Chapter Thirty two #2
“Holy fuck! If this is your library, what the hell does your palace look like?” he gasped, taking in the gold gilded book cases and grand skylight.
“We don’t have time for your snark right now. The book is through there.” Handing him the key, I motioned at the room. “You have thirty seconds. Go!” For once, he did as I asked, taking the key and vanishing in a cloud of shadow.
As I watched the corridor for any movement from Noor or Darce, I held my chest and tried in vain to regulate my breathing.
If any of us were found, it was treason.
Death was the only penalty. The fact that I had spent the last two hundred years thinking of ways to overthrow my father wouldn’t go down well, either.
Nell and Luz had been kept out of most of the planning, but Noor was right in the middle of it, and Darce, well, he had taken my pure essence. My father would kill all three of us.
Someone grabbed my waist, making me jump.
When I turned, I saw Darce holding the book.
Holy shit! He’d done it! “Come on. Let’s get out of here.
We only have so long to look at it.” Giving Noor the signal by coughing loudly, I wrapped my arms around his neck as Darce portalled us back to my bedchamber.
“You smug bastard,” I teased, watching the smile on his face. “Okay! I admit it. I should have listened to you sooner.”
“As much as I’d love to be smug about it, we don’t have time for all that.
” Moving to the bed, he placed the book down, then sat and patted the bed for me to join him.
“You can do the honours. I’m not sure I’ll understand much anyway.
” Taking the space next to him, I opened the book, frowning at the first distorted image.
Our two suns appeared to be connected somehow to the moons.
No, wait! Those weren’t our moons. I had seen those shapes before; it was depicting darkness.
“Darce,” my voice was strained, “this might sound crazy, but this image appears to show that light and darkness are bound together.”
“How? Our races have never been more fragmented.” As I turned the pages, I saw that the Dylin book was almost as worn as the others.
Letters were difficult to read, and some pages appeared to be missing.
The images about plant growth may have been the easiest to understand, but that might have been because Luz had already told me about them.
One image was clear: the balance between light, dark and moonlight. Was that the missing piece? Moonlight?
Looking at the words next to drawings of our suns, moons, and darkness, a familiarity hit. I had seen those words before in the other books. Lux, Lunae, and Tenebris.
“We’ve been blind,” I gasped as everything began to make more sense. “Lux, Lunae, and Tenebris. The ancient texts are talking about Light, Moon, and Darkness. Somehow, Lustre, Solace and Nantu went to war with each other, breaking the peace in Afterlight. Nantu and the moons are the missing piece.”
“Fuck! How could I have been so stupid?” Darce ran his hands through his hair, pulling on the ends.
I turned the final pages but couldn’t quite make out the last few images.
Was that light eclipsing the moon? Or darkness?
Luz had spoken a little about these images, but with most of the bottom half missing, it was difficult to understand.
It appeared to be a sword made of light and darkness.
“Why would Nantu intervene and cause a war between Solace and Lustre? This can’t have simply been about power.”
“Your legend about Anwar, the Dylin that betrayed Nantu...he doesn’t exist in our history.”
“What are you saying?”
“If Nantu was Noxlin, as your scriptures suggest, my kind removed Anwar from our history to protect themselves. Lustre knew the real reason Nantu made the Noxlin go to war against them. This is all about love. Nantu was cast out by her race for loving a Dylin, and Anwar betrayed her. Nantu took revenge against both races for their treatment of her. Somehow, she made them turn against each other. Your kind’s hatred of Nantu is because Solace knew the truth and tried to explain it in his version of events.
Lustre lied! She lied about everything. Making Dylin out to be pure and good.
Anwar and Lustre are the reason we are at war.
He tricked the moon goddess and damned us all!
” Had my race been deceitful all along? That bloodline ran through my veins, and it disgusted me.
“Alora, you can’t be sure of that.”
“Why is there no record of Anwar then?” I looked through the pages again, but it was all starting to make sense.
Light and dark worked together at the beginning.
The images in the Noxlin books were of peace.
“All my race does is lie! We know this! I think you’ve been right all along.
Before the Battle of False Promise there was peace in Afterlight. ”
Darce was going to say something, but an image in the book caught his eye.
“Is that part of Specter Isle?” He turned the book to get a closer look and studied it.
“What is that symbol above it?” It was hard to make out.
The round image was faded, but he was right.
It did look like a part of Spector Isle.
“I’m not sure, but we better get the book back before Uri feels a pull on his spell.” Darce nodded, and within seconds he disappeared, taking the book with him.
I was so angry that he had taken the book back alone, that I was pacing the room when he returned a minute later.
“You selfish prick! How dare you do that alone! What if someone saw you?” I yelled, storming across the room to hit his chest. “You fucking asshole!” Darce let me lash out at him, and once my body slumped, he wrapped his arms around me and held me tightly.
“It’s been a long night. Let’s get some rest,” he cooed into my hair before lifting me up in his arms. “It’s nice to see how much you worry for me, though, Starshine.” That smug grin was on his face again, but I didn’t have the energy to fight with him.
We learned so much information tonight. Having Darce’s suspicions confirmed was the breakthrough we needed. Knowing there had been peace in Afterlight gave us hope. Hope for the future. Hope for a world where Dylin and Noxlin could love each other freely.
In almost a thousand years, I hadn’t confessed my true feelings out loud. Of course both of us suspected what we felt, but saying it made our situation real...and our situation was going to be catastrophic.
Darce knew more than he was letting on about our outcome. Nisha’s vision about one of us dying to bring peace to Afterlight still played on my mind. There was truth behind it. A truth he couldn’t hide from me.
My Noxlin prince was selfless. I could see it deep in those tortured eyes each time I brought the subject up. I wasn’t the one who was going to lose their life. Darce would never allow it. What he didn’t know was that when it came to him, I was selfless, too.
If someone had to give up their life, it was going to be me!