“The prince said I could use the library. Can I help with that?”
“Please,” she said, and extended the candle. I took it, holding it out to light her search as she flipped through the keys one after the other.
“Here we go,” she said, finally settling on one. She fitted it into the door, then looked back at me. “You’re welcome, of course, to go wherever he allows. It’s just…prepare yourself.”
“All right,” I said with a nod, imagining a room with leather-bound books and fancy tapestries and maybe a knickknack that a rich prince wouldn’t miss.
She turned the key and pushed open the door.
It was magnificent. Whereas the throne room was a long box, focusing attention on the man in the silver chair, the library was a rounded tower with three full stories of leather-bound books crowned by a turquoise-and-gold vaulted ceiling with glass windows, inset mirrors, and representations of the gods. Each bookshelf was supported by black turned columns with golden baubles, and each floor of shelves was bound by a wooden balcony with carved and gilded spindles. It was like a shrine, not to the gods, but to knowledge itself.
Unfortunately, while the architecture seemed respectful of the books, the palace’s recent inhabitants apparently hadn’t been. The floor was covered in teetering piles of books and documents, some of which rose halfway up to the first level of shelves, and others that had long since tumbled into mounds on the floor.
I followed her inside, staring at the mess and walking carefully between stacks on the verge of collapse—which might bury both of us. “What happened in here?”
“Absolutely nothing,” she said sourly. “This is one of the things I must see to, but I haven’t started yet.”
I carefully touched a fingertip to the leather cover of a book atop one pile and pulled back a fingertip coated with dust. “I’m certain you aren’t the first person who’s looked at this room and said exactly that.”
“I’m not sure if that makes me feel better or worse. The library holds books—storybooks and guides and books about Carethia’s history—but it’s also a historical archive for reports and ledgers and proceedings. Each gate is.” She scanned the room. “The former residents of the palace apparently let the documents pile up.”
These definitely weren’t the gardens. “And didn’t bother to clean around them. You weren’t here?”
She shook her head. “I accompanied His Highness from the City of Flowers, where I was apprenticed to the steward of the White Rose Palace—the prince’s residence. The former steward of this palace retired sometime after the former prince’s death. He apparently didn’t bother with any of this in the meantime.”
I walked to a stack that reached my waist and flipped open the thin linen cover of a book with a visible sewn binding along one edge. “An agricultural report prepared for the Western Prince,” read the first page. “This is dated four years ago.”
She managed not to curse but went very still for a few seconds. “I shouldn’t be surprised,” she finally said. “The Western Gate has a certain reputation.”
I turned back to her, ears alert to the possibility of valuable information or interesting gossip. “Does it?”
She glanced around, as if to ensure the prince wasn’t standing behind her, before leaning toward me.
“It’s not the farthest gate from the City of Flowers,” she said, when she’d turned back again, “but it’s the most difficult to reach because of Mount Cennet. So it’s the least prestigious gate—and the gate where troublemakers are sent.”
“Troublemakers?”
“Princes more interested in gambling than ruling. Princes who might be persuaded to sell state secrets, who sired too many bastards, who tried to smuggle swords or lyrestone—it’s used to make weapons.”
“So he imprisons his sons here?”
She inclined her head. “And most of them didn’t feel especially grateful.”
“I think your prince is grateful,” I said.
“To be out of the City of Flowers, away from the gossip and politics. To have the mountains between him and the Emperor Eternal, forever may he rule. I think he forced his father’s hand.”
I heard a very particular tone in her voice—one that saidI really shouldn’t tell you, but I really want to tell you. It was one of my favorites.
“He told me he was disobedient.”
She smiled. “Then I’m only providing the context. I heard he was a naughty child. I served in a different part of the palace complex then, but word about the princes traveled. He was playful and smart, and always tricking his governess to get out of his lessons. He loved his mother dearly, and he was devastated when she died. He was so young. He got into more trouble then. He’d disappear from the palace for days at a time, supposedly spending time with the off-duty palace guards. And then he punched one of his tutors.”
“Punched him?” I didn’t doubt he was capable; I’d seen him fight. But I hadn’t seen him lash out like that. “What did the tutor do?”
“Hit one of the prince’s friends—one of the companions selected for the prince in his youth.”
“Can’t blame the prince for lashing out,” I said.
