24. Chapter 24 #3
I felt pinned there. Should I move? Leave?
“I don’t see how this would help me in my search for my family.” I tried to laugh.
Eryk’s eyes cleared as though he had shaken his head free of whatever enchantment had been over him. “My apologies.” He dipped his head until the sun caught his silver strands again.
The mooring lines of my mind felt wrung out on the strange topics, but I couldn’t find a hint of discomfort in me, regardless. Eryk’s presence had a way of lifting me from myself.
“Gloriya is splendour incarnate, of course.” He shook whatever had been deepening his voice loose, his gaze finally lifted from me.
“Such wealth and riches, even kings are shamed to stand amongst her troves. They are not royalty, but they might as well be with their palaces of gold and jewels.” There was a far-off look in his eyes as he spoke of Gloriya, as though he wished to be there.
“And of course, Aurora had her topaz waterways and shimmering shell-tiled roofs, sandstone walls.” There was a pause as his body shifted towards me. “You’d have liked it.”
I felt like fluttering wings under his intense gaze, like a butterfly beneath a bell jar. “You’ve been there?” The excitement bubbled up, unstoppable at the mention of the legendary lost city.
One side of his lips pulled up as he glanced at me.
“What was it like?” The city had vanished at the end of the war that had raged for more than 200 years but it had all but ended overnight when the city had been wiped from the map.
A sadness tugged at me that I would never know the beauty of the shell roofs and waterways.
They were now only something for the pages of history.
“It has been more than twenty years since I stepped foot inside her illustrious walls. There was nothing quite like it.” His voice drifted with the salty air that spun around us.
“How did it happen?” I knew no one knew, but it was difficult not to get swept up in the mystery of the doomed enclave. An entire city of powerful fae just gone. Their magic, lost.
“Hayden.” His single word answer landed heavily between us.
Kaed. His father. They’d won the war. The set of Eryk’s shoulders were rounded forward, his straight and composed posture for once hung a little more limp.
“I’m sorry,” I breathed. I didn’t know why I felt the need to apologise. I didn’t do this to him. But I felt compelled to offer something back to Eryk.
He leaned over the balcony and angled towards me. “Are you happy, my lady?”
I started at his question. It was one I didn’t have an answer for.
“I couldn’t help but notice, at the party. Your intended”—he bit the word with teeth—“didn’t seem to care for your wishes. Your happiness.”
Eryk was getting a bit close to the truth here. And I wasn’t sure what I could tell him. What I could tell him without Kaed or any of the others coming after him. I’d probably already given away too much if he could tell I was unhappy. Or at least guessed at it.
“I’m fine. Thank you, Eryk.” I let my hand rest on his forearm. I don’t know why. But it felt nice to reach for someone who wasn’t telling me how to act.
“Just fine?” he coaxed with a smirk.
“Kaedian—Kaed. He can be a little … overbearing.” I decided.
Eryk’s warm laugh filled the expansive sky at that. “You are a very kind person, Lady Imogen.” He laughed again.
“As are you.” I smiled. And for the first time, I looked at him. Really looked at him.
It was easy to be around Eryk. He was charming. A little older than me visually; fae years were a mystery to me. Celeste and her magic use had aged her through her altruism. Eryk’s grey strands moved with the winds on the balcony, and I wondered what he’d given to earn them.
He turned his back to the city then. “Besides family, what really brings you to our illustrious library, then? What books pull at your heart?” he asked with a sense of playfulness.
I was glad for the change of topic, but in some ways, griping about Kaed and his father might have been easier.
I wasn’t going to tell him I still enjoyed the stories of sea serpents and forest beasts. The Corners were wild, but the pages of the books I loved held the monsters of legend. And faebane was not a topic I was supposed to bring up.
My heart deflated at the need to lie to Eryk, but the truth would only put him in Kaed’s path.
I stammered for an answer, and none came.
“I come to work. But I come for the quiet also,” Eryk supplied, looking to the shimmering bay.
“We have that in common. The quiet, I mean.” I felt like I was tripping up when I spoke to him, either over lies or my own awkwardness.
“And now the company.” He smiled down at me.
I fought another blush.
For my sake, for the sake of getting out of here, I reminded myself of the role I had to play. Self-preservation was a powerful motive.
At my silence, Eryk pushed off the balcony wall and headed back into the embrace of the sultry soft lights of the library halls.
“I’ll be here. If you need me, come find me.”
His voice lingered even as he’d vanished into the stacks.