Chapter 7 The Right Place
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE RIGHT PLACE
ADELINE
Eiras uses his remaining coins to buy us some food in the town.
Rizo is a small place, the streets muddy, the houses low and rundown, sheep and chickens wandering in the open fields behind them.
People give us long looks, not even pretending to ignore us as we walk by.
They stop whatever they’re doing—shoveling hay, hanging laundry, herding children—to stare.
I know. We’re filthy, weary, kind of bedraggled.
A human girl and two fae men, as if that isn’t fodder enough for the wagging tongues.
And we’re heading in the wrong direction, as far as anyone is concerned.
There is no more road after the town, only animal paths and meadows, the ground already starting to lift into hills and the first steep slopes.
The Whispering Forest looms in the distance, dark and forbidding.
“Are you staying here?” Sedrig asks. “In this town? Or are you heading to a village or farm nearby?”
I bite into the bread Eiras gave me to hide my expression. It’s barely edible. “Yeah, somewhere nearby. Besides, they say the mountains are infested with dark fae.”
“Infested, huh?” Sedrig has refused our food and is munching on some jerky he has brought along. “Who says that?”
“It’s common knowledge.” I brush the crumbs off me and lift the satchel off the ground. “Didn’t you know why the mountains are dangerous?”
“Snakes.” He shrugs. “Even more wildcats. Wolves. Wyrms and draks nesting. The occasional bandit.” He catches my eye and smirks. “Okay, and the occasional dark fae.”
“Very funny. We should get going before nightfall, find a place to sleep. Where exactly are you heading?”
“A farmstead, not far from here. Soon our paths will split. Don’t you worry about me, human girl. I know the way.”
“We’re not worried,” Eiras rumbles, casting me a cautionary look. What is that about, I wonder? “I’m sure you’ll be fine.”
“Not afraid the dark fae will grab and eat me?” Sedrig arches his brows. “Those evil maneaters hiding in the mountains?”
I sigh. “Sedrig—”
He jostles me, grinning, and I stumble, the satchel falling from my shoulder.
He snatches it up before I can move or speak. “Since your brother won’t help you with this, let me do it. You must be exhausted—”
“No, don’t you touch that!” I make a grab for it but he steps out of reach. “Put it down!”
Unclasping the flap, he lifts it and peers inside. “Oh look, it’s a book. It’s like…” He frowns, shakes his head. “It’s like it’s talking to me. Can you hear that?”
With a yell, Eiras crashes into him, knocking the book out of his hands and to the ground. “She said not to touch it, you asshole.”
I rush to lift the book, pressing it to my chest and backtracking. “What’s wrong with you, Sedrig?”
“Why are you two reacting like that? I was only helping.” He shoves Eiras off him. “What’s the deal with that book?”
“It’s a precious heirloom.”
“You acted as if the book is dangerous.”
“Aren’t all books?” I mutter. “Come, Eis. Let’s go.”
My brother grumbles, shooting the other man a dark glare, but joins me. “Good idea.”
“Most stories are safe to read,” Sedrig goes on, jumping to his feet and brushing dirt off his clothes, “and their monsters stay in their pages.”
“You must be reading very boring stories,” I make myself say.
“Unless they are magical books, like the ones kept in the Library of Areon,” he goes on. “That’s a marvelous and perilous place. Have you ever thought what it might be like, the mythical library full of monsters and magic?”
Eiras and I exchange a quick, frustrated look.
“Maybe you should also be on your way,” I breathe. “We have nothing more to say.”
“Why? What did I do?” Sedrig rubs the back of his neck. “Oh, come on. By tomorrow we’ll go our separate ways and you won’t see me again.”
I glance at Eiras to gauge his reaction. He’s stony-faced. “You should leave, now.”
“Don’t send me out there all by my own.” Sedrig spreads his hands. “I’ll behave. And I could tell you a thing or two about this library. I can see you’re interested. It’s a marvelous place.”
I’m about to tell him to sod off but his words give me pause. “What would you know about the Areon?”
“You’d be surprised.”
With a sigh, Eiras starts walking again, grabbing my wrist and pulling me along. He has been doing a lot of sighing during this journey.
Sedrig falls into step beside me, grinning, as if nothing happened.
“The Crowned Mountain has been sacred for as far back as memory goes due to its shape and the honeycomb caves hollowing out its guts. It hasn’t always been a library of magical books, but it has always been a sacred place of power.
The people living on the mountains have always revered it like a god, leaving offerings, as well as fearing it, locking their doors and windows at night. ”
“Because of wild animals?” I can’t help but ask, lost in the story. Storytelling is my power but also my weakness. Like a drug, a good story always hooks me.
“The wind has always brought down howls and whispers, ailments and curses. Then someone started stashing dangerous books there for safekeeping. Reversals happened, upending the worlds time and again, and every time we landed on this side of the world, the rumors of magic returned. The library was reopened and more books added, together with a warrior librarian to keep order.”
“Ersil,” I whisper. “The current librarian is Ersil.”
“A fae.” Sedrig nods. “Warrior librarians traditionally come from the fae race. Magic is necessary to keep the books and the monsters from spilling out of the library. They are usually chosen for their prowess with both weapons and power, though it is said that in the past two centuries, since magic went rogue and out of control, those sent are the desperate ones, forced into the service because of their debts or some other obligation.”
“How long has this Ersil been there?”
“A generation. A hundred years at least. Nobody has heard from the last warrior librarian in years.”
“Years?” I blink.
“Communication can’t be easy,” Eiras says. “Nobody ever goes up there.”
“And how one can enter the library?” I ask.
Sedrig narrows his eyes at me. “Wanting to enter that library is folly.”
“I know. Like you, I’m just curious. So do you have any idea?”
He shakes his head. “No.”
“And what about Ersil?”
“What about him?” Sedrig’s voice hardens.
“Anything else you know?”
“What everyone knows. Ersil Davara was a taxiarch in the royal army and was rising in the ranks, only his father was a gambler. His father got into huge debts, was about to lose their ancestral home and end up begging on the streets. Instead, he offered his son to the service of the Crown as a warrior-librarian and Ersil was sent to the Library of Areon to serve the rest of his days there.”
This rings a bell. Did Naida tell me about it?
“He was sent to the world’s end,” Sedrig says, “to the rim and the mountains—”
“—which stand guard by the Circular Sea until the horizon.” Yes, she did tell me this, didn’t she? It’s the Ballad of Ersil—an old ballad. Then again, if he has been there for a generation, he must be an old man now, even by fae standards. “Is he meant to die in there?”
“Every hundred years, a replacement is sent, but as far as I know…” Sedrig shrugs. “He’s still the one.”
“How do we know he’s still alive, then?”
“We don’t. Like I said, his last dispatch was years ago.” Sedrig says.
“Is that normal?”
“That he only sends updates every few years? I have no idea. I heard that a shepherd found the message when he went after a stray goat up the slope. It was inside a sealed glass jar.”
“He threw it out?” I frown. “In a jar? That makes no sense.”
“That’s all I know,” Sedrig says. “Legends grow around real facts and acquire a life of their own. As for me, I’m not particularly interested in books or libraries, be they magical or not.”
“You and the majority of the populace,” I mutter, annoyed for no clear reason. “Thanks for satisfying my curiosity.”
“The best thing you could do is to avoid that place,” he says. “Avoid the Areon at all costs. Go back to your city.”
“That’s the plan,” I say. “And what I do next is none of your business.”
“No harm meant,” he says but his smile is sharp, “human lady.”
Don’t let him get to you, I tell myself. Tomorrow he’ll be gone and you have more important things to worry about than annoying fae males.
We make camp beside a thicket. Eiras has no fire magic, that being the domain of dragons, but he has a flintstone and strikes it against the blade of his dagger to shower a pile of twigs with sparks. I kneel down and blow on the sparks until a flame jumps to life.
“Have some bread.” Eiras extends a piece to Sedrig. “It’s not much but it’s filling.”
Sedrig takes it with a nod, murmuring something under his breath.
“What did you say you were doing on the plains?” I ask him, sitting cross-legged by the small fire, biting into my piece of bread.
“I didn’t.” He shows his sharp teeth. “Because you didn’t ask. It’s no secret. I went to buy something at the market.”
“In Siris?”
“Is that so hard to believe?” he says under his breath.
Eiras’ eyes narrow. “You’re not carrying anything on you.”
“It was a small, precious thing.” His eyes flash. “Are we done with the interrogation?”
“First you complain I didn’t ask, and now you mind the questions?”
“It’s late.” He gets up and walks a few paces out, gazing toward the dark shadow of the mountains. The stars are out, their silver light casting everything in black and white. “Let’s catch some sleep.”
“I’ll be right back,” I say.
Eiras frowns at me. My brother has already rolled himself up in his mantle and is lying on his back, his arms folded behind his head. “Where are you going?”
“What do you think? Nature calls.” I gesture at the thicket, then glance around. “Where is Sedrig?”
“He said something about walking the perimeter. It sounded very military.”
My mouth twitches into a grin. “Yeah?”