Total pages in book: 295
Estimated words: 282090 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1410(@200wpm)___ 1128(@250wpm)___ 940(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 282090 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1410(@200wpm)___ 1128(@250wpm)___ 940(@300wpm)
“Why the fuck would you do that?” Xaden snaps from the other side of the wards. “Tell me you’re unharmed.”
“Queasy, but I’ll live.”
Aaric ignores Xaden, dropping to a crouch in front of me. “Are you all right, Violet?”
I force air in through my nose and out through my mouth. “Tell me you knew it would let me through,” I bite out as the worst of the illness passes. “Because it sure as hell didn’t want to.”
“My father doesn’t have anything warded that isn’t worth showing off,” he explains, holding out his hand. “So, I took a chance that you wouldn’t smack into the wards like a wall. And I can’t get through these books in the next forty minutes alone. You’re the one who knows what to look for.”
I ignore his hand and push to my feet despite the smarting pain in my knees from the impact. I turn in a circle, taking the library space in. There are six heavy bookshelves with glass doors lining the circular walls, and a pedestal of cabinetry in the middle decorated with a velvet tablecloth embroidered with the king’s signet. Above us, mage lights emit a soft glow, the illumination catching on the curves and knot-like lines carved into the decorative ceiling about five feet above Aaric’s head.
The scent of damp earth is gone, and it’s considerably cooler in this room than the tunnel beyond the archway. I scour above me, but there are no windows for ventilation or any visible modifications I can see. It’s not just the wards. There’s magic in this room.
“Pull me in. Now,” Xaden demands.
“No,” Aaric replies without so much as glancing in his direction. “The only perk I’m getting out of this whole expedition is knowing how much it must pain you to realize you can’t get to her.”
“Stop antagonizing him and get to work, Aaric. You start to the left and ignore anything that’s not handwritten.” I peek through the archway to see Xaden in full fuck-you mode.
His hands are loose, and shadows rise around him, forming blades as sharp as the one he carries. But it’s the cool, calculating wrath in his eyes that makes me worry for Aaric’s health—which is why I don’t insist he pull Xaden in. “I’m fine,” I promise him.
“I’m going to fucking kill him.”
“Then you’d be responsible for the deaths of two princes.”
“Warrick and Lyra, right?” Aaric questions, already pulling tomes from the shelves.
“Yes,” I reply.
“Alic deserved it. He was a bully and forfeited his life by coming after Garrick during Threshing. Though I wonder who it was that told Aaric, since if his father knew I highly doubt I’d still be in possession of my head.”
“Well, Aaric doesn’t deserve it.” I skip the right side of the shelves in favor of the cabinetry. If I had a six-hundred-year-old book that was worth our entire kingdom, I’d store it where it was least exposed to the elements. I pull open the first drawer, which stores two books—The Study of Winged Creatures, which looks to be at least half a century old, and A History of the Island Wars, which appears even older.
“These are all journals,” Aaric says. “Looks like every commanding general of the armies since the Unification.”
“Keep going.” I check the next drawer, then the next, and so on, until I’ve opened three-quarters of the storage. It’s an exercise in self-control not to open every book and devour its contents. There are tomes here on the early wars, the history of the individual provinces, mythology of the gods, and even what looks to be the earliest tome I’ve ever seen on mining practices. My fingers itch to turn the pages, but I know better than to damage the parchment.
“This shelf is all journals of the commanding generals of the riders?” Aaric lowers his hood and glances over his shoulder at me.
“They used to be separate positions.” I move to the last section of the center pedestal. “Healers, infantry, or even scribes could be the General of the Armies until about two hundred years ago with the second Krovlan uprising. After that, the commander of the riders commanded all Navarre’s forces.”
“You know that no rider has ever been named king, right?” Imogen asks through the archway.
“That’s not entirely true—” I start, opening the top drawer.
“If you’re asking if I give a shit about being second in line, then the answer is no,” Aaric says over his shoulder at Imogen. “It’s Halden’s destiny to be king. Not mine.”
“Does Halden know?” I ask, reading over the titles in the top drawer. “About what’s happening out there?”
“Yes,” Aaric says quietly.
“And?” I look over at him.
Our eyes lock for a heartbeat before he replaces a tome and moves to the next. “I’m here, aren’t I?”
Understood. Halden isn’t going to help. “Guess we have that in common.”