Matheo only snorted. “As if that’s a deterrent. I’ll shave my own head just the a chance to see what Quentin will do with the knowledge that you have a goat allergy.”
“Andrian!”
Andrian shot a final glare at the younger Armature before following his queen up the rise.
It only took a few steps for Andrian to feel the shift.
Callamus was right; their clearing was the last place where the power of thestaordid not reach. As they climbed the rise, his shadows stretched through his veins, awakened by the strange energy that stirred in the air. The closer they walked, the more it clung to his skin, the more it snaked down his throat and into his lungs.
“Do you feel that?” he asked Mariah quietly.
She only nodded, though there was a strange contemplative look twisting her brow.
They crested the rise. Andrian’s heart lurched in his chest.
The rise sloped down into a small, grassy valley. No trees grew along the banks. In the center sat an eerily still pond, its waters a reflective crystalline silver beneath the indigo evening sky.
Jutting from those still waters, like a monolith into the sky…
Andrian had to clamp down on the curse that begged to crawl out of his throat. Mariah drew in a sharp breath.
“Is that…?”
“Yes,” he growled. “Aberrant.”
Chapter 62
“Where would you like to start?”
Ciana whirled at the assistant archivist’s question, finding the kind woman’s patient gaze. Georgios—the head archivist—had instructed her to help Ciana and Sebastian find anything they needed.
“I’m…” Ciana twisted her hands together. “I’m not exactly sure.”
“We’re looking for something that might not even exist.” Sebastian leaned casually against a solid table, rolling up his sleeves. The muscles in his forearms flexed, and Ciana swallowed past the dryness in her throat. “But we know if it did, any mention of it might’ve been made around the time of the First War, by someone close to the leaders of the human forces.”
Thank the gods she had him here. Her job had very clearly been to get them into the archives.
Sebastian was who would actually find what they needed amidst these stacks.
The archivist smiled. “That is certainly a very broad starting point,” she said, “but such is the nature of research, and we have dealt with larger questions than that before. Perhaps I can bring titles that recount general First War history penned by those closest to the war front, and you can narrow your search from there?”
Sebastian nodded, returning her smile. “That sounds like a perfect place to start. Thank you.”
The archivist bowed, turning.
“Wait.”
The woman glanced back over her shoulder. Warmth bloomed in Ciana’s cheeks.
“I have a feeling we’ll be here a while,” she said, a bit timidly. “Can you possibly arrange for some food to be brought in? Please?”
The archivist’s gaze softened. “Of course, Lady Visseau,” she said. “I will request that the serving staff bring you provisions. And if there is anything else you need, simply pull that lever”—she pointed to a polished wooden handle on the wall— “and someone will be by.”
Sebastian thanked the archivist and she left them, disappearing into the distant stacks of books.
Leaving them alone.
Not that they hadn’t been alone before. Or many times before. Or even earlier that day.
