Chapter 9 Allaster
ALLASTER
ALLASTER SAW NYELLE BACK TO THE PORTAL ROOM AND THROUGH the Kalish door before returning to his office, their conversation permeating his thoughts.
For months now, he had been attending meetings at the royal court to discuss the increasing natural disasters taking place across the continent, and for just as long, the Kalish had been neatly sidestepping everything he said.
When he pointed out that the highest concentration of disasters was occurring in Kalthos, the Paratal claimed it was a test of the Kalish people’s dedication to Haidra’s light and blamed the greater population of beasts.
When Allaster tried to explain the necessity of beasts to maintain the balance of magic, the Paratal twisted his words to mean the existence of sin was necessary for the existence of magic, before suggesting both should be excised.
Never mind that the balance of magic was the only thing sustaining the world’s ecosystems. If the beasts were culled, the natural world would descend into chaos.
The trouble was, Allaster couldn’t prove it.
Even he didn’t fully understand the relationship between beasts and the magical balance.
Only that with each beast’s death, it grew more unstable, and these disasters were the result.
He found May in the kitchen, where she often went to work out stress on unsuspecting balls of dough. She wore an apron over her uniform, the long sleeves pushed up above her elbows and her forearms dusted in flour as she worked a particularly large batch of dough against the wooden counter.
“So?” he asked, leaning against the edge.
Her dark gaze flicked toward him out of the corners of her eyes, no doubt considering what to tell him of her time with Eirlana.
He’d been certain that when May had come to get him it was merely an excuse to introduce herself to the new Assistant, and sure enough, he’d sensed them together through the magic before leaving for Kalthos.
“I gave her a tour,” May said eventually. When Allaster only frowned, she added, “I wanted to spend some time with her myself, since you refuse to do it. For what it’s worth, she’s curious about this place, though trying very hard not to be.”
“I’m sure she is. How else is she to find anything to report back to Vera?”
May drove her fist into the dough with particular force. “You were supposed to give her a chance.”
“I gave her one, and she only proved me right.” Allaster fidgeted with an escaped piece of dried dough, thinking of the way Eirlana had wielded her staff.
It had not been in the half-hearted, artful manner Kalish nobles twirled them about, but hard-hitting and defiant.
If he weren’t certain she was here to ruin everything he held dear, he might have been impressed.
But whoever Eirlana Corynth was, she had the skill of a warrior and a very particular knowledge of beasts.
The test questions she had gotten right had been things like adaptations, migration tendencies, and herd dynamics, but nothing of diet, grooming habits, or habitat.
Hers was the knowledge of someone who had grown up being taught a beast’s weaknesses, its dangers, and none of its magic.
Yet he’d seen that curiosity himself. Not just with Benlo that morning, but the day before when she had entered the main library and taken in the rows of books like a starving woman at a grand supper.
It had been only for a moment, but he’d seen a yearning in her green eyes that called to his own, one he’d caught himself wanting to explore.
In another situation, another lifetime, maybe he could have.
He could have taken his time getting to know her, shearing through the layers of indoctrination that had been heaped upon her, and shown her the truth of magic.
The wonder. But there was too much at stake for him to risk that, too many lives, and there was a part of him, far larger than he wanted to admit, that barely remembered that truth himself.
May’s expression softened, and it was almost worse than her disappointment, because he knew what was coming next. She left the dough to rest as she faced him. “Is this about Mora, Allaster?”
A year later, and the previous Librarian’s name still tore a hole through his heart. The rest of the Library had moved on, Mora’s death just another in an ancient line, but Allaster could never do the same. Her loss would haunt him for a thousand lifetimes.
It was, after all, his fault.
May’s fingers curled into her apron. Perhaps not everyone had moved on.
She and Mora had been close, closer than most, and there had been a time when Allaster had thought their relationship might even become something more.
Then May had met her wife, and that door had closed.
But there had always been a part of her that loved Mora, a part that was clearly still as raw as he was.
“I can’t imagine what you’re feeling,” May began, the words clearly difficult for her to say.
“I don’t imagine anyone ever could. It’s a miracle you get up every day, Allaster.
Don’t think I don’t know that. But the Library needs you now more than ever, and it needs Eirlana too.
If there is even a sliver of hope that she isn’t what you think—”
“Then I have to take it.” Allaster scrubbed a hand along his jaw, his exhaustion threatening to whittle him down to scraps.
He didn’t know if he had it in him to put up a fight against someone like Eirlana.
There was something magnetic about her, about the way her green gaze settled on him so fully, that left him disquieted.
He sighed heavily. “Just let me do it my way, okay? I have time enough for that.”
The look in May’s dark eyes betrayed her worry, and something deeper.
Something she wasn’t telling him, that she’d refused to tell him for some time, despite his asking.
Still, he very nearly did again, well aware that he was not the only one who carried the weight of the Library about their shoulders.
He owed May more than he could put into words, so instead, he fished something from his pocket, proffering it to her. May’s face lit up at the sight of the gold foil-wrapped package, and she reached for it before remembering her dough-encrusted hands. “Is that what I think it is?”
“Spiced chocolate, straight from the Kalish capital,” Allaster confirmed, setting the package down on a clean spot on the counter. They had each of them their vices; May’s just happened to be sweets from the one kingdom that detested them. He made a point of procuring her some each time he visited.
“We can chop it up and put it in the dough,” May told him. “Though I’ll need to adjust the water ratio to account for it. Here.” She grabbed a knife, cutting the dough in half and handing it to him. “We’ll do half plain. You can knead that one.”
And though he had a hundred and one other things to do, his weariness heavy in his bones, he did as she said and got to work.
ALLASTER WAS UP the next morning with the sun.
He rarely slept past its rise, if he managed to sleep at all, nightmares of Mora’s death an ever-present bedfellow.
It took three cups of Iylis’s strongest tea to even nudge his brain into motion, but by the fourth, he was up and moving, ready for another day spent scouring the library’s shelves for answers about his curse.
Each day of searching was another day the magic rooted deeper inside him, another day his hopes of finding answers dimmed a little more.
His transformation, his magic—they were tied to Amorlin, but in a place as ancient as this, so much had been lost to time and forgotten places, and he had been looking for so very long.
There had been a time when he rose early each morning to spend the day deep among the shelves, poring over Lady Val En’s original journals from the Second Naming, when she discovered over thirty new species of beasts, or Lord Hensley’s work of formal categorization, where he began organizing beasts into groups based on species.
Each Librarian before him had contributed so much to its history, its knowledge; he had barely been Librarian for a year, and the greatest mark of his tenure was the arrival of a Kalish zealot.
Sighing, he reached for the magic and snapped his fingers.
It resisted at first, tugging against him like a stubborn mule, before giving way to transport him to the main library.
It had been doing that a lot lately, yet another strange behavior in a long line of the Library’s recent oddities.
Vanishing rooms, hearths that refused to light, leopard spirits found staring off into space as if they had forgotten their tasks.
Even the mages had begun to notice, and none of Allaster’s assurances succeeded in allaying their concerns.
The Library was more vulnerable than ever right now.
He appeared in the main library beside his lectern, already reaching for the book he’d left there late last night—and stopped.
Eirlana was there.
She was seated at his favorite table by the fire. Reading his books.
Only May’s voice from last night stopped him from teleporting her to some dark corner of the catacombs. If there is even a chance that she isn’t what you think …
May was right. He knew she was right, and yet everything inside him warned him to be careful with Eirlana Corynth, lest he find her claws at his throat.
Yet here she was, surrounded by stacks of books on beasts, nibbling absently at a scone as she flipped through page after page, consuming words with a voracious appetite.