The whimsical scent brings back a dozen moments with my mate, each pounding against my ribs and drowning my senses in agony. She was here when they took her. I had just laid her down after making the sweetest love I’d ever experienced. My knees hit the ground again as my mind races.
Breathe.
I press my hand to my chest and search for those invisible mating bond threads yet again. They calm me.
She’s alive, but the only way to get her back is to find help.
Exhaustion does tug at me, but I can’t stay here. Standing and stumbling away from my cursed room, I go to the royal library. The scent of stone paper, both fresh and old, fills my nostrils and brings me back to life.
It is hard to choose to be lonely, laying in my bed when the written word provides the ability to find answers, perhaps even solutions. Better yet, I might even find the possibility of peace—of escape.
I walk the rows that I have spent a lifetime memorizing—from contracts to ballads, and both magic and royal journals—and, swiftly, the scenes of bloody death and murder are replaced with stories, morals, and the knowledge of a people.
One particular row calls to me. It gnaws at the back of mymind, telling me that the time has come to visit. I look at the metal plate with the words:
Annals and Official Journals of the Kings
My father’s legacy.
Suddenly, the need to sleep is gone entirely, replaced with the need to unravel this mystery and formulate a plan.
What did my father do to betray the elves so thoroughly that they would seek vengeance against us?
Perhaps if I understand the history with the elves more thoroughly, I can mend our relationship for good and at least gain a couple hundred troops to retrieve my mate.
It’s not hard for me to understand the giants’ betrayal of our peace treaty. All I need to do is think about the meeting Rholker and I had to negotiate our laughable peace treaty. His haunted, shattered expression that came when I told him Estela was dead still plays through my mind. His motives make sense.
Power and desire are some of the most potent motivators known to any being's existence. Rholker is young, by giant standards. His obsession with Estela will keep her alive. My mate learned much during her time here, not even mentioning the power her Fuegorra has graced her with.
Rholker’s a fool with a target on his back. His days are numbered, and they will end soon after I can find a few extra soldiers.
More rage fuels me and gives me strength to stop and walk into the row.
Phantom spider legs scurry up my spine as I gaze into the gaping maw of a literary beast. Here, in these rows, I will find my father’s final writings before he ended the Enduar world five decades ago, along with part of the elves and giants.
Even invoking that awful day unlocks the memories Iactively cage. A few words he spoke sneak through the bindings, and I cease to be in the library.
“Orfka ir asuso, hlumgla estra…”
His voice, incanting above the din of death, slices my heart from tip to point. I struggle against bindings, planning to shake him out of whatever has possessed him. When I break the chains, I lunge at him. Then…
I blink.
It all fades, so I step forward and stack the scrolls I’ve spent a lifetime avoiding in my arms and head back to my table. One row of shelves, with glowing, unearthly songs and glimmering scrolls, calls to me. Sparing a glance at the precariously stacked tower of scrolls, I sigh and dip into the lines of sacred texts. There’s a glittering, bejeweled scroll that my father read often. I can almost see it on his desk when visiting Enduvida in the winter.
Adding it to the pile, I continue my trek. It only takes a few moments for me to sit down and drown in blue-black ink and pearl-gray stone paper.
My mind wanders and flies away to the swirling cosmos, far from the pain pounding in my mind. I study the stories I watched with my own eyes long before the destruction of my people—the skirmish with the swamp ogres, Father’s love for Mother, and their meeting.
It’s surprising to find that his earliest words are a far better comfort to me than facing the nauseating pressure in my chest. If I think too long about Estela, the weight threatens to flatten my lungs and choke the steady beatings of my foolish heart.
Slowly, I pick up my father’s final scroll—one I brought from Iravida myself. It feels different than any of the others. Tainted, somehow, by an oily aura that makes my fingers slip off of its end ribbon—as if it doesn’t want to be opened. Blood roars in my ears as I unroll it.
It hits me at once. The smell of my old home is almost as powerful as Estela’s scent. Old, diamond-spun fabrics—in a time before the diamonds were cursed—millions upon millions of my people and bright fires.
I look at more of my father’s handwriting. So precise and familiar. Each letter is neatly formed. Efficient.
Ma’Teo has returned from the Giant Court. He seems unwell, and I have sent the healers to his room. The information he brings is invaluable, and I doubt that even he knows what it is. The Elvish Artifact is key in all of this, I am sure of it.
