Chapter 36
Sage
Hours later, I sat at the small study table across from the two chairs where Tyon and I did our first reading lesson, a book open in front of me and four others piled to the side, their leather spines cracked and faded.
No one had been in the library when I’d entered and started randomly searching for anything of interest, and no one had entered while I’d sat here reading.
Dust motes drifted through the soft light emanating from the fae lights scattered through the room and the pale gray light coming from the skylight above, and the scent of old paper and worn leather filled my nose with every breath, making it twitch.
I didn’t enjoy libraries, not like Sawyer did, but I did recognize the necessity for information, and I was more than willing to force myself to sit still long enough to learn what I needed to. Especially since this was information I couldn’t just ask anyone about.
Sure, maybe Lord Quill might have information about the things I needed to know, but I didn’t want to bother him, and if I had, I doubt I’d have found the current book I was reading.
Hell, from their location and the amount of dust covering them, I doubted anyone knew about the books I’d discovered.
I wasn’t even sure why I’d wandered into that particular corner and then thought of looking at the bottom shelf. Well… actually I did. I just wasn’t sure I wanted to acknowledge it.
I’d gotten a feeling.
It wasn’t an actual vision or a sense of dread like I’d gotten before. It was just a sense that it was logical to search the library from the beginning and that bottom shelf in that far corner was somehow “the beginning.”
And right there, tucked into a corner, were five books, all on fae-touched humans — the kind with magic, not the kind that were men attracted to men.
The first two books looked like philosophical theory on fae-touched humans: their possible connection to the fae, and why and how they had magic.
I skimmed the first couple pages of each of those books and they looked drier than dust. Something Sawyer would have loved and spent all day reading.
The next book, however, was more like a journal written over four hundred years ago by a scholar who, in his words, wrote “scholarly observations about particular cases.” He’d interviewed fae-touched humans and gathered eye-witness testimony about the humans and their abilities.
The first three-quarters had been fascinating with fae-touched humans who demonstrated magical abilities as strong as, sometimes stronger than, a fae’s.
He even interviewed and recorded information about a human sorcerer who could manipulate raw magical power to imitate almost any fae ability — as opposed to the other fae-touched humans who only possessed a single ability.
I finished reading about a man with the ability to summon fire, who singlehandedly held Zumar’s pass in the Grimmar Mountains in the north of the Kingdom of Irialas for five days, holding off a monstrous horde until help could arrive.
The fourth bell rang, reminding me that I should probably get up and eat lunch, but I flipped the page instead, curious who the next fae-touched human would be.
Turi of the Stone Touch: freed slave from Helialonde.
I stared at the swirling, ornamented text — obviously a carefully made translation from the original fae language. Turi was a woman’s name.
Up until now, all of the fae-touched humans mentioned in the book were men, and I didn’t know if that meant mostly men had magical abilities or if no one had cared to pay any attention to the women who’d been gifted with magic.
I leaned closer, my elbows pressing against the worn wood of the table.
Turi, who yes, indeed, was a woman, had lived in the Kingdom of Helialonde a hundred and fifty years before the Shadow Gate opened… so about six hundred and fifty years ago.
She’d been a slave to the king of Helialonde, with a magical ability called Petrifying Touch that could turn any living thing to stone.
I shuddered at the thought. I couldn’t imagine discovering I had that ability. My ability first manifested as a sense of unease and knowing. She had most likely accidentally turned something, hopefully a plant or bug or something and not a human, to stone.
Father, I couldn’t imagine how terrifying that must have been.
And yet, from the scholar’s account, Turi could control her ability. It wasn’t random, not like my magic, and it didn’t threaten her sanity.
Which of course then begged the question, why had she remained a slave? Her magic was powerful enough that she could escape her situation, flee to a different kingdom and hide what she could do.
The account told how Turi’s magic manifested when she was a child, younger than even Sawyer was now, and how the king of Helialonde had used her to threaten his nobles into compliance and execute his dissenters. Turi was convinced she needed to comply to protect her family.
And six hundred and fifty years later in another lifetime that could have been me. If Edred had discovered my magic, what would I have agreed to in order to protect Sawyer?
I huffed a bitter laugh.
I’d have agreed to anything. My current situation was proof enough.
I turned the page, read the next paragraph, blinked, and read it again.
Turi was discovered by the scholar because she’d started manifesting in the Garden. There’d been rumors about the King of Helialonde’s executioner’s horrifying magic, but no one had known that executioner was a woman until she’d arrived in the Garden confused and afraid.
The scholar wrote that her ability to manifest her spirit form in the Garden had to be a second magical ability since prior to her appearance no fae-touched human, male or female, had ever manifested in the Garden.
As well, no fae-touched human had ever been able to physically enter the Garden, just like any other human.
My pulse picked up. The book was over four hundred years old. Had other humans been able to enter the Garden since?
Perhaps my appearance there, while rare, wasn’t an impossibility like I’d originally believed. Perhaps there wasn’t something wrong with me.
The text theorized that the sheer strength of her magical ability gave her the strength to manifest her spirit. Her power was so potent that the magical spark in her soul was closer to that of a fae’s than a human’s.
Was that how I was doing it? My visions had been growing stronger and more frequent. Did that mean the spark in my soul was strong enough to defy the laws of nature?
Except I’d already read an account of a fae-touched human sorcerer who hadn’t manifested in the Garden, and surely a sorcerer was more powerful than someone with a single ability.
Of course, that didn’t necessarily mean the sorcerer hadn’t been able to manifest in the Garden, only that he hadn’t done so.
I turned back to the book. When Turi manifested, the scholar described that she had pale, partially formed mating marks that glowed with power even though she was clearly human with rounded ears and plain brown eyes.
Hunh. So even she’d had mating marks.
Except when I manifested, I looked like a fae woman, and my marks were fully formed. My ears were also pointed, my hair a deeper red, more like a fae hair color, and my eyes jewel toned.
Still. I had evidence that a human could manifest in the Garden, even if I manifested slightly differently than Turi.
The scholar went on to say that despite being human and despite the partial marks, fae men had been drawn to her, and she’d fallen in love with two of them.
Those two men had eventually rescued her from slavery, saving both her and her family, and brought her to the fae realm where she was able to physically enter the Garden.
My throat tightened and I sat back in the hard wooden chair.
What would it be like to have someone care for you so much that they’d risk the ire of a king to save you?
Those men could have started a war between the fae and human realms, and they’d still saved her.
The thought caught in my chest, sharp and unwelcome. Would Ash save me if I told him the truth? Father, I wanted him to. But I doubted any of the other men would.
I wasn’t sure why Rider, Talon, and Quill were protecting me, even though I was grateful they were, but I doubted they’d go to the trouble of saving both me and Sawyer. Especially when it became clear I’d been lying to them from the beginning about everything.
And really, it didn’t matter.
I couldn’t risk Sawyer’s life by revealing myself. Not to anyone. Not until I knew he’d had enough time to escape the Five Great Kingdoms.
According to the scholar, Turi’s marks had never fully formed.
And although a few did eventually change color, she never created mating bonds with her men, even though she loved them and they loved her, and they never mated again after she’d lived out her short human lifespan.
The scholar concluded that despite Turi demonstrating fae-like abilities in manifesting and even presenting with mating marks that glowed with an albeit weak power, a human never had the possibility of forming a Goddess-blessed mating bond.
At least that was good news.
I mean it wasn’t good news for poor Turi and her mates who’d probably spent centuries mourning her. But it sounded like even if the power in my mating marks reawakened, I wouldn’t be able to form a bond.
Or at least form a bond in a natural way. What Wells and Crane and those other men had tried to do had been unnatural, and the bond, even if it looked natural, couldn’t have been.
So, as long as I didn’t let some crazy man magically force a bond on me, I was safe. No matter what happened in the Garden, even if I had another desire spike or my marks reawakened, I couldn’t accidentally end up bonded to anyone.
I closed my eyes and my heart ached to be in Ash’s arms again. Talon and Quill had satisfied a need, and as much as I was attracted to them, desired them, maybe even craved them, I didn’t feel the depth of comfort and safety I did with Ash.
Father, if I could resume what I had with Ash, I could get through anything. With Ash, at least my nights would be safe.
My body and soul ached for that, a soft place to be, a place where I could have desire and grief and all of my emotions without having to look over my shoulder or pretend to be someone I wasn’t.
I needed to make that happen. No, it would happen.
Once Crane was captured, I’d be free to move around the Garden like I wanted again.
I had to. I’d only survived two rotations in the Gray and manifesting in the Garden, and I had at least three — better if it was four — more rotations to go to ensure Sawyer’s safety.
A lot had already happened, and I feared a lot more still would. For all I knew Mikel and his friends were planning a big attack, or Crane was plotting some other way to force a bond on me.
If I had Ash—
“Sawyer?”
I jerked backward, my heart pounding, furious that I’d been so lost in thought I hadn’t heard anyone approaching in the silent library.
Tyon stood at the end of the aisle, his warm brown eyes wide, a thin book clutched to his chest.
“Did you find… the books?” he asked, his voice dropping low, a blush staining his round cheeks.
What books—?
Ohhh.
When we’d first met in the library on our last lieu days, he’d thought I was looking for the dirty books.
My own cheeks heated. “No. I wanted to do more research into— Ah… shadows.”
His eyes narrowed, as if he didn’t believe me, then he shrugged and sat in the chair he’d sat in before for our reading lesson. “Do you mind if I sit here?”
“Not at all.”
I glanced back at my book. I wasn’t sure I wanted to continue reading. I’d learned a lot and my thoughts were already swirling, trying to make sense of everything I’d read.
“How about you show me the progress you’ve been making,” I suggested as I stood and stretched.
Hopefully, helping Tyon for a few hours would help me forget everything else, even if it was only for a little while.