recite three different variant spellings if it makes ye happier. Serathen. Of the Silver Bough. Druin’s mate. Mother of his line.” Mael tapped the text with a heavy fingertip.
Her thoughts scattered, searching through a thousand recitations of her own bloodline. She licked her lips. “That’s not possible.”
“What isnae possible?” Mael questioned.
“Silver Bough isn’t a common name. It’s one of the royal houses of Thiarra. My mother is a Silver Bough,” Aeryn said, trying to steady herself. “My aunt is the Queen. I know every name in the lineage back ten generations. But there’s no Serathen. It’s not possible. She would be—”
Aeryn pressed the heel of her hand to her brow. “If there had been a Serathen, she would be in the Memories. No one born of the Silver Bough goes unrecorded.”
“There’s always a first.” Mael’s gaze never wavered. “Yer people keep records. We keep stories. Sometimes, they part ways.”
She flipped through the codex, looking for any clue that the entire page might be a forgery. “If it were true, there would have to be a record in the Memory Vaults.”
“Maybe there is. Maybe someone took pains to see it wasnae.” Mael settled into the chair opposite her, hands folded. “Yer people take pride in their archivin’. Ours in rememberin’ the parts that cannae be passed over.”
“You expect me to believe the Memories can be falsified? That a royal birth can just—”
“Do ye think the laws of yer people are immune to error? Lady Aeryn, the point of the Council is to see the world as it should be, no’ as it is. Sometimes, the archives reflect that.”
Aeryn closed the codex, glaring at it.
Khaeric returned earlier than promised. “Yer lesson’s done?” he asked, glancing between the closed book and Mael.
Mael grunted and rolled his eyes.
“I’m finished,” she said, her voice brittle, mismatched to the moment.
Khaeric caught it. He waited until Mael had risen and turned away before kneeling to her level. “What’s amiss, lass?” he asked, his hand settling at the small of her back.
Aeryn tried to summon dismissal, to claim fatigue, distraction, but the names from the codex loomed too large behind her eyes.
“Mael told me a story,” she said quietly, disbelief threading her voice. “He said the first of Druin’s line, the mother of your entire house, was an elf. A Silver Bough.”
“Aye, that’s the history. Druin of the Deep Sight and Serathen of the Silver Bough. First in Druin’s line. First chieftain’s mate. Does it trouble ye so?”
She stared at him. “My mother would call it blasphemy.”
“Did ye think we hated elves so deeply there couldn’t be any kin between us?” Khaeric asked.
The answer shifted uneasily within her. The notion of absolute division, of orcs and elves forever enemies, had been planted early.
All her life, Aeryn had been told the Memories were inviolate. Never erased, never altered.
“She isn’t in the Memories, Khaeric,” Aeryn whispered. “If she existed in the records, it means the Council pruned the branch.”
Khaeric straightened. “Ye want to see what’s true?” He didn’t wait for her answer. “Follow me.” Scrambling to collect her notes, Aeryn rushed after him as he headed for the library exit.
The path to the Hall of Ancestors felt longer than usual. Aeryn stared up at the statue depicting Serathen. The elven woman towered above her in carved stone. She stood barefoot, draped in ceremonial cloth that clung to her hips, the swell of her belly unmistakably full with life.
A sword rested point-down in one hand, its hilt cradled against her abdomen. The other hand was raised, holding a spherical crystal.
In the courts of the Isles, elven art had long since turned modest: robes, veils, careful layers meant to signal restraint.
Even their divine figures had been softened by centuries of cultivated shame.
Yet here stood one of her own kind, unhidden, rendered as if her strength and her body were the same truth.
“Druin could see beyond the present. They called it the Deep Sight. What he saw was the future.” Khaeric’s gaze lifted to the statue’s upraised hand.
“They were a love match. Before the courts bled themselves into factions, elves and orcs traded, wed, and quarreled like any neighbors. No one thought it strange that Druin of the Deep Sight chose an elf, least of all Serathen of the Silver Bough.”