Chapter Fifty
T he entrance into the library is as elaborate and beautiful as anything I’ve ever seen.
I push against the bronze, swinging the large doors on their hinges, and the smell of old parchment and wood greets me like a hug. My eyes glide across the room, drinking in the sight, and my jaw unlocks from the beauty of it.
Towering shelves curved in grand arcs—their mahogany spines decorated by glistening gold vines—consume every inch of wall, housing what has to be thousands of books.
To reach those books, spiraling staircases twist round and round, their steps illuminated by floating lanterns that cast light along the curved balconies.
At the heart of the library, a curling tree rises all the way to the glass-domed roof, and within the branches, hundreds of softly glowing, golden orbs rest.
I shuffle deeper into the large room, entranced.
“What a pleasant surprise.”
I snap my head left and find Nuha sitting behind a large oak desk, parchment scattered everywhere on the table along with a few vials of different colored liquids. She braces both hands on the wood and rises, scooting her large chair backwards.
I’m not sure why, but I feel this strange need to courtesy or to do… something .
I decide that a simple incline of my head should suffice. “Griff told me you wished to see me? ”
“I do,” she replies in a warm voice. She steps from around the table, her onyx hair twisted back into a single large braid, wisps framing her oval face, and approaches me.
For some reason, I feel the need to flick my gaze to her finger to know whether or not she has Meiji’s ring on.
She doesn’t.
And for the life of me, I can’t understand why that continues to gnaw at me.
Nuha’s arms and shoulders sway loosely as she walks. She halts just a few steps from me and tilts her head, studying me with her emerald eyes. “Do you see this library?” She swivels her gaze around the room.
I follow where she looks, nodding. “It’s beautiful,” I confirm. “Astounding, even. It rivals that of a king.”
Nuha smiles. “I’ve collected many books throughout my years here, but the majority of the credit goes to my predecessors. They’re the backbone of what you currently see.”
“Then I extend my gratitude to you all for creating such a wonder.”
She smiles wider at that, the curves noticeably delicate yet powerful. “I have searched this entire collection—through all the archives and every book with knowledge or mention of essence flowers—looking for information on yours. Would you like me to tell you what I found?”
I swallow against the sudden dryness in my throat and nod. “Please.”
Nuha studies me a few seconds longer. “Nothing.”
The blood leeches from my face as my stomach hollows out.
“Until,” she amends slowly, the pause cruel. “I stumbled into some scrolls from the First Age. Do you know anything about the Jurafen’s history?”
The question makes me wish Gray were by my side right now.
He would.
He would know—would be able to recite it like a fond story.
It makes me realize I really should show him Casimir Vivaldri’s journal.
I don’t know why I’ve kept it secret for so long—at least, a secret from him.
He is a walking well of knowledge, and I’m a fool for not leaning on him to help me understand the contents of that journal—why Sterling thinks it’s going to impact me so severely.
I bite at my lip and shake my head. “No,” I confess. “Not really.”
She nods, as if expecting that. “The biggest thing to know is that the Jurafen were formed after the Great Clamatè War, as a means to protect the Three Kingdom’s divisions of power and maintain the peace without bias. A sort of check and balance, if you will.”
A word enters into my head, faster than I can stop it.
Allegedly.
“Bathara has scrolls documenting this history,” Nuha continues, “detailing the conception. The original principles and the governing laws a Jurafen should abide by. The academy also kept records of what their agreement was with both the first kings and the Tani. This is all known as the scrolls from the First Age of Kings.”
Feeling a tinge confused, I simply blink.
She draws in a measured breath and starts walking. “Follow me.”
I do as she says, and Nuha leads me through a tight passage enclosed by cluttered bookshelves, around a corner, and to the very back of the library, where noticeably older shelves, tomes, and scrolls await.
Encased by the worn shelves is a small wooden desk, not nearly as ornate and decadent as the one I found Nuha sitting behind.
She pinches her chin, looking around the space. “Now let’s see. Where did I… Ah! There it is.” Nuha walks to a knee-high shelf and plucks a yellowed, thin book from the very top of it, placing the aged book in my hands after.
I peel back the cover and read the title scribed beautifully in ink on the first page.
We Sang the Dawn.
I flip to the next page and skim the first few lines.
Beginnings promise nothing of their ends, despite what most think.
This beginning was golden.
A glimmer before the dusk. A bloom before the withering. A song worth singing, if only for the dawn.
With a heavy wrinkle in my brow, I glance up at Nuha, who watches me intently. “What is this? ”
She shrugs. “The only known record of your essence flower. A story in an old, old book dating back to somewhere around the conception of the Three Kingdoms. As you’ve probably read, it’s called “We Sang the Dawn”, and it’s about three people and their quest to achieve what they believe is right in a world torn apart by war. ”
I thumb through the pages. “Did you read it?”
“I did,” she informs me. “A rather moving story, it seemed. I wish I could have finished it.”
Curious, my eyes snap up to Nuha. “Why couldn’t you finish it?”
“The ending pages were ripped out,” she supplies. “I don’t know who would be so cruel and reckless to do such a thing to a historical artifact, but I never did get to learn how, exactly, the story ends.” She points at the book. “May I?”
With a knot beginning to tangle in my stomach, I nod and hand her the book. Quietly, she flips through it, stopping when she finds a faded drawing of an essence flower that indeed looks a hell of a lot like mine.
“It belonged to the one the story calls Prince. Also known as the Wielder of All. In this story, he was bestowed with a great gift to wield all magic from the Mother Goddess herself, after the Commander, known in the story as the Wielder of the Forbidden, received access to forbidden magic without consequence. As the tale goes, Prince’s blood actually created essence flowers, after he bled red in a field of white gardenias.
” She points at the picture resembling my own essence flower.
“The flower is evidently known as Threadweaver, for its ability to weave itself together with any magic its match has touched.”
A cold chill sweeps across my skin, skittering down my spine, twisting between every crevice of bone.
The voice’s words in Foreigner’s Valley echo in my head.
Remember this, Threadweaver: love is no lesser force than hate, and a scorned heart does not wither—it burns. And fire does not choose sides.
The voice called me Threadweaver that day in the valley. That can’t be a coincidence.
Not to mention…
When my essence flower contacted my hand, the threaded petals glowed with green and gold threads, stitching over themselves.
And the fact that Marcella and Gray, the two people I am most near, possess a wielder’s mark that glows green and gold when they wield is not lost on me.
My throat becomes unbearably dry, and it is the fight of my life to keep my voice steady. “And what do you make of that?”
She hums with consideration. “Well, one can’t exactly form a factual conclusion based on a work of fiction from over four hundred years ago.
Especially when it features grandiose concepts like someone being able to wield all magic and access forbidden magic without consequences.
” She pauses, biting down on her thumb with thought.
“Yet…the fact remains. It feels too distinct to be a mere coincidence that you presented a flower perfectly matching the photo in this story—the only known record of its existence.”
My heart is hammering in my chest. “Soo…all that to say?”
She looks at me sympathetically. “All that to say, I haven’t the slightest idea what to make of it, or your flower.”
A weight sinks in my stomach.
But not because she doesn’t have the answer, but because I suddenly realize I think I know who will—or perhaps, what will—understanding now why Sterling must have warned me to read until the very end of the journal.
The answers surrounding my essence flower must reside there—within Casimir’s last entry.
Sterling’s words from that night ring in my mind, a loud bell suddenly awakening every slumbered detail.
I wish I could save you from your fate. But what is chosen by the Cycle cannot be undone. Besides, I fear they already know you’ve awakened.
What has he known about me all along, and why did I not contemplate those eerie words of his with more scrutiny? I understand I was focused on the exams and how I would pass them, but I should have still questioned him more—realized that Sterling, being who he is, was trying to tell me something.
Because when he said, they already know you’ve awakened , he meant the Abdites, didn’t he? Somehow, and for reasons I’m not sure I’ll ever know, he knew they would come after me.
And when Sterling said, what is chosen by the Cycle , he was trying to tell me something, wasn’t he?