“I will take these,” she said as she tentatively took one of the scrolls from the cubby and shivered.
“Perhaps I should take those,” I observed with a smirk. “You might freeze.”
She merely snorted at me and took the scroll over to a chair at the table where Riordan was beginning to sort the trinkets and scrolls left there.
“Anyone else wondering why the room was ransacked and left in a mess or is it just me?” I asked as I plucked a scroll on the Mavaari and joined Amira at the table.
“No, I am wondering the same,” Riordan confirmed as he got started with what had been left out on the table that had been of interest to the last person to come here.
Gods only knew how long we had been in the archives. Without sunlight, time seemed meaningless down there.
The scrolls in the corner contained little that we had not already known about the Mavaari. They had once been Sylvan Elves but were corrupted by the Destroyer to become the Dark Constellations or theósta dorcha.
The Dark Host.
What the scrolls did detail, in rather frightful detail, were tales of how they swallowed ancient civilizations with their insatiable hunger. Not even entire worlds could satisfy the void that had been breathed into them in place of their ethereal Light.
Riordan had better luck, since it seemed someone had alreadypulled anything useful from the stacks and left it all on the table. He found some accounts of the powerful weapons that had been made by the Sylvan and who had wielded them. That had prompted him to start a list of his ancestors whose journals he wanted to pull and read in the hopes of learning about how they wielded the weapons. And hopefully where to find said weapons.
Amira managed to find one passage about descendants of the Mavaari and all the powers they tended to inherit including the Scrios and the Light Wraith. Among other unnerving gifts. It also confirmed that the only way to stop anyone with Rian’s powers was with Light magic.
“Perhaps I could make some kind of an amplifier to make your dagger more potent,” Amira mused once she finished reading the scroll aloud to us. “I sometimes use crystals and other minerals or herbs to amplify magic or change how it manifests to increase its potency or range. Although I would need to experiment with the dagger to test what materials would work best for it,” she added, seemingly talking to herself.
“I am not sure how I feel about you experimenting with Light magic,” I admitted.
“Agreed,” muttered Riordan as he reclined in the plush chair he’d pulled up on her other side. “It is not a power that was meant to be manipulated by mortal hands.”
“But the Light Wraith is—was—mortal,” she insisted, her face dropping at her own correction.
“Yes, but he was born with that power inside of him,” Riordan maintained.
“What about Ornella,” I recalled curiously. “She was able to use it, but I did not think she was born with it.”
“Theanambonds are puzzle pieces,” Riordan told us distractedly while he continued to examine the sketches on the scroll in front of him. “Those fey are born with the same strand of essence from the Tithriall within them. Like one soul that is split into two separate bodies.”
Amira was sombre and silent while she absorbed his description of her friend’s bond.
“So I killed the other half of her soul,” she mumbled, and Riordan looked up at her instantly from the scroll.
“You did no such thing—” I began to object.
“But I allowed it to happen! She will be fully justified in hating me!” she insisted with a crushing anguish.
Riordan rose from his chair and tugged hers back so he could kneel between her knees, taking her face so that she looked down at him. The tenderness of his hands was at odds with the pure ferocity in his eyes.
“You did notknow, Amira. You were trying to act in her best interest. We thought that she was theirprisoner,” he reminded her sternly. “You bear no blame for it!”
“But she will not see it that way,” she said tearfully. She looked so forlorn that it broke my heart as she gazed at him like she hoped he had the answers she was craving. “She will never forgive me.”
“That is possible, my love, and I am sorry, but that is entirely her prerogative. Just as it is mine to protect you and all the Vale from any possible fallout from her wrath. Regardless of whether it is justified.”
Tears rolled free from Amira’s eyes, and Riordan used his thumbs to quickly but gently smear them all away.
“Do you think she got my message?” she asked.
“She should have by now,” Riordan said with a nod. “Hopefully we will have a response soon.”
Amira nodded before her lip began to tremble again.
