They’d invited both Celis and Powell to stay, and I knew they would. Even though the Librarians were traditionally women, Meela and Reeba had no problem with Powell staying too. “Goddess knows, we’re getting too old to heft around someof those boxes,” Meela had grumbled. “No, some young blood would be good here. Refresh the soul.”
Once breakfast was done, and the others were helping with the dishes, I walked my brother up to the rundown hut that was acting as a front. He’d saddled Nimbus, and Stratus as well, but was leaving Glory for me.
“Take good care of her. She was always meant to be yours,” he murmured as I hugged him goodbye. “Where will you go next?”
I shrugged, because honestly, we were making this up as we went along, in a holding pattern until something forced our hand. “Hayle wants to go home to Hamor. Even though we already have the Third Line’s support, it would be good to have somewhere to rest, just for a moment. Then maybe Bine?” I hesitated. “Kian, you can’t trust Father anymore.” I sucked in a deep breath. “If you ever thought about making a move against him, now is the time. Not just for Lierick’s war, or even for me. He’s a threat to you, to Bach. If anything happened to you two…” I shook my head. I couldn’t stand the idea, not really. Losing them would be like cutting out another chunk of my heart.
“It’ll all be okay, Avalon. I promise.” He used to say that to me when I was little. Some of my earliest memories were him rocking me on his shoulder as I cried, whispering those words. I’d believed them with my whole heart then, and I still did now. It was the innocent hope of a child, but I could hold onto it.
Still, I swallowed hard. “I don’t know how it could be.”
He had no reply to that, so he just gave me another frown and climbed onto his horse. “Let me know how you’re going. Every week, Avalon. I mean it.”
I gave him a grin. “Okay, I promise.”
He rode away, the promises we’d shared hanging on the wind, both impossible to keep. I watched him go, before turningback to the trap door, walking down the ramp until I could pull it closed behind me.
I wasn’t surprised to find Hayle at the base of the stairs, waiting for me. Since the last reset, he hadn’t been more than a few feet away from me at all times. I tried to work out what had changed since the other times, but it didn’t take much brain power to realize the difference was that it had beenmewho almost died. Not Hayle. Not Vox. Not even Lierick, but me.
“You okay?” he asked, scooping me up into his arms until his palms were under my ass and I was wrapped around him. It wasn’t sexual—well, no more than any other embrace with my wild Soul Tie. No, it was like he just couldn’t be close enough to me.
“I’m okay. Are you?”
He shook his head. “There was a world in which I lost you. I don’t think…” He trailed off, but I understood what was unsaid. I kissed him softly, and he rested his forehead against mine. “What was your nightmare about?” His words were soft, but I flinched at the memory of my dream anyway.
“Zier Tarrin. I dreamed he was being executed for treason. It felt almost too real.”
Hayle sucked his bottom lip between his teeth. “Do you think it was precognition?”
I shrugged as he easily walked us back down the hall. Sometimes, I forgot how strong Hayle really was. “My dreams have always just been that. Or memories of a past reset.”
“You’re probably right. Maybe it’s all that repressed lust. It seems to be contagious at the moment,” he teased, and I knew he was speaking about Vox and Lierick. “But you should talk to Lierick or Iker about it anyway, just in case.”
We made it back to the kitchen, and he placed me back on my feet. “Ready to dig for a needle in a haystack?” Lierick asked with a smile.
“Impossible odds are my favorite kind,” I replied, only a little sarcasm coloring my voice. It was a joke, but every day, I woke up, hoping that the hardest days were behind us. It was a foolish wish, but I’d never stop trying.
We moved down toward the archives, where the heavy doors swung open by themselves. “What Line’s magic does that? Are Reeba and Meela First Line?” I asked Vox softly, and he shook his head.
“Their magic doesn’t feel like mine.” He paused, squinting at the door. “Their magic doesn’t feel like any Line’s, exactly.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
Reeba was perched on the top of a stack of crates, and I watched a purple flash weave in and out of them. Epsy. “It means we are of no Line, baby Halhed. Or perhaps we are of all Lines. Being deep in the soul of Ebrus changes a person.” She smirked and waved a hand at the archives. “Now, get to work. We might have magic, but the research isn’t going to do itself.”
I walked to the closest wall, pulling down the first book that looked like it could be helpful.A History of the World.I knew there was more to the world than just Ebrus, but seeing it in black and white after it had been hidden from our learning for so long seemed almost unreal.
Moving to the large table in the middle of the room, I sat down and began to read.
Eight
Lierick
The keys to the kingdom were right here in my hands. Centuries of my Line’s histories, crates of our artifacts, all smuggled into hiding by Luftan Hanovan. But it was Luftan’s journal that I found most intriguing. His accounts of the months leading up to our exodus, the warnings from Ellanora Halhed—it was all a confirmation of the histories we’d grown up with. They’d been passed down verbally, until we’d settled enough that we could create a written library of our own.
Iker was going through an inventory list, everything from the greatest jewels in our Barony’s histories to weapons that we’d only heard about in bedtime tales, like Luftan’s sword. It was both mind-melting and heartbreaking in equal parts. So many of our Line had lived and died without ever being connected to this part of our history.
I wished I could speak with my father from here. I wished I could tell him of the things we’d found, of the histories I could read, of the hope it gave me.
