Chapter 27
The library was empty. Moonlight poured through the tall windows overlooking the eastern gardens.
It illuminated the spiral staircases that coiled up to the upper galleries, their balustrades sculpted to resemble ivy.
Reading nooks, hollowed into the stone walls, held pillows and blankets.
The air smelled of fresh parchment, and the gilded spines of ten thousand books gleamed along the numerous shelves.
Richard moved down the central aisle and turned into the children’s section. Here, the shelves were shorter, and a fluffy rug stretched under a nest of large, faded cushions. Richard hung the lantern from the ceiling hook and lowered himself onto a cushion, wincing at the throb in his upper back.
His fingers knew the shelf behind him from memory. Third row, second from the left, a slim volume with ornate lettering.
‘The Girl and the Dwarf’.
Richard settled the book in his lap and opened it with a hum, trailing his hand over the first illustration. A farmhouse on a windswept moor, chickens pecking in the yard, a little pink-haired girl in a pinafore watching from the window. Grown-up books never bore pretty illustrations like these.
He turned the pages slowly. Senga, the farmer’s daughter, treated by the villagers as a bad omen because she was born with pink hair, discovering the dwarf caught in her father’s bear trap.
Senga prying the iron jaws open with trembling hands and nursing the dwarf back to good health in the barn.
The dwarf—Prince Thrond of the Deep Halls—showing her a hidden door beneath the roots of an old birch tree, taking her through it into a vast underground kingdom.
Richard mouthed his favourite lines. “The dwarven kingdom is shut with stone against the stranger and the foe.” He traced a finger under the words.
“Yet to those whose hearts are steadfast in goodwill, some sign shall ever be given. For friendship is a lamp no darkness of the deeps can utterly quench. Come, Senga, guest of dwarves. Come and see our grand halls.”
Richard’s lips twitched into a smile.
He read on about Senga and Thrond on their quest to stop a dark fog creeping through the dwarven kingdom. The Hush, it was called, stealing the voices of dwarves it touched and leaving them wandering their tunnels in silence.
And the voices in Richard’s own head—“He must have thanked the trolls”—dulled, muffled beneath the songs of Senga and Thrond as they descended into the Hall of Echoes hand in hand.
The tight band around Richard’s chest—“What would you know of love?”—loosened its grip, pried open by Thrond’s declaration of eternal friendship to Senga as they parted in the end, having defeated the Hush once and for all.
A floorboard creaked.
Richard’s head jerked up. Through the gaps in the opposite bookshelf stood a broad-shouldered figure. “You should have left by now.”
Kaelen peered around the bookcase with a sheepish grin. “An hour remains until midnight, my king.”
Richard closed the book. “In that case, you should be preparing.”
“My pack is already saddled.” Kaelen stepped into the children’s section and sank onto the cushion opposite Richard, their boots almost touching. For a moment, Kaelen was quiet, then—
“We all have our secrets.”
Richard rolled his eyes. “I doubt your secrets were as large as mine.”
“You do not know that.” Kaelen scratched his nape. “When I was seven, after you rescued Corwin and me from the Velari, I dreamed, for a long while after, of rescuing you in return.”
Richard raised a brow. “Rescuing me?”
“Yes.” Kaelen snorted. “And so, for the next six years, Corwin and I played a game about it. We would find a stablehand, someone our age, and recruit them to play you. And Corwin, most often, would play the dastardly fiend who had kidnapped you and dragged you off to some wicked lair—usually the hayloft, or behind the orchard wall, and I would be the knight coming to your rescue—”
He broke off, laughing at himself, and sprang suddenly to his feet. Drawing an invisible sword from his belt, he planted his feet wide and brandished the blade.
“I shall vanquish you, foul creature!” he declared in a grandiose voice. “Release my prince at once, you wretch, or taste the fury of the Magnificent Sir Kaelen!”
He lunged forward, parried some counter-stroke, spun on his heel, and drove his sword through the foe with a victorious roar.
Richard’s brows rose higher.
Kaelen turned to the imaginary third figure, sheathed his invisible sword, and went down on one knee, bowing his head. “I have you, my prince. You are safe now—no, I beg, I seek no gold nor glory. To return you home is all I ask.”
He blushed. “And then, um, the stablehand—well, whoever we had roped in—would lean over and—um—would give me a peck on the cheek as a reward. Or—” Kaelen chuckled. “Or sometimes Corwin would win, and I’d collapse into the boy or girl’s lap, bleeding out from my wounds and croak out my final words—”
He slumped back onto the cushions, an arm flung outwards.
With a shaky gasp, he choked out, “My prince, I have failed you. And yet I am not afraid. For though the dark nears, I am embraced by your light. Before I go, would that you grant me the sweetness of a kiss—” He cleared his throat and sat back up so quickly that his head slammed into the bookshelf.
“I mean, it was, well, you understand—um—just childhood reveries.”
Richard closed his slack jaw. Truly, this was a ridiculous man. “An awful lot of kisses in your childhood reveries.”
Kaelen flushed. “Well, exactly. So, you see, my king. How much more terrible my secret is.”
Richard looked down at the book. “But I never did get kidnapped.”
“No,” Kaelen agreed. “I was slightly disappointed, in truth. All those hours of preparation gone to waste.”
Richard tried to return his easy smile, but his lip twinged.
“I never got kidnapped because I always listened. I stayed close to Father. I never wandered for I did not want anyone to worry. One of us had to be good, after all. One of us had to be right, be the example, be the rock Mother and Father could rely on, for the gods know their own burdens weighed heavily enough.”
His eyes were burning again. He fixed his gaze on an illustration of Senga and Thrond hugging in the Cavern of Lost Souls.
“There was much expected of me, especially when it came to the little ones, and sometimes I would wish—” Richard paused, his throat too tight to continue speaking. He waited for the lump to ease before whispering, “Sometimes, I would wish to be free of them entirely.”
The words hung in the air. Richard’s breath caught, the horror of what he had admitted rising like bile. “That is a terrible thing to say. I would have you forget my words.”
Kaelen’s smile was sad. “Yes. It is a terrible thing to say.” Slowly, he reached for Richard’s hand. His palm was warm, and the callus on his thumb grazed over Richard’s knuckles. “But it is also human.” He ducked his head to meet Richard’s eyes. “And you are allowed to be human, my king.”
Richard stared at their joined hands. “I hate them.”
“No,” Kaelen said calmly. “You do not.”
“They hate me.”
“They love you.” Kaelen squeezed his hand. “They love you enough to wound, and you them. In time—with some apologies all round, I wager—it will mend.”
Richard’s shoulders sagged, and he breathed out slowly. “I…” He winced. “I am sorry. I have been unfair towards you.”
Kaelen rubbed his thumb against the inside of Richard’s wrist. “And I towards you. More than once, I spoke to you in ways a knight ought not to speak to his king.” He shrugged.
“I think, maybe, that’s what people do when they have come to be closer to one another.
They step out of bounds, because the bounds no longer quite fit. ”
Alarm jolted through Richard. Was Kaelen hinting at his closer relationship with Ravi? Had Kaelen promised to visit Naradesh in the future? Did they perhaps have a pact for marriage after Rot and Galdran were dealt with?
He yearned to ask, but did not feel ready for the answers.
Kaelen withdrew his hand. He sat back against the bookshelf and narrowed his eyes at Richard. “Come with me.”
Richard blinked. “What?”
“Come with me to Estara. Let us retrieve the siren’s heart together.”
“Kaelen—” Richard huffed, startled into a laugh. “No. I cannot simply—no. I am the king.”
“Yes.” Kaelen nodded. “You are the king. You also have a High Council to govern matters for you, a sister with sense enough to run the realm, and a Lord Commander who will ensure security. You have people, my king. So, use them.”
Richard shook his head. “The High Council will plot the moment I step through the gates. They are already irked by—”
“The Council is loyal to you,” Kaelen said. “Despite everything, loyalty runs true in Ardenian blood. It is stitched into us. Even in Lord Malgrin.”
Richard doubted that, but Kaelen spoke with such surety that it was difficult to argue. “The generals, then. They are furious and may well stage a coup—”
“My king!” Kaelen laughed. “The generals would never move against you. Regardless, my father would have their heads before they even tried.”
Richard squinted. “There is still—I have correspondence—”
“It will keep.”
“The repair work—”
“The Lord Steward will manage.”
“Kaelen, be reasonable—”
“I am being reasonable,” Kaelen said firmly. “You told me to choose one to share this adventure with, and I choose you. Always.” He clambered to his feet and stretched out his hand. “Come with me.”
Richard gawked up at the tall, lantern-lit shape of him standing among the children’s books, his hand outstretched, as though he were the knight in his own silly game and Richard, at last, the prince he had come to collect.
And the urge—the want—to follow Kaelen filled Richard’s chest so sharply that it hurt to breathe.
He reached up, and Kaelen’s fingers closed, calloused and sturdy, around his own.
“Very well.”