Ana inclined her head. “My name is Anastacya Mikhailov of Cyrilia,” she said. “I’d like to request a meeting with King Darias.”
“My apologies, meindame, but the King is currently not taking guests.” Captain Ronnoc paused. “Per my briefing on his schedule today, he is to meet with you at eight hours of the evening at Godhallem.”
“There is something important I must discuss with him beforehand,” Ana pressed. “Would you relay my message? I can wait here.”
The captain hesitated, but the Royal Guard spoke. “We have our orders, meindame,” he said sharply. “No visitors.”
Frustrated, Ana made her way to the Livren Skolaren. It was the only place she could think of where she could find information, even if it was all tangential to what she was truly after. She spent her day reading about Bregonian history and trade policies. She found a number of details that she hadn’t come across in Cyrilian textbooks. There was particular emphasis on searock, a stone that Bregon coveted and refused to trade with foreign nations. She recalled her previous day’s readings on the uncanny way searock absorbed the properties of other precious stones and metals, which made it extremely valuable. It was probably why, she thought, leaning back against her chair and staring at the mural over the high ceiling of the Livren Skolaren, most of the buildings in Bregon had been built out of a combination of searock and other construction material.
It was halfway through a section on blackstone that something gave her pause. She’d been making slow progress, arduously translating the terms from the Bregonian language and learning about how Bregonian scholars had imported blackstone from Cyrilia not to control its magen population but to study the alchemy of it.
From studies of the properties of Bregonian searockand Cyrilian blackstone on Bregonian magen, it was concluded that the source of energy in matter islimited.
Ana blinked, and reread the phrase. No, she had interpreted it correctly—studies of searock and blackstone on Bregonian magen. On Affinites.
She flipped back through the pages, scouring the text. Nowhere had it ever mentioned that searock had been used on Affinites before—there were only copious notes on its use as construction material.
She turned back to the section. It ended abruptly, but at the bottom, a scholar had carefully inked in the reference to the studies. Ana read it over, and her blood went cold.
* Studies conducted by the A. E. Kerlan Trading Company.
She stared at the words until they seemed to blur together. Her breaths were coming fast, and her mind felt frozen.
It wasn’t possible. This had to be another A. E. Kerlan—perhaps it was a common surname in the Kingdom of Bregon. Ramson had told her that Kerlan had been banished from his home kingdom and driven to establish himself in a foreign empire, but—
Ramson.
She stood, gripping the tome so tightly that her knuckles went white. Ramson had left to investigate allegations of trafficking by Alaric Kerlan. He’d been so adamant that they were somehow missing something of the bigger picture, and she hadn’t had the patience to listen.
Footsteps sounded behind her, loud in the utter silence of the hall. It was getting late, and the Livren Skolaren had emptied; a shadow fell over the flickering lamplight of her table.
Ana whipped around and found herself face to face with the man she had been hoping to glimpse all day.
The surprise on Scholar Tarschon’s face quickly shifted into caution. “Meindame,” he greeted.
Ana swallowed, trying to steady the thumping of her heart. “Head Scholar,” she said. Her throat felt dry; she was still struggling to wrap her head around what she had just read.
The scholar inclined his head and made to move past her, but Ana held up a hand. They were near the back of the great library; the aisles around them were deserted.
“You lied to me,” she said. The time had passed for holding up appearances. “About several things.”
His expression grew tight. “I’m not sure I understand.”
She held his gaze. “Queen Arsholla is dead. You neglected to tell me that yesterday.”
He opened his mouth, then closed it and looked down. “It is not my decision as to what information is classified and what is released to the public.”
“You run the records of the Livren Skolaren, the most important source of information in Bregon. You have a duty to the public.” Ana took a step closer to him. “Scholar Tarschon, what exactly is going on in your kingdom?”
Scholar Tarschon flinched almost imperceptibly, but to his credit, he remained where he stood. “Meindame, I am but a scholar. My job is to document information at the government’s direction.”
The words stirred an old anger within her.The winners write history,Ramson had said—but that wasn’t fair, and it shouldn’t be that way. “Your job,” Ana said coldly, “is to write thetruth.”
Tarschon fell silent at that.
“You also refused to answer my questions about the artifact I described, or even tell me if such a thing existed.” She watched his face carefully, searching for clues. “But I’ve been told it does, and that it’s right here, in the Blue Fort.”
He looked away. “I cannot help you with that.”
