Chapter 54 Faylinn
Chapter Fifty-Four
Faylinn
Ancient parchment, dusty and weathered from time, crinkled under my hand as I traced barely legible runes with my fingertips.
My nose nearly grazed the pages as I tried desperately to make out the words that were written so many centuries ago.
The blue light from the Mage Orb I’d brought with me flickered periodically as the magic in it began to wane.
I’d sequestered myself in the library for hours now and was no closer to the location of the gods’ artifacts than I was when I entered.
Frustrated, I sat back in my chair with an audible groan as my back screamed in protest. It seemed that hunching over a paper for endless hours was not conducive to my muscles and joints.
Even when I closed my eyes, I could see the runes running across my eyelids as if they were burned in my retinas permanently; my mind continually turned over what I’d read, desperately trying to make sense of the words on the page.
The problem was none of it made sense—whether that was because locations changed names throughout the centuries or because some of the runes were so garbled and warped that their meaning was completely indecipherable, I wasn’t sure.
Either way, my task here tonight was relatively useless—an apt descriptor for the past six months.
Six months since the attack on Imena.
Six months since Folami lost Itanya, nearly breaking from grief; since we’d started preparing in earnest for Solace’s final move, one that we were sure would be swift and deadly, set on obliterating us all.
Six months of searching countless dusty tomes and disintegrating scrolls in the hopes of finding some sign of the gods’ artifacts—the only remaining tether for the gods’ souls; of watching countless Mages fall ill, under-drawing their power due to the sudden lack of crystals and no available alternative.
Six months, and I was no closer to any answers.
Sighing, I cracked my neck and fingers, forcing my stiff muscles and joints to move once more. The Bond Mark on my forearm pulsed faintly in comfort as my frustration and residual pain forced their way past my mental block and into Rohak’s mind.
It was damn near impossible, not to mention exhausting, to keep Rohak out of my head for long periods of time. What started as a relatively strong block that easily muted my emotions eroded to a crumbling wall with more holes than an ancient ruin.
I released my hold on it, briefly unveiling my thoughts and feelings. Immediately, I felt his block fall as well, as if he had a constant awareness of my guard, continually prodding at it just to see if it still stood.
Too exhausted to temper or dilute the emotions that whirled aggressively through my consciousness, I let them pour down the golden thread that connected us.
All of my frustrations and fears, thoughts of inadequacies and failures, flooded the Bond in a tidal wave of pure emotion.
I felt his brief surprise before he muted his emotions enough to simply absorb mine.
“Give them to me, Faylinn. Let me see you, let me feel you,” Rohak whispered, caressing my mind like a gentle summer breeze.
It carried notes of the evergreen forest that bordered my cottage in Isrun; warm and inviting, steadfast and so sure.
I’d thought he’d remind me more of a winter storm with his vague aloofness and near-constant frown, but it was what lay underneath that frosty exterior that defined Rohak.
He was the gentle to my volatile, the ease to my burdens, the only one able to calm the tempest of my rich emotions.
I sighed as the weight of my noxious thoughts lifted, shared by the one person who knew my soul as intimately as I knew myself.
As soon as the storm passed, Rohak immediately pushed a sense of awe and understanding, of courage and faith, down that golden string, straight through my own poorly held blockade.
It was as if he wrapped his strong arms around my soul, pulling it straight into his chest. I could feel the phantom touches of his thick fingers lacing through my curls, massaging the back of my head and neck to ease the tension that I held there.
My bones liquefied in the chair, and I hummed softly as I let him assuage my external pain and internal guilt.
I should block him, I should refuse his comfort and sweet mental caresses; I didn’t deserve them, not after I forcibly bound him to me for the rest of eternity, but I was simply too tired and too selfish to care.
I needed him, I wanted him, and I would take whatever he chose to give me, even if he deserved better than a Rune Master who couldn’t even decipher one simple text.
Rohak harrumphed through the Bond, displeased with the direction of my thoughts. A small smile played over my lips as I fell further into his warmth, dancing my fingers over the mark on my forearm.
I could get lost here, I whispered, not entirely sure if he’d hear the faint projection.
A deep rumble of a laugh was his response before I felt the thread of his soul bind tighter around mine.
You should, he whispered in return. I already have.
My breath caught in my throat, and I stifled a moan at the utter adoration he wove through the fibers of the Bond.
The sensation was pure ecstasy; arousal flooded my physical form as Rohak lavished attention and love on my soul.
My mind drifted down the Bond, wanting nothing more than to envelop myself in him fully, but was jolted from the warm reverie by a sudden, heavy presence.
My eyes snapped open as I detangled myself from Rohak and fixated on a void-like entity in the chair opposite.
“I didn’t even try to conceal my arrival,” a deep voice reverberated through the space, bouncing off the stacks of books and impossibly high ceiling.
“How—how did you get in here?” I croaked, disoriented and morbidly curious.
The dark god only raised his eyebrows with a slow blink.
“I’m a god,” he deadpanned as if that statement alone explained all of his actions and intricacies.
Maybe it does.
“And?” I pushed the heels of my palms into my eyes, too physically and emotionally taxed to have this exhausting conversation.
Kaos pushed an annoyed sigh through his nose. “I portaled here, obviously.”
“Obviously,” I grumbled. “What do you want?”
“You are a mouthy thing, aren’t you?” Amusement and vexation tickled his words, and I rolled my eyes in response.
“Your generation no longer has any respect for their deities, I swear,” he mumbled.
“What is it you want, Kaos?” I sighed in exasperation.
“Oh, so you do know who I am,” he practically purred, his body leaning forward so his forearms rested against the table.
“I saw you at the Battle of Vespera. Your presence and”—I gestured vaguely to his hulking form that nearly swallowed the chair he perched on—“physical attributes were obvious tells.”
Kaos hummed.
“In that case, you must know what it is I seek.”
I chewed my lower lip in thought, tattooed fingers drumming a senseless cadence against the wood table.
I shook my head once, curls bouncing about my shoulders from where they had pried loose from my bun.
The darkness that surrounded Kaos seemed to swell and undulate as his expression hardened, his obsidian eyes flashing dangerously. “Do not play coy with me, Rune Master. Ignorance does not suit you.”
The abrupt change in his demeanor had my head spinning as I tried to wrangle my thoughts into something tangible.
“What is it you’re seeking?” he asked, his voice no longer holding that serrated edge.
Kaos’ large, obsidian hands reached across the weathered table to the scrolls I’d carelessly left scattered and open.
Instinctively, my hand darted out, smashing a tome closed just as Kaos’ fingers grazed the pages.
Those impossibly dark eyes widened with surprise as he slowly turned to regard me, and his gaze made me want to sink into my chair.
“I—I don’t know why I just did that,” I admitted sheepishly.
“You have no self-preservation instincts, do you?” he asked incredulously, not a muscle twitching as he spoke. “I could kill you like that”—he snapped his fingers for emphasis, and I jolted at the sudden noise in the quiet library—“yet you slam a book on my hand?”
I chewed my lip in thought, choosing my words carefully. “I don’t always think everything through before I act.”
“Clearly,” Kaos deadpanned, but he relaxed back in his chair, the wood squeaking with the strain.
“I heard you were looking for lost things,” he stated plainly, softly, gaze darting to the quiet corners of the room as if searching for prying eyes and listening ears.
I shook my head, stray curls bouncing around my face. Kaos frowned, but I interrupted before I could speak.
“I am looking for . . . lost things. But there’s no one else here to overhear our conversation,” I said.
“Where are the librarians? Those creepy fuckers in the black robes?”
An unrestrained and completely unexpected bark of laughter exploded from my lungs, and I covered my mouth in embarrassment.
I coughed when Kaos said nothing, taking a minute to compose myself before dropping my hands to the table once more with an audible thunk. “Sirak and his . . . associates have been moved to an alternate, more secure location.”
A feral smile spread across Kaos’ face, understanding glinting in his eyes.
“What lost things are you seeking, Rune Master?” Kaos asked again, clearly pleased with my answer.
I huffed a laugh, rolling my eyes and cracking my neck a second time.
“What lost thing am I not seeking, is probably a more apt question.”
Kaos hummed, his large fingers drumming on the pockmarked wood.
“Then you should find a Keeper. They tended to look after lost things,” he said offhandedly, but something about the way he phrased his statement alarmed me.
“The Keepers are dead,” I said, slowly sitting up in my chair until I was leaning on the table, trying to get as close to him as the god would allow. Kaos watched my movement with shrewd eyes, a small smirk lifting the corners of his mouth.
“Yes,” he admitted bluntly. “But even in death, they protect what was lost.”
“The Valley was burned. It doesn’t exist anymore, Kaos.”
“Hmm. Too bad, that,” he said, standing from the chair suddenly. I moved backward and craned my neck so I could continue to watch him. “They liked their secrets nearly as much as my sister. Secret rooms, buried information, hidden libraries. That sort of thing.”
My eyes widened at both the information and the offhanded way Kaos spoke.
“What do you want for that?” I asked, warily narrowing my eyes and crossing my arms.
Kaos grinned, his teeth glinting in the low light of the library. I shivered despite the relative warmth of the space, and Kaos’ smile only widened at the motion.
“There will come a time soon that I will need your help. Yours and that of the female godling’s. Best to make sure she comes with you on your little adventure, hmm?” he said as the library door creaked open with a loud bang.
My head flew to where the light streamed in from the large open doors. Rohak stood between them like some dark sentinel, his features unreadable and masked from the glare behind.
“Find the truth within the lies, Rune Master. Only then will you truly see,” Kaos urged, lingering long enough for Rohak to ascertain his identity before he opened a portal as black as the Academy’s scarab stone and stepped through, disappearing from sight.