Chapter 17
Ezer spent the rest of the day alone, curled up in the corner of the library beside a flickering fire. Her body was bruised something fierce, but a bit of Izill’s salve took the pain away.
She had lunch on the third floor while she scribbled notes down in an old worn journal, the sound of the nib scratching on parchment like a balm to her soul.
Her pocket warmed suddenly.
She nearly yelped from the heat, like an ember had sparked to life on the Speaking stone. She grasped it, hoping that would settle the surge of runic power.
Arawn’s voice caressed her mind from far away.
Alive and well after today’s session?
She’d never get used to that feeling of a human voice in her mind. It wasn’t like the wind’s whisper, a delicate thing that commanded her very soul to listen.
This was like he was well and truly here with her. She swore she could even smell his earthen scent.
I’m alive. But am I well? She thought back, then winced as a bit of ghostly pain echoed across her ribs. That remains to be seen. I could do with a bit of sugar to take the edge off.
He was quiet for a moment, and she wondered if he’d gone.
But then the stone warmed again, and his voice filled her mind.
I may die if this meeting with my father and the southern emissaries reaches its fourth hour. Should I survive … I’ll see what I can do.
The stone went cold, like he’d dropped his own hand from his.
She spoke to no one else over the next hour beyond the librarian, who was an older Sacred Scribe, bent at the back as he wheeled past, pushing carts of books. A small orange cat followed him, tail twitching in a very Six-like way.
‘Excuse me,’ Ezer said. ‘Excuse me?’
She’d never been very good at approaching people, always unsure of what their reaction would be when they saw her scars.
But the librarian did not balk at her.
In fact, he squinted at her, as if he could scarcely see. ‘If you’re looking for more literature on raphons, I’m afraid you’ll have to search a bit higher than I’ve time for these days,’ he said, glancing up. ‘Upper levels.’
‘Ah,’ Ezer said. ‘That’s … unfortunate.’
He didn’t ask why.
He just shrugged as the cat began to circle around his ankles, purring loudly.
‘May I?’ Ezer asked, holding a hand towards the cat as it yowled up at him.
The librarian shrugged. ‘The choice is his,’ he said. ‘Not mine. Gods help anyone who ever dared tell a cat what to do.’
So Ezer knelt, reaching out to scratch it behind the ears. But the second she did, the cat hissed and darted off towards the shadows between bookshelves like a little orange demon.
‘I suppose I’m not the best with cats,’ Ezer said with a sigh. ‘Birds mostly.’
The librarian only chuckled. ‘I wouldn’t take it personally.
Well now …’ He clucked his tongue and put his glasses back on, as if he’d just noticed something important.
The lenses were so thick his eyes looked thrice the size as he leaned in.
‘That’s an odd, ugly little thing. But worth far more than it looks. ’
‘What?’ Ezer asked, recoiling.
‘The ring, child.’
She looked down at her mother’s ring, the symbols of the gods surrounding it. ‘It was my mother’s,’ she said.
‘May I?’
She shrugged and held out her hand for him to examine it. ‘Curious. It’s been quite some time since I’ve seen one of these.’
‘What is it?’ Ezer asked.
He stared at her thumb a moment longer, twisting his mouth sideways. ‘A Ring of Finding,’ he said. ‘Given from one Sacred to another. A symbol of love, really, meant to be worn even in the grave. So that even in death, the bearers of the rings can find one another. This is … quite sad, really.’
‘Why?’ Ezer asked. ‘Seems more romantic than sad to me.’
‘It would be romantic,’ the librarian said, frowning, ‘if the ring was still on the bearer’s finger. Your mother’s, you say?’ His brows raised higher than the lenses of his glasses. ‘Won’t help with finding her now.’
He turned, tsking, like he didn’t know he’d just dropped a hammer across her soul.
She looked down at the ring and frowned.
If the librarian was correct … that meant her mother’s ring, the ring meant to connect her to whoever had given it to her …
It hadn’t gone with her to the grave.
A lump formed in Ezer’s throat as she squeezed her thumb around it.
Ervos had taken it off her mother’s body, hoping to bring something back to Ezer. He’d meant it to be a gesture of kindness, a way for Ezer to keep some part of her mother. He couldn’t have known what removing that ring might do.
If it’s even real, Ezer thought, for there were plenty of made-up things in this realm. Many stories. And she was learning plenty of different versions in the Citadel, compared to what was believed on the Outside.
A mystery for another day, and so she busied her mind again with books.
She quickly settled into a book on the characteristics of cats. How they lived, what they ate, what they enjoyed doing.
Perhaps Six had been captive for so long, she didn’t even know she could be anything other than a house cat. That she could spread her wings, feel the strength of them as they carried her through the sky.
She’d start there, as soon as she found a way to halter the beast. But one thing was for certain.
There would be no chains.
Soon, with the feel of the pages between her fingertips and the heat of the fire at her feet, she dozed off.
She did not dream of her labyrinth.
She dreamed, instead, of Kinlear.
It was the same as it always was, the dream where he killed her.
But this time, instead of a dark, shadowed hood … she saw his face.
She saw how his dark hair curled long enough to just get into his soft silver eyes. How he had a vial of dark liquid on a gold chain around his neck. How his cane clacked as he approached her, the sound echoing through her.
This time, they weren’t standing in the abyss.
They were standing in a dark space, with a strange soft purple light casting a glow upon them.
She had her back against the wall as he leaned over her and kissed her fiercely.
His tongue tasted like red wine.
She gasped as he breathed her in, and she ran her hands up the sides of his neck, her fingertips skimming past the gold chain. She curled them into his dark hair, pulled him closer as he pressed against her. His hands skimmed the hem of her tunic, setting her skin on fire.
It was not her, but him that pulled away.
And when the kiss broke …
It was no longer Kinlear pressed up against her.
It was Arawn.
His blue eyes were not hungry like Kinlear’s. They were soft as he stood above her, looking down. His hands cradled her face like she was fragile, made of glass and might break.
And his fingertips were on her scars, undisturbed and unbothered by the marks that had worn themselves deep into her skin, that had labeled her as different.
‘Ezer,’ he whispered. ‘Come back to me.’
And when he leaned in to kiss her, she wanted it.
She wanted it because he was looking at her like she was the moon on a dark night. Like she was—
‘Ezer?’
She bolted up right to find—
‘Arawn,’ Ezer gasped.
Oh, gods.
She blinked up at him, mortified.
Because she was breathless, and flustered, and did he know how passionately he’d just kissed her in her dream?
Did he know what they were just doing … together … behind her closed eyes?
He looked down at her with a half-smile on his face. Like he knew he’d caught her with her back up against the wall, but … no, he couldn’t. So she tried her best to look cool and nonchalant, to think of the swirling snow and cold, icy wind beyond the Citadel’s windows.
She’d never longed for anyone before. Never had such vivid dreams of what a man could do, how he could make her burn when he got too close.
You fool, she told herself. Get yourself in check!
You care nothing for either one of them.
You will never, not until the grave calls you under, fall for a Sacred Prince.
Because Kinlear was unhinged.
And Arawn … well, he was Arawn.
And he was holding a plate of cinnamon rolls in his large hands.
‘Is that …’
‘You requested them, didn’t you?’
‘I didn’t think you’d actually deliver them,’ Ezer said.
She paused to yawn, unable to hold it back.
Arawn chuckled. ‘Tired, Minder?’
‘As you would be, if you’d spent time with Six,’ she said, and tucked her hair behind her ear. Gods, she still reeked like a raphon.
She’d taken a shower in the dormitory, of course. But she supposed she’d have to scrub her skin with a whetstone to get the raphon grit off.
‘Calling her by name now?’ Arawn asked and raised a pale white brow. ‘I believe that sounds like progress.’
‘Shouldn’t you be at war?’ Ezer asked. ‘With all the other Knights?’
She stood and swiped her hands across her cloak to settle the wrinkles.
‘No,’ Arawn said, his eyes downcast as they walked. ‘I am on …’ A twitch of his jaw. ‘Temporary reassignment from the skies.’
‘Liar,’ Ezer said.
He looked shocked. ‘I do not lie, Minder. It is one of the first laws of the Five.’
Penance, Ezer thought. To break it would be to earn penance.
‘If I’d a war eagle at my disposal, I don’t think I’d be willing to leave their side. So why aren’t you with yours?’
He did not answer as they came to the next level, and he led her towards another set of exit doors. ‘If you won’t talk about that, at least tell me where we’re going?’
‘We are going to train,’ Arawn said. ‘Because you are weak, and a growing raphon is not.’
Her heart sank. Physical training sounded like a death sentence. ‘Kinlear put you up to this, didn’t he?’
They came out into the torchlit hallway. ‘So many questions, Minder.’