To think of a realm even more torn than it was today saddened me. “And you have Reverist texts here?”
“Yes—they’re mostly written in old Brennac, which Krait knows well,” Ryn answered. “He’ll be able to help you.”
Of course, I’d needhim.“Where might I find these texts?”
“In Krait’s hole,” Elsedora chimed in.
“Excuse me?” I gasped out.
Ryn smiled wide, which told me I’d delivered the exact reaction they’d been hoping for.
“It’s what we call his private library—his hole. I can show you his hole,” Ryn carried on.
“Stop that.” I would have a fit of giggles if he used the word “hole” one more time regarding the King of the Sahlms. “But also, I would like to see thetexts.”
“C’mon, Princess,” Ryn said before offering me his hand. He pulled me further into Umber House.
My ankles felt like an inferno of pain as I followed him. I’d think about that later—maybe I could find a cold compress somewhere in this Source-forsaken desert.
“I will swing by your room later,” Elsedora called after Ryn as he whisked me away.
Before I could react to Elsedora’s comment, Ryn stopped just beside a stairwell—there was a small door there that was my height. He leaned over and whispered into my ear, “Say the words ‘In the Shadows we trust.’”
“In the Shadows we trust?” I asked. Before he could answer, the door’s lock clicked open.
“Iknewhe liked you,” Ryn said as he ducked through the entry.
“What do you mean?”
He answered, “It won’t open for anyone Krait doesn’t trust.”
“You’re mistaken. That man hates the ground I walk on. You saw him in the throne room—he wanted my head on a platter.”
The Prince shrugged and formed a ball of white moonlight in his palm. The light cast beams down the stairwell into a windowless chamber that was lined with the most beautiful wooden bookshelves I’d ever seen. I was not much of a reader, but this looked like a sacred space for Darvanda.
There was a small portrait on the desk of a woman with silver hair and the most stunning blue eyes.
“Speaking of people who Krait trusts...your sister, the Princess of Phynx? You told me to come back to you when I’d pieced things together—they were in love.”
“Aren’t you a sly little fox? You get that out of Elsedora?”
I smirked while running my hand over perfectly dusted tomes. “Is it all that hard to get gossip out of Elsedora?”
Ryn laughed. “Fair point. Yes, they were married.”
My brows rose. “Married? Someone agreed to a life of eternal grumpiness? She must have been angelic to deal with that.”
“You’re one to talk,” he said in jest. Ryn leaned with one forearm on a bookshelf. “Shewasangelic—our people loved her. She was their fiercest advocate. Yet still somehow the calm in any storm. Unfortunately, she and my father never saw eye to eye. He always pushed me to take the crown, but I didn’t want it.”
I glanced over at him as I trailed my hands along the rough canvas book spines. He would have made an excellent King, had he wanted it.
“I’m sorry for your loss. It sounds like she was lovely, all jokes aside.” I let sincerity carry through my tone, not wanting him to feel as though I took his disclosure lightly.
“I know it’s hard to imagine, but beneath all the spiky edges, there is a lot of gentleness in Krait too. I think it is what initially drew them together—that and their Source Match.”
I sucked in a breath. “They were Source Matched? I didn’t know Origins couldbeSource Matched.”
Ryn shrugged and casually crossed his arms over his chest, leaning back against a shelf. “He isn’t Desidero. He is still subject to the whims of the Origins just like the rest of us immortal Source-wielders. Source Matches and all.”
