Chapter 10
Ten
Not wanting to walk back to my room, where I would inevitably have to face Viv after discovering her relationship with Acheron, I opted for the library—a place that had always brought me solace during those more trying times at the Academy.
Stepping back into its doors and casting my eyes over its never-ending shelves made me feel like I was home, almost more so than when I walked along my castle walls.
Stone carved shelves housed millions of books, all in rows.
There were sections of long tables where I had studied into the evening with my council members.
How had things become so complicated since then?
Had Viv run off to the shelves at the back of the library to rendezvous with Acheron the way I had with Visarous throughout those years?
I was angry—so incredibly angry—but I felt guilty too.
Had I been such a terrible friend, so consumed with my own troubles that I did not bother to pay much attention to her and the others?
What else had I missed? A wave of paranoia consumed me; missing things in my position was dangerous.
I walked deeper into the library, trailing my fingers along all the spines until I found my spot.
There was a small space between two bookshelves on the right side of the library.
I sat down on the floor, my gown pooling around me as I leaned against the cold stone wall.
It was a soothing balm for my agitated body.
Behind the shelf many years ago, I had hidden a book—my favourite book.
The tales of the old crone. I pulled it out and opened it; the smell and creak of the old, unused spine immediately made me nostalgic.
It evoked something in me that was almost enough to make me cry.
The story was of an old woman who barely looked human, she was disfigured, her bones were crooked, her skin leathery yet clammy with three pieces of oily hair that hung from the side of her head.
The legends and children’s nursery rhymes we all grew up hearing spoke of her as though she were the foulest thing to behold; one look was enough to kill someone.
That was the cost of her magic—dark magic.
She was the epitome of power, and the more she used it, the uglier she became until she was a husk of her former beauty.
The gods sought to punish her for her evil deeds and bound her—along with her power—to live out eternity as a walking, rotting corpse.
Instead of succumbing to her fate, she found a way to break the bindings they had placed on her magic, bringing the world and the gods to their knees.
She wiped out every living creature until she was left to walk the lands of the world for thousands of years on her own.
Until she crawled under a mountain and slept for a thousand more—lying in wait for all the naughty children who would walk these lands once more.
And should they misbehave, she would be lurking in the shadows, ready to pinch them in the night, never to return again.
It was a book my father had read to me a thousand times as a child.
I had often seen myself in the old crone.
Where her darkness lay on her skin for the world to see, mine lurked deep within, and just as she did, I would unleash hell on all those who crossed me, consequences be damned.
I sat there for what felt like an hour, lost in thought and remembering all those memories of my father—when we had stayed up all night reading, all of our arguments because we were both as stubborn as each other, and the one time he tried to cook for me; inedible was a compliment for the concoction he had made.
Pulling myself from my thoughts, I hid the book back behind the shelf, took off my heeled shoes, carried them in one hand, and got up, smoothing the satin fabric of my dress.
‘What are you doing here so late? I thought you had run off to bed. Don’t you think it’s unwise to be here in the dark, surrounded by so many enemies?’ Demir said, leaning against the shelf in front of me with his arms crossed and a wicked grin on his face.
‘I don’t answer to you and I can take care of myself, princeling,’ I said, walking around him. Just as I walked past, our shoulders grazed each other.
Ruhi, I heard him say in an almost desperate and torn voice in my mind.
I stopped. Not understanding what he was saying.
Wanting to know more, I grabbed his hand.
Demir looked at me in utter disbelief. I had never, in the years I’d known him, ever held his hand, but then I heard it—his voice once more.
Does she know?
Not wanting to give anything away and happy to look unhinged, I grabbed his other hand, holding them both in front of me. He was confused, but there was pain in his features, and it wasn’t from me. My grip was featherlight, yet he didn’t pull away.
Why does it have to be her? It can’t be her. The gods sure know how to play some sick fucking jokes. This can’t happen.
Demir threw my hands off of him. ‘Do not ever touch me again,’ he said through gritted teeth before storming off. Tonight could not have ended in a more confusing manner.
I walked the empty halls back to my room as the storm set in for the night; rain poured in a soothing rhythm as exhaustion settled into my bones.
By the time I arrived back at my room, Viv and Visarous were well and truly asleep, with the morning only a few hours away.
I would deal with them tomorrow. Though there was only one way to deal with Viv.