Chapter 28 The Letter #2
"Don’t worry about me," he smiled with a devilish lilt in his voice. “This room is a luxury compared to the war camps and my father’s prisons.” He slid his hands from her face as she turned to go.
She touched her cheek to feel the place where his hand had been.
And for a moment, she was almost convinced that everything was fine, and that the strange feeling she’d had when she stepped into the room was nothing more than her instinct of being overly cautious.
But as she turned to go, a wind blew through the cracks in the stone, ruffling the velvet curtain against the back wall, and she glanced back just in time to see what looked like heavy chains with shackles peeking out from underneath.
And all at once that bristling, frigid terror came back, gripping her like a winter’s noose.
She didn't keep her promise. Her thoughts taunted her all night, hardly allowing for any restful sleep.
Before the first light of dawn could illuminate the castle, she threw a coat over her nightgown, descending the tower to make her way to the library with one lone candelabra lighting the way.
She searched by dim candlelight through the shelves, desperately seeking a particular book on runes she'd vaguely recalled seeing before.
And as she searched, something called to her from a corner of the library.
Something whispering in the darkness like the familiar sound of Shadow wraiths creeping through the forest—something guiding her.
It felt like Nocthar, only it wasn’t. It was more like her own intuition, drawing her to some obscure section of the room so strongly that she couldn’t ignore it.
And as she found herself shuffling through the dust-covered books where her impulse had led, she felt her vision heightened —as though she was seeing with impossible eyes—seeing light and shadow in places where they wouldn’t normally be visible. It almost seemed like…magic.
But it couldn’t be magic. She was simply feeling what she’d always felt when she was deep within her Woods—a draw to the shadows, like a dance partner that guided her through each step and linked with each movement through her soul.
She just didn’t understand why she felt it here, far from her shadowy refuge.
As she brushed her hand across a selection of old, cracked books, she felt the strong urge to pluck the books off their shelves, and she did.
One by one, she pulled out the books, letting each drop to the floor.
Until one fell open perfectly at her feet to reveal a crumpled, folded piece of paper nestled in its pages.
She picked the worn paper up, unfolded it, and let her eyes scan the words.
To the Esteemed High King and Queen of the Lightborn Court,
I write to you from a place I cannot reveal, and with a name you may have long forgotten. Yet silence now would make me complicit in what is to come.
King Daemar speaks of a celebration to honor your kingdoms’ unity and to show his gratitude for your magic’s intervention that granted him a child.
But the truth is, the event is a trap. Even my fellow ambassador has been deceived, and plans to attend in good, but misplaced faith, despite my warning. Perhaps you will heed it.
The King blames your court and your magic for his misfortunes, and he no longer sees magic as an ally, but as the greatest enemy to our realm.
This grand celebration is a snare carefully set to exterminate your court and mark an age of persecuting your people.
And he will call it justice, security, and order.
I do not send this out of loyalty to your Court, nor out of sentiment. I send it because I know how this ends if I do not—and it ends in blood. Our kind have warred for far too long to allow the horrors of war to flourish again in the name of eradicating the magic that marks our blood.
The man who once believed humans and Lightborn can rule alongside each other peacefully no longer exists. In his place stands a king who has decided that the Lightborn must suffer the same fate as my people, if not worse.
I know that you will have suspicions because I am a Shadowblood, and you believe me to be your natural enemy. Act as you will. Delay, prepare, expose him—or dismiss this as shadowmongering. I will not write again.
—Morveth
Something chilled her to the marrow. This Morveth, a Shadowblood of all people, had sent a warning to the Lightborn about the ball where they would be ambushed and massacred. He was trying to save them, strange as it was. And they had clearly not heeded his warning…
Or perhaps they never received it. Why else would it be tucked away here, hidden in a decaying section of the library? Unless someone had hidden it here to keep the warning from ever reaching the Lightborn king.
But why had it called to her? What did it matter now?
She placed all the books on the floor back on the shelves as best she could remember their order, keeping the note folded in her free hand.
Then she returned to find her rune book.
When she found it, bound in dark red leather, she tucked the letter away between its pages and carried it back up to her room.
Swathed in a heavy blanket to fight off the autumn chill, she shifted through the pages, quickly scanning the meanings of various runes and their meanings, hoping to find a match for the mark the Woods had given her when it’d drawn out the patterns of her Shadowblood veins into tree-like lines and reaching roots.
All Shadowbloods were said to have had black veins somewhere on their bodies to mark their tainted blood.
But she’d never heard of the veins taking the form of a symbol.
Near the middle of the book, a section on binding and confining magic caught her attention. She slowed her reading, examining each category of symbols, searching for something that mirrored what marked her skin. But each one seemed so rigid, so crude in its form and simplicity.
The mark on her arm was nothing like them.
It might as well have been alive, with its subtle violet sheen and its intricate design.
It spread like a living thing, black lines branching outward like the roots of a tree driven deep beneath the skin, each line tapering and twisting as if it had grown rather than been carved.
The sharpest angles lay in the way the two end tree roots spread outward from the center one, almost like bird wings, before swooping down to coil in fluid, delicate lines across her skin.
As though the Shadows had chosen their own shape, and left a hidden meaning buried beneath it.
She lowered her arm, unsettled. Whatever she was, whatever secrets marked her, she was no closer to understanding it than before.
As her eyes began to grow heavy from lack of sleep, she yawned, the words beginning to blur on the page before her.
She stopped to stretch and rest her eyes, shuddering from the morning cold.
The window had been somewhat repaired, but the draft still snuck in on windy days.
She looked down again, determined to push through her tiredness and continue.
As she turned another page, the echoes of footsteps in the stairwell drew her attention to the door she'd left open.
Within seconds, Asterious stood in the doorway, drawing a breath as he leaned on the doorpost. “Sleep well?”
“Well enough.” Caramyn said, not even looking up as she continued flipping through pages.
He took two steps into the room. “I grant you freedom of the entire castle, yet you choose to stay up here.” He purred.
She pulled her blanket close around her, shifting to hide the book pages from his sight. “It’s just that it’s freezing in this castle, and I’m too cold to move.”
The prince eyed the blanket wrapped around her, then glanced back at the fireplace behind her. “Have you used the fireplace? I’m sure it would help.”
“What a novel idea.” Caramyn shrugged with a playful glance. “It’s out of firewood if you haven’t noticed.”
Asterious walked over to inspect the stony hearth. “Indeed,” he cooed.
Turning around, to face Caramyn, he sat down beside her on the floor, his long black coat trailing on the floor. "What are you reading?"
"Nothing important for now. I was just finishing up actually." She closed the book, mindful of his glance down at the pages.
“Then…would you like to join me to get more firewood?”
Caramyn eyed the prince at her shoulder. “You? Firewood? Who's going to carry the axe?"
Asterious rolled his eyes, leaning in towards her.
“Guess we'll find out if it counts or not.
I haven't tried an axe yet.” He chuckled.
"And if not, it'll be a nice change of pace to go for a ride anyway. I think we could both use a little fun before we set out tomorrow and head towards imminent death and darkness.”
“Alright, fine.” Caramyn shoved the book away. “I suppose the fresh air could do us both some good.”
“It will. We can ride to the cliffs by the sea. It's quite the view by horseback.” Asterious practically leaped to his feet, and Caramyn couldn’t help but feel a warm prick of endearment at his excited reaction. “I’ll have the horses readied. Meet me in the courtyard in twenty minutes.”
When he had retreated back down the tower stairs, she unraveled herself from the blanket and readied herself for a ride. Perhaps it would do her good to give her mind a break from forbidden runes and secret letters.