Chapter 38

***

The clandestine journey to the late Queen’s library, reportedly housed in the first tower of the sprawling East Wing, proved agonizingly long.

The trio navigated the labyrinthine corridors of the West Wing, following a route along the architectural “shoulder” of a castle designed to resemble a bird with its wings spread wide. From there, they crossed an immense open-air bridge constructed in the style of an ancient cloister, which connected the wing directly to the central keep.

Although the stone bridge was broad and solid beneath their feet, it hung at a dizzying height. Brutal crosswinds shrieked between the towering masonry pillars, battering anyone exposed to their path.

Late autumn was swiftly yielding to the bitter onset of winter, and the night air sliced through Kosha’s thin clothes like icy blades. He shivered violently, his wandering thoughts straying to the humble comforts of the barn he had abandoned and whether his beloved geese were suffering beneath the same merciless cold.

Mistaking the violent shudder for frailty against the chill, Eydric silently moved to the windward side and laid a steadying hand on the mage’s narrow shoulder.

Kosha appreciated the knight’s formidable shelter, but even Eydric’s imposing presence could do nothing to soothe his absurd, melancholy longing for his lost flock.

At the far end of the bridge, the forbidding facade of the East Wing rose against the night. Five distinct towers pierced the dark sky along its length.

Reaching the first tower required traversing another suffocating maze of corridors. They descended a dizzying spiral staircase into the fortress’s lower levels, only to begin an equally punishing climb toward the upper floors.

Trailing behind the others, Kosha could only marvel at Mailot’s astonishing sense of direction. Guided by the meager glow of a single hand lantern, the scholar crossed the pitch-black labyrinth without pausing or faltering once.

Just before they rounded a crucial corner leading into the occupied wing, Mailot abruptly draped a heavy black cloth over the lantern’s glass panes.

Darkness swallowed them at once.

From that point onward, Kosha could do little more than clutch the hem of the scholar’s long coat and pray he would not stumble over some unseen piece of stonework.

When they finally crept around the last bend, a remarkably shabby and unremarkable wooden door emerged from the gloom. The two oil torches mounted in iron sconces on either side had burned out, leaving only dying embers that sputtered weakly in the oppressive dark.

“Whenever the owner abandons a domain, discipline among the stationed guards inevitably deteriorates.” Mailot’s whisper barely carried above the draft. “I discreetly encouraged the sentries to drink themselves into a comfortable stupor in the lower barracks, which has removed them from our path for the moment. Unfortunately, there is no telling when the fools might stagger back to their posts.”

The scholar turned toward the imposing knight. “Eydric, hold this position and keep watch over the corridor.”

Eydric rapped his armored knuckles against the ancient tower wall, clinically testing the integrity of the masonry. “Was this tower built during the same period as the central keep?”

“To the best of my knowledge, yes,” Mailot confirmed. “You should be able to reach the internal service passages from here.”

“The position is hardly suited to a prolonged defense.” Eydric drew his blade a fraction from its scabbard and inspected the exposed steel. “Still, it will have to suffice.”

The two men exchanged grim tactical observations that sailed entirely over Kosha’s head.

Abandoning the discussion, Mailot seized the mage by the forearm and pulled him toward the threshold. “We are going inside. Do not dawdle and make this take longer than necessary. A handful of missing volumes may escape the caretakers’ notice, but if we strip the shelves bare, we will provoke a political catastrophe.”

“I understand perfectly,” Kosha breathed, his heart pounding.

“I will remain near the entrance so I can maintain a clear line of sight.” Mailot’s voice sharpened. “The instant you hear me call your name, drop whatever you are doing and leave. Is that understood?”

“Perfectly clear.” Kosha nodded vigorously.

Mailot reached into his breast pocket and produced a heavy iron key.

It was so crude and ordinary that it hardly resembled the sort of key meant to protect a priceless royal archive. Kosha could not help staring at it in open fascination.

Noticing the mage’s dumbfounded expression, Mailot offered a smug explanation. “It is the same standard-issue key used for the guest chambers. Very few courtiers remember that this tower once housed the lower servants’ quarters. The Princess likely left the archaic locks untouched because summoning a master locksmith to the East Wing would only invite speculation about whatever treasures she had hidden here.”

Historical curiosity had not rendered Kosha speechless. Instead, his jaw slackened in genuine awe at the terrifying reach of Mailot’s intelligence network.

The heavy timber door opened on rusted hinges with a long, mournful creak.

A suffocating wave of stale air, ancient dust, and rotting parchment assaulted their senses. The archive had plainly languished in total neglect for decades.

Dust tickled Kosha’s sinuses. Feeling a monumental sneeze gathering in his chest, he pinched his nose in desperation and released a pathetic, muffled h-h-h.

Mailot glared daggers at him through the gloom. “Can you not exercise even the barest degree of stealth?”

The scholar had already drawn a pristine silk handkerchief over his own nose and mouth to protect himself from the choking miasma.

Grimacing in apology, Kosha clamped both hands over his face to suppress any further noise.

Mailot gave a sharp, impatient wave before thrusting the uncovered lantern toward him.

Kosha accepted the iron handle with trembling fingers, stepped gingerly across the threshold, and allowed the darkness to swallow him.

Towering bookshelves lined the curved walls and stretched deep into the cavernous interior of the circular chamber, creating a labyrinth of their own.

Kosha had expected a modest private collection, perhaps fifty carefully curated tomes. Instead, even a cursory glance through the gloom revealed thousands of tightly packed volumes decaying in the stagnant air.

A brief inspection confirmed that not every leather-bound spine belonged to a magical grimoire. Vast sections of the collection consisted of mundane academic treatises chronicling the Mythic Age, along with esoteric research papers describing the anatomies of species long since extinct.

Forcing down his rising panic, Kosha pressed his bare palm against the nearest mahogany shelf and released a deliberate pulse of mana into the wood.

The immediate, violent sensation of energy being siphoned directly from his core nearly sent him reeling backward.

True grimoires, particularly those written after the cataclysmic end of the Mythic Age, were deliberately enchanted to remain dormant before mundane eyes. Each volume lay sealed behind an invisible, parasitic barrier that demanded an injection of raw mana merely to open its cover.

The toll increased dramatically according to the original author’s sadistic proficiency and the sheer quantity of knowledge contained within the text. Forcing his magical signature through dozens of ancient wards at once consumed far more energy than his fragile, recovering core could safely provide.

Worse still, after breaking through the localized barriers, Kosha discovered that the illuminated texts contained nothing but useless, outdated historical drivel.

His vision blurred dangerously, and the room spun around him as though he had suffered a catastrophic arterial bleed. Yet with Eydric guarding the corridor while precious time drained away, the desperate infiltration offered no opportunity to rest.

After extracting only three genuinely magical texts from the first two towering aisles, Kosha stumbled deeper into the claustrophobic archive. He bypassed the mundane third row entirely and dragged his exhausted feet toward the fourth shelf.

As he reached out to begin the draining process again, his breath caught in his throat.

Something was watching him from the darkness.

It sat perfectly camouflaged among the rotting leather bindings, glowing with an eerie, expectant light as though it had been waiting for this precise and preordained moment.

Two perfectly round, unblinking yellow circles hovered in the void.

For an instant, Kosha’s exhausted mind mistook the glowing orbs for trapped fireflies. Logic swiftly dismantled that comforting illusion. Fireflies could not have survived in this stagnant tomb, and the twin lights were far too still, too symmetrical, and too closely aligned upon a single focal plane.

As he stared, paralyzed, long and razor-thin vertical slits snapped open through the centers of the yellow circles. They were identical to the predatory pupils of a desert reptile.

His limbs locked.

Whether held by magic or terror, Kosha could not tell. His gaze remained helplessly fixed upon the alien creature as he forgot the imminent danger of discovery, Lucien’s debilitating affliction, and even his mission to inspect the books.

That hypnotic stare consumed his entire awareness.

Without warning, the creature’s body flared a brilliant, toxic green, the exact shade of some cursed and radioactive mineral. It stepped delicately from the shadows with a nearly imperceptible padded tread, then hopped onto the open spine of the grimoire in Kosha’s hands.

A silent scream died in his throat.

It was a lizard.

A tiny, brilliantly luminous green lizard, easily small enough to fit in the palm of his hand.