Without another word, he turned and marched down the hall, his pressed white cape sweeping out behind him as if caught in a rogue wind.
She sighed and followed as he led her down the Citadel halls. They were endlessly twisting, the stones painted with runes that glowed like stars as he guided the way. Stained glass windows showed depictions of the gods in their triad forms.
Each person they passed bowed when Arawn came into view.
Their future king walked amongst them.
But she could feel their eyes onherback instead, as he guided her away.
Something like nausea roiled in her gut.
They finally paused before a towering set of ancient wood doors. Two guards bowed and opened them for Arawn to pass.
She followed him inside, expecting a throne room, or perhaps a torture room of some sort …
But to her relief – and surprising delight – it was only books. They’d entered into an enormous room, with rows of massive wooden shelves that could only be held aloft by runed magic. They were the largest Ezer had ever seen.
Her eyes widened.
‘A library,’ she breathed.
A true library, not like the dusty, shadow-filled pawn shops Ervos had taken her to, where very few books on magic remained.
After the war began, King Draybor had most of the books on Sacred magic, war eagles, raphons, runes – anything, beyond theliterature on the Five – rounded up and sent to the Citadel for safekeeping.
His guards had taken all they could find and handed out the Sacred Text instead.
It held the laws that all mortals must keep in order to become as close to the Five as they could. To fail was to deny the gods. And with each failure, a dark mark was placed upon one’s soul, dimming the light that the gods needed to find their soul when death came.
Too many laws broken and that light would go out.
There would be no Ehver.
No eternity in peace with the Five.
Instead, the soul would be tossed into a lake of darkness, a cold and endless abyss with not a shore to be found. Of course, that fate was too harrowing a task for every mortal.
So, the gods had children … and so were born the very first Sacred.
The Sacred were given magic – and invocations to call upon it – as a way for the gods to keep their power in check. With it, they were sworn to protect the innocent and strive for perfection on thenomages’behalf, apart from one Absolution Day a month to keep them appeased.
The Sacred had always been the sacrificial lamb.
Without them, Ezer guessed they’d all be souls, heading for that lake of darkness.
The Sacred Text was the first book she’d ever read, cover to cover, and it was lucky shecouldread at all.
Most of the children in the temples were taught only wartimethings.
Like how to cook or grow crops or sew uniforms for the soldiers. Most were taught simply how to survive, in a world where the chances of being drafted into the war were much higher than the chances of finding a good storybook.
But Ervos had valued books, and he knew Ezer would, too.
A child needed something to escape to, a place to feel safe and separate from thehorrors of the war.
So he did all he could to purchase the ones left over for her.
He brought her books with stories of brave knights.
