But there, even taller than the gates, stood a ring of twelve enormous white standing stones. She wouldn’t have seen them, had it not been dark outside.
Even from this far away, she could see the golden runes glowing on every standing stone.
The stones were said to have the earliest recorded history of the realm upon them. They were a scholar’s dream, the oldest artifact Lordach had.
‘There are twelve,’ Kinlear said as he came up beside her. She tensed … but did not hear a warning upon the wind. ‘Each one represents an individual realm.’
She nodded. ‘I’m well aware.’
Every child was told the story of the Sacred Circle.
He shrugged. ‘They are white as the snow, representing, of course, that the gods created them with purest intent. But did you know … there used to be thirteen?’
At that, Ezer glanced to him.
‘But that can’t be.’
The prince sighed, as if he were bored. ‘Of course, anyone raised beyond the Citadel wouldn’t know that ancient truth. But, alas, it remains. Come along.’
He turned and continued further up the stairs until they came to another floor of the library. He walked through it with ease, navigating the stuffed shelves until he came to a stop before one. ‘Here we are.’ There he knelt, leaning his cane against the spines. A flourish of his gloved hands, and he removed a book with yellowing pages.
A History of Arivahda: Lordach, Volume 1.
‘This book is as old as these walls,’ Kinlear said. ‘I trust its pages more than I trust any half-witted knowledge, passed from one town to another until it reached the south.’
An insult, but she didn’t mind.
She was used to them. There werefarworse things said to her over the years.
He flipped through the pages, nodding to himself until he came to an image of the Sacred Circle. ‘See for yourself.’
There it was, just like she’d seen beyond the windows, a perfect sketch of standing stones in a circle …
Ezer’s eyes widened.
There were indeedthirteen.
‘But … that can’t be.’
‘Why can’t it?’ Kinlear asked. ‘We live in a world of magic, Raphonminder, and oftentimes, strange things happen that we cannot explain.’
She glanced past the book to find him smiling like he knew a secret, leaning against a shelf with his dark curls hanging in his eyes. With his soft lips and hard jaw, his fine clothing and the sea of books all around him …
He could have sprouted right from the romance novels she so dearly loved.
A younger Ezer would have swooned.
But a flash of her dreams came to her.
His lips against hers, his blade buried in her chest.
She found herself taking a small, casual step away.
‘There were once thirteen stones,’ Kinlear explained. ‘Until one of them turned black, about a century ago. I suppose right around the last Realmbreak. That stone crumbled to ashes and dust and is now all but forgotten in our history.’
‘What happened to it?’ Ezer asked.
Because despite her healthy fear of him, she was too damned curious.
