THE FIRST TIME THE CHIME SOUNDED,KASIRA THOUGHT IT WAS Adream, or else a consequence of too much mylak. She had slept restlessly all night, plagued by a shadowy figure whose face she couldn’t see, their distant voice calling for her. More than once she woke with a scream on her lips, possessed by some unnamed terror, before she collapsed back onto her pillow, and what remained of the mylak-induced haze carried her off to sleep again.
The second time she dismissed the sound entirely. Midnight had long passed, and she had given up on sleep, instead counting the pebbles in the stone ceiling above her. Silver moonlight sliced through the darkness of her bedroom, but rather than brighten the place, it only made the shadows grow deeper.
The third time the chime called out, it didn’t sound like a chime at all, but a voice. Her hand went for the knife beneath her pillow, and she swung her feet to the ground, listening. The silence that followed was so complete she had nearly convinced herself she truly had imagined the whole thing when it came again, this time distinct and undeniable:Kasira.
A shiver raked along her spine. It was not the ghostliness of the voice, nor the clear lack of its source, but the name it spoke that sent her to the doorway with her blade in hand. But when she flung open the door, she found only an empty corridor.
Kasira.
One hand clutching a balestone and the other her knife, she crept down the hall. A quick dive into the magic confirmed that the only people out of bed were the mages who handled night duties. But as she pulled free of the magic, she felt something else. A connection much like the one she had experienced with Gievra, but where that had been furious and bright, this was like a gentle sea breeze threading through her hair.
Kasira, called the voice.Kasira.
And with a curiosity Loraya had once promised would get her killed, she followed it.
The voice led her down the spiral ramp, through the many artifact galleries, and out into the verdant entrance hall. Here, the soft sounds of sleeping beasts and fluttering insect wings disrupted the eerie silence that had followed her from her room, breaking the strange sensation she had had that she would wake to find this all a dream.
Kasira.
Knife still in hand, she traced her way through the halls and into the main library. The dying embers of the central hearth cast an orange glow across the empty room, even the leopard spirits absent. Overhead, the balelights flickered alight upon her entrance.
She didn’t need the voice to direct her now. She could feel whatever it was pulling her toward it as helplessly as a fish on a line. Her path through several bookcases brought her to the far wall, where a wide area of stone divided the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the western garden.
Mounted upon the wall and glowing with a faint silver light, its strange wrappings fluttering in an invisible wind, was a sword. She had forgotten about it after her first day here, but looking at it now, it seemed impossible she could have ever turned away from it.
It was a long sword of enormous proportion, easily five feet in length. It had no crossguard, and rather than a rectangular double edge, it had one dull straight side with a crescent-shaped blade edge. Both characteristics removed the possibility of it being a Kalish weapon, though swords were heavily favored by the Kalish comparedto the other realms. A cursory check of her knowledge of foreign swords didn’t amount to anything either.
“Where did you come from?” she murmured. It had been bound like a wounded limb in linen of pure white, which hadn’t yellowed or worn in the slightest. Stamped into the pommel was Amorlin’s tree symbol.
Hesitantly, she reached for the sword.
KASIRA!
She spun, expecting someone behind her, but the room was empty. After nearly a month and a half at the Library, her tolerance for all things magical and bizarre had dramatically increased, but a strange sword calling her name while its wrapping fluttered in a room without a draft was a little more than she was prepared for.
“Not today, sword,” she muttered, clutching her knife and balestone closer as she departed. Another time, she might have taken the blade down to inspect it, but the last thing she wanted was to encourage whatever was occurring, seeing as it involved her real name. Not to mention, a large part of her had yet to be convinced this wasn’t all her imagination. That was the last time she drank half a bottle of mylak before bed. Hallucinating talking swords was a new low, even for her.
She would revisit it in the morning.
Knowing sleep was lost to her, she walked rather than teleported, following the galleries back toward the Eyrie; she planned to spend the rest of the night lamenting her lack of sleep to Gievra, who, by circumstance of being a beast, would be unable to tell her to shut up.
But as she turned down the wide central corridor, she discovered the balelights already lit. The trail of light veered aside into the Gold Room, one of the many lounges scattered throughout the Library, and from which Kasira could just make out a voice emanating. She reached for her magic, hoping to discover who it was, but felt only a vague sense of warmth.
She lifted her knife again. Silently, she pressed herself to the near wall and crept along it to the room’s open door. Whoever was speaking must have been standing before the roaring hearth, because shecould see their shadow cast on the decorative gold paper of the far wall. And was that … a tail?
Slipping her blade into her boot, she stepped into the doorway to find a snow leopard sitting before the fire, his tail curled about his paws. “Iylis?”
He turned at the sound of her voice. “Apologies, do we know each other?” He tilted his head. “You do look oddly familiar.”
“Very funny, Iylis. I was only in bed for a few days.”
“Iylis?” the leopard repeated uncertainly.
She stilled, uncertain now. She would sooner expect Allaster to make a joke than Iylis, and he was looking at her with such a genuinely perplexed expression that the possibility erased itself entirely.
Then his clouded gaze cleared, and he shook his head. “Ah, Lady Eirlana. I’m glad to see you up and about. Are you feeling better?”
She stared at him. “Iylis, you didn’t know who I was.”
