She pulled me toward the keep. “Come. Standing here won’t bring him back faster, and we have work to do.”
I heaved a sigh, trying to shake this strange melancholy.
49
TIGHT STRINGS
The library’s silence pushed against my skull.
I’d been here for three days, surrounded by towers of books—dense history texts, maps of the kingdoms, and treaties written in Old Fae. Not a single mention of where the dragon seal might be hidden.
The fae deal rune smoldered constantly. A relentless, throbbing heat, and the black veins had spread further up my ribs. I’d stopped looking at them in the mirror.
I rubbed my burning eyes and reached for another volume. Something tugged at my awareness, a strange tightness I’d been feeling all morning. I pressed my palm against my sternum, but it didn’t ease.
I opened a small tome bound in cracked leather.The Wandering Minstrel’s Companion, the spine read in faded gold. Bard songs. Hardly reliable sources, but I was desperate. I tried to focus on the pages, but my gaze kept drifting to the window. The courtyard below was empty.
I flipped through pages, recognizing “The Miller’s Daughter” and “Ale and Roses.” Typical tavern music. Ithumbed through the book, stopping at “The Dragons Sleep Below.”
Oh, the dragons ruled with fire and claw,
Do-I-dum and do-I-day,
They ate our kings and burned our halls,
Do-I-dum and do-I-day.
But clever fae with silver thread
Put every god’s rage to bed
Sing ho, the dragons sleep below,
Sing hey, they’ll never see the day.
Old Tazu ate the northern throne
Itzara melted castle walls,
Micara froze the waterfall.
Where men once ruled in stone and snow,
And blood was spilled to stop the foe.
Sing ho, the dragons sleep below,
So raise your glass and pray it’s so.
I scanned the text.Where men once ruled in stone and snow.Ruins swallowed by winter, old human kingdoms wiped out by the fae. Skalgard had dozens of stories like that.And blood was spilled to stop the foe.
The tightness in my chest pulled harder.
I bolted upright, the chair scraping against stone. My hands shook as I grabbed parchment and copied the verse, underlining the strange phrases.
I walked to the window again. The courtyard was still empty, but the wrongness intensified. I needed to be somewhere else. I rushed back to the table, shoving my notes and my book into the satchel. The pulling sensation at my navel sharpened painfully. I needed to find…what?
I strode to the door, pushing it open, andthe guard outside straightened. Torvin, the male who’d called me useless at Vaelrith. On the day Kairos left for his campaign, I found Torvin guarding my door. Kairos had kicked him off the warband, forcing him to look after me with clear instructions:“If she dies, I will boil your insides.”
