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She told herself it was all in fun, but a part of her couldn’t help worrying that this wasn’t the safest game to play, not here in Imenborg.
This place wasn’t meant for children, after all.
Kora should have known that. Maybe he did and didn’t care. Whatever his intentions, she liked him even less after an hour of fruitless seeking.
The tunnel she followed opened up into a foyer of some sort with half a dozen new tunnels branching off. A stone slab sat in the center of the chamber, with a large book lying open and writing implements scattered around it.
She leaned over to examine the book and realized it was a log of some sort, a ledger. The page was filled with various handwriting scrawls and signatures.
The Goblins Guide to Healing Herbs with “Granger” neatly written beside it.
Then, on the next line, in a very untidy and firm hand, Whispers from the Bifrost with “Math Alderbye” scribbled beside it.
And below that, Trap’s name, signed with elegant flourishes, was written beside what appeared to be The Matronly Art of Goblinfetch. It was written so hastily, however, she couldn’t be sure about that particular title, and had no idea whatsoever what it meant.
For that’s what they were, she realized: book titles. This was a library log.
Her eyes roamed to the corridors branching out from the main hub. What better place for goblin children to hide than a library with dusty stacks and lots of obscure corners for reading?
A faint giggle from down the rightmost tunnel confirmed her suspicion. Someone was down here, and she would find them out. But if she were to be beat the littles ones, who had the upper hand, she would need to up her game. Stealthily she slipped down the tunnel, keeping to the far side of the corridor as far from the light of the guiding runestones as she could.
Anrid emerged from this tunnel into another hub that branched in three directions. A stone bench covered the solid bit of wall to her right, and when she paused to listen, she heard the shuffling of footsteps down the passage nearest the bench. She followed the whisper of feet against stone into a dim passage lit only by occasional runestones.
It wound downward before leveling out and widening. She paused behind a jutting outcropping and peeked into the chamber beyond. A bulky form sat on the far side of the chamber, lit only by the runestone sitting on the floor beside him.
He didn’t notice her, hiding in the shadows, but she could see him illuminated by the deep amethyst glow from his runestone.
It was Jael. He sat with elbows propped on folded legs, muttering to himself as he stared down at a book laid open on the ground in front of him.
Why would he be reading down here, in an unlit corner of the library? A quick scan of the chamber revealed it was a storage room. Boxes sat piled along the outskirts of the chamber, overflowing with books.
She should have retreated at once: it wasn’t ladylike to spy. But she found herself unable to move. Why would the Runemaster of Imenborg find it necessary to hide in a closet just to read a book? Who was he hiding from? Or, rather, what was he trying to hide?
“Rock and bone!” he growled. “He must be insane.”
He cradled his face in his hands, a dejected droop to his shoulders. For the longest time, he remained this way, a hunched and forsaken form in the shadows. A part of her heart ached for him against her control. But then something changed. His posture shifted, head lifting, shoulders squaring. She almost swore she saw determination flickering in his eyes like starlight, but not the normal kind of starlight that was white and cool. No, this was purple and violent, a dark kind of starlight.
Soon he was muttering to himself, his fingertips steepled on top of both pages of the book. He swept his fingers across his forehead, then he hesitated and stared at the dark substance coating them. Then he swiped his fingers across the book, tracing them in a circular pattern. With a heavy sigh, he rose, lifting the book with him, and held it out at arm’s-length.
A magical glow emanated from the volume clenched in his fingers. It wrapped around him, like a ring of hot white fire. A second ring began to form around the book itself. Jael’s body stiffened and spasmed as the book floated from his grasp and hovered in the air, suspended by nothing but invisible fingers.
A garbled cry tore from his throat. Anrid flinched and wanted to withdraw deeper into the shadows, to escape from whatever this horrible display meant. But she couldn’t move, her eyes frozen on the goblin in the shadows, his body quivering with unseen pain. The ring of fire surrounding the book began to move closer to Jael, closer to the ring of magic around him. The closer it came, the more his body trembled.
It struck her then, in a flash of clarity, that he was about to get himself killed trying to perform whatever magical ceremony he had read in this book. She had two choices. She could stand and watch and do nothing. Or she could try to save him from himself.
She was moving before the thought had finished edging itself across her mind. She scrambled across the storage room, her focus on the book. Perhaps if she grabbed it and threw it to the wall or to the floor, it would break whatever spell it held over him. But as she neared and stretched out her hand for the book, Jael’s eyes flew open. They blazed with frightening intensity, with purple starlight, and filled with horror when he saw her standing there.
She only had to stretch out her fingers and touch the book. For some reason, however, she faltered, mesmerized by the light and shadow carving sharp planes across his face. He had a strong, square face with thick eyebrows and deep-set eyes, a broad strong nose above a firm mouth. And surrounding it all, a halo of long dark hair. But perhaps it was the expression those planes twisted into, the look of horror they created.
She knew she should run away, but how could she leave him here alone to suffer whatever fate he had planned for himself? It wasn’t who she was.
“No,” he rasped just as she snatched at the book to hurl it to the floor.
Time seemed to turn backward. Once again, she stood in the tunnels between Imenborg and the Shadewood Forest, surrounded by the hot icy white light from the Bifrost. Pain and light combined until nothing else existed, only this horrible magical moment.
Chapter 18
Rock and bone, what was she doing here?
