She put a hand on my shoulder, squeezed gently. “You opened a door to the Aetheric and saved a Guardian’s life. That’s helpful. I’m going to look for healing books.”
I nodded, took the secret book, and closed the door behind us. It would be much easier, I figured, to hide a single book among thousands than to keep the secret room hidden while we were using it. I was still nervous about locking us inside.
While she perused the stacks and shelves, I sat down at a small table with the secret book and stared at the letters until my eyes watered. I looked for patterns: names, repetitive words, numbers. Anything that might give me a thread to pull. But if there was a pattern, I couldn’t find it.
The exercise was likely pointless. It was an old book in a room no one had visited in years. Yes, it was a lock I hadn’t yet learned to pick, and those were always fun. But I had other concerns—real concerns—so I shoved it into the bookshelf closest to the table.
When I’d first come into the library, I’d only gone through acouple of the bookshelves looking for information about the Aetheric. Wren sat on the floor in front of the shelves I’d already checked, an enormous book in her lap. So I crossed to the other side of the room and began my search.
An hour later, my neck was aching, and I’d found only a pamphlet printed on the thinnest paper I’d ever seen with a bit of scratching about Aetheric energy. Still on the ladder, I flipped through it, but it was mostly advice for people who wanted to plead with Anima for favors or to leave them alone. Nothing I could use. So I stuck it back on the shelf and climbed down the ladder, nearly tripping over one of the piles of books I’d forgotten was behind me.
I managed not to toss myself onto the floor, but the books weren’t as lucky. I considered leaving them there—what was good enough for a prince was good enough for a thief—but I couldn’t stoop to that level. So I crouched and gathered them up, adding them back to the precarious pile from which they’d fallen.
The last volume I replaced was a clothbound book withA Record of Carethiaembossed in gold on the front. I glanced at the stack. The book beneath it had the same title, but with a date a fortnight earlier. These must have been the archived reports dumped in the room and left to molder.
Curious (of course), I opened it. The book was made of separate documents bound together into a historical record. There were weather logs, palace inventories—including the thirteen boars served at a dinner held for an Eonian delegation—and issues discussed with the emperor during sessions with his counselors.
I flipped carefully through the yellowing pages but found nothing about Aetheric practitioners or possessions or visits from Anima. But why would there have been? There’d been no Luminae since the Aetheric god had disappeared. I had to goback. Not last year, or even five years ago. But back to the beginning of the end. Before the Aether dissipated, and royals could safely ignore peasant magic.
Back when Aether mattered. Because it certainly mattered again.
By midday, my hands were dirty with dust, my eyes were watering, and my stomach was growling. Damn the former palace staff who hadn’t even stacked the archives chronologically, so an impatient thief had to flip through hundreds of reports just to find one that mentioned the Aetheric at all. “Aetheric activity remains minimal,” was all it said. But that absence had been important enough to be noted in the official archive, so I knew I was on the right track.
“Bellywort,” Wren murmured, sitting on the floor nearby, as I worked my way through another stack. She’d been whispering the names of plants or seeds or concoctions since she grabbed her first book, apparently having a much easier go than me at finding what she needed.
Finally, I found a book dated a year before the god had disappeared. I sat down in a shaft of sunlight and perused it until I reached the chronicle of the emperor’s council sessions, and two words I’d never seen together: Aetheric curate.
A curate, from what I gathered, was some kind of Carethian official tasked with monitoring Aetheric happenings. He reported to the emperor about “verified” Anima activity and sightings of the Aetheric god. “The god is said to appear as a handsome man,” the report read. “Tall and distinguished, with silver hair and eyes that spin with magic. He arrives in a haze of silver-white magic, and his nature is gentle but firm. He guides the Luminae and they look upon him as a protector.”
“A protector who managed to get himself captured,” I muttered. It was odd to read a physical description of an Aetheric god. Weren’t they supposed to be above “handsome” and “distinguished”? Especially the god of a spirit realm.
There were discussions of his comings and goings, much of it rumor and nonsense. I doubted the Aetheric god had really “married a lass of ten and seven with a ring of pure Aether.”
When the gossip was recorded, the reporting seemed to turn serious: “Local magistrates continue cataloging local practitioners and skills.”
Cataloging. The emperor’s officials were looking for those who could manipulate Aether and, what, making a register of their skills? The archive didn’t say why, but it was easy enough to guess: because the Emperor Eternal believed their skills could be useful—or because he feared their skills could be used against him.
Then were was chatter about the magistrates, and the document ended with a single sentence: “Allies within shrines continue work on defenses.”
Enshrined Monks were the only people who lived in shrines. If they were the emperor’s allies, someone else had to be his enemies. Other nations? Other Carethians who wanted the throne? And what defenses could Enshrined Monks create? The Enshrined Monk at the stronghold’s Aetheric shrine had told me they were nonviolent and didn’t manipulate Aether. Maybe that was the truth now, but it hadn’t been when the god was still around. And maybe I’d found the reason Tommen’s drawing had religious symbols. Maybe it wasn’t the first time someone had tried to make a weapon with Aether.
I knew this was the beginning. And I knew I wouldn’t like learning the rest of it.
Wren rose, rolled her shoulders and neck.
“The Emperor Eternal was tracking who had Aetheric power, had a counselor for Aetheric matters, and was possibly trying to get monks to develop an Aetheric weapon.”
She looked at me, pursed her lips as she considered. “I can’t say any of that is surprising.”
She had a point. Of course the emperor would try to use the Aetheric—and the Enshrined Monks, who were supposed to be loyal to their gods—to his advantage. He was the emperor. He was a Lys’Careth.
I wondered how much the prince knew of this, and I dreaded that answer, too.
Wren looked toward the window. Outside, the day had turned gray and the glass was spattered with rain. “I should get back. I only came for the food and to find out if you’d successfully seduced the prince.”
“There was no effort, so no success. Are you working this afternoon?”
“It was going to be laundry, but no point with the rain. I’m sure she’ll find something for me to do, but I’ll be thinking about bellywort and astasia.”
