Page 136 of Embers of Ruin

“I am concerned about your usefulness.”

I nod slowly. “Ah. I was beginning to miss your charming personality.”

His expression remains perfectly still.

I have discovered that insulting Malveris is like throwing stones into a bottomless well. Nothing echoes back.

“The cage feeds upon your energy, as I have told you before.” He gestures toward the chamber. “Every enchantment has a price. This one simply asks you to pay it.”

I stare at him. “So I'm powering my own prison.”

“Partially,” Malveris replies, inclining his head slightly.

I stare at him for several seconds, trying to decide whether he is serious.

“So let me see if I understand this correctly. You built an elaborate magical prison powered by the very person you’re trying to imprison.”

The corner of Malveris’s mouth lifts.

“Built?” He lets the word hang between us before shaking his head once. “No.”

His fingers trail lightly across the glass. “Some creations are far older than either of us.”

A chill crawls down my spine. “You're saying someone else made this.”

“Long ago.”

“Who?”

I already know he isn’t going to answer. I ask anyway.

His smile returns, patient and infuriating. “Now you’re asking the right question.”

He lets the silence linger just long enough for me to wonder if, for once, he’s going to give me a real answer.

He doesn’t.

Instead, he reaches beneath one arm and produces the black leather book. My stomach sinks before he even opens it.

The symbols covering its pages feel wrong in a way I still can’t explain. They aren’t evil. They aren’t corrupted. They feel ancient, as though they belong to a language the gods spoke before they ever spoke to mortals. Looking at them reminds me of the Sacred Gardens. My magic had recognized that place long before my mind understood why.

“Shall we revisit the records?”

“No.”

“It is not optional.”

“Then unfortunately for both of us,” I say through gritted teeth, “my answer remains no.”

The pages begin turning anyway. No wind stirs them. No visible magic guides them. They move of their own accord until they settle on a single page.

My breath catches as a woman stares back at me from the parchment. Silver hair tumbles over her shoulders while light spills through the veins beneath her skin like rivers beneath ice. Every line has been drawn with impossible precision, as though the artist hadn’t painted her at all but simply copied what already existed.

I don't know her, but something deep inside me recoils.

She feels familiar, the way Thorin did before I understood why. The way the Sacred Gardens recognized me before I recognized myself. She is beautiful, powerful, and unbearably sad.

“Does this look familiar?” Malveris asks.