Chapter 29
LYRA
You would think stealing a book no one knew was there in the first place would be easy.
It was not. The Codex did not make it any easier.
I stood in the narrow chamber beneath the oldest archive stacks with both hands planted on either side of it, staring down at pages that had been perfectly cooperative right up until the moment I tried to close them.
“Don’t start with me.” A page turned slowly.
Blank parchment stared back. Light gathered beneath my fingertips.
“I’m serious.” Another page turned. Also blank.
I hooked my fingers beneath the cover and tried again.
The book slammed shut on them. “Shit!” I jerked my hand free.
The silver markings pressed into the cover gave one faint pulse.
I stared at it. “You did that on purpose. Vareena already knows about the Shadow.” Nothing.
“She covered my rune from two healers and lied directly to Halos.” The cover lifted.
A word appeared in the center of the page:
Poorly.
“She did very well.” The letters disappeared.
I glanced toward the hidden door. There were plenty of reasons not to take the Codex upstairs.
Chief among them was the fact that no one appeared to know it was here.
If I carried it into a corridor and someone recognized it, I doubted I found this sentient ancient artifact inside a wall would do much for my standing with the Sanctum.
Leaving Vareena out of this had become equally ridiculous.
She knew about my Shadow. She knew the Starborn stories.
Her father had known Aurenya Evanora and Maerox Veylan when they trained here.
Tomorrow night, Kieran and I were supposed to start digging through Sanctum records for whatever people had spent centuries removing from them.
And Vareena was sleeping six feet from me while I pretended none of those things connected.
I put one hand flat on the Codex. “I’m taking you upstairs.
” The silver lines brightened. “That wasn’t a request.”
It rarely is with you.
“Oh, good. We understand each other.” I closed the cover.
This time it let me. That should have been reassuring.
It wasn’t. The Codex was heavier than it looked.
I slid it beneath my cloak, tucked it against my ribs, and immediately regretted every decision that had led me here.
The metal-edged cover pressed directly into the stitches Kieran had put in the night before.
I shifted it. Nope. That wasn’t any better.
The archive beyond the hidden chamber was almost empty.
Two Archivists occupied the front desk, one bent over a stack of loose folios while the other argued quietly with a candidate about the difference between restricted and temporarily unavailable.
An Earth wielder I vaguely recognized sat near the northern shelves with three books open around her and ink smeared along the side of one hand.
No one looked at me. Excellent. I stepped out.
The Codex shifted beneath my cloak. I stopped.
“You stay still.” A candidate two shelves over glanced toward me.
I smiled. He looked away. The stairs from the old archive level seemed considerably longer while carrying an object that could potentially get me imprisoned, dissected, expelled, or some unpleasant combination of the three.
At the second landing, the Codex slipped lower against my ribs.
Pain tore through the stitched wound. I hissed and caught it against my stomach.
“Lyra?”
I nearly died. Master Rhovan stood halfway down the opposite staircase with a bundle of rolled maps tucked beneath one arm. “Master.”
His attention dropped to the hand gripping the front of my cloak. I released it. “You’re pale.”
“I’m injured.” Brilliant.
He studied my face. “You should still be resting.”
“So everyone keeps telling me.”
“And yet here you are.”
“Terrible listener.”
“That much I had gathered.” His mouth almost moved. Then the maps began slipping beneath his arm, and he adjusted them. “You should avoid strenuous training until that leg closes properly.”
“I will.”
Rhovan looked at me. I looked at him. Neither of us believed me. Apparently he lacked the energy to argue. “Good evening, Alerain.”
“Master.”
I made it three more steps before the Codex shifted again.
I bit down on a curse. Very convincing. By the time I reached the Luminari Halls, sweat had gathered beneath my shirt despite the chill in the corridors.
One turn. Then another. Our door came into view.
I shifted the Codex beneath one arm and dug through my pocket for the key.
The book slipped. I caught it against my injured side.
My vision went white. “Fuck—” The door opened.
Vareena stood on the other side in a sleeveless sleep tunic, her dark hair piled loosely on top of her head.
Her gaze dropped. I had one arm wrapped around the front of my cloak as though I were smuggling an infant.
“What did you do?”
“Why do you immediately assume I did something?”
“Because you look guilty.”
I slipped inside. Vareena shut the door behind me and locked the bottom latch before turning around. “What is under your cloak?”
“Before you react—”
“No.”
“I haven’t said anything yet.”
“Any sentence beginning with before you react requires me to react first.”
“That is deeply unreasonable.”
“Show me.”
I sighed and carefully pulled out the Codex. Vareena went quiet. Her eyes moved over the silver-edged pages, the strange markings pressed into the leather, the metal corners. “What is that?”
“Remember how you asked what I wasn’t telling you?”
Her eyes lifted to mine. “Yes.”
“This is part of it.”
“Part?”
“Yes.”
“How many parts are there?”
“Can we focus on this one for right now?” I carried the book to my bed. It remained perfectly still. Suspiciously still. I set it down. Vareena approached more slowly.
“Where did you get it?”
“The archives.”
“You stole a book from the archives?”
“Technically.”
“Lyra.”
“I couldn’t exactly steal something no one knew was there to begin with.”
Her mouth opened. Closed. “Start over.”
I sat on the edge of the bed while Vareena remained standing.
Now that I was actually here, the explanation sounded considerably worse than it had downstairs.
Where did I even start? Hey, Vareena. By the way, an ancient book called me into the archives during my first week here, led me through a wall, knows things about my mother, calls me the same name as a prophecy half the continent thinks ends in catastrophe, and occasionally insults me.
Perfectly reasonable. “When I first came to the Sanctum, a voice called me to the archives.”
“A voice?”
“Yes.”
She waited.
“I know how that sounds. I genuinely don’t know how to make it sound better.”
“Okay.”
She still didn’t laugh. That helped. “It led me to this.” I rested my palm on the cover. Silver markings brightened beneath my hand. Vareena froze.
“That was not doing that before.”
“No.”
“What did you do?”
“Nothing.”
The light dimmed. She stepped closer. “Do it again.”
“I can’t. I don’t control it. Actually, it gets offended when I try.”
Vareena studied the Codex for a long moment. “What is it?”
“The Lumina Codex.”
She sat on the edge of her bed without taking her eyes off it. “The actual Lumina Codex?”
“There is only one, right?”
“That is generally how legendary artifacts work.”
“Well, I didn’t know.”
“And you brought it to our bedroom?”
“I was hoping you’d focus less on that part.”
“Sorry. I’m still stuck on you carrying one of the oldest magical objects in recorded history across the Sanctum under your cloak.”
“I never said it was a good plan.”
“Did anyone see you?”
“Master Rhovan was in the archives, but he didn’t see—”
She shot to her feet. “He saw you?”
“He passed me on the stairs. He did not see the book.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Completely?”
“Unless Rhovan can see through clothing.”
“That is not funny.”
“I wasn’t trying to be funny.”
Vareena began pacing between the foot of her bed and the window. Three steps forward. One turn. Three steps back. “You found the Lumina Codex during your first week here and told no one.”
“Correct.”
She stopped. “Kieran?” I hesitated. Her eyes narrowed. “Kieran knows.”
“He knows about it.”
“He hasn’t seen it?”
“Not that I know of.”
“How much does he know?”
“About the Codex?”
“About all of this.” I looked toward the book. “He knows it speaks to me. He knows it called me Starborn. He knows more about all of this than he’s willing to tell me.”
“And the Shadow.”
“Yes.”
Vareena stopped moving. “Lyra.”
“What?”
“You told Kieran Nyxara that you possess the Lumina Codex.”
“I didn’t exactly plan a formal announcement.”
“That isn’t what I’m saying.”
“Then what are you saying?”
She glanced at the locked door. When she looked back at me, she lowered her voice. “You know who he is, right?”
I frowned. “Yes.”
Apparently that was the wrong answer.
“He’s Kieran.”
“I am aware.”
“A Shadow wielder.”
“Still aware.”
“Lyra. Nyxara.”
I waited. She waited. Nothing happened. “Am I supposed to know what that means?”
“Oh, gods.”
“What?”
“You really don’t know.”
“Know what?”
Vareena sat beside me this time. “Kieran Nyxara is the Shadow King’s son.”
I laughed. Vareena didn’t. The laugh died. “You’re serious.”
“Very.”
I looked toward the door as though Kieran might materialize there because we had said his name too many times. “The king?”
“Yes.”
“Of Umbrael.”
“Lyra.”