Had they called the lord themselves? No, I couldn’t believe that. Refused to. Just because I’d told Theo to leave didn’t mean he would turn on me so quickly.
And Polly. I’d believed her when she said she was sorry.
But I’d believed her in Kenton Hill, too.
Another minute lapsed, and somewhere within that library,The Stewards’ Testamentand its translation were trading hands. Idia’s Seam handed over to the Head of House himself. There’d be no resisting. His contingent were likely fire Charmers. Armed soldiers. And how many bullets were in Theo’s gun?
I locked eyes with Patrick—he across the square, and me much closer to those steps. Too close for him to catch me. No hope of him making it past the doorman, not in his garb.
No, he seemed to beseech me, seeing the lean my body was already taking.Don’t do it.
But I was a runaway train.
I went inside.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHTPOLLY
Polly held her finger to the parchment and watched ink bleed to the page. The pad of her index felt more connected to the parchment than to her.
The translating was swift with the aid of the cypher. She found herself languishing in the challenge of it—nose bent over parchment, ink bleeding from page to page, fingertips soon stained. She transcribed the strange glyphs fromThe Stewards’ Testament, then methodically consulted the cypher. Verian Script was a jerry-rigged language of three origins melded into one. Polly pored through her grandfather’s tome and fished out any lettering as though pushing together pieces of an ever-expanding puzzle. Each word was practically strangled from the book, like it was reluctant to give it up. Polly wondered if somewhere, deep in the earth, the three daughters turned in their graves, their stories torn from their skeletons against their will.
She was beginning to recognize the layers of glyphs that turned up more than once.Beast, for instance.Witchwas another. Not for the first time, her mind wandered to that unnamed enemy. Presumably, the enemy referred to the foreign continents, the ones that Idia and her army defeated in the Battle of Belavere. Polly was sure this part of the story was about to unravel. Idia would lead her army of loyal Belaverians into a battle against this beast, and she would sacrifice herself to defend the land—leave her magic behind in the ground as a gift to those who served her, who defended her.
That was what the Book of Belavere had taught them.
But then she thought of Joan, then Dione. Where was their army? They’d died with little more than a small band of Stewards to defend them.
Theo remained nearby, pretending to peruse the shelves. Sometimes he sat by Polly and watched as she translated. He came and went twice with each passing hour, and Polly barely noticed.
The third daughter was named for her beauty. Of all three daughters, she seemed to harness the least power, preferring instead to perform the menial tasks of farming—tilling soil and crafting all manner of tools.
Theleastpowerful? That didn’t seem right.
Her work was solitary. Idia was not prone to the grandiose displays of her older sisters, and she thereby went quietly into the belly of the continent and stayed hidden for many years.
Polly huffed a quiet laugh. “Not all of us are so lucky,” she murmured to herself.
She secluded to the deep hills and rarely surfaced. We Stewards hunted and lived simply alongside her contemplation. We recount her meditative practice, her connection to the country, to the earth, and her deep love for this soil on which she’d been born. Idia murmured to this land, and it sang to her, worshipping as we worshipped.
In those quiet days, we, her Stewards, grew devoted. She nourished the earth, and so the earth nourished us, who never knew a greater peace. We offered our lives to Idia, but the third daughter would not accept.
To us, she entreated instead, “The Stewards shall witness and live on long enough to scribe these stories.”
Polly’s head lifted from the parchment, her brow furrowed. High on the southern wall of the library were the carved words of the Scribblers’ doctrine.WE WHOSE BLOOD IS INK WILL SCRIBE BELAVERE’S STORIES. The same credo she’d chanted in the Artisan school. The one written on her official fellowship diploma. She looked back at her splotched rendering of the Stewards’ words and wondered if these men and women weren’t the very first Scribblers.
The time for peace was not lasting, for across the lands, shepherds, thieves,and travelers wandered, and Idia’s presence could be felt by even the daftest man. The beast came.
“No,” Polly muttered. This was not how the story went. Where was Idia’s army? The cavalry of horsemen and the foreign enemy in their armada, pillaging Belavere’s sacred lands in search of its magic?
Outside the library walls, the sun was sinking into the sea. Daylight already slipping through her fingers. Polly turned on her lamp and ignored the ache in her back, in her head. The final page of the Stewards’ book distended, and she worked in a frenzy now, growling when the ink bled wrong.
The beast came as it had for the first and second daughters. The beast was greed and envy. It was both laborer and conqueror. They were governors, priests, and farmers. They were the insidious arrogance of men who believe themselves a worthy custodian of power. They were Idia’s own countrymen, who came to those soft hills of widow’s lace and took Idia out into the night.
Polly breathed as though she were sprinting, not scribbling.
Idia did not fight as she was taken. Instead, she let her fingers whisper over the wildflowers and conversed with the moon. The murderers of her sisters carried burning torches and blades. They bared teeth stained red and seemed possessed of their intention. When Idia spoke to the sky, they called her witch. They screamed their convictions as though to make them true. “Evil,” they screamed. “Wicked.”
They cut and bled Idia as they had her sisters, and she made no sound, nor did she mount any defense. She went willingly into this slow death.
