Hurry. We must hurry.
Annoyed by this incessant and vague recollection, I turn toward the doors that secure the Eastland Territories’ history and lore. I’m not sure what’s happening. Why the library that I’ve strolled past a thousand times calls to me now. But I’m compelled to look inside.
The archivists, librarians, and scribes who manage the library haven’t gathered yet, so I tug the master key from beneath my tunic and unlock the door. The hinges creak as I drag open the heavy slab and step inside the threshold.
Only the first twenty rows of shelves on either side of the main aisle are given access to the public’s perusal. All else lies behind a gilded, lattice wall and locked door, protecting historical treasures available to a select group: the archivists, librarians, scribes, scholars, the Brotherhood, and me.
To further protect the rare works housed inside the room, there’s little light here save for the sun’s first rays streaming through the tiny square windows on the upper floor, just beneath the golden dome. The hazy illumination lends a certain gloom to the winding staircase and dusty shelves of archived tomes and scrolls hidden within.
But that image shifts. The gilded wall vanishes, and the light changes to the silver of moonlight, as if what I’d seen before were a mirage. Lit candles and rush lights appear. Worktables filled with open books and scrolls. A main desk littered with texts and parchment and ink pots and quills.
Again, I feel the need to call out to someone who isn’t there. This time, my gaze drifts to the top of the winding stairs, only to find nothing but darkness and the rumble of a threatening storm outside.
But I would swear on my soul that I smell and taste smoke and starlight.
“My prince, is something wrong?”
With a cold sweat breaking across my forehead, I grip the edge of the opposite door, panting, steadying myself as the scene corrects, swirling back to morning in the here and now. One of the archivists stands before me in his brown robe. His hands are pressed together, concern written across his lined brow. I swallow thickly, my blood warm with recognition and the most painful desperation, my mind haunted by the shadow of yet another lost memory.
“No,” I tell him as I turn to go. “Just remembering.”
4
RAINA
We endure relentless downpours for two more days before the torrents cease.
But on that third day, the sun comes out, filtering through the trees, and that afternoon, the loveliest pink haze settles over the wood.
Come dusk, we pitch our tents as usual, on thick beds of pine needles covered in skins of leather to keep out the wet. The rain is still absent, allowing us time to clean up and wash in warmed rainwater, eat in the open air, and dry by the fire—without Joran’s shield.
Only Alexus doesn’t join us.
After I check the waters for the third time today, I head to his tent. When no one’s looking, I duck inside. He sits on a bed of fur, leaning against his pack, dressed in nothing but his leather britches and that old key, writing by lantern light in a book at rest on his bent knee.
Sneaking from tent to tent in a chilly downpour isn’t wise, so I’ve stayed with Nephele and Hel these last two nights. Alexus says it’s just as well because he doesn’t sleep well when it rains. But on the nights I have joined him, I’ve found him like this, transferring the contents of one text to another.
The book he copies from is an old journal. It lies open to the middle on a large piece of wool at his side. It’s practically archaic, the pages brittle, the leather wrap worn to bits. I studied it one night, very carefully, trying to decipher the long-faded design on the cover.
The book in which he writes, however, is new. I recognized the moon and sun design and the Tiger’s Eye stone affixed to the cover the moment he withdrew it from his bag the first night of our trip. It’s the book I plucked from his desk at Winterhold. Just proverbs and predictions, he always says. The task keeps his mind busy. But from the care he gives those pages, I’ve a feeling the old journal contains more than that.
My eyes drift lower, over the broad muscles of his rune-covered chest, down the rippled plane of his abdomen, to where his britches are untied and partly open, revealing a dark trail of hair that’s more alluring than it has any right to be.
“Care to go for a walk?” I sign.
In truth, after seeing him like this, a casual evening stroll is the last thing I want. But I have questions that can’t wait any longer.
With an easy smile, he sets his book aside, grabs his tunic, and signs, “I would love that.”
We head south on Winter Road, hand in hand once the camp is out of sight. The graveled road is soft and riddled with puddles and a few ruts, but the day’s sunlight has thankfully made it tolerable. We rarely have time alone save for at night. But this evening, there’s no one to bother us, not even Neri’s cold wind.
Alexus nudges his shoulder against mine. “Your glamouring is going well. I’m proud of you.”
I glance at my hand, at my unmarked skin. Alexus and Nephele have taught Hel and I glamouring whenever possible. While we sat around the fire, when we could ride side by side, and for me, on many of the nights when I came to Alexus’s tent. Glamouring will see us safely through Malgros and beyond, keeping suspicions at bay as we attempt passage and entry to Itunnan.
I rather like the nights when Alexus gives me lessons. We often end up naked, Alexus tracing every line of my witch’s marks with his mouth and fingertips.
“I have a good teacher,” I sign with a smile.
