Page 77 of The Awakening of Essensia

It slammed shut. She fell backward, heart racing.

Galfri laughed. “With time, you will find subtlety,” he said. “But your instinct is good.”

Vaelira smiled despite herself. “What would you do if I hadn’t managed it?”

“I would be forced to walk through the passage to open the exit at the barracks. My knees thank you.”

She laughed, surprising herself with the sound. She turned her palm up, brushing her thumb across the faint lines that etched her skin. The essensia had left no mark, just a tingling sensation, as if it were saying, finally.

She pressed her hand to the floor again and the stone opened more smoothly this time, as if eager to obey.

“To defend yourself, and others, you must master your power,” Galfri said. His voice had turned firm. “You must control it. Or it will control you.”

“I don’t even know where to begin.” she said, staring into the yawning tunnel.

“I will help you.”

She turned to him, studying him in full. His thin frame was bent with age, his skin clinging to the bones as if it might slip free at any moment. His white hair was thin wisps at his scalp, his skin ashen from long days beneath the mountain. He looked like he might collapse under the weight of a strong wind.

“You can’t fight,” she said quietly.

Galfri gave a small, rueful smile. “I have lived over a century. I taught myself everything within these walls, but without a mentor, my progress was slow. Now, my body can no longer bear what my spirit could summon. But you can.”

She looked back to the dark passage at her feet. Galfri couldn’t fight if he meant to survive. If he meant to pass along his knowledge.

But she could.

17

An Ache

Elijah slammed the door to the library behind him. His footsteps echoed loudly in the palace halls, his breath uneven despite his casual pace. He was the Crown Prince of Eastvale, and he’d allowed himself to be cast aside by a librarian.

Galfri has resided in that library longer than I have drawn breath. His fathers voice echoed in his mind, calm and absolute. The library is more his than it is ours. Under the mountain, he is master.

Those words had come when Elijah was still a boy, after he and a group of friends had stormed the library, disrupting the quiet and darting between the shelves. After Elijah had taken a candle to a stack of books, Galfri had intervened. Elijah remembered threatening to have him executed. He hadn’t dared let those boys see the embarrassment he felt at being spoken to like a child. The librarian hadn’t even flinched. He had only smiled, ushering them out with a firm hand on Elijah’s shoulder. The lecture from his father had come only a few hours later.

He was no longer a boy, and Galfri, while frail and weak, still commanded him with that same infuriating calm. Elijah clenched his fists as he took the stairs two at a time.

He turned left towards the West Wing and a trio of servants appeared from a side hall, returning from the King’s Tower. They pressed their backs to the wall, heads bowed, eyes fixed on their feet.

He didn’t spare them a glance.

What could Vaelira and Galfri be whispering about that he wasn’t allowed to be a part of?

He had brought the girl here, at Galfri’s insistence, nonetheless. The old man had promised she would be instrumental in their fight against these summoners—his best chance to show his people he was a worthy heir—and yet they had shut him out like an afterthought.

He exhaled hard and rapped twice on the heavy wooden door leading to his father’s chambers. It creaked open and he stepped into the quiet entry hall, where two guards stood at attention. There would be two more stationed on the other side of the double doors further ahead.

“How is he?” The words came out clipped, sharper than he had intended.

“He is resting, Your Highness,” said one of the guards. “The physicians have administered a sleeping draught.”

“I will see him.” He didn’t wait for permission.

The second set of doors opened before he reached them, and Queen Mairese emerged, skirts of crimson velvet rustling as she closed it gently behind her. She turned, surprise rippling across her face before vanishing beneath her mask once more.

“He is sleeping, Elijah.” Her voice was as cold as ever. There were faint smudges beneath her eyes where cosmetics had been hurriedly reapplied, and a few strands had escaped her tightly pinned hair.