Chapter 17
Seventeen
Vast Knowledge
Thain didn’t mention the previous night at breakfast. He didn’t mention it while we walked through the city, or when we entered the palace and went down the long, torchlit hallways that led to the library.
By nature it wasn’t unusual for him to not talk much, but I couldn’t stop thinking about how he’d looked by the fire as I went up the stairs and away from him.
Guilt sat like a stone in my belly, but so did the terror of facing my magic. I could feel it struggling against the seal, and it only grew stronger as I stayed here. The distraction was particularly fierce today, and I nearly ran into Thain as he stopped at the doors.
“This is the Library of Autumn. The other courts have their own equivalent.” He stood aside to show me the elaborately carved wooden doors, a cold metal handle shaped like vines protruding from each.
“That handle is iron, to remind us of the sacrifices it takes to carry the burdens of truth.” He pointed to the left handle first, then the right. “This one is silver, to remind us of the riches those truths can bring us.”
“Does it matter which one we open?” I asked, my words bouncing off the stone floors.
“Every choice in the Wyldes matters.” There was an intensity to his words, his gaze, that wasn’t out of place for the impassive Thain but was still not quite expected.
My first thought was to suffer with the iron handle, even though it wouldn’t hurt me to do so.
My hand lifted toward it first, but something stopped me.
It made sense to suffer for the reward, but I wasn’t the one doing the suffering of research.
I was here only for the riches of knowledge.
I placed my hand on the silver handle and let us in.
Once my eyes adjusted to the candlelight, before me I saw a room of books, scrolls, and shuffling scribes. The shelves stood in the middle of the room so the walls would be free to hold a massive mural.
Thain strode through the library and straight to the desk of a dusty gray creature. With an upper half something like a human and the ears and lower half of something goat-like, he sat, hunched over a half-written scroll, drinking deeply from a wine bottle.
“I told you, Memna will bring the documents when they are ready. Not a moment sooner.” He stroked his beard and continued scrawling.
Thain didn’t make a sound, he just waited patiently for the scribe to look up from his papers. It didn’t take more than a moment for him to finish the line he was working on and set his charcoal stick down.
“Lord Thainalan!” The creature shot up, nearly knocking his wine bottle on the floor. “What brings you to the library, business for the king?”
“Not specifically. I’m here for this one.” Thain nodded toward me. “This is Wren.”
As if that was enough of an introduction. But before I opened my mouth to clarify, the librarian’s goat ears twitched, and he crinkled his nose.
“Wren, where have I heard that today? Wren! The found faeling?”
I muttered under my breath, “I’m not a child.”
“The very one,” Thain answered, folding his arms over his chest and leaning his hip against the desk.
The librarian looked downright giddy as he clapped his hands together.
“Splendid! Wonderful to meet you. I would be delighted to share my knowledge.” He scooted off his chair and approached me slowly, crossing an arm over his chest in the palace salute.
“My name is Cosimo, the caretaker of lore here at the palace. I would be happy to give you a brief history of the Wyldes.”
“Hello, Cosimo.” I mimicked the Autumn greeting.
“I’ll wait here. I have something I need to look into.” Thain waved over a clerk, who scurried over with her arms full of documents.. “Cosimo is a satyr of abundant knowledge; he can answer your questions, and I’ll be here when you’re done.”
“All right,” I began, but already Cosimo was practically bouncing next to me.
“This way, Miss Wren!” Cosimo’s hooves clicked on the stone floor as he led me to a far wall. Candles flickered from every angle, and I was mesmerized by an ancient mural that stretched from one corner of the library wall to the other.
“We’ll start here, one of my favorite pieces.
This is the tale of beginnings.” Cosimo pointed to the first part of the mural, a collection of stars.
Cosimo’s soft voice lilted through the story.
“One day, two of the stars descended, creating the Mother and Father to all fae kind. They called themselves Titan and Oba. From them sprang all life in the Wyldes.”
I leaned in to inspect the two figures, depicted with a shining light around their bodies. The next images were of a ferocious war. I grimaced, wondering what would lead to that so quickly in the mural.
“With their work completed, Titan and Oba returned to the stars, leaving their creations with only a few rules. Those rules guide how our magic functions. As I’m sure you’ve learned by now, we cannot lie, we cannot go against our word, and our magic is deeply connected to our emotions.
What magic have you been blessed with?” Cosimo asked.
Grimacing, I kept myself facing the mural. “Nothing yet, maybe nothing at all as I’m only half fae.”
Cosimo tutted with sympathy, looking as though he wanted to talk about it.
“The stars.” I changed the subject, pointing to the next bit of the mural. “They left?”
Cosimo’s attention moved back to the wall, and I sighed.
“Indeed, they did. With the stars returned to the sky, none were left standing above the creatures they had created. A bloody war broke out as the fae fought to establish rulership over one another.” We walked further to find a circle of creatures somewhere in the Wyldes.
“After what we’ve come to call the Five-Hundred-Year War, a conference was held.
Representatives of each faction came forward to end the fighting and attempt peace. ”
“Five hundred years?” I gasped.
“And another year for the conference.” Cosimo moved along. “I’ll skip the failed attempts, but suffice to say the end result was the four courts we have today. Moving down here, we see the establishment of boundaries, and first contact with humans.”
“The fae were here that long before humans?” I asked, not that it surprised me terribly.
“Oh my, yes, and longer than I’ve gone into explaining, but here you see first contact.
” Cosimo pointed as he spoke. “Ancient humans were seen as little better than cattle. No magic, short-lived, and they breed like flies. Wars happened, human numbers against fae magic. Messy business. In the end, a healthy fear of the fae was established simply to keep them out of the rich lands of the Wyldes.”
“I had no idea there were wars, that the humans could even fight back enough to be worth the effort.” I traced the tile border of stars around the mural.
“You aren’t the first to voice their surprise.” Cosimo chuckled. “Moving on, here we see the crowning of King Baeleon . . .”
I was taken down the wall through coronation and war. The fae had not been a peaceful people until very recently. Entire races had died out. A particularly terrible war had Cosimo stopping to sigh.
“The War of the Wyldes.” He rubbed his temples. “An opposition to the long-established courts. Some races choose to live in the Unclaimed Wyldes rather than under the banner of one of the courts.”
“Aren’t there still fae creatures living in the Unclaimed Wyldes?” I asked.
“Yes, some. Not nearly the numbers there were before this war.” He stroked his beard. “This was the last time the four courts truly worked together. Countless lives were lost, sadly. The four courts won, barely. Unseelie horrors . . . Er, do you know about the seelie and unseelie?”
“Yes, I’ve been told a little about that,” I said.
“Right, good. Many unseelie horrors were wiped out, but of course not completely. The dragons were wiped from these lands, or at least none have been seen since, but the devils can sleep for centuries in hiding, so who really knows? The elves were nearly decimated. Heh, now there was a faction that left cursing our names. They were banished, and our kind doesn’t live well outside the magic of the Wyldes.
I think they numbered only five males anyway, so even if they live there remain only five.
An entire breed of dryad was nearly wiped off the map, but the few who had remained loyal to the courts have really brought their species back to thriving.
The selkies were banished, though a few weakened descendants still lurk along the coasts to prey on humans from what I’ve heard. ”
The mural spared no gory detail as a dragon was gutted with spears.
A dark blue fae was depicted ripping off something’s head.
I shuddered, sneaking a glance to the middle of the room where Thain sat by Cosimo’s desk.
Moving down, I saw several figures that froze me in place.
They looked human, or they were depicted with the round ears that humans had been shown with earlier.
But these figures wore draped clothing in dark colors, and their lifted hands glowed with a color I knew all too well: a bright purple fire.
These were witches, and they were being slaughtered with the rest of the creatures in the mural.
An arrow shot through one of them, and purple fire consumed a fae warrior opposite the witches.
Was this what had made Thain say those things back at the outpost?
“How awful,” I whispered.
“What I’m truly glad to see gone are the upir.” Cosimo scrunched up his face, oblivious to my distress. “An ugly breed of creature. Crafty things, though, so a couple may have survived, but none have been seen.”