Page 152 of Blade of the Nightking

And she was right. My attention caught instantly upon the page.

The Keepers of Mind.

I stared, transfixed by the image of what could only be the Dreamwalkers.

A figure stood rendered in thick strokes of charcoal, its edges blurred as though even the artist had been unable to decide where flesh ended and shadow began. Smoke-like tendrils unraveled from its form, dissolving into nothingness. No true features had been captured beyond the faint suggestion of a face and the unmistakable silver blaze where its eyes should have been. It was the unformed shape a nightmare might wear.

I swallowed against the sudden dryness in my mouth.

Beside me, Levinica guided me across the page with one slender gloved finger. I tried to steady my voice as I began to read aloud:

“And where the Keepers of Mind set their gaze, the self unravels. For how might one trust memory, thought, or even sight itself once the mind has been touched? No true accounting agrees upon their form. The Keepers may possess body and substance, silver-eyed and shadow-cloaked—or perhaps they are creatures only of dream and illusion, entering where defenses lie weakest.

“Yet all accounts agree upon this: when the Keepers of Mind draw near, it is already too late. Shielding offers the only meaningful protection, though even that proves useless in sleep. For once the dreaming mind opens itself, the Keepers are already there, waiting.”

My heart pounded in my ears as the implications settled over me. Never truly knowing whether your thoughts belonged to you. Whether your memories could be trusted. Whether your mind had been invaded and reshaped. I shuddered.

Levinica was watching me expectantly, brows raised as though she anticipated some grand response to what I'd just read. I had no idea what to say.

She laughed. “You look positively horrified.”

She smoothed her skirt before angling the book toward herself.

“The author was terribly prejudiced, if you ask me,” she said tartly, idly turning the pages. “This entire book paints the Keepers as dreadful creatures to be feared, while the Fae are cast in an almost heroic light, brimming with goodness and selflessness.” She gave a soft, derisive snort. “Everyone knows the Fae are horrid little beasts.”

“Oh?” was all I managed. I glanced sidelong at her, wondering if the madness had begun to creep in again, but there was nothing. No distant look in her eyes. No disconnect in her expression.

She hmmphed softly as she turned another page, and the book landed once more upon the giants.

“I will admit,” she said, “the author must have met one of the Tharuun because the drawing is uncanny, truly. But they’re painted here as bringers of catastrophe, when they were really a peaceful people. Not violent at all unless seriously provo⁠—”

She stopped. Her breath hitched.

She drew the book closer, her fingers beginning to shake as she lifted it to study the page more intently.

I straightened at once, immediately alert. “What is it?”

Her eyes flew wide. “I think I know why the map didn't align with the drawing,” she breathed, her face alight in a way I'd never seen before. She shot to her feet and hurried to my side, thumping the book onto the table hard enough to make me jump.

“Read this.” Her finger landed upon the passage about the Tharuun.

“I already have.”

“Read it again,” she insisted, bending closer.

I lowered my gaze to the text. As Levinica leaned over me, her pendant slipped free from the neckline of her dress, swaying gently from the leather cord around her neck. Back and forth. Back and forth.

“And in their fury, the Keepers of Storms called forth the wrath of sea and sky alike, sundering the western reaches from Elantis with flood and tempest until the land itself drifted beyond the grasp of the mainland. And though the earth endured, the realm did not remain untouched, for old paths were broken and hidden currents forced to seek new ways. Thus was the wound between them made and the land changed.”

Something sparked to life inside me. I gripped the edge of the book tighter and reread the passage.

“... for old paths were broken and hidden currents forced to seek new ways⁠—”

“Thus was the wound between them made and the land changed,” Levinica finished for me, her voice trembling now.

“The Veins don’t align with the maps…” I started slowly.

“Because it’s the wrong map,” Levinica said, her words tumbling over one another. “We’ve been comparing it to the wrong Elantis!”