“A book rested here,” I claimed, fingertips trailing over the stone. There were small runes engraved on the surface, but they were either too faded for me to read or beyond my level of comprehension.
I scrubbed my boot along the ground, curious as the ash moved to reveal what looked to be more runes etched into the stones.
“It was activated with blood,” I muttered.
“The Keepers used runes to communicate?” Ellowyn asked.
“Yes,” I muttered absentmindedly as I continued to search the surrounding ground for any indication of what to do next. “At least to some extent. Most likely in rituals and record keeping, since that was the universal language up until a few centuries ago,” I finished, gazing upward to the precariously sagging rafters.
“Do you think there are more runes here? Maybe ones you could read?”
“Possibly,” I admitted, moving back to the wall to continue tracing the stone with my fingertips.
“Do you truly think this is where they keptallof their records?” Ellowyn asked suddenly. I stopped and turned to regard her, rubbing my nose as dust settled and made my eyes water. That same dust settled in Ellowyn’s normally bright blondehair, dulling the hue significantly. I grimaced slightly when I brought a hand to my hair, feeling the grime embedded in my curls.
“What makes you say that?” I asked, trying to remove as much of the dust as possible.
The godling shrugged. “The Keepers and Solace have been around for centuries, right?”—I nodded—“Then shouldn’t there be centuries of information here? Centuries of prophecies and truths? Records and annals?”
“Yeesss,” I dragged out the word, abandoning my efforts to clean my hair in favor of focusing on Ellowyn’s theory.
“Fay, you’re so incredibly intelligent yet rather obtuse right now,” Ellowyn sighed in loving exasperation as she started to pace the width of the room, one hand crossed over her chest while gesturing wildly with the other. Her agitated strides only served to launch more ash into the air, the motes falling to coat our skin and hair further. “There is no feasible way that this small a room held all of that knowledge. That those bookshelves you see carved into the walls held the only records in existence.”
“So what’re you saying? That there’s some sort of secret room down here?” I asked, intrigued by the notion.
“What was it that Kaos said to you?” she asked, halting her manic pacing, steel-grey eyes glinting with determination.
“He said to ‘find the truth within the lies. Only then will you truly see,’” I sighed. I’d repeated those instructions nearly a thousand times during our journey here, both inwardly and out loud to Ellowyn. They made no more sense now, deep in the belly of the Keeper’s ancestral home, than they did that day in the Academy’s library.
“Solace is the Goddess of Visions, right? And her descendants received those visions? Used them to predict the future?” Ellowyn asked, and I nodded.
“Yes. She blessed each of them with visions that the Truthsayers were then instructed to parse through in order to ascertain the truth within them . . .” I trailed off, heart beating rapidly as my gaze snapped to Ellowyn’s. The light and excitement I knew mine held was reflected in her steel-grey depths.
“What if?—”
“There’s a Seeing Room down here?” Ellowyn finished, nearly bouncing in place. “The Keeper who visited my parents—Jarius—he used the Seeing Room in Hestin’s temple to try and receive clearer visions. Something about speaking with the ancestors . . .”
Blood roared in my ears at the implication.
“If the Seeing Rooms can tap into the combined understanding of the ancestors?—”
“Then it would reason to believe thattheyhold the collective history of Elyria.”
“But I’m not a Truthsayer. How can I separate truth from lies?” I asked. Ellowyn closed her mouth with an audibleclick, her shoulders slumping incrementally.
“Yes. That does pose a problem.”
We stood silent together for a moment, both processing our potential discovery. My gaze jumped over the walls once more, snagging on a spot near a collapsed staircase, one that most likely led upward to the communal space of the main house.
My feet moved of their own accord, hand outstretched to trace the runes carved into the stone. They were blackened with blood, the edges softening into the stone from centuries of use.
“What do those say?” Ellowyn asked softly.
“I don’t know,” I admitted, frustrated by the sheer lack of understanding. I was a Rune Master—the Bondsmith’s daughter and granddaughter of Fate. One of the smartest people in Elyria, and I felt like little more than a child in the face of this vast, antiquated knowledge.
“Only one way to find out,” I answered wryly, shakily drawing my dagger from my pouch.
Ellowyn’s pale fingers wrapped in a cold, unrelenting grip around my wrist, staying my motions.
