Roy narrowed his eyes at Dimestra. “I’m a member of the aristocracy, a son of the matriarch of a noble house. I should be carrying on your legacy, not doing housework for your superior.” He was contradicting himself, he knew—desperate to uphold Dimestra’s values, to belong somewhere,anywhere, despite his antipathy toward what she stood for. Maybe once, before he had discovered the strength of the written word, Roy had been as much a part of Dawnseve Manor as its other tenants, but those days were long behind him. Now he had no clue what he wanted, nor how he might go about obtaining something of value forhimself. He was adrift, untethered.
“You’re indifferent,” Dimestra snapped, a trace of anger cracking through her glacial expression. “Thatis your true weakness, Roy. You want to live in a cocoon, safe and protected by those who provide that safety. And now that you’re being given the chance to prove your worth, there stands yet another issue: I don’t believe youhaveany.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Nor do I care to,” Dimestra retorted. “You read the letter. You know the facts. And since that doesn’t seem to be enough to enlighten you, let me do the honors: Our soldiers are dying by the dozens, and in some quadrants of the city, thehundreds. The Edict of Containment was our sole source of hope, and the Old Ones shattered part of that iron wall like it was paper. Five units of their soldiers, hammering through Northgard from the southern coast. All of this, and yet somehow yourefuseto put down those damn books.” She sneered, her cheeks reddening. For a second, just a fleeting moment, Roy was convinced she would strike him or punch him, bloody his nose. She watched him for a long while, then asked, “Do you know what your apathy could do to the Governor’s reputation?”
An ugly kind of resentment swelled within Roy. But even though he did not sympathize with her concern, he at least understood it. If he failed this assignment, it would not look good on the Governor’s end. He would not take well to knowing that he had placed all his bets on a dithering, disobedient scholar—the son of his most loyal war commander and, if the rumors were true, his strongest political ally—just for Northgard to be defeated by the Old Ones. There was no doubt that the Governor would somehow find a way to pin the blame for his own faults on Roy.
None of this had stopped Roy from consuming old-world literature. He only had a small, secret collection of texts, which he’d salvaged from the rubble of a destroyed bookshop near Dawnseve Manor. On multiple occasions, Briar had tried to cover for Roy, but on the morning after one of these escapades, Gabriel had beaten him over the head with a book he’d pilfered on the grounds that he was “succumbing to temptation.” Whether Briar had received some similar form of punishment for her role, Roy did not know.
If anything,thatwas his weakness—his inability to see beyond his own narrow desires. So maybe Dimestra was right...
“What could I possibly offer to the cause?” he asked Dimestra now. “Why does he needmewhen any other scholar—or, Hell, even one of his soldiers—could do?”
“Because, unless I’m mistaken, there aren’t any other scholars who werestupidenough to get caught!” Dimestra snapped, startling Roy. She looked out the window; something had caught her attention. Roy was about to follow where her gaze had strayed when she gave him an accusing glare and said, “The Governor will tell you the details of your assignment once we arrive, but I assure you, Roy, he does not trust you or your...” But she didn’t finish the sentence.
Your kind.That was what she’d been about to say. Because though Roy was a scholar as much as any of the others hiding in secrecy were, he was still an aristocrat. Perhaps that didn’t mean the Governor could place his trust in him, but he at least knew that Roy would get the job done.
Dimestra continued, “We’re cornered, Roy. We have no means, no external assistance, with which to inform the rest of the Hasdan Isles of our plight. This is our only option.”
Roy shook his head, exasperated. “The Basilica has no place in our predicament. Perhaps the library could function as a sanctuary, an infirmary for wounded soldiers.”
Derision slashed across Dimestra’s face. “I assure you, the Droves would ratherdiein the Basilica than be healed in it. No, the Governor has more useful intentions for the library.”
“I’m sure he does,” Roy muttered, his vitriol for the Governor—a man whom he had never met; a man who, up until now, had been mistreating and puppeteering scholars’ lives (if not outright destroying them) from the shadows—only intensifying. The feeling struck deep enough that he felt compelled to ask, “Where has he been this whole time? Sequestered in his manor? Why has he suddenly decidednowis the time to come out of the woodwork? I’ve never met this man before, never even seen his face, and yet he’s taken it upon himself to dictate—”
“The Governor has been...absentsince his wife passed some few years ago,” Dimestra interjected with curt impatience. Roy was more taken aback by the swiftness of her response than by the fact that she’d given him an answer. “Her death has taken a mercilessly heavy toll on his health.” Her lips twitched, though apart from that, her expression was as implacable as before. “Like I said, Roy, be thankful. His wisdom is plentiful.”
Roy rolled his eyes, then stilled. The sled had come to a jostling halt. He stumbled to his feet, a little unsteady from the ride, and then followed the Matron and the emissary out of the sled.
The banshee shriek of wind filled the space around him, and as it passed by, its echoes sounded to Roy like the dwindling cries of a spirit. Unnerved, he trudged forward, his boots sinking deep into snow. A vicious chill, much colder than anything he’d ever experienced throughout this endless winter, accosted him, creeping inch by inch across his skin and into his bones. Then he noticed the pointed shadow only a hundred paces away from him, rearing up over his head like some incorporeal black blade, and the cold, the world, and all his mounting fears felt inconsequential in comparison. He’d been so distracted by arguing with the Matron he hadn’t even taken stock of his surroundings.
Roy had made it to the Orphic Basilica.
3
The library was by far the largest, tallestbuilding Roy had ever seen. He had only read three books on architecture, and so he didn’t have the best frame of reference, but it crossed his mind that if an artist ever tried to depict the sheer scope of the Orphic Basilica, they would never quite be capable of putting into comprehensible scale its majesty, its impossible vastness.
Constructed of obsidian-black stone, the Orphic Basilica was seven stories high. Its great steeple stretched toward the soot-gray sky like a banner proclaiming safety, and its ridged roof pierced the lowest-hanging clouds, disappearing into the congregated thunderheads. A large staircase, made from huge slabs of glistening, snow-sprinkled limestone, led to five white pillars, which supported the black-wooded double doors of the front vestibule. Two clay bird baths, brimming with murky, algae-spattered water—now long frozen—flanked the entryway. Roy made out several windows on each of the library’s stories, but the thick ebony-colored curtains hung over them provided him with nothing to stir his imagination.
Then a flutter of movement on the fifth floor caught his attention. A curtain parted, revealing the orange light of a lamp, which shone out like a big golden eye. Behind it stood a figure, but their features were entirely cloaked in shadow.
The sound of Dimestra’s muffled footsteps startled Roy into motion. He followed her up the stairs, then stepped aside as the Citadel emissary hauled open the left of the double doors, grunting through his gritted teeth.
As soon as Roy stepped across the threshold and into the Orphic Basilica, the very moment that his boots struck the crimson carpet runner before him, he took in a deep, even breath and closed his eyes. A trancelike sense of calm and comfort came over him. He had gotten so tangled up in Northgard’s cynicism and lies that he’d completely forgotten where he was being taken. This building, he knew now, was not like those few he had read about because itwasn’tlike any other. This library was a relic of the ancients, and though they no longer held the keys, and nor were they around to prevent Northgard from possessing them, Roy let himself believe they could see him now. He hoped he would not disappoint them.
Then he opened his eyes, and the fear of failure and of what might happen should he not succeed crashed down upon him with horrible force. Maybe he would become as forgotten as the library itself.
But he thought otherwise. A scholar—their identity, their purpose, their drive—was not to be underestimated. Razkamun, a highly renowned philosopher during the Age of Scribes, had once written on this:The drawn sword is to the warrior what the written word is to the scholar.There was a reason for academics and their deviations, no matter how contemptible those deviations might seem to Northgard.
This damn city is trying to steal these thoughts from your conscience, Roy told himself.Your beliefs, your education; all of this will lose meaning if you give in, if you join the war.
Something awoke within Roy then, tenebrous and beckoning, as though a secret, watching pair of eyes had heard his affirmations. The doors slammed shut behind him, a resounding thud that echoed through the Basilica’s hallowed halls. Flames roared to life in fireplaces, dispersing the cold that had wound its way around Roy’s muscles. A brilliant assortment of candles, lamps, and torches illuminated the space, revealing redwood floors, which were now bathed in a vermilion glow. Firelight and shadow shivered across the hundreds of thousands of books that lined the walls and stretched far back into corners, seen and unseen, and around alcoves and nooks discarded by scholars long deceased. The gilt-lettered titles on the spines of countless volumes shimmered a beautiful, enchanting shade of gold. Roy looked upon it all, enraptured. The works of a million authors, neglected, left to rot and decay.
And now, possibly, his... for six months, at least.
He marched past the threshold with haste, determined and enthused, then slowed to a stride, giving himself a chance to marvel at the shelves upon shelves of books. He felt somewhat like a thief, stealing glimpses of a world that was not his own. There were immaculately sculpted busts of literary visionaries on either side of the carpet runner: Tahaluth, who had penned twenty-seven expositional essays on the symbiotic relationship between the lecturer and the listener; the aforementioned Razkamun, one of Roy’s heroes, the creator of the Warfare-Philosophy Principle; Polisworth, who had dedicated his life to helping other scholars by researching suitable processes for achieving mental durability during intense academic projects; and Atticus Walestone, admired by few, scorned by most, yet crucial for his investigation of other realities and other worlds.
