Biyu pulled out a scroll and skimmed over the contents. A spell of some sorts. The worddeathstood out, though the rest seemed confusing. She tucked it in one of the pockets of her wide sleeves and reached for another. She could read and figure out the rest later.
She must have waddled about the tight space between the shelves, picking and scanning random scrolls and books, for ten minutes before something in her peripheral vision caught her eye. Her pulse quickened and she turned sharply.
A dim light appeared in the far corner beyond a few shelves. Someone coughed, shifting the candle so the orange light bobbed and flickered. Biyu’s eyes widened. Someone was in here; they had likely been here the whole time. Had a mage fallen asleep while researching and then awoken to her rummaging through these scrolls?
She pocketed the scroll in her hand and dropped low, shuffling down the corridor while glancing over her shoulder. The light continued to bend and move, as if the person was shifting it one way then the other. Like they were searching for something—or someone.
She couldn’t use her invisibility spell; a skilled mage could easily sniff it out.
“Is somebody there?” a nasally voice called out.
Her pulse roared in her ears.
She needed to get out—now.
Biyu hastened her steps until she came to a set of doors leading who-knew-where. She hadn’t even known there were several exits and entrances; this could very well lead to another branch of the library and straight to a horde of mages for all she knew.
The light grew closer, and the mage’s boots clicked on the hardwood floors. She didn’t have time to run anywhere else. Her fingers slid over the cool metal handle and she twisted it open as quietly as she could, and tiptoed inside, closing the door while holding the handle so she didn’t make the same mistake as when she first entered. She released the handle and glanced at the room she had entered.
Tables neatly lined the area, with bookshelves covering the walls. A study room, she surmised. There was another set of doors at that end and she rushed over to them. There was no guarantee that the mage, or whoever was there, wouldn’t follow her in here.
She opened the door the same way and entered into another similarly set room. When she reached another door, she couldn’t help the relief that shuddered through her when she entered into a dimly lit hallway. She was confident enough in her mapping of the palace to know how to get back to her bedchambers once she walked through the halls enough to orient herself.
Biyu hurried down the hallway and cast a wayward glance over her shoulder to make sure no one was following her, then tentatively went down the bend in the hallway. Her breath faltered and her ears strained for any noise—any indication that she was being followed—but she heard nothing.
Two scrolls. That was all she had managed.
Disappointment drenched every fiber of her soul; she had hoped she would be able to get whichever scroll was necessary in the first try, so she wouldn’t have to do this again. As freeing as it was to be out in the open using magic, the exhilaration, excitement, and anxiety-inducing slinking through the halls was too much for her heart to reasonably deal with. She didn’t know how many times she would be able to do this before she was caught; she’d only narrowly escaped it this time around.
She rounded another corner and crashed into something hard. Her nose smacked onto a wall and she reeled back, her hand going straight to her face as she righted herself. Tears sprang into her eyes and she blinked through the unexpected pain to find that thesomethingshe had bumped intowasn’ta wall.
No. It was in fact a person.
Her mouth dried, all the hairs on her body rising, because standing in front of her was none other than Nikator. And he was peering down at her with those soulless, sharp eyes.
7
He blinked down at her,confusion and something else flitting over his handsome features—incredulity, maybe. But whatever it was, it quickly morphed into something harder, something flinty and aggressive. Suspicion, likely, and something deeper—a mistrust that made her tremble on the spot. He knew she wasn’t supposed to be here, and she knew she had messed up. Royally. Out of all the people she could have bumped into … it had to be him.
Biyu somehow managed to step back with trembling legs, no words coming to mind. She needed to find an excuse, yet words eluded her. Worse yet, he seemed unable to think of anything to say either. He only stared, the look on his face growing darker.
Finally, his next words snapped the quiet disbelief suspended between them both. “What are you doing here?” He glanced over her shoulders, as if expecting her guards to be waiting in the dark with an excuse as to why she was here, and when he turned his piercing eyes back to her, she could only flinch at the suspicion brewing there. “You’re alone.”
Biyu swallowed the panic clawing up her throat. She would be tossed in the mage towers. She would be tortured. She would drag Yat-sen with her and inevitably cause his execution. Hermind began to swim with grotesque images of her head severing from her body, rolling on the floor by the emperor’s feet, and all the nobles and soldiers clapping in a macabre fashion.
She swayed on her feet.
She would be interrogated, tortured, killed. Tossed in an unmarked grave in the middle of nowhere. Forever lost, forever forgotten—just like the rest of her family. Just like Feiyu.
“Princess.” There was a vicious lilt to his voice that jolted her. He was scowling at her, his usually bright eyes appearing almost violet in the dim lighting. “I asked what you’re doing here? At this hour?Withoutyour guards?”
Biyu’s breath caught in her throat and her gaze flicked to behind him, where the darkness pulled deeper into the center of the hall, where it seemed endless.
“Princess.”
She didn’t think, shecouldn’tthink, and so she bolted. Around him and straight down the hallway. She heard him shout something behind her, but the words were lost to her. She kept sprinting, her legs burning from the unexpected exercise and her mind racing.
She would be tossed in the mage towers.
