Rosalina touches what may once have been the leather cover of a tome. Her fingers come away black. “There was more knowledge here than at Castletree?”
“Yes.” I spin, images coming to life: gold-plated shelves, political debates, the grinding gears of a printing press. “But it held more than history or spells. Much of our culture was recorded here, and of civilizations long past. Tales of the world Above, a place so old only the Queen knew of it.”
Rosalina blinks up at the sky. Her hand stretches upward. “The world Above…”
My eyes rest on the huge alder tree. “And the Scriptorium was home to many rare grimoires.”
“What’s a grimoire?”
“A book of spells. But not the usual kind that we write on parchment and share with one another. The spells recorded in a grimoire are… more advanced.”
She grabs my arm. “The spell you were looking for. Could it be in one of those?”
“Possibly,” I say. “But if it did, it’s more than likely nothing but ash now.”
“Farron, how did the library burn down?”
My chest clenches, and I can’t meet her gaze. Everyone in Autumn knows this story. The other princes know. But to tell Rosalina…
But she takes my chin in her hand and guides me to look back at her. The softest smile caresses her face.
“It’s my fault,” I say. “I let the library burn to the ground.”
Rosalina opens her mouth to respond, but I cut her off before she can say anything. “I told you my mother was the High Princess before me. She’d grown tired of the role and decided to pass the title on. She asked if I was ready. I said yes, not because I wanted it or because I thought I would be a good leader, but because I didn’t want to disappoint her.”
I shake my head and move deeper into the rubble. “I hated the responsibility, the pressure. Everyone always needed me to fix something. How could I fix the realm when I couldn’t even tell my mother the truth?” I throw my head back, staring into the sun until my eyes burn.
Rosalina stays silent but hovers close.
“Things only got worse during the War of Thorns. I was High Prince in a time of war.” I grab Rosalina’s hand and squeeze. “It is hard to describe the horrors that were unleashed by the Below. Of the choices that had to be made.”
“I can’t imagine,” she whispers. “What did you do?”
I laugh joylessly. “What did I do? I hid. Every day, I held up in the scriptorium and let my mother make the hard decisions. The ones that cost some lives to save others. But she had passed her magic onto me, and without Autumn’s Blessing, the realm became harder and harder to hold.”
Rosalina’s face scrunches up. “I understand what it’s like to be afraid. To be unable to act even though your whole being is screaming at you to do something,anything. I’m… still working on it.”
“Rosalina,” I say softly and stroke the smooth skin where her scar used to be, “you willingly became a prisoner to the fae to save your father. You are no coward.”
Something twists in her expression, but she shakes her head and looks back at me. “The library…”
“There was an assault on Coppershire by an army of goblins and other creatures created in the Below. They weren’t looking for terms of surrender; it was a pillage, plain and simple.” I can see and hear it all in my mind’s eye: the screams, the fire, the dark shapes scrambling through the night.
“My mother rallied the forces, but it wasn’t enough. She needed the magic of Autumn’s Blessing.” The words tear up my throat. “She needed me.”
“Where were you, Farron?” Rosalina whispers.
“I was here!” All energy drains from me, and I sink into the charcoal. “When I saw the assault, I ran. My mother needed me on the front lines to protect the people, but I fled to the one place I always thought was safe. But the thing about being High Prince is you’ve always got the magic with you. And those creatures can smell it like a stink. They knew I was hiding.” Shards of ashen wood crush beneath my fingers. “So they tried to smoke me out.”
“Oh,” Rosalina whispers. She drifts to her knees to sit beside me. “They set fire to the library.”
“Every text with irreplaceable knowledge, every map of lands now lost, every piece of precious artwork… Gone.”
“But you survived. And you are most important of all.” She grabs my shoulders, then looks around. “How did you endure the fire?”
I stand on shaky legs and walk over to the huge alder tree. Leaves whisper in the wind, carrying a magic I know only I can feel. The tree is untouched by any damage, its roots anchoring deep in the ground, stretching out amongst the ruins.
There is an image carved into the trunk, the outline of the ram’s head: a symbol of the royal family. I place my palm over it, and golden light floods through the etching.
