52. Carys
Carys
The sun has barely risen when I awake from my dream, but like Ellynne said last night, it’s a new day with a new perspective. Once I’d cooled down, I’d summoned her and Lowri and asked Ellynne to read my fortune—as close to an apology as I could muster.
As I sit back against my headboard and stretch, I catch a bit of red on the edge of my vision and I startle.
I’d forgotten that Ellynne had refused to leave me alone last night.
She’s sprawled out on the bed beside me, her bright curls tumbling over my pillow, her mouth gaping open.
I slip discretely out of bed and pad over to my wardrobe.
I put on a sky blue dress that fastens at the front, strap ivory shoes onto my feet and practically tiptoe to my door.
My hand barely rests on the knob when Ellynne’s groggy voice comes from behind me. “Trying to sneak off?”
I wince and glance over my shoulder as Ellynne slowly sits up, her hair beyond unruly.
She lazily smooths her hands over her waves, a scowl on her face. “Oh, like you look much better when you first wake.”
I’ve never seen her quite so fresh from slumber—her cattiness makes me grin. Since Ellynne braided my hair before I slept, it’s been spared the same fate as hers. “I’m going to visit the queen,” I say.
Ellynne hops off the bed and strides toward me. “Not looking like that, you aren’t.” The stubborn pucker of her lips tells me there will be no arguing with her.
Twenty minutes later, my hair is rebraided and rolled into a crown as Sir Ren and I step into my mother’s bedchamber.
My stomach lurches as Iywan turns toward me.
Once again, Briony is there. She stands with a sweet smile and curtsies to me, as usual.
She doesn’t say a word, however, and she’s out of the chamber before I can even move from where I stand.
The fairytale book is hugged to my chest—perhaps more truth than fable. I still can’t believe it. Iywan doesn’t look away from me, and I’m chilled by the detachment in his expression.
“The queen needs her rest,” he says to me at last.
A dozen brash responses flow through my mind, but I ignore him and make my way toward the queen. “Good morning, mother.” I channel my unease into the tome clutched in my hands, but I manage to keep my voice calm somehow. “Ready to continue our story?”
Iywan turns toward the window, and I settle on the bed beside my mother. She’s asleep, her hair nearly fully silver, her face haggard and ashen. My heart constricts in my chest, and I swallow thickly as I open the book to the last page I’d read her.
“Where were we?” I ask softly. It’s awkward reading to her with Iywan here, but I’m not going to let him intimidate me out of the one thing I have left with my mother. I will deal with him later. “So, Enidwen summoned the prince of the Underworld, and when he smiles, it’s bloody terrifying.”
By heart, Enidwen recited the enchantment that she had so often rehearsed to release the Underling Prince from his bonds and be granted her greatest desire.
The sun grew black in the sky, the earth froze over, and a tempest-like gust of shadows rose from the depths, swirling around Enidwen relentlessly.
Enidwen was ecstatic, eager to receive ultimate power.
She envisioned destroying armies, claiming thrones, claiming nations, raising an empire.
She saw the realm bowing down before her, she saw the people’s adoration of her.
No more weak Enidwen. No more useless bride of an Otherworlder. She would be the Enchantress Empress.
No, the Enchantress Goddess.
Her laughter filled the air, but soon she realized that the power pouring into her was tainted. It wasn’t her own.
No, the Underling Prince now stood before her, that jagged-toothed grin too close to her face.
Enidwen’s laughter was choked off as the Underling Prince wrapped a bony hand around her throat. “My eternal thanks for releasing me,” he said. “Now you are mine.”
The Underling Prince squeezed Enidwen’s neck until her world faded to nothingness.
When Enidwen awoke again, she assumed the Underling Prince was gone.
But no … she could hear his taunting voice inside of her.
He pushed his way into her memories, her desires, her very being.
Enidwen clasped her hands over her head and screamed until she was hoarse, until she could no longer fight the intrusion, until there was nothing left of her own mind.
She’d fallen for the prince’s trap, wanting power for selfish reasons, for desiring it more than life itself. Her body was the perfect vessel for the Prince of the Underworld.
The now-possessed Evil Enchantress Queen rose up from her haunches and unleashed her terror upon the realm. Hope was lost until the Heirs of Dusk and Embers appeared. Within the solace of dusk—
Wait a minute … I stop reading and stare at the page.
That can’t be right. The Heirs of Dusk and Embers?
Solace of dusk? My fingers crawl over the words.
I’ve read this tale countless times before and it’s always said the Heirs of Agryna.
The Heirs of Agryna rose up against the Enchantress Queen and defeated her while cloaked in the light of the chosen.
It’s the same tale that both Durvla and I have always favored—the one where the Lightweavers saved the realm.
I flip through the pages. This is the same book I’ve always read, isn’t it? The heavy pages thud as I flip to the front, seeking the first page where Carys Meredyth fa Rhodri and the word translated had been written in beautiful calligraphy from the time my mother first gave the book to me.
My name is still there, as it’s always been, but the words prime edition sits below it.
This isn’t my original book.
What does prime edition even mean? I search my mother’s unresponsive face, desperate for the answers I know she can’t give. As I turn to an earlier page in the book, Iywan appears in my peripheral vision, staring down at it before I can close it. My pulse quickens.
“You were reading that?” he asks.
My brows draw together, and I scrutinize the words on the page again. “Yes … ?”
“When did you learn to read the Ancient Tongue?”
“I …” Staring down at the page again, I frown. Slowly, the symbols morph and I recoil; it’s definitely not the common tongue. How is it possible that I never noticed? I slam the book shut. “I have to go,” I say, jumping to my feet.
To my surprise, Iywan doesn’t stop me as I rush out, my heart hammering.
My heels thud against the ground as I run through the corridors, ignoring Ren’s calls even as he keeps up with my rapid footfalls.
I’m winded by the time I get to my bedchamber and slam the door in Ren’s face without a word to him.
Dropping the book onto my desk, I step away from it and stare. What next? It’ll burst into flames? I’m not sure what to expect of it anymore. How could I have been reading a different language without realizing it?
Pressing the heels of my hands against my eyes, I pace back and forth, trying to remember the details of when I was given the book.
I was probably five years old, and the book definitely had translated written on it where prime edition now exists.
I’d read the book so often and so frequently that the pages began to wear, and the binding loosened. It was only a year ago that my mother—
Wait, I remember my mother had taken the book and sent it away to be repaired.
Nothing had appeared different except for the front and back cover that had been replaced with nondescript leather.
How could I have never noticed that she had replaced the entire book?
How can I read in a language I didn’t even know existed?
When my mother had given me the new book, she’d made me read a passage aloud to her. She’d stared at me hopefully as I read and had beamed as if it was my first time ever reading. You’re a natural, she’d said, and I never thought much of it.
Heirs of Agryna.
Heirs of Dusk and Embers.
If one is a translation of the other, are they synonymous?
Gods help me.
I’m still flipping through pages of my fairytale book when the sun sets.
I sit on the floor in front of my fireplace, combing through page after page for any other discrepancies.
In the translation that I had, Shadow Wielders practiced dark magic and were vanquished by the Lightweavers.
But in this version, the Shadow Wielders fought alongside the Lightweavers.
Once again, everything I’ve been told is a lie.
I want to march into my mother’s bedchamber and force her wake, to demand that she explain things to me.
Like how I can read the Ancient Tongue without even noticing.
Why she intentionally replaced my book and didn’t bother to tell me.
Just as she didn’t bother to tell me about my own powers—or her powers for that matter.
I slam the tome shut and rise with it, slipping it under my bed, although I’ve walked around the palace with it fully on display plenty of times. Now it feels like something that should’ve been kept secret. I need to know more. I need to figure things out.
I need to get to the library.
Thousands of books stand before me—shelves upon shelves from the floor to the top of the ornate domed ceiling … I’m suddenly struck with just how daunting this search would be. Where do I start? What am I even searching for? I fiddle with my amulet, turning in a slow circle in the royal library.
Walk, says a voice within me, sending a shiver down my spine.
A strange sensation draws me toward the very back of the library, through the archway that leads to the historical archives. I approach a shelf of plain leather spines.
“Now what?” I ask aloud, as though my own internal voice would respond.
Silence.