Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
Iris
When the soldiers finally cleared out and the sound of crackling flames faded, there was an eerie silence that fell around the glen. We descended the hilltop, weapons in each of our hands and our horses left behind, tied and secured.
With every step closer to the remains of the library, my stomach churned with equal parts rage and devastation.
This had been one of the largest libraries in the kingdom.
Scholars traveled from across the world to see it.
All that remained now were bodies and charred pages that drifted through the air.
“Here.” Nikolai walked towards me, stepping uncomfortably close and running his fingers down each side of my neck. He grasped hold of my scarf and tugged it up over my nose and mouth. “Don’t breathe it in.”
I watched with a detached sense of attachment as he pulled up his own scarf in a matching fashion.
This didn’t feel real.
Nothing felt real anymore.
Nikolai cleared his throat. “I need you to search through the rubble with me. See if we can find anything useful.”
His eyes were mostly green now, a vibrant emerald as he stared at me.
He was positively filthy. Blood still streaked his clothes from our earlier fight with the undead monsters, and now a layer of soot was falling over us both, darkening his red hair. Without thinking, I reached up, pulling out a dried leaf that had tangled itself in the ends of his hair.
He watched as I pulled away my hand, still standing so close to me that I could hear his breathing.
“Let’s be quick,” I told him, forcing my thoughts to clear. “I don’t want to be here if they come back.”
We marched forward together, splitting at the last second with a nod of understanding. Glancing up, I checked that the support beams were still in place before I stepped into the wreckage, suppressing the tears that burned in the backs of my eyes.
I wasn’t sure if it was a reaction to the smoke or the general devastation in my soul.
So much knowledge lost.
And for what? Why burn the Mortal and Descendant records and histories?
Spotting a tiny piece of parchment that still looked somewhat intact buried under the rubble, I bent to lift the charred remains of what might have been a chair only to rip my hands back with a sudden hiss of pain and a muttered expletive against the fiery burn that climbed up my fingertips.
“Iris!”
I jolted, Nikolai’s panicked voice sent spikes of icy fear piercing through me. Just that breathless cry of my name had me moving without thought, brandishing weapons as I went.
What if the soldiers had come back?
What if they’d hurt him?
I rounded the corner of the library, feet surprisingly steady under me even as blood rushed in my ears. Ash continued to fall from the sky around me like a grey rain that covered the earth.
“Over here!”
My heart skipped when I found Nikolai and scanned him over for injuries. I only managed a breath of air to relieve the tightness in my chest when I realized he appeared unharmed. With a heaving grunt, he carried out a gasping librarian from the wreckage, helping to lay him on the ground.
The man’s charred skin was black and peeling in places, red and inflamed in others. Nikolai sent a cocoon of water wrapping around the most severe of the burns offering momentary relief.
He didn’t bother trying to treat them.
Nikolai knew as well as I did to recognize when death was demanding a soul.
“Malakai.” Recognition flashed across Nikolai’s features. “What happened here?”
Malakai’s breathing came rushed, the sound something of a tortured wheeze. “Not just here. Everywhere. Hyraxian forces have been burning libraries all across the country.”
Hazel eyes lifted from Malakai to meet mine, mirroring the concern I was feeling.
“They were looking for something?” I asked.
Malakai erupted into a fit of coughing so violent that we could only hold him as it passed.
“I think so, but it all happened so fast.”
Nikolai’s weight shifted. “We’re trying to stop him, to fight back. We’re looking for the Blades of Arto. Do you know where they might be?”
Malakai’s eyes went unfocused, and for a moment, I thought we had lost him without any answers to our questions, but he took one final desperate gasp and reached out to cling to Nikolai’s hand. “There’s a collector in Rhanport. Check there.”
Nikolai nodded, holding his hand gently. “Thank you.”
“I feared this might happen, so I took some of the rarer mythology books. Things a God might not want in the hands of an enemy.”
My grip on the hilt of my dagger tightened. “Where?”
“My house.” Malakai’s voice was fading, his whispers almost too soft to hear. “Go now before they return.”
Nikolai’s hair fell over his shoulders as he shook his head in protest. “No, we’ll stay with you. At least until…”
Malakai’s dried lips split open as he coughed through a smile. “Staying will not stop this inevitability, my friend.”
Nikolai’s jaw worked, his eyes focused on the uneven movements of Malakai’s chest as the dying man struggled to breathe. Tension coiled across his shoulders.
“Go back to the horses, Iris,” he instructed, reaching for the blade on his hip.
For once, I didn’t fight him. I just stood and returned to our horses. Opening my saddlebag, I pulled out an old handkerchief and waited. When he finally walked over the hill an eternity later, I gave him the cloth to clean off his bloody hands without question.
We searched for what felt like hours, going through every room in Malakai's now-abandoned house meticulously. Nikolai remained focused as we hunted, his eyes narrowed and mind working.
“Whatever he took wouldn’t be hidden in the open,” he mused aloud, scanning over the room.
I jumped at the sound of his voice, twisting to face him. “You’re the expert treasure hunter, right? Where haven’t we looked?”
He pursed his lips as his hands came to rest on his hips. With determined eyes, he searched the bedroom one last time, lingering on the simple sheets of the mattress and the lines of the dresser.
It was a relatively empty house. Modest. There were no knick-knacks decorating the shelves. Only a few clothes lingered in the drawers. Even the curtains were a drab brown color.
There weren’t many places to hide something valuable.
“Maybe we should just make our way to Rhanport,” I suggested, taking a few tentative steps towards him. “We need those blades more than these books.”
Nikolai’s head jerked, a wild intensity falling over him. “Back up.”
His command was sharp and unyielding, coming only a moment before he advanced towards me.
“Listen, I don’t mean to upset you, but—”
His hand reached out with impossible speed, grasping the dagger strapped to my hip and releasing it from its sheath.
My heart lurched, and I spun swiftly out of arm’s reach, already moving to his left and preparing to kick that soft area of his knee that would leave the joint dislocated.
Nikolai wasn’t even paying attention, though.
He was on his knees, pulling aside the simple rug and shoving my blade into the wooden floorboards.
I stopped my attack. “What are you—”
“It squeaked when you stepped over it,” he explained without looking up at me. “You want to know where I’d look for treasure? Usually, a loose floorboard is a good place.”
I sank to my knees next to him, trying to keep my face free of expression. Not that it mattered, Nikolai was too focused on his task to notice that he’d impressed me.
The board came loose with a creaking groan, and he shot me a triumphant grin that I couldn’t help but mirror as we spotted the bundle hidden in the tiny space underneath.
“What now?” I breathed, not daring to move.
He glanced up at me with lifted brows.
Shrugging, I rocked back on my heels. “Do you have a signature phrase or something that you say when you find the treasure?”
Nikolai opened and closed his mouth a few times as if he wasn’t sure he’d understood my question. Then, without warning, he tipped his head back towards the sky and laughed unabashedly.
“Do I look like the kind of gentleman who would shout eureka?”
On instinct, I sent magic rushing to my cheeks to hide the embarrassed blush.
“Well.” I reached into the space under the floorboards and pulled out the package. “I guess it’s something you could think about for the future.”
“I’ll certainly take that under consideration, little bird.”
I kept my touch light as I unfolded the oilcloth, carefully aware that the books hidden inside might contain delicate pages hundreds of years old. The two tomes both had thick leather spines and carefully carved titles.
“An Anthology of Godly Weapons,” I read the title of the first aloud, before flicking through the pages, glancing over the descriptions of the various weapons of the Gods.
“That sounds useful,” Nikolai said, allowing me to flick through the book.
There was a section devoted to every God and their specific Godly weapon. Descriptions ranged from general descriptions of the size and shape of the weapons to the battles in which they had been used.
“Wait.” Nikolai’s fingers fell over mine, stilling me on one of the last pages. He scanned over the winding hand-written script. “In completing a Forging, blood of the divine must be shed and bound by pure flame.”
I snorted. “Sounds like another one of those ridiculous prophecies.”
Nikolai’s hand still rested atop mine, his grip uncomfortably tight as he met my gaze. “Or instructions.”
I frowned, glancing back at the page once more. “Instructions for what?”
He gently took the book out of my hands, closed it and set it back in the oilcloth. “Perhaps your friend Theadora will know.”
There was a glint of lightness in his voice, something like hope. I watched him as he lifted the second book.
“Rise of the True Queen.” Nikolai frowned, turning it over. “Why would this be valuable?”
My stomach flipped as I stared down at the book.
Running my tongue over my teeth, I stood, snatching my dagger back and returning it to its rightful place on my hip.
I turned in an instant, not wanting to think about that book or the story inside it for a second longer.
Nikolai wrapped it in the oilcloth and lifted them both, following me out of the home as I answered his question numbly.
“Because Caldrius’ first wife was stolen by Zion. He's the true king which would make her...”
My voice trailed off and he didn't bother finishing my sentence.
I didn’t waste any time throwing my leg over my horse and seating myself firmly.
The moon was already hanging high in the sky, but my adrenaline was still coursing too intensely from the fire to even consider stopping to rest for the night.
No, we could manage another few hours of riding.
The sooner we got to Rhanport, the better.
“Do you think that’s what they were looking for?” I asked him as he put the books inside his saddlebag. I wasn't sure which book I was referencing.
“It’s possible," he sighed, turning contemplative. “Maybe there’s something in one of those books that Caldrius and Hyrax don’t want us to know.”
Or there were details in both of the books that they wanted to keep hidden.