Sighing, I pushed the door open, the smell of books hitting and comforting me. Amelia was behind the desk, bent over her phone. She looked up as I approached, her eyes rolling back when they met mine.
“If you haven’t noticed, I don’t like seeing you.”
I cleared my throat, trying to crack a joke to ease the ache in my chest. “Why? Because you developed a crush on me?”
She grimaced. “Because you remind me of my only failure.”
I shrugged. “Which was all your fault, by the way.”
“That is why I don’t want to see your face.” She paused, eyeing me. “Unless you’re here to tell me if you found something about the curse.”
I’d die before I let her know. “Keep dreaming.” I walked past her into the library, towards the shelves that held so many lies.
So many lies.
I went to the section that held books on the wrath, about the Soulless Man, about The Crater, about everything that happened in the past. And as I stood there, flicking through every book, some written centuries ago with speculations or in this case ‘account closest to the truth’ of what happened the day the moon’s offspring died, I wanted to rip the pages.
Knowing what I knew now, rage simmered under my skin, growing thicker as I stared at the shelves. The urge to tear out every false word about Thrax was overwhelming.
Everyone had lied. Everyone had spun the narrative. Scholars had written nonsense to satisfy the public. They’d tainted him intentionally, made him the nightmare of everyone, made him out to be even more villainous than Selvanyra’s punishment already painted him.
Actually, all of this was Selvanyra’s fault. She had punished Thrax for what her offspring wanted. Had she even tried to understand what happened?
No, she just went straight to wailing, dumping the blame on him when he was innocent.
I didn’t know the full story—why the offspring died for him, how deep Selvanyra’s grief had been to stop blessing humankind—but I knew it wasn’t right.
Nothing about it was right.
They were all lies.
She had punished him because it was his fault her offspring died, not because he had killed her.
If he had never existed, she would never have loved him enough to die for him.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
SANORA
I slept.
I didn’t know for how long, but I did. On the table.
After nearly crashing out and almost tearing every book off the shelves, I’d sunk to the floor and cried my eyes out for nearly two hours. Then I’d grabbed a book on curses, read until the words blurred, and somewhere between a paragraph and another, sleep dragged me under.
And now Amelia was standing over me, tapping my shoulder awake. Letting out a deep breath, I sat up slowly and groaned at the ache in my body — partly from the way I’d slept and partly from…other things. My muscles throbbed, heavy with exhaustion. Odd, considering all I’d done since morning was cry.
“Why are you crashing in my library?” she asked, arms crossed tight over her chest.
Because I realise I have nowhere to go.
“When did it become a crime to fall asleep while reading?” I stretched my arms over my head and yawned.
She sighed, planting one palm on the table and leaning closer. “You don’t think everyone is as slow as you, do you?”
I turned my head to look at her. “Is it that obvious?”
“What? That you’re slow or that you’d rather stay here than fly back into the arms of your dear lover?”
