“He’s awake,” Sylin said.
“Apparently,” Rylana said.
“Are you real?” Vormalt whispered, sounding groggy and dazed. His gray-flecked hair was tousled, and was that the start of a bruise darkening his stubbled jaw? “Are you the one who will help me reveal the secrets of the city to those who’ve been duped all this time?”
“Doubtful,” Sylin said.
Vormalt lifted a hand toward her face. “You’re so beautiful.”
Sylin caught his wrist before he could touch her, then held her knife up so he could see it. He groaned, his head rolling to the side and his eyes closing.
Rylana sighed. “So much for my questions.”
“I didn’t know he was so faint of heart that the mere sight of aknife would cause him to pass out.” Sylin stood and sheathed her blade again.
“I’m sure the magic knocked him on his ass and confused him.” Rylana looked warily toward the idol on the pedestal, hoping it wouldn’t do the same to her. She also wondered if the thing had been down here, its red eyes glowing, all through her childhood. “The creepy magic,” she added.
“We should leave him down here with the trapdoor locked.” Sylin looked around the chamber and back toward the tunnel. “I don’t see any other way out.”
“So you want to entomb him alive?”
“It will give him an opportunity to study whatever interested him.” Sylin waved toward the idol.
“He would die eventually without food or water. As much of a pain in thebukokas he is, I don’t think he deserves that fate. I’m notcarrying him out up that ladder though.” Rylana supposed she might be able to manage it with Sylin’s help, but Vormaltdiddeserve to spend the night on a cold stone floor with red troll eyes staring at him.
When he woke up in the morning, he could explain all this. Rylana would have Sylin wave her knife around to makesurethat he did.
5
After so manynights sleeping on the floor in Jildarin's storeroom, it should have felt wonderful to be in a bed—herownbed in her own room, albeit one she hadn’t visited in seventeen years. But Rylana didn’t sleep well. She dreamed of wandering lost in tunnels under the castle with troll-god idols leaping off their pedestals to stalk her, their red eyes glowing all the while.
When she woke in the middle of the night, sweat plastering her shirt to her torso, she felt alone, discombobulated, and out of place in her childhood bedroom. Even though it had a lovely location in one of the rear towers, with windows that overlooked the lake, it was no longer home, no longer a comforting sanctuary.
In the darkness, she rose and looked out a window toward Tranquility and wondered if Jildarin missed having her sleeping in the corner of his lair. Probably not. More likely, he was delighted to have the space to himself.
“I should have invited Sylin up to sleep onmyfloor,” Rylana murmured, shuffling back to bed. Oh, she would have offered the settee under the window, but Sylin would have opted for the rug in front of the fireplace.
Sylin had, however, remained in the library, opting to rest on its hard marble floor. She’d wanted to doze where she would wake if Vormalt climbed up from the ancient temple.
Since Rylana wanted to question him, she’d been glad Sylin had volunteered to keep guard. Rylana didn’t want Vormalt to be able to sneak out without explaining what he’d been doing under the library. For that matter, how had he learned the buried temple existed? Rylana hadn’t had any idea. If her father knew about it, he’d never mentioned it within her hearing. Since the tiles had needed to be smashed to gain access to the trapdoor, she was inclined to believe that generations might have passed since anyone had known of the temple’s existence.
When the first hint of predawn light brightened the sky outside, Rylana got up, pushing away another round of troll-god-laden dreams. The memory of the red-eyed idol kept coming to mind, whether she was sleeping or awake.
After using the lavatory, she walked down the stairs to the library, hoping Vormalt had woken up and could explain things. What had he meant when he’d asked Sylin if she would help reveal the secrets of the city? What could a long-abandoned temple have to do with Tranquility? And what had Vormalt done down there besides knocking the idols over? Andwhyhad he done that? Or had whatever magic he’d unleashed been responsible?
“Sylin?” Rylana called softly before entering the library. It was never wise to startle an assassin. “Did Vormalt come out?”
Her nose crinkled. The air smelled odd, musty with a tang of something that reminded her of rotten eggs. She didn’t recall noticing that the night before. She yawned, not feeling rested, as she peered around the library.
When nobody answered her questions, Rylana walked into the room, glancing toward the corner with the trapdoor. The blue glow hadn’t returned, but only one of the lanterns they’d broughtin the night before was there, still on the floor where they’d left it. Someone had closed the trapdoor.
Her first thought was that Sylin had done it to ensure Vormalt would make noise if he tried to leave, and she would wake up. But when Rylana walked deeper into the library, she found Sylin in the spot she’d left her, sleeping on the floor with a bookcase to her back.
“Sylin?” Rylana asked, surprised her comrade hadn’t woken at her first call—or at the faint creaks from Rylana descending the stairs. “Were the night’s events that exhausting?”
When Sylin’s eyes didn’t open, concern swept into Rylana, and she knelt by her friend. Sylin was breathing, but this couldn’t be natural sleep. Usually, Sylin slept like a bird with one eye open, ever alert.
Rylana yawned, and alarm smacked into her. Why was she yawning so much?
