But she had not carried a child. She had not felt the weight of new life pressing against her bladder or keeping her awake at night. She had read about it extensively, but reading about it was not the same as knowing it.
"I wouldn't know," she said instead.
Delia's eyebrows rose slightly. A small shift, but Verity caught it.
They sat in comfortable silence for a moment. Somewhere above, she could hear the distant clang of the smithy, the rhythm of Northwatch continuing its ordinary business.
The archive door creaked. Verity looked up to find Torgun's gangly frame filling the entrance.
"See?" He gestured behind him. "I told you she'd be down here."
Grukash stepped into view, ducking beneath the lintel.
Verity stood. "Grukash. I wasn't expecting you." She hadn't seen her guide since he left her in her quarters some weeks earlier.
"Border run," he said simply.
The orc looked around uncomfortably. He was as out of place here as she had been in the saddle, but she was glad to see him.
"I see you found the archives," he added dryly.
Delia laughed. "She more than found them. She's studied them and decoded them and—"
"She'skrennato the warchief," Torgun added.
Grukash did not look surprised to hear this. "That explains the smell."
Verity felt heat climb her neck. She still was not entirely accustomed to the way her internal states announced themselves to everyone around her whether she wished them to or not.
"I'm sure Grukash has better things to do than gossip about me," Verity said, glaring at Delia and Torgun.
Grukash chuckled. "I wouldn't say better, but I do have a purpose for being here." He reached into the leather satchel at his hip and withdrew a folded letter, the paper thick and cream-colored, sealed with dark red wax. "I was taking your letter to the border crossing, and found one waiting for you already."
He held out the paper. Verity took it, her fingers registering the quality of the paper before her eyes found the seal. The Royal Archive's mark. The interlocking circles that represented the unity of knowledge.
Verity broke the seal.
The handwriting was Aldric's. She would have known it anywhere, the careful backward slant he had developed over forty years of marginalia, the way his capital letters compressed as though conserving space out of habit. She had read hundreds of his letters. Thousands of his annotations. She knew the rhythm of his sentences before she knew their content.
Her eyes found the first line.
My dear Verity,
I write with news that could not wait for your return. Magister Holloway has announced his retirement, effective immediately. His health, as you may have suspected, has been declining for some time. The Senior Council met three days past to discuss succession.
The position of Keeper of the Royal Stacks is yours, if you want it.
She stopped reading.
The highest archival position in Valdara. Access to every restricted collection. Authority over acquisition and preservation. A seat at tables where decisions were made about what history would remember.
She had wanted this. She had wanted this so badly that she had built her entire adult life around the wanting.
The Council requires your answer within the month. I have advocated strongly on your behalf, but there are other candidates, and delay will be interpreted as disinterest. I urge you to conclude your work at Northwatch as efficiently as possible and return to Caelvorn.
Your mentor and friend,
Aldric Vane
