CHAPTER 6
KASIRA
ALLASTER WAS GOING TO BE EVEN MORE OF A PROBLEM THANKasira had anticipated.
His animosity she could deal with, but she hadn’t planned to have to pursue her mark. It was no great secret that there was no love lost between Kalthos and the Library, and Allaster had had no choice but to abide by the rotation of nations and accept a Kalish Assistant. Otherwise, he would have been in violation of international law and subject to the Conclave. Their mistake had been in assuming that it meant he would also train her.
Pressing a hand to her stomach in hopes of quelling her nausea, Kasira investigated the cramped stone room. Aside from the narrow bed and empty bucket, there was a small nightstand and a sorka tucked in one corner. The trunk reminded her of the one her mother had kept at the foot of her bed, but where her mother’s had been painted with images of beasts, Eirlana’s was inscribed with holy symbols and prayers.
Kalish women kept their sorkas all their lives until marriage, at which point they burned them in offering to Haidra to bless their union. But Kasira’s mother had migrated from the northern reaches, where the trunks were instead passed from mother to daughter upon marriage. In the end, her mother’s trunk had burned all the same.
Undoing the latch, she found an assortment of clothes, books,a small knife in a sheath made to be worn beneath the sleeve, and a pocket-sized volume of prayers stamped with the church’s sigil of golden flames. Sentimental items sent to aid Kasira’s cover, or had Eirlana packed this trunk before her death?
Her story would hold stronger if as much of it were true as possible: Eirlana would have agreed to go to the Library in exchange for erasing her family’s debts; she would have packed, every item set into the trunk another step closer to her damnation, not knowing she would never make it there.
It was yet another piece of this puzzle that made Kasira wary of Vera. The Ambassador had promised her a new life: her sentence reversed, her record expunged, and sufficient coin to find that house by the lake she and Loraya had dreamed of. Enough that, by the end of their conversation, Kasira couldn’t help wondering if she was being played.
Her gut told her no, that Vera’s piousness extended past her fervent hatred of beasts. To lie was to sin, but that was the tricky thing about truth: What was genuine one moment could change the next. Vera was playing a dangerous game. If it was discovered that she had pardoned a criminal of Kasira’s level in order to commit yet another crime, Vera would be cleaning up the mess for years to come, which made her support a delicate sheet of glass.
After repacking the trunk, Kasira rose to discover the previously empty bed now had something on it. No one had entered, yet there lay a folded towel; a white uniform edged in silver filigree; and a tray with a scone, a cup of tea, and a note that read simply:
I promise he grows on you.
—Iylis
She broke open the scone, releasing a tendril of steam and the warm scents of vanilla and cinnamon, and all at once her lingering nausea melted away. Both the scone and the tea were better than anything she had consumed in years, and she downed them both before picking up the towel. She found a washroom next door, the massiveclawfoot bathtub already steaming with hot, lavender-scented water. When no one appeared to claim it, she closed and locked the door.
Though Kasira longed to submerge herself in the fresh bath, she only dipped the end of the towel in the water and used it to wash down, keeping the water away from her still-bandaged wounds. The last few days of travel had given them time to scab over and begin healing, but her skin was still mottled with bruises, the lacerations too fresh to touch.
The tray had disappeared by the time she returned to her room. She unfurled the outfit to reveal a pair of pants and a soft long-sleeved top that reached her waist, where it split into four skirtlike strips trimmed in silver. A deep hood hung off the back, and she recognized its silver embroidery from the mages’ uniforms, though their stitching had been copper, and Allaster’s was gold. The Library’s symbol—a sprawling tree—had been sewn over the heart beside the crossed swords of Kalthos.
She slid into the uniform, thankful to find it concealed all of her bandages as she did up the buttons on the front. The pants were loose, and the thick sections of the cloth fell to just above her ankles. A pair of black boots waited at the foot of her bed. She slid them on and tucked Loraya’s hairpin and Revna’s knife inside, then stepped out into the hall.
If Allaster was going to ignore her, she would use his inattention to lay her groundwork, starting with the Library’s layout. Vera had given her two months to execute the first part of their plan: familiarize herself with Amorlin, ingratiate herself to Allaster, and be granted magic, something their informant had said would only happen if Allaster truly trusted her.
She didn’t know what to make of the thought of having magic. Once, it was everything she had wanted. Now, it stood in the way.
Her bedroom emptied into a hall so narrow two people would have to turn abreast to pass each other. Balelight cast the whole space in a faint, silvery glow, guiding her to a small alcove that broadened into another hall. An open-aired corridor ringed the cavernous room on the other side, doorways set into the wall every few paces. A barrack?
According to Vera’s information, nearly two hundred mages occupied the Library, their service limited to twenty-year periods to encourage new candidates to come and learn of beasts and magic. Those who left would pursue their research outside its walls, continuing the Library’s mission throughout their respective countries as teachers, politicians, and more.
The corridor unfurled in one long, corkscrewing ramp, and she descended until she reached a circular room with four offshoots. A pair of mages entered the room, faces darkening before they bowed and continued onward. Kasira made a note of that—they didn’t like her, but they acknowledged the status the silver trim of her uniform afforded her. She would have to see how far that authority extended. If Allaster was the only one she ever owed an explanation to, gathering information would prove far simpler.
She continued through several museum-like rooms, each housing rows of glass cases displaying various objects she suspected were artifacts. On top of mediating international disputes and handling beasts, Amorlin sought out and retrieved dangerous magical objects from across the continent, many of which possessed unique powers. The Kalish priests theorized their abilities either resulted from an infectious dispersal of magic when a new beast was born or that they were corrupt creations of the Library, but in truth they didn’t know.
In another time, another life, Kasira would have longed for the challenge of stealing an artifact. Even now her mind sought out the details: the number of entrances, the thickness of the glass and mechanism of opening it, how long it took her to reach this spot from her room. Details she couldn’t help absorbing, even if she had no intention of acting on them. It was a habit she had clung to over the past few years, one of the few things that still made her feel like herself.
The balestone lights above activated and faded as she entered and departed rooms, which was why she was surprised to find a hallway ahead already lit. She followed the corridor lined with portraits of who she assumed were past Librarians, ending with a brown-skinnedRiviairen woman with deep brown eyes and a stoic expression—Mora Lanaan, the Librarian before Allaster.
She had been at Amorlin for over a century, one of the longest-living Librarians before the beast attack that took her life. Accurate news of the Library was hard to come by in Kalthos, and that was all Kasira knew of Mora’s death. Paratal Helvarin had used it as a platform for his sermons back when he was only a priest, claiming it evidence of Haidra’s righteousness that a Librarian should be struck down by the very sin they protected.
There were far more pictures than she had expected, even considering the occasional war and death by beast. These people were supposed to be ageless, and yet both sides of the hallway were lined with faces. The role was hardly innocuous—they dealt with dangerous animals and powerful magic on a daily basis—and the Library had been here for as long as anyone could remember, and likely far beyond that, but it still surprised her.
What had happened to them all?
The hallway ended in a cracked doorway, from which a familiar voice spilled out. “You’ll regret ignoring me when they’re inside your borders, brother. They’ve already made their first move. Act now, before they force your hand.”
“Your prejudice against Kalthos is unfounded, if not deeply personal,” responded an aged voice with a deep Miravi accent. “I won’t decide foreign policy based on one man’s grudge!”
