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“That almost sounded like an insult,” I said. “And I didn’t once hear you address me as your grace.”
“Your grace,” he said, voice even.
“I suppose this means you want to come along with me to the Great Library? To watch me read words too big for you to understand for the next few hours?”
“Insulting my intelligence isn’t going to deter me from my duty,” he said, already hailing down one of the seraphim attendants to prepare my carriage.
“Well, insulting my intelligence isn’t going to make up for the lack in yours. If I in fact am the fool you claim me to be, then let’s remember the many times this fool left you behind in the dust or tricked you into staying back while I flew away unescorted. If a fool can outsmart you—what do you call yourself?”
His nostrils flared, and for a moment, I remembered just how dangerous Markan was. He struck first and asked questions later. He always followed orders, including those to drug me and carry me away from the last place I ever saw Jules alive. He’d killed the vendor who worked for the Emartis.
“Impatient,” he said. “You know we have terrorists in the city now, terrorists who have targeted you, terrorists who you decided to chase after on your own. Foolish. Don’t act so brave when you’re hiding behind Lord Tristan’s escorts or the forsworn trailing your every step.”
I stiffened, not liking the way he’d mentioned Rhyan. Rhyan was officially part of my escort, a member of my security team along with Markan. He’d been ordered by my father to guard me in exchange for refuge in Bamaria. But the way Markan had spoken of him made it sound like Rhyan had been going above and beyond his duty. Like he’d noticed something between me and Rhyan he shouldn’t have, just as Tani had noticed.
“Sit behind the partition,” I snapped. I turned, rushing forward and climbing up the stairs into the blue topaz carriage atop our seraphim.
The carriage shifted as Markan climbed aboard behind me, the privacy door slamming shut as he grunted. I huddled into my seat, my green soturion cloak wrapped tightly around my shoulders. The floor shifted again as our seraphim stood, preparing to take off.
The wind blew against the carriage as her golden wings flapped, and within another few seconds we were airborne. I called out our destination to the bird and stared out the window, remembering how the Emartis had appeared over the Katurium on black seraphim that had exploded into glass. There was a single dark cloud ahead, and my heart hammered, but then we passed it, soaring into peaceful skies. I squeezed my eyes shut. There were no Emartis in the sky. Not today.
In Scholar’s Harbor, I walked through the golden desert of the island. The land had been dried out completely by the magic used to construct the pyramids that housed all the Lumerian knowledge in existence. Elderly ashvan horses raced back and forth across the sand dunes, their jewel-toned bodies and manes shining too brightly in the morning sun. Ashvan foals just beginning to fly raced until their hooves lifted from the sand, tiny blue sparks erupting behind them.
Before me, the three golden pyramids loomed. I headed straight for the smallest and oldest, the one that housed Sianna Batavia’s writings. As usual, the entrance was guarded by Apollon and Eger Scholar, two brothers, both trained as soturi who had dedicated their lives to protecting the knowledge kept inside. They both towered over six feet tall, and their skin was nearly black, a trait shared by most of Ka Scholar, who preferred life in the slower-paced desert-like setting of Scholar’s Harbor.
Immediately, they parted their swords for me to step inside. Both Apollon and Eger offered warm smiles as I greeted them, surprised to see them in the day since they often took guard duty overnight. I caught a slight narrowing of their eyes and a frown on Eger’s face as they noticed Markan stalking behind me.
Inside the pyramid, Nabula Kajan jumped up as soon as she saw me. Leather cases full of scrolls were strapped across her body. She also tended to work at night, but was in the library most days as well.
“Your grace,” she said. “It’s been weeks.”
“I know. I’ve been busy. It’s good to see you, Nabula.”
She eyed me up and down, taking in my formal attire as an Heir to the Arkasva. I watched as her gaze settled on my forehead, on the diadem, the mark of my station.
She nodded slowly. “And you, your grace.” She took in the soturion cloak wrapped around me, the only aspect of my appearance that hinted I was still powerless, still forced into that path. “Shall I prepare your light for you?” There was an underlying question in her words. I realized she was unsure if I was still without magic.
“Please,” I said, a familiar stab of pain in my heart.
She rushed behind the long table at which she’d been sitting and which was full of scrolls of all shapes and sizes, some neatly rolled and tied shut with a leather strap, others open and laying across each other, weighed down by crystals to save her place. After stretching to grab a long golden lamp from a high shelf behind her, she laid the rod across her worktable and reached up to a second shelf to take down one of the oversized amethyst crystals. The amethyst was hooked to the edge of the rod, which she carefully stood against the ground.
She uttered the incantation, her hands sweeping in circles around the stone until a bright, luminescent light uncoiled from the center of the amethyst. Light glowed from within until the entire crystal shined, its light reflecting on the inner golden pyramid walls, turning Nabula’s white dress lavender. Nabula placed the rod in my hands as the amethyst rocked side to side.
Her gaze shifted behind me to where Markan stood, miserable and surly.
Good. I’d forgotten how much it annoyed him to come here—this was new motivation for me to make more visits if he was going to insist on following me every time I left the Academy.
“One for you as well, Soturion Markan?” Nabula asked.
“No,” he said. “I’ll be waiting for her grace right here.”
Nabula’s face fell a little, and I almost laughed. She was just as miserable at the idea of him being around as I was. She was clearly in the middle of some serious reading and didn’t want a brute like Markan hovering over her.
“I can set you up at your own station—we do have some lovely firsthand accounts of soturion training in Lumeria Matav—”
“I’m fine,” he said with a cough. He was already stiff and in his guard position: eyes alert and assessing for danger, muscled arms crossed over his chest.
“Follow me, your grace,” Nabula said, waving me to her side.
