“Can you read it?” I asked. I wouldn’t be able to get what I needed if all the books were in the old language, not unless he could translate them for me.
He scoffed, offended. “Am I not the Keeper of this library? I have read every book in this room.”
“Can you translate this one for me, then?” I waved the ancient tome, and he scowled.
“You’d think I didn’t have any other work to do,” he muttered, and despite his words, he led me back to an empty table. Once seated, I turned the pages on the leather-bound tome until I reached the page I was after. The depiction of the king’s brother kneeling among a field of bodies.
The pure desperation and anguish slashed across his features tugged deep in my chest.
A kinship.
An understanding of the weight that obviously sat so heavily on his shoulders.
“The story of the Dark Bright Brothers,” the Keeper began, startling me, too lost in the drawing. “King Raiden was the last Emyrdeis to rule.”
“KingRaiden?”
He tapped the page right where the man knelt.
“I thought this was the king’s brother?”
He raised a brow. “You’re familiar with this story?”
“The—” I stopped myself, about to tell him that the king told me. I had gone this long without raising suspicions, and I couldn’t do so now that I was so close to the truth. “I’ve heard it before, didn’t the king make a deal to raise evil?”
“Ahh. It is often misinterpreted this way.” The Keeper flipped the pages to the beginning of the book and started the story. “The Dark Bright Brothers were twins, Raiden the eldest and Bastian the youngest. They were as close as brothers could be, as children and well into adulthood. When Raiden took the throne after their father’s death, it was with Bastian’s full support, who became his closest adviser. His protector.”
The first few drawings showed a dark-haired boy and his light-haired brother laughing while they played with wooden swords. Their expressions grew more serious as the drawings aged them until they became men. The dark-haired brother sat upon a regal throne, something far more majestic than the throne I avoidedin the ballroom on my wedding day. His light-haired brother stood beside him, face shrouded in shadow.
“Bastian craved more. He believed Galisordis should cross the seas and rule all lands, but Raiden refused, he had recently signed a beneficial trade agreement and didn’t want to renege on that deal. Bastian grew envious of his brother’s position and behind Raiden’s back, enlisted the help of a dark sorcerer to raise ancient fire demons from deep within the earth.”
The next drawing was one I had seen before, except it wasn’t the king but his brother who directed a man in deep-red robes, flames and shadows curled around them.
“The sorcerer was dealing with magic of the Gods. Not only did he release the fire demons, but demons of shadow as well. Creatures so cruel and terrifying, the Gods themselves locked them deep below the earth’s surface for fear of destruction a few millennia before. In order to release the demons, the sorcerer tied Bastian’s life to theirs, a bond allowing him to command and control them. He was unstoppable, since the demons could only be killed by a rare metal, mined deep within the Kraneal Valley and blessed by the Eniferium.”
“So the Eniferium were real?” It seemed Professor Gerry wasn’t the only one to believe in Mobitus’s Priestesses.
“Of course they were real, all our stories are based on history,” he exclaimed before continuing, “but the Eniferium died out centuries before, and the blessed weapons remaining were limited. With the demons not easily killed, neither could Bastian be killed.”
He turned the page again, this one showing the dark-haired brother on a horse twice the size of a regular one. The Fortenax—it had to be, so reminiscent to the tapestry in the entrance hall. They traveled up a steep mountain, battling winds and swirling snow. “So, King Raiden traveled to the Mulaphen Temple, highin the Demnocollis Mountains to beg the Gods to save his people and in doing so, destroy his brother.”
“What happened to him? King Raiden?” I asked. This was it, the truth I was looking for.
The Keeper sighed. “I’m afraid that is part of the story we don’t know. There are many theories. Some believe he gave his life to save his people, others choose to believe he lived on in hiding, full of shame over what his brother had done. The next generation saw the Great Divide.”
“What do you believe?”
The Keeper raised a brow. “It is not a historian’s job to make assumptions.” Despite his words, his face told something else.
“But?” I prompted when he didn’t continue.
The corner of his mouth quirked slightly. “But if King Raiden was the man they say he was, I believe he would have sacrificed himself for his people.”
I nodded. It was the conclusion I came to also.
“And his brother?”
“Locked beneath the earth with the evil he raised.”
