“What is it?” he asked when I paused.
“Never mind.” I ground my teeth. I couldn’t tell him yet. Couldn’t risk the mage attacking me here. “But it’s too dangerous. I don’t think you should go.”
“We are taking a large contingent of men. We’ll only be at the estate for a week. Besides, we’ll be traveling with most of the palace guard. Anyone would be a fool to attack us, magic or no.”
“Take me with you. I can defend against magic.” I paced back and forth, imagining all the ways this trip could go wrong.
He held my arm to stop me, and suddenly we were so close I could count his long, dark eyelashes, name every constellation in his eyes. Our breath mingled together, and I wasn’t sure if he pulled me in or if I pulled him, but somehow, impossibly, we were closer.
“Leinn, I need you here,” he whispered. “I don’t trust Koranth being so close to my sisters, but he’s a necessary evil at this point to keep Riiga from attacking. I have to know that my sisters are protected. I trust you, Leinn.”
His other hand came up, hovering just over my cheek. Tingles and sparks raced along my skin, and when his hand finally made contact, I went still under his touch.
“I need you”—he stepped closer until there was only a sliver of space between us—“here.”
He stared at my lips, not moving, our breaths coming faster as we stood on the edge of a cliff. My heart told me to leap into the oblivion, that Enzo was the right choice.
His head came down toward mine, and he moved his hand from my arm to my hair. Right over the white streak I’d hidden my entire life. The mark that would identify me to the world, to the mages. The mark that now signaled my duty to the throne.
I stiffened, and Enzo studied me. What did he see? Did he understand what I couldn’t figure out myself?
I yearned to erase what distance still separated us. To see if his lips would taste like apples. Instead, I rose onto my toes, turned his chin, and kissed his cheek, my lips lingering, memorizing the feel of him. “I’ll protect your sisters, Enzo. Stay safe.”
He straightened, his hands brushing my skin as they returned to his sides. He inclined his head and stepped around me to the door. He adjusted the cuff on his arm and flexed the hand that had rested on my cheek, then slipped through the door.
My legs threatened to buckle beneath me. I held on to the arm of the nearest chair and eased into it. My eyes squeezed shut, and I rested my head in my hands, elbows on my knees. I’d never felt like this toward anyone. But Enzo was no longer mine to have.
* * *
“Where could she be?” I asked as I checked under the beds in Yesilia’s empty chambers. She’d gone to Hallen’s estate as well—Lady Hallen had requested her presence. Mari had gone missing before Enzo, his parents, and Yesilia had left this morning, and Chiara and I had been searching for her most of the day. I kept telling myself she was too young to be a political target, that she was just hiding.
Chiara leaned against the doorframe and shrugged, chewing her way through a kind of fruit she’d called cherries. I’d tried one, and then immediately eaten ten more. “She’ll come out when she’s ready,” she said, and spit a seed into her handkerchief.
I was almost glad Enzo was gone. In the library yesterday, and again in that sitting room, I had been contemplating telling him who I really was. Now he was on his way to look at another possible new bride. As if he were picking out a new sword. I told myself he was only doing his duty and following the counsel of the king and his advisors. And I could never marry him anyway. I had run out of time. But I’d promised him I’d protect his sisters. Which I couldn’t do if I couldn’t find them both.
I looked over to Chiara, surprised at her good cheer. “You’re not still upset about being left behind?”
“What Mari doesn’t know is that with the king and queen gone, we won’t be held to our schedules. I can spend as long as I want reading, and we can spend hours in the gardens—as long as the summer rains hold off for the week.” She flashed a brilliant smile over her shoulder as she practically skipped down the hall toward the library.
I followed Chiara, eager for more time in the library as well. Still, I scanned the hallways as I walked, wondering where an eight-year-old would hide. If Mari didn’t show up soon, I worried I’d never find her.
The doors to the throne room flew open and banged against the wall. I pulled Chiara behind me and put a hand to my sword, then realized it was Marietta who had blown out of the room. I knelt down, and she threw herself into my arms, sobbing onto my shoulder.
“Mari? What happened? Are you okay?” Relief at finding her and worry at the source of her tears turned in my stomach.
Chiara rubbed Mari’s back while craning her head into the throne room to see if someone else was there.
Marietta sniffed and wiped her nose on my shirt. She peered up at us with red eyes and soot smudged on her dress and cheeks.
“I’ve been hiding all morning, and no one has tried to find me. Mother and Father left me here alone. Everyone always leaves me!” she wailed, and buried her head in my shoulder again.
I held her tight. “Marietta…” My voice was soft but firm. I waited for her to look at me before continuing. “I am here. I won’t leave you.” I knew how it felt to be left behind.
Chiara jumped in as well. “Mari, we have been looking for you everywhere.” She smiled softly at her younger sister, who was finally calming down.
I brushed her hair out of her face. “You’re better at hiding than everyone in the entire palace is at finding. Even we failed.”
The timid edges of a smile appeared, and she laughed a little. “I am the bestest at hiding.”
“How about this?” I stood, putting my hands on my hips. “Why don’t you stay with us until your parents return? We can spend the rest of the day in the library. And maybe we could have some adventures tomorrow?”
Marietta’s eyes grew wide, and her smile stretched across her face. “Oh, yes, yes! Could we?”
Chiara laughed and took her hand. “Of course, Mari. We’ll go exploring!” They skipped down the hall, arms swinging. I grinned. One less thing to worry about.
* * *
Chiara stayed curled up on a stuffed chair by the window, reading romances and fairy tales. Master Romo had laughed when Mari had asked him if there were any secret doors in the library, but she’d spent the rest of the afternoon searching every corner anyway.
I tugged the collar of my brown uniform away from my neck—Turia was wretchedly hot even in the end of spring—and pulled yet another book from a stack on my table as I tried to find Graymere’s weaknesses and where the mages’ library might be.
One thought kept circling in my mind: the tethers had broken within minutes of each other. It had been Graymere who attacked me in the Wild. So someone else had assassinated my father in Hálenborg, and another someone had killed Ren in North Watch.
If the Red and Brown Mages were indeed working with Graymere, and all three sought the mages’ library, what would be their next move? Did they already know where it was? Did they have the key?
I’d found the book Enzo had been reading from yesterday, and was flipping through it, looking for anything more.
Two make up one, the key to the door. Two kingdoms to hide, to be found nevermore.
Was it even talking about the mages’ library? But the burned note I’d found so long ago mentioned a key as well.
Something else on the page seemed to reach up and pull my gaze down.
The Black Library:
A stockpile of the learning and weapons of the Black Mage and his followers. The location is unknown, but is rumored to be the final resting place of Moraga, the feared sword of Graymere, the Gray Mage.
This had to be the mages’ library, though Black Library seemed a much more appropriate name, considering what it containe
d. I closed my eyes and tilted my head back, trying to remember exactly what the burned note had said. Something about destruction, strange magic.
The key must lie in Hálendi.
I shook my head and stared at the book again. It said there were two parts to the key. Two kingdoms.
I went over what I’d guessed so far. Graymere was looking for his sword, his power, turning the kingdoms against each other so he could find the Black Library. And then what?
Revenge. He had taken that out against my family. Would he take back his land—the Continent? I doubted there would be anyone who could stop him from taking anything he wanted if he had his sword.
I found the next book in the stack and turned pages, reading as fast as I could, but stopped when I got to a drawing. Two circles—one larger, the smaller one inside, and shaded in between, like a ring, or a wheel. And there were markings on it, seemingly random dots. At the bottom was the word Turia.
The markings were familiar somehow. Something from home, from before the Wild…
I gasped, then covered my mouth with my hand. My father’s Medallion had markings just like this on the back of it. Ren had shown them to me, that day in the library before we left.
Two kingdoms to hide. Enzo had said that Oriana and Kais had traveled the Plateau together.
Two make up one. I couldn’t be sure, but it looked like this ring, with its matching markings, would fit around the Medallion.
The key to the door.
Ren had taken it to North Watch before he’d been killed. Which meant the mages already had one piece of the key. My stomach jumped and danced, and my hands started to shake.
Where was the other? It must be in Turia somewhere. I drummed my fingers against the book, wishing that I could just ask Enzo. Why did he and his parents have to leave now?
“I’m starving!” Mari called down from the balcony.
Chiara laughed. “Let’s go find dinner.”
Ren’s curses ran through my head in a loop. If the mages already knew where the Black Library was, the Turian key would be the final piece to unlock. Even if they didn’t know, they’d need this part eventually.
Mari was jumping down the stairs two at a time; Chiara marked her place.
The book in front of me was massive—too big to hide. But I couldn’t leave this here when there were unknown threats in the palace. I slipped the knife out of my boot and lifted the back cover. Romo wasn’t looking, but Chiara and Mari were on their way. One deep breath, and I pressed the knife into the page, exhaling when it punctured the parchment. Then I slid the knife along the spine until I’d freed the illustration.
I slipped my knife back into my boot as I finished closing the book, then quickly folded the parchment. I tucked it into my pocket just as Chiara and Mari got to my table.
“I told Cook to make cake for dinner,” Mari was saying. “Do you think he’ll do it?”
I forced a smile, my hand clenched tight around the folded illustration. “I’m sure he will at least make it for dessert, Mari.”
A fist-sized rock had lodged in my stomach and its weight was now spreading to my limbs. If the mages knew the rest of the key was in Turia, they’d be heading here soon, if they weren’t already. While Enzo and the king and queen were at some lord’s estate.
And if the mages found the Black Library, there wasn’t much chance of anyone succeeding against them. I thought again of Scribe Jershi’s description of the mages when they’d lost their artifacts. Broken vessels. Our only chance to defeat the Gray Mage would be before he found his sword.
The image of Graymere holding Aleinn flashed in my mind. But instead of pushing the vivid picture away, I studied the mage—the blackness in his eyes, his long fingers gripping the knife. Inside me, something seemed to grow, to reach out to the mage from my memory. Something where the tethers had been.
I shook my head, and the connection broke.
We needed to find the Black Library before he did. And destroy it.
“Coming, Leinn?” Mari asked, her hand in Chiara’s.
Enzo’s request to keep his sisters safe echoed in my mind.
I gathered my books and placed them on the nearest shelf, glancing back once as I walked into the hall with them. I’d hide the illustration in Ren’s book in my room. And when Enzo returned, we’d have to have a talk with his father. We had to keep Graymere from finding the Black Library. Even if that meant revealing that he’d killed the wrong girl.
Worry about the mages and sickness at the thought of Enzo courting Lady Cynthia had kept me awake most of the night. Thunder had shaken the palace, while lightning split the sky into ribbons. Then the rain had started. I had watched it pound against the window, trying to think of what I could do from the palace to prepare for the mages.
“Come on!” yelled Mari, pulling my thoughts to the present. Her voice echoed in the dim, cool hallway. For once, I wasn’t sweating from the heat everyone else seemed to take in stride.
“How much farther to your most secret hiding spot? I’m getting hungry!” Chiara’s voice didn’t bounce quite like Mari’s, but there was no one around to hear her. The late morning sun hid behind low billowing clouds that tumbled over each other as they dumped their rain. We hurried to catch up to Mari’s skipping pace. The sconces hadn’t been lit in the halls, and the murky light made me shiver. Where is everyone?
More light filtered inside as we crossed the main entrance to the palace. The foyer was long and tall, with windows stretching three stories high. The floors gleamed with polish, but today, the tiles seemed to douse the light instead of reflect it.
Something outside moved. I went to the window to see who would be out in such miserable weather, while the sisters continued.
I squinted through the rain streaking along the glass. Men in dark cloaks ran toward the palace. One figure rammed his sword through a guard without missing a step. Sharp, icy prickles swooped from my fingertips to my heart.
There were no shouts, no screams, no alarms ringing. Just silent progress through the mud to the palace entrance. To us.
My mind ground to a halt, and my throat closed. There was nowhere to hide, no room or closet to duck into.
“No!” I choked out. I sprinted toward Chiara and Mari, slipping on the polished floor like I was moving in slow motion. They stopped in the middle of the grand open foyer and turned, frowning in confusion.
I got my footing and barreled into both of them, pushing them into the corner.
“Aleinn?” Chiara started. “Wha—”
I turned to the doors and drew my sword, and the sisters fell silent. There was no way the men about to explode into the palace wouldn’t see us and kill us on the spot. My focus narrowed to the front doors, my heart pounding out of my chest.
The door splintered. Chiara and Marietta flinched at the crashing boom that filled the empty room. Windows all along the corridor smashed as men poured into the palace, spreading like darkness. Mud and rain and water splashed onto the tile floors, seeping into the grout and staining everything brown red.
I raised my sword.
That’s when I felt it. Something pulled where the tethers had been, just below my rib cage. A warm shimmering wave I couldn’t quite see rippled out from my middle. It covered me and the princesses, cocooning us in a muted cave. I could still hear swords clashing and people screaming, could still see the men streaking past us, but everything was muffled and smudged as if we were underwater.
Chiara and Mari stayed silent behind me, their shallow breathing matching my own. Every strip of leather on the hilt of my sword dug into my palm. Though sound couldn’t reach us, the coppery scent of blood mixed with fresh rain and dirt swirled together until I could taste them.
It feels like rushing, Ren had said. But this, to me, was…clarity.
We hid in that corner for what seemed like ages as
chaos surrounded us, undetected by the soldiers still streaming into the palace, shouting, and searching the halls. Most of the fighting took place farther inside, but we watched as some servants tried to fight back or run. They were all captured or killed.
Who had attacked the palace in the middle of the day, and why?
Every inch of me wanted to jump out and fight the invaders, but Enzo’s words reverberated inside. I have to keep the princesses safe.
When the steady stream of men passing through the broken front door finally trickled away, sounds of the intrusion still came from other floors and wings of the palace. The muscles in my shoulders trembled to keep my sword up, and the shield around us flickered. We needed somewhere to hide. I turned to Marietta and knelt beside her, whispering fiercely.
“Mari, where is your very best hiding spot?” She was shivering and staring at the broken door. I grabbed her shoulder. “Look at me, Mari. Look only at me.” I took a deep breath in and out, and she mimicked me. “Where is your hiding spot? Is it close?”
“Right around the corner.” She blinked and swallowed hard. “The main drawing room.”
I shook out my hands, then raised my sword once more. “Let’s go.”
As I took a step forward, Chiara and Mari right behind, the shimmering shield around us flickered again, then dissipated. The magic that had shielded us from being seen—wherever it had come from—had completely drained me.
I listened, then turned the corner into the hallway. A man leaned against the wall right in front of us, his sword lax at his side, but his eyes went wide. I reacted on instinct, though my initial swing was sluggish.
He parried my first blow. I dodged his attempt at a swing and sank my blade into his chest. Something flickered within, something dark and powerful. My sword sliced between his ribs and the soft flesh beneath them, stopping at bone on the other side. I stood there long enough to watch the surprise, then the life, drain from his eyes. He fell back, but I held on to my sword tight. Blood dripped from its tip onto the polished floors. I tried to breathe in, but my lungs had turned to ice.
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