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CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

I FOUND VRAIL IN THE LIbrARY though it didn’t seem to spark the same vibrance in her it once had. She sat surrounded by piles of unshelved books and scrolls. They didn’t notice me enter the room—Gwyn’s nose was an inch from the page at the end of the table. She whispered to herself as she read, purposely ignoring me while Vrail’s gaze was locked on the wall, staring at nothing.

“Any luck?” I waved my hand in front of Vrail’s face. I had asked her to find me as many sources as she could about Faelin and her defeat of the shirak . Vrail had started researching it the night of the first attack, but she could barely stay focused enough to read.

Her head jerked up, and her newly amber eyes focused on me. “Yes!” She jumped and cleared her throat. “I just need to find where I put it.”

“I have one,” Gwyn interjected from the end of the table. She pulled a brown leather-bound book from the small stack beside her and lifted it for me to take.

Her arms shielded the page she was reading, but I recognized the book as the one Vrail had stolen from the libraries of Koratha. The book full of runes.

My eyes narrowed. “What are you reading?”

Gwyn snapped the book shut, but not before I caught a glimpse of the illustration of several corpses underneath a vicious-looking rune. “I want to know as many runes as I can. Feron says it’s the best way to hone my gift.” She fluttered her glowing fingertips.

“There are many ways to sharpen a blade, Gwyn.” I reached for the book. “But not all of them are safe.”

She pinned the cover to her chest and leaned back. “It’s just a book, Keera.”

I could tell from her flushed cheeks that she was keeping something from me, but Vrail had taken the other tome from Gwyn and opened it to an illustration of a Fae with voluminous, tight coils and welcoming golden eyes.

“That’s the book that Kil—Riven gave me when I first went to Aralinth.” My finger dragged over the illustration. “I never ended up finishing it.”

Vrail nodded. “Riven does love his books.” She flipped the page and there was a small sketch of a waateyshir coiling around a giant Elder birch. Its talons had scorched the trunk, and two bodies hung limply from its sharp, shadowy beak.

“Not much is known about the defeat of the waateyshirak .” Vrail pursed her lips. “So many of our story holders were lost during Aemon’s siege, and he destroyed much of what had been written down. But this story outlines the basic elements. The Elves took care of Elverath for millennia, letting its magic flourish and grow. But they could not defeat the shirak on their own, too many of their warriors were lost in their attempts. Finally, they prayed and danced to Elverath herself, hoping for something that would help turn the tide in their favor. And the great Elder birch of Aralinth sprouted from their dancing grounds and five moons later, Faelin emerged from it. She was born from Sil’abar, as the first niinokwenar ”—Vrail’s eyes shifted to me—“and protector of our people from their greatest enemy.”

“The waateyshirak ,” Gwyn said, her voice full of awe.

Vrail nodded.

I tilted my head, still studying the illustration. Faelin was standing in front of the beast with a sword, no trace of her gifts being used at all. “She killed them with her magic?”

Vrail shrugged. “That much isn’t clear. She studied at Niikir’na for many years and eventually was chosen as the wielder of one of the blood-bound blades. It is said that it turned gold the day she slew the first waateyshir with it.”

“But we already knew that blood-bound blades could hurt them,” I said with a sideways look at Gwyn.

Vrail turned the page and there was another illustration, but this time of a giant nest. Two eggs, as black as night, were tucked into the twisted branches as a waateyshir flew over the forest in the distance.

Vrail’s finger swiped over the page and the egg moved.

Gwyn shrieked. “What was that?”

“Vrail, your hands.” I pointed to her fingertips. They were completely dark, as if stained by ink.

The egg moved again, and this time the entire image came to life. It sprung from the page, ink leaking into the air until a moving painting formed. The shadowy beast screeched in the background, while figures of Elves surrounded the nest right next to us.

Vrail’s jaw hung slack. “It’s showing the story.”

We watched as a group of warriors climbed into the gigantic nest and approached the shaking egg. In the distance a fire roared tall over the forest, disappearing as quickly as it came, as another group of Elverin lit pyres.

“Fire wielders,” I whispered, recognizing the move I had done dozens of times myself.

Gwyn pointed at the flapping beast. “They’re distracting it.”

The warriors inside the nest waited as the egg began to crack. The ink wafted through the air, moving in punctuated motions like hundreds of sketches were flashing in front of our eyes.

One of the figures brandished their sword. There was no gold ink to mark the blade for Faelin’s, but the niinokwenar had a long Elder birch carved into her shoulder and a mane of tightly coiled hair.

The moment the beak burst through its shell, she ran her blade straight through the pulsing chest.

Its shrieks filled the library, dust filling the air as the shelves shook. In the background of the story, the waateyshir roared and levied a shadowy death on the fire wielders below before growing larger, coming closer to protect its last egg.

My heartbeat pounded in my chest as if I were watching real warriors at work instead of a story of old being inked into the air. The second hatchling broke through with only three pecks against its shell.

It was dead before it even had the chance to squeak.

Gwyn’s brow furrowed. “They’re collecting it.” She nodded down at the warriors who hammered the egg shells into pieces small enough for them to carry. The same eggshells that now filled Damien’s pendants.

“They’re going to fashion weapons from it,” I said.

Vrail snapped her head to me. “How do you know that?”

“An easy assumption,” I said.

The warriors climbed down from the nest and left the waateyshir to its sorrows. Only then did the ink fall back onto the page, slithering like snakes until it returned to its original form.

“Are you certain they were all fire wielders?” Gwyn tilted her head. “I couldn’t tell with the black ink, but some spouts looked different than others.”

I cocked my jaw to the side. “It looked like flame to me”

Vrail studied the book as if more dancing figurines would spring from the page, but her fingers were no longer dark. “There are references to Faelin’s daughter, Kieran’thara, having a power that could either kill or scare the waateyshirak —the translation is ambiguous. Most believe it is a reference to her fire wielding gift but perhaps not.”

I nodded at the shelves. “We should find every reference to her gifts we have. Perhaps your new magic can show us more than what’s on the page.”

“I don’t even know what that was.” Vrail stared at her own hand. “I’ve never heard of such gifts.”

I shrugged. “Perhaps there weren’t any. Gwyn can write spells from runes. That is not a gift previously held by the Fae.”

Vrail nodded. “Spell weaver.”

“Ink wielder,” Gwyn whispered back at her in wonder.

Vrail’s eyes went wide and she tried the words for herself.

I nodded at the book. “Is there anything more to the story?”

Vrail shook her head. “Only that the shirak faded shortly after Faelin created the shadow sun. Though the definition of shortly is relative. Now we might consider that to be instantaneous, but one must remember that these books were scribed by Elves and Fae. Their concept of short is much different than ours—”

I raised my hand, cutting off Vrail before she could start a full ramble. “Shadow sun?”

Vrail pointed to the ceiling of the library as if we could see the two suns that hung in the skies.

I rubbed my brow. “I know there are two suns, Vrail. But do the records call it a shadow sun?”

Gwyn squinted like there was true sunlight in her eyes and shrugged. “I’ve only ever called it the second sun.”

I nodded in agreement.

Vrail’s bottom lip protruded. “Yes, it’s the phrase that’s used the most in the texts.” She lifted her left fist and followed it closely with the right. “There is only one true sun. The second that we see is not real but a projection that Faelin created with her magic. It lengthened each day so the waateyshirak could never feast to their full strength. It follows the real one like a shadow, forevermore tethered to it.”

I bit my lip. “But why would Faelin expend most of her power to create it?”

“I can’t be sure.” Vrail brushed her finger along the edge of the book. “The shirak were numerous and every cycle grew more deadly. When Faelin arrived, her gifts offered protection, but she was just a single Fae. Perhaps she thought the shadow sun would protect the Elverin best.” Vrail shrugged. “Aemon destroyed so much of the knowledge they left for us we may never be certain.” She sighed, closing the book. “All I know is that whatever purpose Faelin had, it drained her substantially. It is said that her gifts continued to fade until she died only a few centuries after she created the shadow sun.”

“A few centuries,” Gwyn balked.

“An unimaginable amount of time for ones as young as us,” Vrail agreed with a stoic nod. “But several millennia before her time.”

“Leaders do not often live long,” I said to no one in particular.

Gwyn’s nose wrinkled, and she grabbed my hand. She knew my days would come to an end soon too.