Heat crawled up my neck. Solric’s balls. Seth had anticipated me. Ordered Darya to grab those texts before I could. Maybe that was the worst part of being his enemy now. He knew me too well.
“Do you have anything?—”
Soroush stood and wiped his red nose with a wrinkled handkerchief. “Forgive me, Seren, but I must find some medicine for my hip. Sitting for long stretches isn’t as easy as it once was.”
He shuffled away, his grey robes swaying with each limp.
I palmed my face, grinding my teeth. Dammit. Time was against me—I had only a narrow window to find anything useful on the Skorn.
I should’ve seen this coming. I won’t make that mistake again.
“Pssst.” A soft, feminine voice caught my attention.
In a dim alcove, Giulia Bernardi and Moira Bryce watched me closely from a table.
Giulia was a few years older but small, like me. Frailer, though. Her black curls framed a pixie-like face, blue eyes stark against her pale skin. Her mother had secured her a schoolmaster’s apprenticeship, sparing her from Vangar service. But only the wealthier members of our tribe could afford the tutelage the Bernardi women offered.
I scanned the tent for Soroush. He appeared to have left altogether. Biting the inside of my lower lip, I strode toward Giulia, who waved me into the alcove. “What is it?” My voice was harder than I’d intended it to be, my annoyance displaced.
Giulia cringed. Her yellow, floral dress stood out against my Vangar leathers—impractical, too bright for our world. “I heard you talking to Soroush,” Giulia whispered, sliding two books toward me. “Darya didn’t take everything. She passed these along to me in case I wanted them for Moira’s lesson.”
My breath hitched, hope surging through my chest.
The Way of Skorn
Mysteries of Emberstone
I met Giulia’s wide-eyed gaze. “Are you … offering these to me?” And had Darya meant for her to?
Ciaran’s sister watched me closely, reminding me so much of Esme that my chest hurt. How often had I seen them playing together in our tent? She gave me a tentative smile.
“If you need them,” Giulia said. “But please don’t tell anyone else you got them from me.”
Great. Nothing like being treated like a walking plague.
“Why take that risk then? Did Darya tell you to give these to me?”
Giulia shrugged, lowering her timid gaze before glancing at Moira. “Some of us think what you did was really brave.” She offered me a small smile. “And if a Lirien who looked like yours wanted me to marry him, I’d probably say yes, too.”
I almost laughed, her words oddly comforting. The idea that Darya may have again gone against Seth was even more encouraging. And I wasn’t about to argue—I needed all the help I could get. Slipping the books into my satchel, I nodded. “Thank you, Giulia. You have my word. No one will know you helped me.”
I turned to go and then hesitated.
Soroush still hadn’t returned, and he wouldn’t—not until I left. Fine. I don’t need him. Guilia was a voracious reader, and I suspected she knew more than she let on.
Leaning closer, I lowered my voice. “Do you know anything that could give my husband and me an edge in Emberstone? Something Soroush wouldn’t share?”
Giulia moistened her lips. “Most of what might be helpful to you is in Emberstone, written in Old Ibarran. Some say the old gods in the Third Age devised the Skorn trial, but that’s all just myth as far as I’ve read.”
Curpiss. Old Ibarran. That was something I didn’t know how to read. My mother did, but she’d never taught me.
Moira frowned. “There’s an Old Ibarran?”
Giulia wrung her hands. “When the world flooded at the end of the Third Age and the people of the Old World came to Lirien by ship, they were a mix of cultures, languages, and races from a much larger continent. Old Ibarran was one of those languages.”
Moira’s eyes widened. I took for granted that my mother had educated me at home, teaching me the history of Lirien. Moira and Ciaran were lucky—at least their parents could afford tutors. Most Viori never had that luxury. “Was this before Vornfall?” she asked.
Giulia nodded. “Most of the Old World’s history was lost after the battle, entire continents and empires erased. Only scraps of the Old World remain, passed down as myths.”
