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I had no magic.
Now I had no family.
But I had my blades.
However, they would do me little good amid the stacks of books. So, they remained in their jeweled scabbards at my hips.
When I’d asked after the location of the library, Gawayn described a multi-level fortress within the palace, cut into the side of the mountain. After my foray into the lower levels, I’d dressed more warmly.
While the library was indeed down farther than the residences, it was nowhere near as deep as the catacomb of hallways where Arran had stashed the human. I turned a corner, expecting to see yet another long corridor, and found myself instead in a cavernous hall.
The ceiling stretched far enough above my head that the corners were concealed in shadows. Huge torches burned on the walls, casting orange shimmers across the goldstone walls, none of the cooler daylight permeating this inner cavern.
Two statues, carved not from goldstone but from the red-orange clay that coated the mountains, flanked each side of the massive library doors.
The first sent a shiver down my spine. Female, tall and shapely, the body could have been mine. But the face of the statue was entirely different. The eyes slanted more, the cheekbones were higher. A curtain of perfectly straight hair covered the right half of the face. She looked regal, but unnerving. Something about the sculpture was wrong, as if the proportions did not quite fit.
The second statue was worse. Slender as a reed, though just as tall as the other. The form was almost fluid, as if caught halfway in an undulating motion. Here, the face was familiar. Not quite the same as mine, or my mother’s, but undoubtedly some Pendragon female of history. Again, however, that same sense of wrongness permeated.
Maybe it was the existence of the statues at all. There were so few in the goldstone palace. Most of the decorations were geometric patterns created with colorful tile or actual gemstones. I had enough faces staring at me every time I emerged from my apartments; seeing those lifeless eyes watching me as well was damned unnerving.
I forced myself past them—to the massive doors that reached nearly to the ceiling where they joined at an arched point. Such grandeur, even for a bunch of books. Ridiculous.
Once I opened the doors, I realized how wrong I was.
I barely heard Gawayn and Lyrena taking up their posts at the doorway behind me. I was much too focused, being drawn in.
A bunch of books.
Ha.
Walls of them. Buildings. An entire city built of books came into focus around me.
I took a step forward, then another. Until I was standing in the center of a huge, circular blue carpet. Wrapped around it were bookcases, built to caress the curve of the rug. Two aisles broke off like spokes in a wheel, or rays of sapphire night.
It should have been dark. We were in the lower levels of the goldstone place. Except that instead of a wall of books, like one might expect, my eyes lifted past the tall bookcases to an even taller wall of windows.
Light flooded in from the Effren Valley, washing the entire room in brilliant shades of gold and warm tawny. The water gardens were famed for their beauty, but this…
I could see why Parys spent so much time here.
The cavernous library must hold thousands of tomes. Tens of thousands, maybe. But I saw no one. Of course, that didn’t mean there weren’t occupants. But however many of my courtiers were here, they were so dispersed across the space that standing there I felt entirely alone.
Except for Gawayn and Lyrena. The former of which cleared his throat.
“Would you like us to find something for you, Your Majesty?” Gawayn said.
I rolled my eyes, even though he could not see it. “No,” I said, taking a step forward. Toward the left of the two aisles. A few more steps, but then I slowed. Because the reality was, I did not actually know where I was going.
“Parys?” I called hopefully, if a little too quietly. Heat flooded my cheeks. I couldn’t very well ask for Gawayn and Lyrena’s help now.
But fae ears were sharp, and Parys’ were trained to hear whispers.
He popped his head out from between two cases of books, fifteen yards ahead of me.
“Veyka?”
I hurried forward, waving at Gawayn and Lyrena with a shooing motion. They stayed in place near the library doors.
