She lifted her brows.
“No. I haven’t opened it up.”
“Let’s get to it.” Hildy pushed back her chair, coming to join Isahn and Solaelia.
With a fine thread of water magic, he picked the gold lock. It popped free and slowly levered itself down to rest on the table. The miniature hinge worked perfectly, even after hundreds of years in a wall.
“Open it!” Lia prodded.
He did.
The book belonged to Tiyar Tarstani, if he was reading the faded, angular inscription correctly. Gingerly, Isahn turned to the next page. A date at the top indicated the entry was from over one thousand years before.
“A journal,” Lia exclaimed on an exhale. “How diverting.”
“What the fuck language is that?” Hildy asked, sounding equally as intrigued, but expressing it differently.
Isahn was busy doing math in his head, so Lia answered, “It’s the Old Tongue.”
“Not our Old Tongue.”
He turned a few more pages. “It’s ours, Old Selwassan.”
“Can you read it?” Worry etched Hildy’s brow.
“Some, not well.” He flipped a few more pages, trying to make out any recognizable words.
Solaelia shuffled beside Isahn, leaning in for a better look. “Is it related to your journey? Is this what Peros was seeking?”
Frustrated anticipation had his skin buzzing.Was it?What were the odds that an old and clearly hidden book was directly behind a tapestry with the Domossan old tongue on it, a tapestry Peros identified too, and that it had no connection to the mysterious Domossan Queen who lived at the exact same time period?Slim to none.He placated himself as he continued skimming pages.
“It might be related. Maybe the note we discovered in the capital was translated from this,” Hildy replied to Lia with hope coloring her voice. “Does anything look familiar?”
Isahn was about to say no when his eye caught on something curious. “This says ‘Rasdavol.’ That’s here in Selwas.” He traced a few sentences he couldn’t make sense of. “Oh! And here, ‘kaboor,’that means north.”
“North could be anywhere tho—”
“Ah! Look! Here. It says ‘Deiwomont,’ Hildy.”
“Oh, shit. It does.” Her fingertip hovered over the recognizable word. “That was in Domos,” she mentioned for Lia’s sake.
“By the old capital, right?”
“Exactly.”
Isahn turned through several more pages before stopping again. “The handwriting changed.” He double-checked, just to confirm. It was definitely different.
“What does it say?” Hildy asked as though the new penmanship would suddenly give Isahn a working knowledge of the Old Tongue.
“Wait, this part here, look. This is not in Old Selwassan—”
“lt’s Old Domossan,” Hildy finished Isahn’s thought. Then she began to read aloud, “‘Peregrinia Regnia, nektoi memonai toutas, animod usad potentiad, ex nei kreiat, orbom serkom, pakai ab irad okidenti.’”
“‘Solos fabrikator praesidium nekore potest,’”Isahn read the ending, the unfinished line on the paper in Domos.
“What does it mean?” Lia asked.
“We don’t really know,” he answered her honestly. “But it might be the solution to a massive problem in Domos.”
