Chapter 58 An Older Story
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
AN OLDER STORY
ADELINE
My body aches with tension as I cling to the phoenix’ back like a bug on a grass stalk, sure I’ll fall the next time he turns or dives.
Did he even understand what I’m trying to find? Does he know what egrets are?
“I know egrets,” he says in my mind, and I jerk in surprise.
“So you do understand when I speak.”
“Roane said I should obey you as I obey him,” he whispers through my thoughts.
My mouth trembles. “He did? When?”
“When we first rescued you from the griffin.”
“Why would he do that? He doesn’t want me here.”
Simu has no reply to that. He flies over the hills and I see a lake sparkling from afar. I can’t remember seeing a lake there before. This world keeps changing.
And I see egrets. There are only a few and they fly away as we approach. We land on the shore of the lake and I squint against the light reflecting on the lake’s still water.
How will I get close to them?
Wait… There is an older story at play here.
Naida told me once about the daughters of Kereus who washed their clothes at the lake shore.
Then they were turned into egrets, and they in their turn were turned into metal birds.
Stories are full of transformations, but the one striking thing about this story is that the birds were originally humans.
That has to be why they can shed tears, unlike other birds.
I might know the stories but I don’t know how to approach these birds. How to talk to them. Much less how to make them cry for me.
“Egrets!” I yell. “Do you remember me? Stymphalians!” I start walking along the lake shore, trying to think of other names for them, names they might respond to. “Herons. Ardeas! Daughters of Kereus!”
But they either don’t hear me or don’t care about these names. The magic I wrought on them doesn’t seem to be reversible. I can’t even see them anymore. They have flown away.
Pressing my hands over my cheeks, I crouch down.
This isn’t working. And that’s without even considering how I could transport those tears.
In my hands? While riding a fiery bird? I left desperate to get the antidote, hoping I’d find solutions on the way, the urgency of the situation pushing me to act.
But I don’t see any solutions. I don’t have the antidote. All of it—finding the griffin, negotiating the information about the cure, coming out here—was for nothing.
A heaviness presses on my chest as I climb back on Simu and we fly away. I direct him to follow the egrets, but they scatter again and again.
“It wasn’t meant to be,” Olm says. “Don’t beat yourself over it.”
“Roane will die,” I whisper. “I failed. I felt so powerful, changing the metal birds into soft egrets and look what I did.”
“Every action you take has a consequence,” he agrees.
“How could I know I’d need them, need their tears? For all the Gods’ sakes.” I struggle with tears of my own. “I can’t sit in a corner and do nothing in case the consequences hit me.”
“What do you care? He wants you to leave,” Olm reminds me. “You won’t see him again. Go back to the griffin. She liked you, I could tell. Ask her to tell you the way out.”
“No. I won’t leave him to die.”
“But he will, no matter what you do. Take your chance to escape. Ask the griffin. We can go back to the capital, go to the palace—”
“Stop, just… stop talking.” My tears are tracking down my cheeks now, drying in the cold wind and the heat from the phoenix’s wings.
The thought of losing Roane is killing me. He may not want me around but the thought of his life being snuffed out hurts me deep inside. He’s kind of larger than life, the librarian of Areon, moody and annoying as he is.
He’s so beautiful and so strong and so tough but also gentle when he wants to be. So protective and loved by his friends and doing his best with the cards fate dealt him.
Yes, fine, he is an infuriating brute sometimes, too.
“I’d say he’s an infuriating brute most of the time,” Olm says.
I sigh. “Didn’t I tell you to shut it?”
“Come on, Aline. He thinks you are a liability, doesn’t like you, wants you gone. Why are you acting like you’re best friends? You don’t even know why he changed his name and why he didn’t want you to read his journal. You don’t know the man.”
…don’t even know why he changed his name…
The griffin told me to find Roane’s book and name. Ersil. A name he doesn’t want to be called by. He doesn’t want me to read his book, his journal, as if I’ll find clues that… I laugh. Funny. Clues that Roane isn’t who he says he is?
That’s definitely not what the griffin meant. And Roane is a fae male from a noble family. No question about it.
But his journal contradicts certain facts about him.
Like the library being open to visitors.
Like… I rerun the passages I had read in Ersil’s journal through my mind.
Like the fact that Ersil was seduced by Merhill.
A male name, a name Roane doesn’t seem familiar with.
Also, let’s not forget that Ersil says he likes reading and studying.
Ersil who writes with flourishes and received visitors… doesn’t sound like Roane.
Which doesn’t mean anything of substance.
There can be an explanation for every item.
Maybe Merhill wasn’t that important to Roane and time erased him from Roane’s memory.
As for reading and writing, loneliness changes people.
He has been here an awfully long time, most of which he spent on his own.
His power… isn’t that of a librarian, although he has the librarian’s ring.
I breathe in the cold air, gripping the phoenix’s hot neck. What else? What else had bothered me?
“The cemetery,” I say. “Why was Roane kneeling in the cemetery? What was that tombstone? Why did he say it was an empty tomb? We have to find it.”
“What does it matter?” Olm asks.
“I think… I think I know who is buried there.” The chilling thought grips me and won’t let go. “Simu, take me to the cemetery, please. There is something important I need to verify.”