So Vi returned the lock, sealing Taavin away once more, and vanished into the darkness of the secret passages of the Archives. She walked down the way she’d came, heart thundering in her chest, eyes blurry with anger.
She made it all the way back to the secret entrance, crouching to crawl through the passage. But Vi couldn’t bring herself to move another step. She sat down heavily, leaning against the wall, knees at her chest in the narrow space.
In the darkness, the crown princess felt herself burning alive, from her heart outward. But she didn’t cry. She didn’t call for help.
She let the fires within burn.
Until there was nothing left but ash.
* * *
She was alone now.
Without Taavin, there was no one on Meru she could depend on beyond her father. But he was locked away somewhere Vi couldn’t find and likely couldn’t get to even if she could find it. So rather than wasting the effort, she focused on research. She focused on the one thing Taavin had been right about: the only path forward involved finding a way to prevent the world’s end. And sulking wouldn’t accomplish that.
Vi sat perched on a high rung of the Archives. From her vantage point, she observed the Larks coming and going. Much like their namesake, they flitted in and out, carefully selecting tomes to bring back into their chambers to study. She wondered how many recorded new histories, how many studied the old in order to provide counsel, and how many merely maintained the massive library.
After watching them for an hour, she stood and began nonchalantly following behind one man, then the next, lingering at the shelves long after they’d left. Vi watched as books were taken and returned.What had them so busy?
“The Kingdom of Solaris,” she murmured, reading the title of the most recently replaced book. Vi plucked it from the shelf and opened to the first page, where a large family tree spilled over onto the next four pages.
It was strange to see her father’s name there among the rest and, in a fresh ink, her own. The book was on the lineage of the Solaris kings, and later, its emperors. The conqueror who had brought the continent to heel was none other than her grandfather, Tiberus.
Vi replaced the book and moved on to the next.
The War of Light. Lord Noct had mentioned the last great war in relation to Yargen and the Dark Isle. Vi flipped to the first chapter, scanning the text:
In the fifteenth century following the end of the last Dark Era, Lord Raspian escaped his previous imprisonment in the heavenly body, the prison of night’s light.
The book was factual and dry, but the subject matter was so vibrant, so fantastical, that Vi read it more like a story book than a historical text.
A horn startled Vi from her reading. Her head jolted upward, looking on instinct to the open windows above the fake flame where the sound echoed from. It was a sweet melody that rang throughout Risen, bells accompanying the trill of the horns. She could’ve sworn she heard drums in the mix.
The sound drew nearer and Vi closed the book to listen. The music increased in fervor. It was bright and full of life—the sort of thing she’d associate with a celebration of some kind. All at once, it stopped.
The large doors to the Archives opened with a mighty groan and Vi sprinted around to get a better look, dashing down a set of stairs. She positioned herself opposite the doors peering at the group waiting to enter.
A company of knights were revealed to be on the other side of the door. But these were not Ulvarth’s Swords of Light. They wore silver armor and had bright red plumage extending from their caps. Without any further invitation, they marched in slowly.
Behind the first line of knights was a row of men and women, dressed in heavy layers of embroidered finery. The only similarity among them were the silver pins they wore on their left breasts—each in a different shape. Behind this row of people came a single woman.
Vi couldn’t actually see her face. In fact, the woman wore so many layers of fabric that she couldn’t tell it was a woman at all from the shape of the body. But Vi knew it was a woman, because atop the long veil that covered her from head to toe was an ornate, silver crown.
Lumeria, the Queen of Meru, had come to the Archives.
She leaned over the railing slightly, watching as the queen passed underneath. They went through a door opposite the entry, toward one of the pointed buildings Vi had yet to explore. Two more groups of knights took up the final rows, and Vi waited until they’d passed under her to step back and sit against the bookshelves.
Ulvarth had said her father’s trial would begin at the queen’s convenience. If the queen was here, that meant his trial was beginning. Vi ran a hand through her hair; the sensation of it, free of braids, was odd, but she didn’t have the energy to coif it.
She should keep reading, keep searching for ways out of the mess they were all in.
But she couldn’t.
She was so lost in thought that she didn’t hear the footsteps of someone approaching. Two unfamiliar booted feet appeared next to her and Vi followed them up to a silver-armored woman. She had bright blue eyes, ringed in purple. Eyes that stared at her for so long, Vi began to feel uncomfortable.
“Vi Solaris?” the knight asked, after that seemed like forever.
“Yes?”
