Chapter Thirteen
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
Aurelie waited precisely three seconds after Yuri shut the door behind him to plan her escape.
No matter what the king said, there was no world in which she sat around and awaited her father’s fate. It wouldn’t be long before the velari noticed the abnormalities of her father’s features, and the implications of what that could mean coiled through her like a curse.
It took an overflow of great emotion to turn into a demon, and that simply wasn’t her father. Somehow, she knew this was her fault.
Was it Divine punishment? A way to enact justice for her lying about killing that envyborn? The timing was too much to be coincidence.
She needed answers, and fortunately she knew just the person who might help her.
Aurelie’s heart stuttered, traitorous, as Severin’s face slipped unbidden into her thoughts.
The dangerous curve of his mouth; the tilted smile that never quite reached his eyes.
If anyone could offer knowledge about her father’s condition, it would be the velari.
And yet, she couldn’t help but shiver as she remembered the way his eyes had drunk her in.
Aurelie held no illusions about him. She wasn’t naive—velari or not, the man was a deviant.
A devil in silk skin, with a voice that promised as much trouble as it did knowledge.
Still, there was no choice but to find him.
The only question was whether she could manage sneaking past her bonded. Would Yuri sense her nerves? Could he feel the fear burning holes within her, seeping into the floor with each pacing step? Would he somehow know where she went?
The angel wasn’t what she’d expected, and Aurelie hadn’t yet decided what to make of him.
She only hoped he couldn’t sense her resolve as she stripped out of her ceremonial attire and reached for the plainest gown she owned—a soft, faded blue wool kirtle almost too simple for someone of her station.
No embroidery, no jewels to catch the light.
Just the gentle curve of its fitted bodice and the soft folds of its skirt as it pooled around her feet.
She tied a scarf over her head like one of the servants, tucking away every trace of white hair.
Once disguised, Aurelie shut her eyes and imagined a single note on the lyre. A simple pluck of the strings, boring and monotonous. She replayed it in her mind, again and again, trying to tether her emotions to its monotony. Steady. Boring. Unremarkable. Nothing that would stir Yuri’s attention.
There were guards outside her door, but that was no matter.
She crossed the floor to a tapestry along the western wall, brushing it aside until her fingers found a familiar groove worn into the stone.
She pressed it, and the wall cracked open with a whisper of dust. She stepped through without hesitation, tugging the tapestry back into place behind her.
The passage was not unlike the ones she’d used as a child—one of many hidden throughout this wing of the castle.
Only the royals, the Chantelunes, and the highest-ranking knights knew about them.
Each tunnel had a different method of entry, difficult to find unless you knew precisely where to look, but Aurelie had long made it her mission to know every crevice and turn of these passageways.
The scent of must and stone was cloying in the air, sticking to the back of her throat.
Cobwebs draped from the ceiling like tattered lace, catching at her sleeves as she crawled forward with steps slower than she preferred.
She had to be careful not to let her heart hammer too loudly, afraid that doing so would rouse Yuri’s attention.
Their bond was a tether that pressed upon her with great force.
Each step farther from him felt heavier than the last, as if she were wading through a bog.
She descended dozens of narrow steps all the way to the wine cellar, waiting until there was no sound of nearby footsteps before pushing into the kitchen.
Aurelie scanned for whatever was nearby, grabbing a handful of linen before hurrying out.
She carried the bundle as if she were a servant with somewhere to be, head low and steadfast in her gait.
Only when she neared the archives did she abandon the linen at a nearby table and hurry inside.
The smell of parchment was comforting, but blood ink was dry and sharp in her nose, making her sneeze.
With ink as expensive as it was, Rhovarian scholars had long taken to bottling and using demon blood for their writing, for the color was virtually the same.
The scent, however, was never any less fetid.
Aurelie was surprised to find so few velari in the archives, the majority likely summoned to wherever her father and Azriel were being kept for observation.
Hopefully Severin wouldn’t be with them.
She soured at the thought, moving quicker through the stacks and to the same corner of the library she’d stood at the day prior, eyes stinging from the diffused orange light that burned upon the marble floors.
There was no one there. Beside the chair Severin had sat in was a small table with an empty wineglass, the bottom stained red.
“Severin?” she called, tucking a loose strand of hair back into her headscarf. “Are you here?”
Silence answered.
Aurelie’s gaze drifted down the hall, trying to calm the tightness in her chest. The inner sanctum’s door was flanked by twin statues of the seraphim.
Upon it were five symbols etched into the stone, showcasing the different paths of study.
She pressed her fingers into the pair of black horns that marked demonology.
When nothing happened, she searched the stone for crevices, hoping she might pry it open.
No matter what she tried, the blasted thing wouldn’t budge.
Of course it won’t. Velari spent entire lifetimes studying, and most still weren’t granted access to the knowledge within those doors.
“Cursed Light,” she spat, trying again with all her strength, groaning as she pushed against the stone.
Still, nothing.
“Surely you didn’t think getting inside would be so easy.”
Aurelie spun to see a familiar face and black hair as dark as a starless sky. Severin stood behind her, his eyes gleaming as he closed the space between them.
“You’re here,” she breathed, unsurprised to find him just as devastatingly handsome as her inebriated self had believed.
He was close enough that she could smell him.
Cedar and firewood—not musty parchment and ink, as she might have expected from a velari.
And while her heart beat quicker at his approach, she was surprised to find herself suddenly nauseous.
Her vision, too, was strange, the edges blurring.
“I need your help,” she told him, too desperate to concern herself with whatever likely adjustment this was to her bond. “I’ll give you whatever I can if you prove helpful. Money, status … anything I can give you, I swear it’s yours.”
One of Severin’s dark brows lifted. “Hello to you, too.” Then he smiled, head tipping thoughtfully. “Do you truly mean that?”
There was something about the way he asked that caused the hair along the back of her arms to stand. But there was no time for negotiations.
“I mean every word.”
“Then you should learn not to make grand offers so casually.” Severin reached into his collar and untied an amulet strung on a worn leather strap. Aurelie’s heart jumped as he pressed it against the open palm of the right statue, fitting it into a hidden groove.
“I’m sorry about your father,” he said, twisting the amulet. “I’ll help however I can. All I ask for in return is your trust.”
“You have it,” she said too quickly, flinching as the angel’s hand snapped shut around the amulet, accepting it with a faint click. The symbols along the door lit up one by one, and the door swung open into the most beautiful room Aurelie had ever seen.
The sanctum was more magical than even the cathedral, awakened by orbs of firelight that Severin carefully lit.
They cast an ethereal glow over mahogany bookshelves and thick tomes, and in the center of the room was a large, circular table made of polished marble.
Around it were high-backed chairs upholstered in burgundy velvet, each embroidered with the sigil of the velari—a radiant sun encircled by five stars.
Aurelie stood at the threshold, feeling suddenly like a child again, small before something so immense.
She was momentarily caught in the hush of it all, for there were not only writings in the sanctum but artifacts.
The claws of a long-dead demon. Preserved pieces of their carapace, covered in glass and built into a table that was littered with studies and various findings.
The origin of vespers remains a matter of speculation, one manuscript read.
Some believe they are spirits of the woods, while others propose that vespers are the remains of those once chosen by the Divine—acolytes or prophets who faltered under the weight of their calling.
As no proof has yet been found, their true nature remains a mystery.
She might have kept reading, sucked in by curiosity, but it was time to get searching. Everything the velari knew about demons was within reach; surely there had to be something here.
Severin was so quiet as she began rifling through studies and scrolls that if not for his size, it would have been easy to forget he was there.
Perhaps it was the years spent in the archives that had made each of his steps nearly soundless, only the gentle swishing of his robes giving any indicator that he followed.
“What are you looking for, exactly?” he asked after several quiet minutes.