Page 25 of Deadly Maiden (Dragons and Darkthings #1)

Wyntre

Langordin: Day Two

After a fifteen-minute morning walk from the Rune Inn, we have almost reached the Fromeaux Library. A steep cobblestone road will take us the final quarter mile.

I eye the thronged street, full of horse riders, coaches, buskers, and others out for a morning mountain climb. “Really, Rorsyd? Why did we not bring Blossom and Snake-eyes?”

“You need the exercise. Come along now.” He strides off.

I jog to catch up, grab his hand. “You can carry me.”

“Ha! I heard tales of your climbing exploits while at Thander Munk’s house. Look there. The library. Is not the view worth it? You cannot see the steeples from a horse.”

“Of course you can!”

He smiles at me. “I thought you’d appreciate the walk past all the shops and sights. A horse is too quick.”

The library is dead ahead but split by the street, and the buildings to either side block most of it. Only the front entry is in plain view—four stories of white columns, sandstone walls, with two towers topped by cupolas of blue metal. A grotesque sculpture hangs over a pair of high golden doors, but we are too far away for me to see the details.

“Is this not the city of sin and seediness?”

“If we go out at night to the rear of the hill, yes, I can show you streets of every sin imaginable, and some of the gutters flow with spilled beer and piss.”

“ Urgh .”

“Let’s stop here for breakfast.”

“What a change of topic.”

A little bakery has tables placed out the front on the sidewalk. The smell of baking goods and coffee draw me to a shuddering halt. “Yum. That sounds great.”

We leave with full stomachs and the taste of buttery pastries on our tongues. Now the morning seems perfect. The sun is shining down, birds are chirping, and across the street someone plays a jaunty tune on a violin. A few shops along from the bakery, we pass a shop called The Mage’s Essentials.

“Just what we need.” I grab his arm. “Look. In the window.” A row of warnite crystals nestle in a velvet lined box.

“You want more?”

“To be back-ups. We can swap them out in the pendants.”

“I see. I suppose we can afford it. Though visiting another graveyard can wait. I’ll have to bring coin.”

Afford it? I’ve seen the coins in his pack. He could buy half the store. This is fortuitous.

I should’ve known the sunshine, the tweeting birds, and the shop were bad omens. Life has flipped upside-down.

The crowd parts to reveal three enforcers questioning those who pass them.

“Back this way,” Rorsyd urges, and we take another route as unobtrusively as we can. No one shouts or follows us, but the poster that declares us wanted criminals is stuck to a black lamp post on this side street. The morning air becomes cloying.

“And all of this is why I really, really think you should leave this country.”

Except I can’t. “Family attachments, you know?”

“I know. I can be extraordinarily patient. I don’t want you hurt.”

Paradoxically, I’m suddenly afraid he will get hurt.

I will leave, soon. I must. I’ll say goodbye to Landos, resolve whatever my parents left me, and go.

“Soon. I promise.” I take his hand, draw comfort from his warmth, in the movement of his fingers as he clasps mine. “The breakfast was wonderful.”

“It was.”

With the diversion, it’s a half hour later before we reach those library doors. A path lined with topiary shrubs in large pots then a grand set of stairs deliver us in front of the golden doors, and now I can see that the gray stone sculpture above the doors is a gigantic, fat-mouthed frog.

“A frog.” I check it out from a few angles. “Quaint.”

“It depicts one of the monsters from the war I told you about. Kermios was his name. You wanted history.”

“I do.” It’s fascinating but I wouldn’t want it to eat me.

“The library itself is even better.” He ushers me through the doors.

Inside is a horseshoe-shaped carved desk big enough to engulf our bedroom times three. Staff bustle about with crates and trolleys of books, with folders and clipboards, but beyond this is the library proper. The interior has been cored out, leaving the center empty except for space soaring a full four stories. Lining the walls on each floor are terraces filled with bookcases and books, with readers, with people on small ladders searching for their next tome.

On this ground floor, two long parallel desks are equipped with seats for those who wish to recline and read.

The many colors of tens of thousands of books, the sculptures dotted about on plinths on this ground floor, the expansive paintings on the distant ceiling, as well as smaller artworks on the spare wall space…it’s breathtaking.

“Magnificent!”

Though I thought I said that in a hushed voice, one of the female staff, her hair in a tight bun, hurries toward us. “Do you need assistance? The desk can help you.”

“The desk?” I’m bewildered but then I realize she means the staff behind the horseshoe desk. She’s already gone, briskly striding off to the right.

I bump Rorsyd with my elbow. He’s watching with bemusement. “Can we take out books?”

“No. Not us. We’re not going to try to register as members, but you can read almost any book you can find. The catalogs are there, in those cabinets, and where to find something, like a particular history book, is also there. I have a pretty good idea of how this place works.”

Since he’s immortal. I can read between those lines. He’s probably been here a hundred times. “Histories then. I want to find out what really happened in the war. The war against the chained king.”

The last part seems to roll out like a quiet, distant clap of thunder.

I half expect him to hesitate, because that is the war that killed his friend Orish and my parents. Bollingham gave me an education, but from what I’ve heard since leaving, it is a pruned education, lacking detail. I am hungry for the truth.

Can books lie?

Of course they can.

“This way to the stairs. History is on the second floor.” He points upward.

“And that lake with the goblin statue?”

“That’s at the rear, behind the library. We can go there and leave Andacc a message later.”

“About checking your rooms in Langordin?”

“Yes.”

“I want to try to send some letters through this C of U. If they will do it. Letters to Landos, secretly. I need, I really need to see him one last time, before…you know?”

“Sure.”

“We are trusting them?”

He nods. “I see no reason not to.”

We start to ascend the broad stairs. People are continually going up or down, bearing books, or chatting to friends. It’s an entire community here, from young to old. I’m craning my neck, taking in everything around us.

“I can see myself settling in and living inside this place, if they had food.”

He laughs. “I get you. Books do that to me too. Though I used to be a hazard, once upon a time. I had an uncontrollable flame-breathing episode. It lasted a few years.”

I imagine this place burning. “That would be a problem.”

“That is a mild description of it.”

I can’t help the snort of laughter that escapes me. A man going downstairs makes a shushing motion.

We reach the first floor and turn to head up another flight.

This is when the strangest feeling wriggles in. Not scary. Not wonderful. Just an awareness that something or someone new is coming.

It’s not Anathema, who has never quite left me. He’s out there in the eternal shadows. Even daytime has shadows galore.

No, this is…different. I suspect I know what it is.

“The history section,” Rorsyd declares, distracting me as he gestures broadly at the rows and rows of books that peel away to left and right. Never-ending bookshelves. From downstairs, these seemed to be shallow shelves, a facade, but they’re more than that. They extend into the wings of the library and the endpoint shrinks away until the people are as small as a hawk circling in the sky.

This may take a while.

“Our school library was five stacks of head-high shelves, in a large room that was nevertheless”—my voice squeaks—“not quite this large. I feel like a child in a lollipop shop.”

“I have a lollipop you can suck.” After I groan, Rorsyd laces his hands together and pushes them out before him until they crack. “I can find anything you want.” Then he adds more words, so softly I wonder if he meant it to be overheard. “I may regret this.”

He helps me find three textbooks on Orencian and Zardrakian history, one of which is dedicated to the war in which my parents died. I sit down at a reading desk on the second floor, and I fall into a time before I was born.

It’s absorbing but also daunting. I love history, but this book might tell me more than I wish to know.

Around the time my stomach is screaming for food, Rorsyd drags me outside, to the rear, where we find an artificial lake. A few small huts sell food and drink to a scattered multitude of students and booklovers. I’m jealous of the ones carrying their books out here.

We circle the lake and find the fallen, shattered goblin statue. It’s surrounded by trees, black with mold, and twice life-size, which means almost my size if glued back together. Grass has sprouted over it and around the edges. Yellow daisies flower between its toes. We eat our sandwiches and drink hollyoak tea sitting on a curved, teak bench-seat.

Through the trees and across the lake, I can see the library.

No one seemed curious about where we strolled to or chose to eat lunch.

“Do we have anything to write on for this note?”

Triumphantly, from a coat pocket he produces a paper pad, a quill, and a bottle of ink.

The bench seat makes for a bumpy but adequate desk.

First, he writes a note about wanting his rooms surveilled, then he pulls me onto his lap, and I write one to Thander Munk about the possibility of sending letters to Landos using him as a conduit. Then I write one to Saphora in Wenway, asking whether she would be okay with me visiting and perhaps learning from her.

A battered tin box seems where we should leave these—especially since A of the C U is scratched on the inside.

“How do we get a reply?” I close the lid and push it under the grass-engulfed goblin.

“We’ll come back tomorrow, same time.” He rubs his chin. “Spies use this. It’s called a killer drop. No idea why.”

“I don’t think I want to know.”

That niggling feeling of something coming persists.

Though the first history book tells of the Battle of Orish in great, voluminous detail, it fails to say precisely who killed my parents, Sabre and Aislinn Gothschild. They were incinerated. Only a dragonshifter could do that. Wait, no. A fire mage might?

That might make it complicated, if I wasn’t already sure I know who killed them. We’re circling each other, keeping secrets within secrets. Maybe if I wasn’t equally guilty, this would matter more.

I look across the open book to Rorsyd, who doesn’t at first notice, being too engrossed in a book he’s found on collectable gold coins. His finger is on the page as he reads. I smile at him anyway. Know yourself, they say? I want the truth, but I’ve learned something about myself. That past event is a small thing compared to who we are today.

Day Three

The next day, after I’ve done more poring over old manuscripts and tattered books with stained pages, we return to the goblin statue and find Andacc waiting for us.

He’s disguised, but badly, as a gardener. The staff would know the difference? A straw hat, gloves, a shovel, and rather messed-up clothes with tears at the knees. He leans on the shovel as if about to start a casual chat with us.

“You might want to sit.” He lifts a finger from the shovel to point at the bench. “I’d like to chat about details.”

I sit and tug at Rorsyd’s pants, and he joins me.

“The rooms? It’s simple as I said. I used a different name from when I was employed as an enforcer. I have used a few over the years, not just Rorsyd. I need to know if anyone is looking for me there, or can I move us into it and be safe?”

“Okay. I can do this for you. Give me a few days. As for safe? The future is never certain.”

“Of course.”

“And your request, Miss W. You want to send a letter to Thander who is the golem master of Bollingham, and ask him to relay letters to your father? And one to Wenway and this Saphora?” I nod at that. “Also, can you both choose some names we can all use out loud?”

“Cassandra can be mine.”

Rorsyd puffs out his lips. “Make me Stanton.”

“Okay.” Andacc eyes the sky, and his lips move as he repeats and memorizes those. “So in summary. Yes, Stanton, we will watch the rooms. We can probably get the letter to Wenway, though it might be weeks before you get a reply. The other is a little riskier, maybe. The AS will have the towns of Bollingham and Darsum on a list, I suspect, Cassandra. But it can be done. This Thander Munk will get frequent mail. Write a letter he can pass on immediately. I assume he’s going to agree to this?”

“I think so.” If he refuses, I’ll have to sneak into Darsum. “I did, in fact, write one already. In case.” I smile at Andacc, and he touches his hat then takes the folded letter I dig from my pocket.

“Well thought then. Anything else?”

“Still no payment required?” Rorsyd kinks up an eyebrow. “And we can use this killer drop again?”

“The payment, as I said, is in cultivating your trust and maybe your friendship. We hope to move on him , soon and to free him.”

“That sounds impossible. With or without our help.”

Knowing Rorsyd and what he keeps saying, he does not want us to be involved.

“What if he is insane, Andacc?” I venture. “He’s endured cruel torture, daily, for twenty years.”

He grimaces, kicks the shovel into the lawn he poised it on, screws it about. “I know. I know. My stomach spews acid whenever I think on that. We pray for him. Freeing him from that interminable torture will be a reward in itself.”

Rorsyd nods. I try not to look too skeptical.

This is when the strange foreboding arrives for a second time.

Something is coming.

I look up past Andacc. Make that something is here .

I pretend everything is normal and say goodbye when he leaves, heading away with that shovel on his shoulder. He vanishes into the shrubbery, to the left. I heave a sigh, and Rorsyd studies me. He knows. We are so in tune he knows things I probably haven’t figured out yet.

“Come here.” Again he pulls me onto his lap. Kisses the side of my neck. “ Mmm. If only I could bend you over the bench here.”

“Oh and that would never draw attention to us.”

“Then say it. What is bothering you? Andacc seems to be settled.”

“He does seem so. It is that .” This is when I point out the undead waiting for us, about twenty yards away. His head is weed-covered, his clothes dripping.

“Oh fuck. Is that what I think it is?” Rorsyd’s eyes may pop from their sockets.

“I think he’s come from the lake.”

“Of course he has. The undead don’t need to breathe.” Somehow, Rorsyd sounds both stunned and annoyed.

“Don’t react badly.” Then I add the obvious. “This must be Kyvin, which means my parents sent him.”

“Are you certain it’s him?”

“They said his name is tattooed on him. Shall I look?” I rise, and he snags my wrist.

“No!”

“He won’t hurt me. I am sure of this.” Despite never meeting anything like him before. If we exclude the raven. That turned out well? “He’s like the raven, meant for me.”

His hold on my wrist is hurting me but I wait.

“Okay. Okay. If you’re sure.” He lets go. “Be careful.”

I approach this undead quietly, as if I might spook him.

His white eyes swivel, tracking me. “He looks in supremely good condition,” I throw back to Rorsyd, who’s followed me until only a few yards back.

“Well then, we can sell him for a nice profit.” Irony drips from his words.

“ Scoff-scoff. I am undone by your attempt at comedy.” But I have arrived before Kyvin. “Is…is it you?” I frown, wonder if I’m stupid to ask this. “Kyvin?”

His mouth works, and a moment later he offers a very rough and gurgling, “Yes.”

“Oh. Good. Nice to know you, Kyvin.” I smile, briefly. This undead can think and speak? Is that even fucking normal? I do not know. I have absolutely no one I can ask these questions.

Books? Maybe. I will try the library, another day.

I will look under U . I smirk at my own joke.

His shirt is askew and stuck to his pallid skin. I squint and lean in. He smells of water and crushed vegetation.

“Don’t,” Rorsyd squeaks from behind me, but I flutter my hand at him.

Peeking out at the edge of the wet shirt, written in black below his collar bone is indeed a name— Kyvin . Below that though is another word, scribed in a fancier font. I spell it out and realize that word is Ashe . We have a surname.

“The hard part is… How do we get him home without someone screaming at him?”

“Home?” Rorsyd croaks. He’s beside me and looks stunned, as if he thinks I’ve gone mad. “Why would we? We only have the inn.”

“Oh, yes.” I’m chewing the inside of my cheek. “Dang.”

“He’s supposed to have a key for you. To Slaedorth.”

“There is a gold chain on his neck. May I?” I ask Kyvin as I inch forward my hand. He allows me to lift the chain outward, then pull on it so it slips about his neck until a clasp comes into view.

Dirt and corrosion will surely have destroyed the mechanism.

It works at first try, and I thank my parents for this since removing it by pulling it over his head would mean getting really close to his undead body.

A key swings out with the chain when I take it from him, a large key, as white as a bone.

Does this mean I say goodbye to Kyvin? Will he disintegrate like the raven?

I step away, and he follows me, halts. “Stay.” I push my palm forward and take another step.

He tilts his head and stays where he stands.

“You can go now?” I cannot help the query at the end. What is he for?

His mouth works again as if he seeks words to speak. “I. Stay. With you.”

“Fuck. Again,” Rorsyd mutters.

“I can’t just tell him to go away. He used to be somebody. He used to be alive. Maybe he is important to me. To us?”

Rorsyd puts his hands on top of his head and hangs on. “Okay. I give in. He seems harmless, and I never thought I would say that about an undead guy. He can stay here, until we figure this out. If you can get that into his ahhhh brain? Does he even have one?”

“I do not know.”

That’s a good idea and a good question. Will Kyvin obey me?

If he follows me into the open, we will have to put him down, with a shovel. Or something.

My stomach gets queasy at that notion. I guess I am somehow attached to this poor man…thing…whatever.

This is what necromancers do. I feel responsible for his unlife.

“Listen, Kyvin, if you want to stay with me, you have to do something for me first. Okay?”

He stares. Or I think he does…those white eyes.

“You have to hide here, in the lake. The water, right?” I think I see a small movement of his head that could be a nod. I exhale. “Good. So when it gets darker. When that sun goes away, get in the water until tomorrow. When the sun rises, I will return.”

“You. Will?”

Is that a touch of yearning in his voice? Of loneliness? Or am I reading what is not there? Probably that.

“I will. See you tomorrow.”

Rorsyd and I pack up and leave him, standing silent and still, hidden in the trees. I dare not look back as we head for the library, but I imagine those white eyes tracking us.

It might be creepy for someone else? For me…it has the weirdest echoes of me leaving a pet behind. We had a cat once. Like all pets do eventually, she grew older and died. I cried for the longest time. I was eight. I hated death that day.

“If he isn’t here tomorrow, I will be relieved,” Rorsyd says, holding open the door.

“Yeah.” But my smile is the weakest ever.

“Hey.” He has my hand. “I have not the faintest real inclination as to what is going on in your mind, but I’m here for you. Even if you don’t explain.”

All around us, the library is hustling. I halt.

“He reminds me of a cat we lost, years ago.” I waggle my finger toward the rear doors. “He’s all alone out there.” My voice cracks.

He drapes his arm over me, turns me so I face him, and hugs me to him, but says nothing.

“I’ve confused you, haven’t I?” I say to his chest, the sound muffled.

“Yes. Completely. But it doesn’t matter.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, little Wyntre. I like cats too.”

Little? I eyeroll at that, and his silly, cat-liking comment, but say nothing. It’s comfy up against him.