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“Come on, Red,” Carnon said, taking my hand in his and pulling me along with him.
The hallway eventually opened into a huge room, lit as Carnon had said by a single skylight and several mirrors. It wasn’t nearly as big as the library in the moonstone palace in Oneiros, but it was just as dusty and old.
I wrinkled my nose. “Has no one come to dust in the last century?” I asked, letting go of Carnon’s hand to wander aisles of neatly shelved but extremely dusty books. Some had titles in languages I couldn’t read, and others seemed just as ponderously old as the books Carnon had assigned me in the palace. One titledThe Witch Warscaught my attention as potentially useful, and I pulled it from the shelf with a leathery thwack.
“I doubt the priestesses and scholars think there’s much need for dusting,” Carnon said, perusing the shelf behind me.
We were back to back this way, and it was nice to have some common goal that wasn’t politics or intrigue or fighting or magic. I pulled another book from the shelf, this one titledProphecies of the Second Age. I wondered if anything in this book might be what Brigid had spoken of.
I couldn’t figure out how the library was organized. It seemed to be neither alphabetical, nor by subject, the books placed randomly on whatever shelf they had been nearest when they were first shelved. After thirty minutes, each of us had a small stack of books and we had only perused three of the shelves.
“This could take some time,” I said, feeling rather defeated at the sheer volume of material we’d have to read through to find anything potentially useful.
“Do you have some place pressing to be, Red?” Carnon teased. “Maybe we can narrow these down a bit.”
We sat most of the afternoon in silence, the turning of pages the only sound breaking the quiet hush of the dusty library. Every so often I looked up to see Carnon studying me.
The fourth time I caught him, I slammed the book I was trudging through. “What?” I demanded, waving away the cloud of dust that rose from the closed book.
“Nothing,” Carnon said, turning back to the book he was pouring over.
“You’ve been staring at me for thirty minutes. What is it?” I repeated irritably.
Carnon sighed, closing the book and stretching his arms above his head. I rolled my eyes at this obvious display of indifference.
“Your mother,” he finally said, lowering his arms and leaning back in his chair. “She told you nothing about your father?”
“No,” I said, narrowing my eyes. “I told you that.”
“I know you did,” he said, waving away my objection. He looked at me thoughtfully again, lips pursing.
“Goddess above, Carnon,” I growled.
“Fine,” he said with a sigh, lifting the book and crossing the space to sit next to me. He opened the book, a tome so old it was practically falling apart at the edge, to a section titledLineages. “Read this passage,” he said, pointing to a section about half way down the page.
I scowled, but tilted the book so that I could read more easily, straining my eyes over the cramped font.
King Ulfric’s mate, a witch born of daemon and mortal blood, went on to have a daughter, strong in her mother’s magic and somewhat skilled in her father’s. However, the crown next passed to Agnar, Lord of Blood.
“Why am I reading this?” I asked, looking up from the page to see Carnon watching me.
He pointed to the page. “For two reasons, Red. First, this is the first time I’ve seen a witch described as the offspring of a demon and a mortal.
I frowned, looking down at the page. He was right. As far as I knew, demons did not have mortal mates, and therefore there couldn’t be children of those unions. But there it was, plain as day on the page.
“Second,” Carnon continued, “because of this line here. “Strong in her mother’s magic and somewhat skilled in her father’s.”
“A witch with demon magic,” I said, realization finally dawning.
“Rather like you,” Carnon agreed, taking the book and snapping it shut. “Which is why I’m extremely interested now in the identity of your father.”
“You think what?” I asked, feeling skeptical about his train of thought. “That my mother somehow had a child with a demon, hid it from my grandmother hoping I’d just be a normal witch, then sent me to find you when it turned out I had demon powers?”
“I don’t think she sent you to find me at all, Red,” Carnon said quietly, giving me a hard look. It was almost sympathetic, and it irritated me.
“She told me to find the Demon King,” I replied, reminding him of her command when she first sent me to the Bloodwood. “To claim the Horned God’s protection. To follow this goddess-cursed stone. Those were fairly clear instructions.”
“Elara,” Carnon said, putting his hands on my shoulders and giving me a small shake. “Use your head. When she sent you to find the Demon King, I think she had no idea thatIwas that king.”
