Sol smiled and tapped the book in her hands. “Want to find out what else he likes?”
Zeri and Jonah conversed softly in the background as she opened it and began to read out loud. Phil listened intently, urging Sol to continue every time she would stop to catch a breath. It was endearing.
Time passed, and with it the sun settled beneath the horizon, casting the library in purples and blues as the four of them finally exhausted their attention spans and just talked instead.
Between thoughts, Sol tried to formulate a plan to get them out, refusing to forget the reason she was there to begin with. Surely, no one before her had had this opportunity to see the Vows from the inside. She had to be able to do something they could not. Still, she had nothing.
She rolled her head to Phil, tapping at his shoulder as he lay calmly on the carpet beside her, seeming to be on the brink of sleep. “Hey,” she whispered, glancing toward the others. “I need to ask you something.”
Phil nodded, his eyes closed. “Mhm?”
“Penny… has she been back?”
She needed to speak to her, to inquire about the underground tunnels. Perhaps she would be able to take the prospects back with her somehow and guide them back—the girl had to know how to avoid the patrols down there. The rest of the plan, she was still working on.
“The tunnels below us have enchantments,” Phil whispered. “Sort of like Wards, but not Light Magic.”
Sol nodded. “Cas mentioned that.”
“The enchantments are only lowered twice a day, I think–I don’t know though, Rimemere procedures are always changing.” He yawned. “Penny can only come when they are down—maybe they haven’t been.”
Sol tugged at her braid. “Maybe.”
Without a sure timeframe for Penny’s return or knowledge of when the Wards may fall, Sol’s plan faltered.
Exhaustion pulled at her eyelids, making her yawn as well.
She was about to suggest they all return to their rooms to rest when a couple of kingsmen marched through the door of the library.
Conversations halted as they approached Zeri and Jonah, Jonah immediately standing to block their path. Zeri stood behind him.
“Tomorrow is the next Trial,” one of the kingsmen said, tossing an envelope his way. “You are all expected outside by dawn for travel.”
Thirty
SAWYER
AFTER NINA TENDEDto Sawyer’s physical wounds , in that way that made her emotional wounds flare with neglect, she just stayed in her rooms.
Letters came, and sentries knocked for her assistance with training or strategies to better protect their borders. She didn't care. In all the years she had taken her father’s beatings, this last time was perhaps the worst.
Not the pain; she was used to that. But maybe because she was gone for so long with her friends, finally experiencing a semblance of normalcy and happiness, having him remind her the illusion was dead and gone tore through her body more severely than any slash of his whip.
After two days of sleeping, picking at roasted potatoes and carrots that appeared at her door, and showering with scalding water, Sawyer got the fuck up and headed to the stables. Fey was in the middle of indulging herself with a stack of hay when Sawyer got there.
“The run will do you good,” she told the mare, scratching the back of her ear before mounting her.
The guards knew better than to ask questions when she approached and signaled for them to let her through the gates. They only gave her a bleak nod and a respectful salute as she dug her heel into Fey’s side and was off into the evergreen land.
She decided to avoid the human sections and the outskirts of the city, opting to gallop straight into the forests. It was half an hour on horseback to Emberdon’s Temple, which would be empty by the time she arrived, save for maybe a few stray acolytes.
She and Fey moved in unison with lethal precision, the mare already knowing when to evade trees or jump over fallen branches without much direction from Sawyer.
And she was thankful.
It meant she could focus on the wind and how it played in her hair and kissed her skin. The sky had taken on the most beautiful orange and pink hues as the sun set on the horizon to the left. She took in the freedom with all her senses, wishing with everything she had that it could be forever. That they had never returned.
Sawyer enjoyed being the Royal General. She cared for her legions, thrived under pressure, and excelled at producing valuable statistical plays during battles.
