Chapter 31 #2
The Keeper was hunched over his usual desk when I approached, and Pierce had stopped to hover at the door, giving us a small amount of privacy. “After assistance today, Miss Masters? I would have thought you knew this library off the back of your hand the number of times you’ve visited.”
I was already used to his strange sixth sense. Without even looking, he could tell who was in the room with him. When I didn’t immediately respond, he glanced up, wise eyes locking onto me with a raised brow.
It would build suspicion to ask, but I didn’t have time to search for it myself, not now that I suspected, and I needed the confirmation. “I’m searching for something, a history tome. From before the Great Divide, when we were one kingdom.”
He placed his quill on the scratched table and regarded me with clasped hands. Shit. He was definitely going to tell the king.
“When these lands were known as Galisordis? The time of the Emyrdeis rule?”
My heart thudded in my chest. It was her line that ruled in those castle ruins. Eleanor’s ancestors.
I nodded once, waiting for his demand for someone to fetch the king, but his eyes lightened with interest, and he rose from his chair. “Quite a fascinating history that.”
He ambled to the stacks, and I assumed that meant I was to follow, so I did. His walking stick clicked against the stone floors as we moved deep through the many rows of bookshelves.
The deeper we traveled, the thicker the dust became, our footsteps disturbing the thick coat and tickling my nose. I scrunched my face to avoid sneezing; such a loud noise would have the Keeper barking at me. He had already done so on one of my other visits.
“Our collection of that time isn’t as vast as the Entiam Library.
Mortremon was far more interested in preserving the old kingdom’s history than Torglea during the Great Divide.
Here we are.” The Keeper pointed his walking stick at a large row of books.
I could hardly see a thing this far into the library, with lanterns lining the end of each row instead of spaced above, so I had to squint to make out the titles.
The books were ancient, spines faded and covered in a thick coating of dust. What I could see of the spines was a language I didn’t understand but was still familiar.
Halfway down the shelf, several books were dust free, and I pulled out the gray tome I recognized.
The story of the old king and the everlasting flowers.
I brushed my fingertips along the ancient lettering on the leather cover.
“Can you read it?” I asked. I wouldn’t be able to get what I needed if all the books were in the old language, not unless he could translate them for me.
He scoffed, offended. “Am I not the Keeper of this library? I have read every book in this room.”
“Can you translate this one for me, then?” I waved the ancient tome, and he scowled.
“You’d think I didn’t have any other work to do,” he muttered, and despite his words, he led me back to an empty table. Once seated, I turned the pages on the leather-bound tome until I reached the page I was after. The depiction of the king’s brother kneeling among a field of bodies.
The pure desperation and anguish slashed across his features tugged deep in my chest.
A kinship.
An understanding of the weight that obviously sat so heavily on his shoulders.
“The story of the Dark Bright Brothers,” the Keeper began, startling me, too lost in the drawing. “King Raiden was the last Emyrdeis to rule.”
“King Raiden?”
He tapped the page right where the man knelt.
“I thought this was the king’s brother?”
He raised a brow. “You’re familiar with this story?”
“The—” I stopped myself, about to tell him that the king told me. I had gone this long without raising suspicions, and I couldn’t do so now that I was so close to the truth. “I’ve heard it before, didn’t the king make a deal to raise evil?”
“Ahh. It is often misinterpreted this way.” The Keeper flipped the pages to the beginning of the book and started the story.
“The Dark Bright Brothers were twins, Raiden the eldest and Bastian the youngest. They were as close as brothers could be, as children and well into adulthood. When Raiden took the throne after their father’s death, it was with Bastian’s full support, who became his closest adviser. His protector.”
The first few drawings showed a dark-haired boy and his light-haired brother laughing while they played with wooden swords.
Their expressions grew more serious as the drawings aged them until they became men.
The dark-haired brother sat upon a regal throne, something far more majestic than the throne I avoided in the ballroom on my wedding day.
His light-haired brother stood beside him, face shrouded in shadow.
“Bastian craved more. He believed Galisordis should cross the seas and rule all lands, but Raiden refused, he had recently signed a beneficial trade agreement and didn’t want to renege on that deal.
Bastian grew envious of his brother’s position and behind Raiden’s back, enlisted the help of a dark sorcerer to raise ancient fire demons from deep within the earth. ”
The next drawing was one I had seen before, except it wasn’t the king but his brother who directed a man in deep-red robes, flames and shadows curled around them.
“The sorcerer was dealing with magic of the Gods. Not only did he release the fire demons, but demons of shadow as well. Creatures so cruel and terrifying, the Gods themselves locked them deep below the earth’s surface for fear of destruction a few millennia before.
In order to release the demons, the sorcerer tied Bastian’s life to theirs, a bond allowing him to command and control them.
He was unstoppable, since the demons could only be killed by a rare metal, mined deep within the Kraneal Valley and blessed by the Eniferium. ”
“So the Eniferium were real?” It seemed Professor Gerry wasn’t the only one to believe in Mobitus’s Priestesses.
“Of course they were real, all our stories are based on history,” he exclaimed before continuing, “but the Eniferium died out centuries before, and the blessed weapons remaining were limited. With the demons not easily killed, neither could Bastian be killed.”
He turned the page again, this one showing the dark-haired brother on a horse twice the size of a regular one.
The Fortenax—it had to be, so reminiscent to the tapestry in the entrance hall.
They traveled up a steep mountain, battling winds and swirling snow.
“So, King Raiden traveled to the Mulaphen Temple, high in the Demnocollis Mountains to beg the Gods to save his people and in doing so, destroy his brother.”
“What happened to him? King Raiden?” I asked. This was it, the truth I was looking for.
The Keeper sighed. “I’m afraid that is part of the story we don’t know. There are many theories. Some believe he gave his life to save his people, others choose to believe he lived on in hiding, full of shame over what his brother had done. The next generation saw the Great Divide.”
“What do you believe?”
The Keeper raised a brow. “It is not a historian’s job to make assumptions.” Despite his words, his face told something else.
“But?” I prompted when he didn’t continue.
The corner of his mouth quirked slightly. “But if King Raiden was the man they say he was, I believe he would have sacrificed himself for his people.”
I nodded. It was the conclusion I came to also.
“And his brother?”
“Locked beneath the earth with the evil he raised.”
So the king got that part of the story right.
I flipped through the last few pages, disappointment settling in my gut.
This story was the one Terym had told, and I was convinced it meant something, but I still didn’t have the answers I was after.
I had been so sure it had something to do with Shade, but there was no mention of a lamp and nothing to indicate who he was and why he would be locked away.
I turned the final page and paused.
It was a sketch, the edges unrefined, like it had been an afterthought, an addition to the book that wasn’t supposed to be there. A familiar circular room made of white granite, with a towering pillar in the center. My heart accelerated when I took in the familiar spiraling steps.
“What’s this?” I could hardly get the question out as I pointed at the rough sketch. The Keeper barely glanced at it; he probably had every page memorized.
“No one knows, there’s no text to accompany it. Historians believe it was simply an unrelated sketch by the artist.”
My mind raced, and I packed away the book, thanking the Keeper, who’d waved me away. I left the library, barely noticing Pierce’s usual hulking presence trailing behind me.
Historians may not know what the pillar was, but I did.
I had seen it in person and climbed the hundreds of steps to the top. I just needed confirmation from the one person who would know the truth.
I made it to my suite quickly and closed the door to block Pierce before pulling the knife from my pocket and pricking my finger. Barely flinching at the sharp pain, I touched it to the warm metal of the lamp.
Shade’s dark smoke billowed from the spout, twirling to form the beautiful man who was quickly taking over my heart.
His smile pulled wide the minute he solidified in front of me, and I took a moment to breathe him in.
Florally lilac, deep sandalwood, and him.
It was everything comfortable and warm and safe.
Gods, the things this man made me feel.
When the smoky haze cleared entirely, Shade leaned forward and tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear before cupping my jaw.
I leaned into his touch, always seeking more of it.
He kissed me, a small brush of his lips against mine.
He had started doing that every day, never pushing or asking for more, careful not to trigger my panic attacks.
His touch never did though. No, those attacks always crept up on me while I slept.
In unconsciousness, my mind would replay that night.
Sometimes, I wouldn’t make it to the lamp, other times, I watched Eleanor endure everything I had while I was frozen in place, unable to stop it.
Those nights were always the worst.
Every time I awoke, Shade would be there. Always careful. Always comforting. Every day, he showed me just how perfect he was, and it had my stomach in a constant state of fluttering, a thousand hummingbirds had taken up residence, with no clear sign of ever leaving.
“How was your morning, my Solis?” he murmured against my mouth.
“I found something,” I said, each word a caress against his lips. I stepped back, loathing to pull away, but I couldn’t think with him so close, and this conversation needed a clear head.
Shade chuckled at the distance I put between us. His scent and touch always muddled my thoughts. He had this perfect way of turning my mind to mush.
There was no way to ease into it, and I had waited so long. I needed the truth. “I know you’re Raiden Emyrdeis.”