Page 62 of Blade of the Nightking

“Elowen?”

The pull tightened, winding through me until it bordered on pain, until it felt as though something deep inside me was trying to drag me onward whether I willed it or not.

I shook my head, forcing myself to draw in a breath, then another, even as my pulse raced against the tightness in my chest.

“I must have eaten too quickly,” I said, thin and unconvincing, even to my own ears. “Give me a moment.”

The pull didn’t ease. If anything, it deepened, drawing me forward.

Toward the doors.

“What’s in there?” I asked shakily.

Hamish's gaze settled on them, a troubled look crossing his face. "The library."

I straightened slowly as something prickled faintly through the bond — awareness, unmistakable and immediate.

Aedric.

He knew I was here. He could feel me.

What was he doing inside the library?

“Can we go in?”

Hamish paused, and something in me bristled at the hesitation.

“Just because I can’t read doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate a library, Hamish,” I snapped, yanking my arm from his grasp.

I stormed toward the doors without waiting for a reply.

“Elowen!” Hamish called after me, but I didn't stop. “Elowen, don't!”

I set my hand against the strange wood. It tingled beneath my palm, and the enormous doors swung inward at my touch without the faintest whisper of protest.

And beyond —

I gasped as I took in the remains of what this place had once been.

Charred wood rose in jagged, splintered lines where shelves had once stood, the grandeur of the library still faintly visible beneath the damage, though so much of it had been burned that it felt like staring into the bones of something long dead. What remained had been reduced to skeletal frames and drifting ash that clung stubbornly to the ruins.

Books still sat on shelves in places, blackened and warped, their bindings fused together, pages reduced to brittle layers. In other places, there was nothing left at all but graying drifts gathered along the wood and scattered across the floor — what had once been knowledge, now dust.

The library rose in tiers, level upon level climbing upward into shadow, the remains of towering shelves stretching higher than I could comfortably follow. Along one entire wall, windows rose from floor to ceiling, though the glass was dulled and smeared with soot, muting the light that filtered through. It spread across the ruin in sad, uneven bands.

It had been magnificent once — more than grand, something closer to reverent, a wonder of architecture. How many books had once filled these shelves? Millions?

Piles of books sat stacked in one corner, as though someone had tried to salvage what they could before abandoning the effort. A staircase stood ahead, its steps intact as they spiralled downward to the level below, but above, the upper half leading to the next landing had collapsed, repairs begun and then abandoned partway through.

Hamish exhaled heavily as he came to a stop beside me, surveying the wreckage with shadowed eyes. “This was once the greatest library in the world. Its collection was unmatched before the Firstborn Wars.”

Nausea churned low in my stomach as I took in the devastation. The air carried the faint, bitter trace of smoke, clinging to the back of my throat with every breath.

The smell was achingly familiar.

Smoke on the wind.

I didn’t have to question who’d done this. I already knew. The answer pulsed at the end of the bond.