26. Chapter 26
Chapter twenty-six
Islammed the book closed.
“Nothing in this one either.” I was beyond exhausted.
Whether I found something useful or not in the books before me, part of me didn’t care.
I was too distracted by wanting to read something that wasn’t trying to sniff out faebane.
My family, my own research had stalled entirely.
And the cities Eryk had mentioned, they beckoned me.
But no matter the stalls, the stacks or the levels I had looked on since returning to the library, I had found nothing on Aurora.
I’d searched heraldry and family lines for my own interest, but there was nothing much to go on.
The necklace around my neck was worry-worn from the number of times I’d touched it and hoped to divine its secrets like bones might read your future.
Audrie’s eyes flicked up to me.
“Sorry.” I fumed. I wasn’t angry at her.
Or the books. But it was maddening being forced to focus on one thing while my heart ached for another.
My body was beginning to itch at the confines of the city.
Some part of me was missing the savagery of the Banes.
And being cooped behind neat little walls with doors and locks, sealed in with thousands of books, none of them the ones I wanted right now, was not helping that feeling that gnawed at me.
Audrie dropped her eyes back to her book.
“It’s just …” I began, and her eyes tugged back up to me, my arms now folded. “I don’t understand why he needs it. It’s not like the Crown needs riches. Or weapons.” I huffed.
It was just us tonight. Gavrin had wandered off in search of distractions from within the walls of the library.
“I don’t pretend to know what the king needs.” She looked back at her text. Audrie wasn’t usually so cagey. Normally, words flowed like water with her.
Growing in frustration, I threw my hands up and stood. I wasn’t mad at her. I wasn’t. But I wasn’t able to act any better.
Without explaining to Audrie, I grabbed a pile of useless books to return them.
I had just finished putting the last cracked-spine book back in its place on the shelf when I heard him.
“I can guarantee better reading material.” Eryk’s smooth, resonant voice hummed over me.
He didn’t startle me, but I was surprised to see him in the dark corners of the library so late in the evening. The fae orbs had begun to bob with their soft, glowing light.
“I don’t think it would be hard to find better reading material.” I planted my hands on my hips as I stared at the replaced volume. I smiled at Eryk, and it was returned with one of his own.
Eryk took a step towards me, hands clasped behind his back. His tall frame was broad in the cramped space of the stacks. I suddenly felt very alone with him here in the growing dark. Did I feel uneasy? I wasn’t even sure.
“I have something for you,” he said as he produced a box-like shape wrapped in muslin from behind his back.
I looked at the parcel he held out. And then to him as I took it.
“I thought, perhaps Aurora might interest someone like you.” His voice dipped an octave, and I felt his words cocoon around me.
My eyes went wide as I took the parcel from him, slipping the cloth from the book.
Auroran History and Triumphs; the title swirled in gold curving script.
The cover was plated pearl instead of leather. Its corners were capped with gold filigree, and the pages bloomed with a redolence I wasn’t sure was possible for pages to have.
“Well, say something.”
I gaped up at Eryk, who was smiling triumphantly. “I—where did you find this?”
Eryk smiled down at me. “Is that all?”
The tips of my ears flushed with shame. “Thank you,” I breathed, gathering my hair with one hand around my shoulder for something to do.
Eryk’s eyes caught every strand my fingers entwined in.
As though it were a shield, I wrapped my hands around the book until it was clutched to my chest.
“It’s from my more private collection,” he said, allowing his eyes to wander the shelves, not stopping to focus on anything. “I enjoyed reading it. I hope you will too.”
I knew it wasn’t mine to keep, but having something so precious and remarkable between my fingers felt like spinning gold into existence.
It was more than I could have hoped for.
I had begun to worry that there were no records on Aurora here at all, that they’d all been sequestered by the Crown upon its victory.
“Something so rare and so beautiful”—Eryk drew his eyes from the books and back to me—“should be looked after. Taken care of as she deserves.”
The fae orbs cast a strange light over us amongst the pages and walls of history around us. Silence filled the space for a moment, and then Eryk’s hand tentatively reached for the twisted waves of my hair.
But before he could bridge the gap between us, his hand fell back to his side. “Look after her for me?” He smiled and turned to leave.
“Wait. Eryk.” I reached for him but didn’t touch him. “Please. Why would you give me this?” I looked down at the priceless manuscript as though it might vanish like the city it pertained to if I didn’t keep my eyes on it.
Eryk paused in his leaving and hung his head, strands of hair obscuring his eyes.
For a moment, I wasn’t sure he would say anything at all. He just stood there, silhouetted by the fae light, his face cast in darkness.
“You deserve to know what happened before …” Eryk trailed off.
Before Kaed and his father won the war …
“Some things get lost in history, others are destroyed by it.” Eryk’s words were like chains as they clanged through the silence.
I swallowed. “You don’t … you don’t like them? Kaed, I mean. His father?” I tried to be as gentle as I could with my question. It felt like picking at a scab. I knew there was a wound there. I just wasn’t sure what exactly it was Eryk was healing from.
He snorted at my question. “Kaedian”—Eryk’s jaw tightened as he struggled with Kaed’s name—“has a lot to answer for.”
I shuffled my feet, the silk slippers I wore from the Alabaster Palace suddenly feeling too tight.
I wanted to ask. I wanted to know. But I wasn’t sure I was ready for everything I would unearth with questions.
“Eryk, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to …”
Eryk lifted his head, his eyes shifting to focus on me. A soft smile spread across his face. “Enjoy the book.” The grin that Eryk offered me was almost conspiratorial in its deviousness. “Lady Imogen.”
He was gone before I could collect my thoughts enough to even say thank you again. But I found it hard to think of anything except flipping open the pages of the most intriguing book I’d ever touched.
I devoured the book Eryk had given me. It was thick with heavy pages, but every one offered a sense of levity as I turned them.
It wasn’t a new collection of writings; the style was old and complex.
More of a lyrical set of poetry and artistic flares than faithful descriptions.
Nor was it particularly unbiased in its descriptions of the beautiful lagoon city made up of dozens of tiny islands, all interconnected by bridges with canals.
I wasn’t inclined to argue with the beauty it painted with its words.
Instead of roads, the city moved with waterways, and barges were used instead of horses and carts.
The scribe had noted every dazzling detail of the lost city before her ruination.
They were meticulous in cataloguing the lineages and they seemed to be made up of only fae, no humans at all.
All ancient and noble lines of immense power and magic.
But it was the scholar’s descriptions of the fae queen that stole my breath as I read under the silk bedsheets, the candle’s flame flickering against the darkness of the midnight hour.
“Flowing hair that gleamed like sunrays. Graced with moonlight-pale skin that glowed when she conjured her magic to her and eyes that shamed the blossoms of the Four Corners. Queen Selene of Aurora has ruled for hundreds of years. Descended from the gods themselves, some say. Thoroughly ambitious in her pursuits and a ruthless arbiter for justice for her city, she is a force to be reckoned with. May the Crown rest long and light on her head.”
My hand smoothed over the pearly cover of the book as I nestled into the pillows, my dreams filled with shimmering roads of water, shell roofs and magical beings.
More than a week had passed since we’d first started researching, and I was beginning to go blind to any details at all in the books we pulled.
No matter how interesting Audrie claimed the new volumes she plonked into my lap were, it didn’t seem to matter. They all felt heavy, and I was sinking to the bottom of an inky ocean under their weight.
There was nothing in any of them.
Ever.
I had bumped into Eryk nearly every day I came here.
Either when I found myself wandering through the stacks or when he’d come find me.
I began to notice he only came to my corner of the library when the others were elsewhere.
We spoke of beautiful places, places I might want to go.
Of Aurora, what I had enjoyed in the writings.
And every time Eryk asked me a question, he hung on the words of my answer like they were godsong.
He didn’t speak of Kaed, and I didn’t ask about his history with him.
I thought I might see Eryk tonight.
Time moved like sand in oil as I scanned page after page, scroll after dull scroll. I could have done with the distraction of Eryk’s company.
Less than two moons left of my bargain to Kaed, and it wouldn’t matter if I found an alternative source of faebane for him or not.
Every night, I went to his study, and the meetings got shorter and shorter. Until eventually, last night, he’d not been there when I knocked.
But when I found his study empty, I lingered.
I didn’t know why. But it was like I wanted to explore the spaces he’d been. I told myself it was because I needed to know my opponent.
I didn’t really know what Kaed was anymore.