Page 138 of Blade of the Nightking

I ignored her completely and made a point of slathering on even more jam than necessary before taking an enormous bite. Levinica hid a smile behind her gloved hand. Veylan snorted from the shadows.

Levinica pushed the book toward me, and I carefully set my pastry down, wiping my fingers thoroughly before pulling it closer.

“It’s still for children,” she said, reclining slightly in her chair as she lifted her own tea. Titter Mouse slept curled in her lap, one tiny paw thrown dramatically over his face to block the sunlight. “But it’s considerably more advanced than the others.”

I flipped open the cover and sounded out the title carefully.

“The Book… of Old Tales.”

“Excellent,” Levinica grinned. “That was much faster than before.”

I laid the thick book carefully in front of me. The cover was simple but beautiful, deep green beneath elegant gold lettering, impossibly refined compared to the clumsy children's books I'd been practicing with. It was oddly supple beneath my fingertips, unlike any binding I'd felt before. When I opened it, the pages were soft and worn with age, the lower corners smudged as though countless hands had turned them over and over through the years.

The text itself was immediately more intimidating. The letters were smaller, written in curling script instead of the larger print I’d grown used to. The sentences stretched longer too, broken apart by commas and strange punctuation marks I didn’t recognize.

But the illustrations… They were works of art.

I gawked openly as I flipped through the pages, pausing again and again to stare at them. Colorful landscapes. Towering castles. Beautiful Fae draped in elaborate robes and crowns rendered in such exquisite detail they looked almost lifelike.

“It’s a collection of old stories,” Levinica explained. “Classic tales of Elantis.”

She stopped me gently as I passed a particular page. Bright sunlight spilled across the illustration there—a vast grassy plain bathed in gold, and beyond it, a shining castle rose into the clouds themselves, its spiral towers shining against the sky.

“Here,” she said brightly, tapping the page with a gloved finger. “Let’s start with this one.”

We spent the afternoon reading from The Book of Old Tales. Despite my halting pace, I soon lost myself in its stories—tales of brave warriors, cursed forests, monstrous creatures slain by clever Fae heroes. There were romances too, full of enchanted lakes and moonlit dances, where lovers found one another across centuries.

Levinica listened patiently to every halting sentence, never once rushing me when I stumbled over a word or lost my place.

Hours slipped by almost without my noticing.

At some point Veylan dissolved back into his shadows. Segolayne, however, never strayed far from Levinica, watching over her with the taut vigilance of a mother hen guarding a wounded chick.

Even Titter Mouse grew bored. The kitten leapt down from the arm of Levinica's chair with an indignant sound that was almost a huff before stalking toward the courtyard doors.

By then the sunlight pouring through the towering windows had begun to soften into amber. Long shadows stretched across the floor and crept slowly up the legs of the furniture. Levinica had gone quiet beside me, one cheek resting against her hand, her eyes half-lidded, though she still smiled faintly whenever I managed a difficult passage without stopping.

Eventually even that faded. I glanced over to find her dozing lightly in her chair, dark hair spilling in waves across her shoulders, her breathing soft and even.

Carefully, quieter now, I turned another page. The tale I found there was different from the others.

There were no painted flowers curling around the borders of the parchment. No bright colors. The writing here was thick and black, scrawled with almost frantic urgency.

“And when kingdoms grew too vast and power swelled beyond its rightful bounds, the Keeper of Return walked once more.”

I slowed over the words.

“He came not as conqueror, but as corrector. The Plague swept forth before him, and those it claimed rose again as the Returned, bound only to his will and driven to rebalance the scales.”

A chill crept slowly down my spine. I swallowed and kept reading.

“For no power was ever meant to grow without end.”

My fingers hesitated against the edge of the page before I finally turned it.

The chair legs screeched across the floor as I shoved backward before I could stop myself. Levinica startled awake beside me.

Across the parchment spread the figure from my nightmares.