Archer paled visibly. “The king….” She watched him put the pieces together: the dead mage and her mysterious child, the king’s interest in them both. His blue eyes widened. “Sothis.You’re the Storm Crow, aren’t you?”
“Lord Sagan certainly thinks so,” Thia spat, though it wasn’t Archer she was angry at. Anger was good, though. It kept the terror at bay.
He stepped away from her. His face was a strange blend of wary and awed. “He’s right. It’s not safe for you here.”
Thia stepped closer to him again. “How did my mother die?”
Archer removed his hat and began nervously smoothing the feather. “I pledged my loyalty to Lord Sagan. I can’t help you.” He turned on his heel and began the march uphill. She was about to scream at his back, when he paused. Facing away from her, his voice was almost lost in the wind. “In the east wing of the library, there is a carved desk. Second drawer from the bottom. If I were interested in the past, that’s where I’d start.”
She fingered the hem of her sleeve. “Is this because I’m the Storm Crow?”
He put the cap back on his head. “I never knew my father. Lord Sagan has been that to me, in a way. But nothing can replace true knowledge of one’s origins.”
Then he was gone, leaving Thia to climb the hill alone.
FOURTEEN
WHEN THE CASTLE WAS QUIET,THE MOON HIGH OUTSIDETHIA’Swindow, she slipped from her bed. Tiptoeing down the stairs, she turned left, away from the Great Hall. She passed more stairs and other rooms that were locked, moving down dimly lit corridors until she was lost, until she cursed Archer for his vague directions. Then, just as she was about to give up, she found it.
The library. The doors were open, revealing shelves upon shelves of books within. She entered, marveling at the size. It was built from the same reddish wood as the Great Hall, but instead of high ceilings, it had multiple levels connected by a spiraling staircase at the center. Candles burnt low in wall sconces, providing just enough light for her to meander in what she hoped was an eastward direction. It smelled somehow both musty and dry, as only centuries-old paper and wood did.
She descended a smaller staircase, only four or five steps or so, onto a lower level. The bookshelves were smaller here, so she could easily spot a number of desks nestled in alcoves between the aisles. She was about to curse Archer again when she realized there was only one he could have meant. It was in the back corner, its legs intricately carved with the same griffons that marked the entrance to the Great Hall. She threaded her way through the shelves toward it, squinting as the light darkened. There were no wall sconces in this section, but a table a few yards from her target bore a single candle, wax dripping into an iron bobèche. It fluttered as she walked by.
She reached her destination and crouched down. The desk had four drawers on the left side; crammed in next to the wall, she had to pull the chair out of the way to reach the one second from the bottom. The old wood squeaked as she wiggled it open, and she winced. With the desk blocking most of the candlelight, she felt around the wood blindly and was surprised to find it empty.
No, not empty. There was a single piece of parchment at the very back, its texture rougher and thicker than the paper she was used to. She pulled it out, careful not to crumple it, and used the desk to push herself to her feet. Then she smoothed it out across the wood, heart hammering.
She could just make out a looping scrawl, but it was too dark to properly digest. She hastened to the table with the candle, nearly tripping on a stack of books left in a pile on the floor.
Was it her mother’s writing? The truth about her death? But as she held it up to the candlelight, she found that it was neither. She read:
Born to the daughter of Nowhere and Everywhere,
The Storm Crow shall come:
A harbinger of war before
The Tyrant’s reign undone.
In search of a Heart, a Soul, and a Mind
With powers he cannot contain,
The lost shall restore the Descendant of Lore,
The righteous again to reign.
The prophecy of the Storm Crow.
Wood creaked in the darkness. Thia froze, straining to see in the dim light. She held her breath, trying to make out any sound in the stillness that wasn’t her own.
She could see nothing unusual. Hear nothing. The creak of an old building perhaps.
She was about to examine the parchment again, when she caught a shimmer of color in her periphery. She glanced up at the wall on her left, and her breath caught.
Mom.The portrait Archer had mentioned. Immortalized in oil paint, Melina was frozen in her mid-twenties, suggesting the work was done just a few years before Thia’s birth.
Thia strode toward it, pausing at the table to exchange the parchment for the candle, which she held up to better see.
