Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
Threadsight is a dangerous gift. I fear it more than what I’ve seen with it.
—Journal of Khato, Master of Spells.
The salty teakwood of the Evecta filled my lungs as I heaved a sigh, letting the scent steady me.
Tiberius and I had escorted Vander back to the Gulley from Pyracantha after the queen’s orders had been relayed.
He’d regained consciousness, and though he was sore from being bloodied up, he seemed in good spirits, as was typical with my old friend.
Vulcan and Nerissa paced where we met below deck to discuss my careless actions.
Nerissa had chewed me up and spit me out for the better part of the hour.
How I should have waited for her, waited for Isla, for Vulcan…
For any elf to witness my conversation. But I knew it would have been too late.
The menders were too close to burning those bones.
I didn’t point that out as a fire raged in Nerissa, ready to send the Evecta up in flames.
Vulcan grunted his agreement on several occasions, shaking his freshly shaved head. He’d sheared his blonde hair as soon as we’d arrived in the Land of Light and Life, with an elaborate design cut into the side of his head.
Isla was silent and pensive as her amber eyes stared into the distance during Nerissa’s rant, giving my hand an encouraging squeeze.
“She saved Vander’s life,” Drystan cut in, his ebony brows narrowed at Nerissa as his hands made jerky movements, communicating the words. Drystan had known Van from our youth as well.
I shot him a grateful look as he crossed his arms.
Ronan sat in one of the chairs with his feet on the table, as at ease as he ever had been on board the Evecta. Back when he was truly a part of the crew. Though I sensed his apprehension about this deal with the queen, relief shone in his eyes.
“Drystan’s right.” Isla nodded, sliding her eyes to Nerissa.
“We have enough problems as it is,” Nerissa interjected, cutting a glare at Ronan. “Figuring out how to get back to Sultira, dethroning King Saros, stopping the tribute, surviving while we’re here.” Her eyes sliced to mine. “Not to mention the ashen and Dark King Daimos.”
“Exactly,” Ronan cut in. “And Lyvia prevented a huge shit storm from landing in our lap.”
Marian sat in the corner, listening, watching.
She’d refused to make eye contact since Oslo’s death.
I had nightmares about that moment every night.
The grief and guilt stormed inside of me during the day, mixing with my rage for King Saros and Dark King Daimos, swirling with the pressure of mastering these new powers, and finally colliding with that small bud of resentment toward Bayne, toward all of them, for concealing the truth from me for months, adding to the stack of betrayals that built up over the past year.
“Lyvia.”
My head jerked up as Isla’s elbow dug into my side. Nerissa gawked at me, eyes wide in disbelief at my inattentiveness. Ronan snorted from my other side.
“I’m sorry,” I murmured, rubbing my eyes. “It’s been a long day.”
“I take it the attempt this morning on the ashen didn’t go so well,” Isla said softly.
Nerissa stormed from the small cabin, followed by Vulcan and Marian. I let loose a sigh.
“What are we going to do about the queen?” Drystan asked, his almond-shaped, blue eyes thoughtful.
I let my head fall into my hands and groaned. Drystan gave my shoulder a squeeze.
“An air oath with the queen was dangerous. Maybe a little reckless, but I agree it was necessary. She didn’t give you much choice.
And you need to figure out how to master the Transcindiel power.
Here’s the thing about Queen Antares,” Isla murmured as she signed the words, “she’s not innocent.
She’s spilled so much blood over the past three centuries, murdered many, many powerful elves.
But…” she paused, voice becoming quieter.
“She is incredibly powerful. She is a gifted mystic. If she weren’t so horrible, I’d beg to train with her myself.
You’re stuck in this deal, but you may learn something.
Maybe you need a different teacher, anyways. ” Her voice softened at the end.
My heart squeezed, and I gripped her hand as I shook my head.
I’d gotten nowhere with the basic arts. The wind shuddered in response to my command, like a wall had been put up.
The water stilled, as if a sheet of ice froze over a pond.
Spells were a nightmare, repeating the old elven words with no result.
And tree singing? Every attempt left me exhausted.
Though it was one of the few times the Transcindiel power’s song rose up and then stuttered, its voice caught.
My one redeeming quality had always been my ability to learn.
My ability to be a student, to be honed into something new.
Studying with the Death Scholars had given me identity, allowed me to funnel that desire to learn into the delusion that I’d one day escape my fate as a lady-in-waiting.
And though my fate indeed changed course since my discovery of Enya’s burial chamber, I still had no idea who I was. My identity had crumbled.
And I had utterly failed at learning the forgotten arts.
It wasn’t Isla’s fault. She’d been the best instructor and had already taught Drystan so much.
He’d mastered the basics in days aboard the Evecta before they’d come to rescue me on Kayj.
I opened my mouth to voice as much, but she held up a hand.
“I’m simply saying, sometimes it helps to hear it from someone else. She’s powerful. She’s also crafty. You must be careful. Take in as much knowledge as you can and reveal as little as possible.”
I nodded, chewing on her words.
“And she’ll try to throw you off. Whatever she says, even if it seems irrelevant, everything is intentional with her. She is power hungry, and she’ll do anything she can to grow her strength. She may be psychotic, but she’s brilliant.”
A weight settled in my stomach.
“I wish you could have examined the bones with me,” I signed to Drystan, shaking my head. “The markings on her skull seemed wrong.”
I’d explained my findings to the group. And something about her trauma, the breaking and rebreaking, the markings on her skull. It nagged at me.
“You couldn’t have waited,” he responded. “Do you think it’s an illness?” He turned his head to Isla with the question.
She shook her head. “I’m really not sure.”
“Would a mender know more? If a plague broke out in the Gulley… We can’t lose these Rising soldiers. We need to get back to Sultira before anything of the sort spreads.”
Isla narrowed her eyes in thought. “The Master of Spells would know. But getting him to talk…”
Her gaze found mine, and she raised a raven brow. “I think it’s time we visited the Living Library.”
Smooth, copper wood arched fifty feet high, marking the entrance to the Living Library. I gaped at the massive tree, the only structure that compared to the Gilded Fortress in size and presence.
But the organism I stood in front of wasn’t a web of hundreds of trees spun together by the voices of elven tree singers.
It was a single, solitary tree, sprouting thousands of iridescent golden leaves that hung in long drapes down its sides.
One impossibly enormous tree that stretched over a thousand feet into the air.
The radius of its massive circular trunk extended hundreds of feet and rainbows danced in the refracted light that bounced off the leaves.
I stopped walking.
“Impressive, huh?” Isla whispered next to me, as dozens of elves bustled past us.
I had no words. None to describe its beauty, its otherworldly glory. Drystan stayed behind as he’d taken on the role of training a handful of the Rising soldiers to wield the lost arts. Isla nudged me in the side.
“Come on. We have work to do.”
She led me through the domed tunnel, lit with small, elaborate sconces lining the wall, containing a soft white glow, but no flame.
“How—” I began.
“Nobody knows,” she answered before I could finish.
“It’s not fire. No flames exist here. It’s always been this way.
There are no records, and even our eldest storytellers have no explanation for the lights or the tree itself.
It’s always stood here in Lotrennia and held our most sacred treasures and deepest secrets, including its own. ”
Her amber eyes darted to the sides of the tunnel and narrowed, inspecting the organism around us.
“It’s incredible,” I murmured.
“Just you wait,” she said, pulling her eyes back to mine with a wide grin.
Moments later, we stepped into a colossal rotunda that stretched higher than my eyes could see. Rings of balconies lined the outside walls that spiraled thousands of feet into the air. And beyond those balconies… My heart stuttered.
Stacks of books and scrolls spiraled farther into the trunk of the tree itself. My breath whooshed from my lips as I beheld the bowels of the Living Library. We were inside the tree. One that had been carved out to create a sanctuary for knowledge, yet still lived and created within.
Long, pulley-like vines lowered four wooden baskets to the ground and up again, transferring elves to various levels. Hundreds of them bustled around, going about their business, hardly noticing me. I sighed, feeling a long-forgotten, quiet peace. I could disappear in here.
Isla, noting the shift in my countenance, gripped my hand with a squeeze and flashed me a knowing smile.
“I should have brought you here weeks ago with Drystan. I’m sorry. Let’s go.”
She led me to a basket that had landed. Four elves shuffled out, arms full of books. I stepped into the basket, and Isla gripped the largest vine in the center.
“Forty-four, please,” she said softly.
The door to the basket closed on its own, and she gave me a devilish grin.
My stomach dropped, and I clung to the sides as it ripped up in the air, slowing before it came to a smooth stop moments later.
A surge of unease wrapped around my belly as the basket opened on its own, and several thick vines braided together to create a wide walkway to the balcony. Without railings. I cast Isla a wary glance.
“Oh, come on, this can’t possibly rattle you after soaring with Tiberius,” she said, skipping across the bridge.
I loosed a breath.
“I trust Ti to hold me more than I trust myself to stay on his back. I’m not very coordinated,” I mumbled, easing my way across the vines.
“So Vulcan says,” she snickered.
I threw her a dirty gesture, and she stuck her tongue out in return as I reached the balcony. The wooden railing reappeared as the basket retracted its vines and raced down to the entry level.
She led me through levels of spiraling stacks, snagging a handful of books on the way, until we came to a small alcove in the center of the aisle where two chairs and a table sat below more of those mysterious glowing lights.
Isla plopped down and motioned me to follow.
Books. So many books. My heart glowed beneath the cloud of pressure smothering it in a relentless shadow.
“Start here,” she said, opening a weathered tome with strange markings on its cover. “I think most of these will be in Elvish, but these few are in the common tongue. Histories of maladies and ailments in Lotrennia, going back a few hundred years.”
I nodded, gripped by a determination to figure out what had really happened to the Lady of Tomorrow. We pored over books and scrolls for hours, barely muttering a word to each other. Isla suddenly stopped, head snapping up as if she’d heard a silent alarm.
“I need to go for a few minutes. The master of spells has arrived,” she said out of nowhere.
“How do you know that?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” she said with a wink, and then she was gone.
I slumped in my chair and continued my search until a strange sensation washed over me. Almost like a tug. I cracked my neck, adjusting my posture when it tugged again. What the—
My eyes scanned the floor-to-ceiling shelves, searching for I didn’t know what. I turned back to my current tome when I felt it once more.
Tug.