Chapter 36
Chapter
Thirty-Six
Erinna’s fingers curled around a dusty scroll.
She unfurled it carefully—a summons to a palace in the Great East that no longer existed.
The parchment crumbled at the edges; it was at least sixty years older than her.
She cursed and dropped it back on the shelf, watching dust motes spiral up in the stale air.
Focus. Raye had given her a task. A location, a title, and a small promise that there was a book that may help her come to understand the Talent that lurked within her.
The library stretched far beyond what she imagined.
Each towering shelf was heavy with the dust of forgotten years.
The witchlights flickered the deeper she roamed, casting dancing shapes across the bindings of old tomes.
Most bore no titles. Others whispered warnings in scripts so faded, Erinna had to squint to read them.
She kept moving, trusting Raye’s directions.
After the tenth intersection, Erinna started to believe that Raye had been misguided. That there was no such book to help her with her Talent.
Then she stopped.
A crooked desk was wedged between two leaning shelves, its wood blanched with age. This was where Raye said it would be.
Erinna scanned the cluttered surface. Old quills. Broken seals. A teacup filled with something that might once have been liquid. And there—half-buried beneath an avalanche of loose pages—
Her fingers found the cover first. Worn leather, warped at the corners. The title, though faded, could still be read beneath the glow of flickering witchlights. “On the Domains of Witches and Wickedry,” she murmured, brushing away cobwebs and dust.
This was it.
Beneath the book were folded, crumbling notes. Erinna spread them open with deliberate care. The late Chancellor's handwriting filled each page in cramped, urgent lines. Warnings. Names she half-recognized. One line stood apart.
In time, the shield will come—beware the rise of Starhaven.
Erinna frowned and slipped the piece of parchment between the pages, tucking the book beneath her arm. Another journal snagged her attention. Not because of the title, but because someone had used it. More recently than the rest.
An illustrated book of genealogy. Northern tribes and kingdoms, their lineages branching across vellum in fading ink. She flipped to the front matter and went still—a publication date that predated the Veil itself. Before the Great North had become the sequestered, outcast continent.
Her mother was from the north, maybe there was information on her heritage in there. Erinna’s thumb hovered over the front page, tempted to dive in and search for her own name buried somewhere in those ancient roots.
No. Her father’s bloodline was the one marked with the curse. That was what she should focus on next.
Still. Knowledge was knowledge. She slipped the book into her bag.
Erinna moved to the next closest bookshelf. At least one section had been labeled: Blessings. She sighed and tapped worn and weary spines.
“I could use one of these right now.”
Driven by curiosity and desperation, Erinna rifled through a few of the pieces.
She scanned the pages for illustrations that resembled her mark, or for anything that might protect her against the curse itself.
Perhaps these works would be more useful than she originally thought.
Some of the magic was simple and old, designed for those without a Talent, or with a Talent that was less than adept.
A spell for protection against inebriation, an incantation to confuse tax collectors.
She shoved that one back with more force than necessary.
It was the kind of magic that skirted too close to witchcraft, the kind that could earn you a fine with a year’s wages if you were caught performing such tricks without the approval of the crown.
She was getting distracted. She rolled up her sleeve to study the mark still haunting her forearm.
If this were truly a bloodline curse, she needed to trace it backward.
Find the source. The founding family member who’d earned or inherited this particular damnation.
She knew almost nothing about her father’s lineage—her parents had been tight-lipped about family history, and she’d never pressed hard enough to learn why.
Time to fix that.
Erinna waded deeper, hunting for anything related to druidic bloodlines or birth records.
Most were generic histories, but one title made her stop: A History of Modern Druidism.
She plucked it free. There was another next to it that seemed well used and recently pulled.
The Historical Accounts of Fables and Legends. She tucked it into her bag as well.
The witchlight grew dimmer as she pressed on. The air grew noticeably colder.
Erinna faltered at the change; the hair on the back of her neck rose. She emerged into a small alcove tucked between towering stacks and froze.
A massive cabinet dominated the far wall, its doors wrapped in chains and locks—three separate locks, each one etched with sigils she couldn’t read. Beside it sat a smaller wooden box, held shut by a simple clasp. Nothing elaborate. Nothing threatening.
But on the box’s lid, carved into the wood and faded by time, was a seal.
Erinna’s fingers tightened on her bag’s strap. She yanked up her sleeve, comparing the constellation on her forearm to the emblem before her. Not identical—but close. Three stars in the carved seal matched the three lowest stars on her mark with unnerving precision.
Talent thrummed beneath her skin, a vibration that spread from the mark outward.
She crouched, squinting in the failing light, searching for hidden sigils or tripwires. Nothing. Just a simple box with a simple clasp. Why lock one cabinet so thoroughly and leave the box next to it vulnerable?
Erinna reached for the clasp and hesitated, Afton’s warning echoing in her mind. “Don’t touch anything suspicious.” But the mark on the lid—those three stars—that couldn’t be mere coincidence. Perhaps something within the box was connected to the curse somehow.
She had to know.
With a grunt, Erinna lifted the lid. Heavier than expected—iron lining, maybe, meant to contain something. Stale air puffed into her face, and she coughed, waving away invisible particles. For a moment, she wondered exactly how dangerous it was to go rifling through a dead mage’s secrets.
But something urged her forward. A pull, deep in her chest. An ache to be released. To be free.
Erinna steadied herself and plunged her arm into the box.
Her fingers met nothing. No bottom. No sides. Just void, stretching down farther than the box’s dimensions should allow.
Her stomach dropped.
What the hells did I just put my hand into?