Tame the Dark

1

Cobwebs covered the entire top shelf.

They had likely been left to further deter us from attempting to retrieve the books there. The ladder only reached the eighth shelf, but I’d climbed trees higher than the twelfth, where those thick tomes resided.

I could make it.

Three wooden tables stood in the book-lined room. Perched upon one in the middle, Princess Celestine swung her legs while eating an apple. “Those spiders are laughing at you.”

I brushed my dusty fingers on my pants and made a face at her, then glared up at the aforementioned spiders. “As long as they stay out of my way.”

“I’d wager the hairy ones have been here longer than those ancient books.”

That was probably terrifyingly true.

One spider, in particular, who watched me from atop a gilded spine, seemed bigger than my hand. I suppressed a shiver. “Nothing you say will stop me from wanting to know why they’ve been shelved so high.”

“We could just ask.”

“As if they’d tell us.” The priestesses guarded secrets better than wyverns guarded the continent. I drew in a fortifying breath and placed my hand and foot on the shelf beside the ladder. “Aren’t you the least bit curious?”

“Not enough to risk being alone with Dirk.”

The mender dwelling in a room beneath the archives was rumored to be rather odd. Supposedly, he seldom spoke, and when he did, it was in riddles. This could certainly see me finding out.

Once sure my fingers wouldn’t slide from the wood, I took my other foot from the ladder and gently set it on the shelves. “I won’t fall.”

The wood groaned.

Celestine’s laughter fluttered toward the towering ceiling. “Really, Ayla. What do you hope to find?” Sarcasm soured the princess’s sweet voice. “A magical way to end this war?”

I snorted.

War-ending magic didn’t exist. If it did, aristocratic families wouldn’t have shipped their heirs to this ancient fortress for protection. Until we came of age or the fighting ceased, we were now wards of the high priestess and her sisters.

I’d arrived on this tiny isle a mere moon ago.

Celestine’s parents, however, had taken no chances. She and her twin brother, Meront, had been sent to the Archives of Avyshla as soon as wyvern flame had struck the border of Moongold. That, and fealty to their high king, had forced the wealthiest kingdom of Avyshla to my father’s aid.

I didn’t like to think about what might be happening on the mainland—upon the continent surrounding this sacred isle like a jagged ring. Yet trying not to think about it led to thinking about it incessantly.

I hadn’t wanted to leave Cloverleaf.

When I’d said as much to my father, he’d told me that a future queen protected her kingdom by protecting herself. He’d warned that not surviving this war would cause our people more suffering than King Raxon’s greed.

All I’d ever wanted was to be queen. To make my father and our people proud.

So I’d sailed to the Archives of Avyshla. I hoped and feared and tended to the chores we were given. I read, paced the halls, and wandered through the woods behind the fortress. I watched my fellow wards train for battles they might never see.

And lately, I wondered what was in those damned ancient books.

My teeth sank into my lower lip, taming my triumphant smile when my fingers brushed the cobwebs. Almost there. Just one more shelf and I’d be able to—

The bell rang.

Foot hanging, I frowned.

When it tolled again, I set my boot down on the wooden ledge and peered over my shoulder at Celestine. Her cerulean eyes were wide, apple forgotten in her hand, as we both waited.

One chime to wake us and for meals. Two for visiting ships. Three if the Archives of Avyshla was under attack. Never in our history had warring kingdoms dared to anger the goddess by doing the latter. It was forbidden to cause harm on sacred ground.

Yet we still braced. We still waited for silence.

Then Celestine jumped from the table and hurried down the small cluster of steps into the sitting room below.

“You need to hold the ladder,” I called.

But she vanished into the hall before I could finish speaking.

Sighing, I looked up at the books—so close I could poke their spines—then gave in to this new and much bigger curiosity. A supply ship had come just last week, which meant another ward or a visitor was arriving.

I carefully climbed back down the shelves until the ladder was within reach.

Not careful enough. The slightest touch from my boot sent it falling.

I closed my eyes and winced as it clattered against the shelves along the back wall. Blowing out a breath, I looked at the stone floor and surrendered to my fate.

I made it halfway down the bookshelves before steps caused my palms to instantly sweat. I wiped one on my tunic, then put it back on the shelf just as Priestess Mala found me.

“Princess,” she hissed.

I gave her a weak smile.

She gathered her sky-blue robes and scurried up the stairs from the sitting room.

Mercifully, I was no longer near those forbidden books. “Apologies, Priestess Mala. Rather than use the ladder, I thought it would be easier to just climb up and grab…” My nose crinkled as I read the title on the spine before me. “Stages of Decay.”

“I’m sure that’s exactly what you intended.” The priestess collected the ladder from the shelves it had fallen against. “And I’m sure that’s exactly what piqued your interest. Here.” She set the ladder beside me and held it in place. “Climb down before you injure yourself or those poor books.”

Apologizing again, I did as I was told.

When I neared the bottom of the ladder, she stepped beside it, and I jumped to the floor.

Priestess Mala didn’t appear much older than my twenty-four years. Perhaps that was why amusement danced in her berry-blue eyes even as she served me a stern look. “The books up there will likely wither into dust should you manage to retrieve any. They’re not worth the risk, Princess.”

“Do you know what they are?”

She shook her head, robes whispering across the floor as she drifted past the tables. “Come along. We’ll be late to receive him.”

I frowned but hurried down the four stone stairs into the sitting room. “Who?” I asked.

She didn’t answer.

I trailed the priestess out of the west wing of the library that encircled the fortress in the same way the continent of Avyshla encircled this isle.

The dormitories, washrooms, kitchens, and prayer hall resided in the middle of the archives. Everyone had congregated in the latter to peer through the mosaic doors that gave entry to the Archives of Avyshla.

Beyond the sand-dusted terrace, dunes rippled toward the beach, which was the only safe way to arrive at the isle sloping upward like a crumbling castle tower.

Unable to see around the wards and priestesses all vying for space to spy, I ran back upstairs and down the corridor overlooking the prayer hall, past the rooms of female wards. At the end was the high priestess’s room.

But beside it hid a slim set of stairs to a private sitting room for the priestesses.

Stained glass lined most of the front wall, granting the priestesses a perfect view of the beach. Among the dunes stood a frighteningly enormous statue of Avyshla, who faced the sea with her large conch shell cupped in her long and weathered hands.

Her hair was seafoam, and her body adorned with shells. Atop her forehead was a small eye. Unlike the impenetrable black of her other two, her third eye was sapphire, and it saw what no one else could.

The replica of the goddess was a reminder that she’d stood right here on this isle while creating the continent named after her—thus rendering it sacred ground.

The goddess’s conch shell also shone in the arch of colorful glass before me. It was said that shell had been a gift from the god who’d broken Avyshla’s heart, as she had longed to see more magic in the world.

Countless books in this fortress held tales about how this god had chosen mortals over Avyshla. All similarly shared how he’d eventually been forced to choose—the goddess he adored or saving humankind from what she’d created.

The god had chosen hunting her beloved creatures with his spear of light.

So Avyshla had fled to this isle. She’d filled her conch shell with her divine blood and tears, then poured it into the Sea of Secrets. The continent of Avyshla rose from the waves, causing a tsunami that destroyed many mortal lands.

But no god dared to move against the goddess when they discovered what she’d created from her heartbreak—a place for her dark desires.

A haven for her most monstrous creations.

After leading what remained of her hunted faeries and beasts to her new world, Avyshla vanished beneath the sea.

The goddess was never seen again.

Yet we worshipped her as if she would appear at any moment to smite us. Upon receiving the last update on the war, Celestine had said that if the goddess did exist, then she would’ve submerged our lands into the sea she’d stolen them from for what we were doing to them.

Meront had claimed that a deity wouldn’t create such murderous creatures if she didn’t long to be entertained.

Staring at the giant ship, I began to think Meront may have been right. A direwolf head, menacing though it was nothing but impressively carved wood, snarled from the bow.

He rowed himself to shore, where High Priestess Nellassa waited to greet him, her robes tossed around her still form. Only when he sloshed through the surf did noise echo from down in the prayer hall—my fellow wards learning what that ship and silver hair had already told me.

Voran Valadorn, nephew of the king responsible for this war, had arrived.