She continued walking, heading for her rooms and her private entrance to the library. Every member of the royal family had a separate corridor to the library. It was something Queen Jumi had insisted upon. But Leo rarely ventured down there; it reminded him too much of her mother. If he had pushed away his hesitance to consult the scrolls, she needed to find out why.
“Are you listening?”
“Contrary to what it seems, I am,” Elena said, her eyes sliding to the Yumi. “And you’re right. I was a little too hard on the assassin. But you’re wrong about one thing, Ferma.” She stopped, and her Spear broke her stride. “I never lost control. Not once.”
She held out her hand. It was steady. When she had first learned the Unsung, her body would tremble for hours after. Use of the form demanded concentration, energy. She had seen how Yassen Knight spun on his toes, how he slipped in between Ferma’s advances. He had been using the Unsung, but only to a point.
Perhaps because of his injury, she thought. Despite his arm, he had guarded himself well, positioning his right side away from attack, using her momentum to spin her back to his left side.
He had been smart, and incredibly infuriating. But now Elena felt a wary curiosity toward her new guard. As well as a tremor of warning.
If Yassen Knight had been holding back, what was he like in his full capacity? What else was he hiding from her?
The library still smelled like old stone and stale sand. Elena spun in a slow circle, the ends of her skirts fluttering as the orbs lit up one by one, illuminating the tower of books and scrolls spiraling above her.
She turned to the sound of footsteps. Ferma descended into the chamber, brushing dust from her long, silky hair.
“I’ve moved the guards outside your door to the end of the corridor. They didn’t hear the passage opening.”
Elena approached a bookshelf along the eastern wall, running her hand along the stone. In the last few suns, her visits here had become less frequent. Preparations as heir and tracking gold caps tended to have that effect.
As a child, she had come to escape nagging tutors. As she got older, she would come to breathe. Something about the cold, quiet stone and the musty scent of timeworn pages calmed her still.
But more so, it was the closest that she ever felt to her mother. Aahnah had been the keeper of this library, organizing the scrolls into a secret order that she had taught her daughter. Often, Elena would find her here, reading runes and ancient prophecies about the world that came before.
“Tell me what you’ve read, Mama,” she would ask, and her mother would smile and smooth her sari, indicating Elena to sit on her lap.
“Once, before the world began, there were three flames.”
It had been Aahnah’s favorite story, the one she obsessed over to the point that it had driven her to fever dreams of destruction and death.
As Elena walked around the library, her throat tight, she remembered how on one occasion, she had come into the library and found her mother flying haphazardly on the circular platform, throwing scrolls left and right.
“It must be here, Phoenix Above, Iknowyou’re here,” she called out.
Reams of paper, bouncing on the floor. Elena had cried out. She tried to grab the scrolls, to return them back to their spots, but no matter how fast she moved, her mother had been faster.
“His Majesty has definitely been here,” Ferma called out as she rose. Her voice rang through the tall chamber.
Elena stepped onto a stone circle, forcing the memories away. She joined her Spear before the western shelves.
Ferma pointed at a section. “The dust is unsettled there.”
“Why would my father study the Immortal scrolls?” Elena muttered.
She knew these ledges like the back of her hand. The Immortals were an… odd section, to put it lightly. The knowledge about them was limited, spanning fewer shelves than any other subject contained in the library. It was also the place her mother had visited during the last days of her sickness.
Hands, so thin and fragile, gripping her with a force that made Elena freeze.
“I know the sorrow of it,” her mother had gasped, eyes wide and distant. “I know her pain.”
“Elena.” Ferma’s voice was soft. “We can come back later.”
Elena twisted the end of her dupatta. To her horror, both her hands were shaking.
Enough, she thought.No more ghosts.She sucked in a mouthful of dusty air, and coughed.
“No, no, there’s no time.” Elena used her dupatta to wipe her face. “I need to meet Samson. And then I need you to track Varun in the city—”
