Chapter 35
I’m walking through the Rhiannon Garden late at night. Flower petals dapple the mossy earth, and the humid air kisses my skin. I trace my fingertips over the altar. Then I feel someone moving closer to me, and his power radiates over me from behind.
I turn to see Rion walking barefoot over the moss. His golden tattoos illuminate the night. My heart races at the sight of him.
His eyes burn into me. When he reaches me, he lifts me by my waist onto the altar. He pulls out a blade, and it glints in the moonlight.
With a gasp, I wake from my dream and sit up straight in bed. I rub my eyes to wake up fully.
Enough sleeping for today. Already, it’s the late afternoon. I have work to do.
* * *
Knights in silver armor roam the courtyard, searching for signs of Cador.
Niniane has been tearing this place apart looking for him.
She noticed his absence immediately this morning.
After breakfast, her guardian knights questioned each of us.
The man who interrogated me searched for any signs of scars on my body that would have betrayed a fight with Cador, but Rion’s magic erased all traces.
Now, the sun is starting to set, and they still haven’t found what’s left of Cador.
I can only hope it stays that way.
And while they search for him, I’m going to see what else I can learn about the grail. Tomorrow might be my last chance to save Vero. At this point, I don’t think she has much time left.
I follow a winding, cobbled path to the library I discovered earlier, a golden-stone building with soaring windows and a sharply peaked roof. Above an ivy-covered crimson door, there’s a carving of a book.
I push through the door into a vast hall with an ornately carved rib-vaulted ceiling.
Lanterns float beneath the arches, and a few wisps of glittering clouds drift between them.
Warm light pours in through the windows onto stacks of books and mahogany desks, some of them set with tea kettles and cups.
There are thousands of books in here, stacked up two stories, with ladders on wheels to reach the highest shelves. Golden letters shift and spark on the spines of leather-bound tomes.
The question is, where can I learn anything about the path to the grail?
* * *
After hours of searching, I still haven’t found anything about the grail trial.
But I did find something that I think refers to the questing beast.
So far, it’s been utterly empty in here besides me, the books, and the many cups of tea. By now, the sun has set, and the lanterns cast golden light onto the book’s pages.
The problem is that the texts are written in an archaic version of Fey, and I can only half understand them.
I think it’s something about an unhealed wound. Something about dogs, maybe. On the right side, there’s a poorly drawn picture of a large creature that looks half dragon and half leopard.
As I stare at the text, I hear the library door opening and slam the book shut. I slide it back into place, and I start to walk casually along the stacks of books until I see that it’s Tristan, his dark hair ruffled rakishly. A smile warms his face.
I’ve been desperate to see him.
The lantern light bathes him in gold and shadow, and warmth slides through my chest at the sight of him. It’s lonely when he’s not here.
“There you are.” His gaze sweeps over me. “Do you have any idea how many knights I had to misdirect to find you?”
Already, I’m pulling the book off the shelf again. “I didn’t know you were coming back so soon.”
He closes the distance between us, and my back presses lightly against the stacks of books.
He plants a hand on one side of me, caging me in.
“I wasn’t supposed to come back quite yet.
Raphael wanted me to search for Talan in the air.
I told him intel mattered more, but I mostly wanted to check on you. ”
I lean back against the bookshelves and tell him what I saw the day before—everything I found in Rion’s room. The family tree, the symbol of King Bran, the cauldron—and the drawing that looked like the Green Man.
When I finish, Tristan folds his arms, frowning. “He has Auberon’s family tree in his desk drawer? Considering Talan was the one who defeated Auberon, I’d say that paints him as a top suspect in the kidnapping. I’ll get this back to Raphael. Anything else?”
“There was a bit of a hiccup as I came back last night,” I whisper. “Cador caught me popping through the portal, and he didn’t take it well. He threatened to peel my skin off—and Vero’s, too, if he figured out who she was.”
His jaw tightens. “He threatened to what?” His voice is low, lethal. “Where is he?”
“Dead and buried, of course. What do you think I am? An amateur?”
The corners of his lips lift in a half smile. “Well done.”
I breathe in the safe, masculine scent of him.
My breath catches whenever he’s near. Imagine if Tristan and I had grown up with a normal life—without the Undercroft, without the memories that linger like aches in our bones.
What if we had been two kids running through the woods, hunting conkers and butterflies, who grew into teenagers stealing kisses beneath willow branches, then adults who curled up in a safe bed, in a safe home?
It almost feels real for a moment, and an ache opens in my chest for this phantom world.
With a lump in my throat, I push the thought away.
I cross to the table and set down the book.
Tristan turns to one of the desks and starts to make tea with a metal kettle, its surface carved with magic runes.
“But I haven’t told you the most important part.
I will be competing for the grail tomorrow morning.
I’m trying to learn more about the trial.
Can you read ancient Fey?” I flip to the page with the beast. “I think this questing beast might be part of it. There’s also a bridge of swords over a pit of flames. ”
He stares at me. “A pit of flames? Where, exactly, is this?”
“I remember Cador once saying that the grail wasn’t here, exactly, but connected to the fortress. Maybe they’ll bring it here for us to compete and create a pit of flames in the arena? I have no idea.”
Tristan hands me a ceramic cup of steaming tea that smells of lavender, sweetened with mead. The steam coils in my face, warming me.
“Let me have a look.” Tristan runs his finger over the text. “And from his belly rose such a noise, like the din of thirty hounds questing.”
“A hunting creature, then.”
He’s still tracing with his fingers. “The noise it creates opens an unhealed wound… I don’t know what that means, exactly. It says a king named Pellinore woke the beast when he tried to extend his reign for longer than a year…”
“Who is King Pellinore?”
He looks up from the book. “No idea. He must have been a king before Bran, someone with a small kingdom. I don’t understand the bit about only being king for a year. Anyway, he transgressed somehow, then a civil war broke out, and the bloodshed woke the questing beast, and it started to hunt him.”
I frown. “What happened to him?”
Tristan takes a deep breath. “It tracked him, then chased him through the forest. Then King Pellinore lost his mind.”
He flips the page to an illustration of a man running from the beast, his crown crooked on his head.
On the page after that, Pellinore is smashing his own head against a tree, and blood pours down his face.
“Cador said the questing beast’s howl is a thing you never forget,” I whisper.
Tristan looks up. “The questing beast caught the scent of his guilt. That’s how he tracked him.”
My stomach tightens.
Guilt follows me like a shadow wherever I go, my dark and constant companion. “I’ll do everything I can to avoid that thing.”
“Every instinct I have tells me to keep you somewhere safe where you can’t burn to death or get carved by swords.
” He studies me closely, his gaze piercing mine like he’s trying to read my secrets.
The lantern light flickers between us, gilding the beautiful planes of his face.
“But this is your choice to make, not mine.”
My breath catches. “It isn’t a choice. If I don’t at least try to get the grail for Vero, I’ll never forgive myself. She’s all the family I have left. And you know I owe it to her after what I did.”