“Like my running into the prince?”
He nods matter-of-factly. “Yes, a fated encounter.”
That strange tug deepens again, and I pat my stomach. “Can we take a quick break? I need to eat something.”
“Of course.” His lips quirk in a way that reminds me of Roshan. “You know, this book is written in the old language, in a runic dialect,” Aran says, steepling his fingers under his chin. “The language of the gods.”
Hunger forgotten, I stare down at the page. “No, it’s not.”
He signals for a boy who is carefully placing books back onto shelves to come over. “Yes, Sri Aran,” the boy says in deference.
“Read this,” Aran says, and points to the page in front of me.
Solemnly, the boy stares at the book. “I cannot, Sri Aran. Those are alchemical symbols that only the starblessed can read.”
I frown at the sobriquet as Aran dismisses the boy back to his duties. “I don’t understand. These are words.”
“They are ancientrunes,and you can read them because of who you are.” His gaze is steady and sure.
I look at him in alarm. Sands, does he know more than he’s letting on? Like my devastating secret?
He ignores my expression, reaching for the book and flipping to a new page. He points to a series of intricate symbols.
“Advanced runes of power can be cast to heal, to harm, to control. They can be used to enhance speed, defense, and strength. They can open portals and communicate across realms. They can cause chaos, temper emotion, and shift time.” He lifts his tunic, and I see an enhanced healing rune tattooed there. “Some amplify, others combine.” He indicates another complex rune on his rib cage that looks like a combination of two symbols on one axis—one for memory and the other for infinity. “Most magi are limited to casting only as much as the jadu crystals can power.” He drops his shirt and sighs. “But in the old days, when magi had akasha—the fifth element and the aether of space—in their veins, their power was unfathomable.”
I exhale. No wonder the god-king was so threatened by them that he hunted them to extinction. “Were there bad magi?” I ask, thinking about the war of the gods and the breaking of the realms in its wake.
“Of course. Balance exists in everything,” Aran explains. “The light of Saru holds its counterpoint in the darkness of Fero. One cannot exist without the other, but true akasha lives between the two, dependent on the intent of the magi.”
He stretches out on the chair opposite me, propping his legs up on the table, and studies me with a thoughtful look. For a sharp second, I realize that Aran is not as young as I initially guessed him to be.He has a deceptively youthful face, but a wealth of knowledge, of hard-won wisdom, shimmers in his dark eyes.Magicalknowledge.
“Are you Elonian?”
“Sometimes.” He tents a dark eyebrow. “You?”
“Cobanite. House of Aldebaran.”
“We both know you are far more than that,” he says with a low chuckle, apparently not interested in prevaricating. “You may have been born into your earthly form on Coban, but your soul is ageless, formless, and immortal.”
My stomach dips at the confirmation of my suspicions, but his smile is kind, reassuring.
“I’m sure you’ve heard the legends about the Starkeeper. The one who purges the realm.”
“Is that a magi belief?” I say, feeling oddly vulnerable. “From the stories of your old gods?”
“They’re your gods, too,” he says, and stares pointedly at the book in front of me. “You would not be able to read that otherwise.”
I don’t make a clever retort because I can’t. I, more than anyone, understand that just because you don’t believe in something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. I slide a finger over one of the nearby volumes, cracking the spine to a drawing of Mithral, the handsome sun god of spirit and fire, and Darrius, the towering, cruel-faced god of shadow and sky on the opposite page. I flip the sheet to Anahima, the beautiful goddess of water and fertility, and the wind gods, Vara and Vati. In truth, magic wouldn’t exist without any of them.
And if the prophecy is true, neither would I.
I gnaw my lip. “Have you ever had visions?”
“Sometimes.” He smiles, clearly aware he’s being opaque. “I’m a jack-of-all-trades: musician, cleric, philosopher, seer, scholar, mystic, magi. The gods sometimes choose to speak to me. And they’ve spoken to me aboutyou,Suraya.”
I suppress a shiver. “What did they tell you?”
“That your power will split the realms.”
