20. Chapter Twenty #2
“Good morning. How’s the head?”
“Better than it’s been in weeks.”
I glance around the table at the much smaller selection of items. “Is the kitchen out of food?”
“No, I’ve decided you’re right, and it’s not good to waste so much food.”
“You’ve also stopped watching me sleep.”
“It’s another thing you’ve been right about. You’ve asked me to stop, so I have.”
I butter my toast and grab the peach jam. “If only I’d known your grumpiness was a terrible headache.”
“It’s more than that. While I am grateful you have found a solution to my headaches, I’ve grown fonder of you.” He starts his breakfast the moment I take my first bite.
“If you have grown fond enough of me, maybe you will listen about policy changes that need to happen around your kingdom. I’ve seen the villages and your side, and there is a lot I can say on it if you’ll allow it.”
“I am open to this. We’ll sit down, and you can go over all the changes you think should be implemented.”
My grin grows as my chest warms. “I believe I’ve grown fonder of you too.” My eyes water, and a tear escapes at the thought that everything has happened for reasons that will help many people.
We eat breakfast together with easy conversation, and there is a lightness in my heart that has not existed for many years. The king’s attractiveness has grown exponentially beyond a mere physical one.
Zyon rises from the table and walks over to kiss my hand. “There is a project I need to work on today that will take most of my time. We can resume training tomorrow.”
“I could use a break.”
“Such laziness from a woman who needs to save the realm.” He winks in a way that has my stomach flip flopping.
I roll my eyes but smile. “My teacher is a tyrant.”
“Excuses.” He squeezes my hand and leaves me to finish my breakfast.
The fighting practice has taken me away from the quest to find the objects, and a day without Zyon will do me some good to put me back on track.
The king has also served as a major distraction for reasons I feel more guilty about.
His company has quickly grown pleasant, and part of me fears when the curse restores his memories, he will also recall how to be terrible.
The library is my first stop because, as much as I’d love to ignore Ruax, I can’t.
The vastness of the books is overwhelming, and I’ve found nothing useful over the last three months to help me.
However, Ruax gave a me a direction for what he wanted me to find, so I seek out the librarian, Gladia, whom I find in a little alcove reading.
She jumps up and bows. “My lady, I apologize. This book caught my attention, and it needed to be finished.”
“No worries. I’m sorry to have disturbed you.”
“Please don’t be. How may I help you?” She steps out into the main hall and walks toward her catalogue.
“Do you have books on magical abilities?”
“Yes, many. Anything specific?”
“Necromancy.”
She freezes, and her chicken beak opens a fraction. “Necromancy. That’s an interesting selection.”
“Yes, I’ve been enjoying time with the king and would like to understand his struggles more.”
“Oh, yes, that’s quite sweet of you.” She opens several drawers and finds nothing.
After her fifth attempt, she pulls a card out and hurries over to the left, where she disappears into a row of books for a few minutes but returns with nothing.
“It’s very strange. There is only one book on it, but it’s missing.
It’s not listed as checked out in my records either. ”
“Someone stole it?”
“Or put it back in the wrong location.” She looks through the catalogue again. “There is an encyclopedia of magical abilities if you’d like that? It may have a small amount on necromancy.”
“Sure. I’ll take that for now.”
“I’ll search my shelves and try to find the missing book. Check back in a couple of days.” She gets me the encyclopedia, and we part ways.
I pick up Gulzar from the maids and take him back to my room to go through the book.
The little monster sits on my lap, every so often reaching up for a kiss on his white fury crocodile nose.
I scratch his head as I read the table of contents and turn to the page on necromancy. It’s only a paragraph long.
I read it aloud to my little friend. “Necromancy is the art of interacting with the dead. It is often limited to communication with spirits, but more powerful necromancers can reanimate the dead. The reanimation does not always bring the dead soul back and usually leaves a shell of what the person or animal once was, leaving most resurrected as zombies or voids. What is a void?”
I check the table of contents and find nothing, so I assume that’s because it’s not a magical ability. Zyon has a stronger ability than most, it seems, but it would make sense with him having a royal bloodline. It doesn’t explain what Ruax wanted me to find, but it’s probably in the missing book.
I’ve gotten so desperate to find the cloak that I decide to step behind the forbidden doors.
I walk to the far end of the eastern wing to avoid detection.
There is a row of three black doors, and my neck tingles the moment I near them, like a smaller pull than the rose and object but still a pull. I find the first one locked.
The second opens into a stairwell. Various sized cracks break up pieces of the onyx steps that wrap around a stone wall. The tug in my gut is slightly stronger, so I proceed, hoping that maybe it’ll increase farther in and lead to the cloak.
I test the first step, and a sizeable chunk crumbles to the ground. Safety seems the main reason some of the doors are marked black, but I proceed, expecting the voices to warn me of doom any second. A long white railing provides support and gives me more confidence to keep going.
I have to be about ten stories in the air when I finally reach the end that leads to another black door, like the forbidden needs emphasized for anyone who disobeyed the first. There is a large fissure that runs zigzag down the middle of the platform in front of the stairs.
My heels wobble over the ledge, and I pull myself to safety by grabbing the doorknob.
The door opens, and I tumble into a massive room with white marble floors, walls, and ceilings. Enormous statues are carved into the walls, and the rest of the space is empty as though the room is merely a tribute to whatever figures the monuments represent.
There are five on each side and balanced out by half male and half female, alternated every other one.
They hold glass orbs in their hands. A flame that glows with an eternal fire burns inside the globe in the palm of the largest statue.
The rest all have other things inside the transparent globes, like one with water swishing all over the sides, and another that has vines growing and shrinking against its glass.
There are no visible plaques to describe what I’m seeing.
I reach the end of the display and find a circular platform. Above is a dome that shows bright ribbons of stars and colorful spheres. Beyond that is another hall of massive statues. The room ends at a golden wall, and words are carved into it with black letters.
“From the sky they brought prosperity until their games sealed our fates. May we never forget the price of devotion.” The altar table beneath the quote confirms to me that this is some sort of temple to gods.
In the villages, the gods are prayed to and spoken about, but no one gives them names or does formal worship.
It’s almost as though they are slowly fading from history.
There’s nowhere else to go, so I carefully make way back down the decaying staircase.
Maximo stands on the other side of the door with his arms crossed. “I was told you could see more colors than normal. Is black not one of them?”