‘Which is?”
“Follow me.” She jumps to her feet without a sound and trots away from the nest and out into the main hall, marked by the two rows of enormous pillars. Her ears twitch, white and finely tufted. “Coming?”
“Yes! Wait up.” The book clutched in my hands, I hurry after her. I’ve yet to explore the place, and my memory of Roane carrying me down the stairs and through this tall, cavernous space is vague and warped, tinged with darkness.
The lamps sway lightly between the pillars, as if pushed by a breeze I can’t feel. Markings appear and disappear on thesurface of the columns. Markings which look like letters, and yet not. A shiver crawls up my spine as we move along the center of this seemingly endless hallway, small like ants, crushed by the size of this place, by the weight of this world, a human girl and a white lioness walking side by side.
After a while, Ardruna turns right, crossing between two columns, and the sound of trickling water grows louder. Curious despite my exhaustion, I follow her through a door and down a dim passage, cut into the same hard, echoing rock, one hand trailing on the smooth walls. The air is cold and humid. In parts, moss covers the passage, soft like velvet, and the floor grows slippery.
Then the space opens up again, this time into a cave. This one is natural and filled with stalactites and strange rock formations. They look like fluted pillars and planks, stretching between the floor and the domed ceiling.
At the center is a turquoise lake, fed by a spring in the rocks, the source of the trickling sound. When I approach the edge, I see that the water is clear and white fish swim in it. The light hitting the surface from a crack in the ceiling plays on the ripples and forms shadows and shapes. The rocks are covered in green moss, a soft coat of emerald velvet.
Someone is standing on the shore, his dark head bowed, long braid hanging over one shoulder.
There he is.
The white lioness makes no sound as she approaches him, but my steps echo a little, the worn soles hitting the solid rock, and Roane’s head lifts.
“Ardruna.” Is he ignoring me on purpose? “Why the fuck are you here?”
“And why are you such a pain in my ass?” The lioness growls. “Mind how you talk to me. I hadn’t realized the cave was a secret.”
He tucks long strands of hair behind a pointed ear, that golden stud flashing. “It’s not. I only needed a moment alone.”
“You have plenty of time alone,” Ardruna argues. “She needs to put that book away. Your presence is required.”
“Suddenly we’re in a rush?” Now he glares in my direction, finally deigning to notice me. “You.”
I lift my hand and wiggle my fingers, because that’s the only appropriate response.
“I think we should be rushing,” Ardruna says. “I don’t like that book.”
After a moment, Roane gives a slow nod. He turns and follows the narrow trail leading around the lake to reach us, a tall shadow gliding by the water. “We should get it done now.”
“Eating like a black bear, and then growling like one,”Olm had said of him.
Only Roane looks nothing like a bear. More like one of the wildcats roaming the mountains. He’s strong but also tall and slender like most of his kind, and moves so gracefully the fae aristocrats in the royal court would be jealous of him.
Yet he lives here like… like an animal, eating barely edible food, grunting and growling, battling monsters and guarding the magical books.
I don’t know Ersil’s story. Naida barely ever mentioned him in the few tales she told me about the Library of Areon. Even the Ballad of Ersil was scarce on the details. Why? I’ll have to ask her when I get back home.
I have to get back home. Then I could borrow theBallad of Ersilfrom the royal library and read it for myself.
I swallow hard as he approaches us. Such an old creature. If Ersil is over a hundred years old, he certainly doesn’t look his age. He doesn’t appear to be a day older than me.
And since when are you an expert on fae appearance?I grit my teeth.Sure, you grew up in a fae family, but they are quite young.
Unlike Roane. The way he walks, every step measured and elegant, muscles shifting in his thighs, his arms, that lethal grace that has my body tightening everywhere…
I lift my gaze to his face as he reaches us, only to find his square jaw clenched and his eyes like chips of ice.
“Let us go,” he says, brushing past me, not stopping, “and get this done so we can find a way to send you home.”
EXCERPT II
From the journal of Ersil Davara, officially the current Guardian of the Library of Areon
