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“That would be wonderful,” I cut in. “But while you do that, I was wondering if there was a library around here I could peruse?”
Aodin grinned cheekily at me, but then again, when wasn’t his smile like that? “Memories, memories,” he crooned. “The library is where we truly began as friends, isn’t it?”
I smiled back. “Yes, I would say so. It helped that it was also where you and Darla got drunk off your asses.”
“Excuse you!” the psychic objected. “I was mildly inebriated.”
“You keep telling yourself that.”
“I will, because it’s the truth.”
Aodin laughed at our little exchange. “Actually, my family has spent a couple of generations building up a personal library of grimoires, spell books, and all kinds of other magical records from all over the world. I’d be more than happy to have you raid that as long as you want while I catch up further with Your Majesty, and you, too, Sir Oren.”
“Just Oren,” the shifter said flatly. “Not a sir anymore.”
The fae looked mildly surprised and cocked his head to the side. “Oh, would you prefer ma’am?”
Darla choked on a little bit of laughter, but it took a moment for the misunderstanding to click for me. “Sir is an honorific from the military,” the psychic explained. “He meant that we’ve all been stripped of our rank. Not that he’s not a man anymore.”
“But it is kind of you to roll with it,” Oren said, looking amused.
“Oh, I see what you mean now. And the king can take away all the ranks he wants, that doesn’t matter to me. You have earned both your rank and my respect many times over.”
It warmed my heart both to see Aodin getting along with the rest of my circle, but also to see Oren properly recognized. I wasn’t as close with him as I was the rest of my friends, but as far as I knew, Kai wouldn’t be alive without him, so that meant the world to me.
But Oren had never exactly been the most verbose person, so it was Kai who spoke up instead. “Thank you, Ambassador Aodin. I appreciate your candor. If you wouldn’t mind leading the way, we’d be more than happy to see your family library.”
“Right this way, then. It’s a slight walk, but mostly because the carriage streets leading to my place are only wide enough for them to go in one direction.”
“Is that why there are so few cars here?” Darla asked as we walked along. “The roads too narrow?”
“That, and well, cars aren’t really all that feasible here.”
“What do you mean?” I half listened in while I continued to look around at the buildings. While they were growing bigger and grander as we walked along, they still had so many plants around them and seemed to move with the shape of the landscape, like they were grown rather than constructed.
“Well, we don’t have a factory here for them, so all cars must be brought over from the mainland, which is pretty costly. Since we don’t have a way to make them here, most aren’t all that interested in making infrastructure for them, so things like fuel also must be shipped from the mainland, then experts must be brought here, or the car has to be sent to Camdaria proper. We have two mechanics. Maybe three on all the islands.”
I let out a whistle at that. Fort Canid had three mechanics for each quarter of the military instillation, and that was just for tanks and other military transport vehicles. Horses and shifter animal forms were still the most preferred way to travel and run missions.
“Is all of fae culture about environmental protection?” I asked.
“Hmm? No, I don’t think most of ours is about that. At least not explicitly. We just…well, I guess we just like plants, and when you live on an island, if you don’t take care of it, it’s amazingly easy to ruin everything about your land.”
“Okay, I can understand that.”
It seemed so like how the coven often handled things. We could just go and leave our protective barrier, but many of the witches had often declined to unless necessary. So the entire coven was built for longevity and sustainability while also maintaining aesthetics.
Thinking about my coven filled me with a wave of grief I hadn’t expected. I thought that I’d come to terms with the complete destruction of my adoptive family, but I’d just shoved it far to the back of my head to deal with later. That was the trouble with slowing down and relaxing. It gave my mind too much time to wander.
Whatever was going on in my head, it’d need to wait, as in after the war or even longer, because either Kai would be on the throne, or we’d all be dead.
I mostly got both my emotions and my mind in check by the time we reached Aodin’s house. It was a beautiful estate. Not as opulent as the ones I’d seen in the capital, but impressive. We were in an entirely different part of the city of Blath despite Aodin’s insistence that his residence was close by—one that was much more like the capital, but still had plenty of Verdanian influence. His land wasn’t gated, although there was a vague line of trees around the edges of it, one large main manor, and two smaller side houses about the size of the cottages we were staying in. But there were no barns, no stables, and nothing to suggest there was any animal husbandry going on. I wondered if every island had their own agricultural area, or if different islands had different specialties.
So much to learn, but it would have to wait. For the moment, I needed to do as much research as possible to figure out if my theory about cursing my curse was going to work out. It seemed so farfetched whenever I stopped to think about it, but I also figured it was one of the best shots I had. This force was far more alive than I’d ever thought, like the Shrouded Shriek had ripped off a part of himself and put it in me to fester. To feed.
Gods, if I could somehow curse my curse and have it spread to the Shrouded Shriek, poisoning him from the inside out… Whew, that would be a boon I’d never expected. It was too much to hope for, but hope was so rare that I was going to hold onto it with all that I had.
“Your home is beautiful,” Darla remarked as Aodin led us up the front path. “Not quite as humble as you implied.”
