Page 145 of Disillusioned (A Lay of Ruinous Reign #2)

T he door closed behind them with a sigh. The air was different here, not cooler but older. Thicker. The way Brocéliande smelled after rainfall.

Lilac and Garin stood in an enormous, circular room boasting a high, alabaster ceiling carved with gilded cherubs and other strange creatures not glimpsed in any sort of cathedral she’d seen.

Torches lined the room, but so did several balls of blue-white light, floating throughout the shelves as if they were wandering patrons themselves.

Several arches and pillars of the same pristine marble that made up the floor could be seen leading into different rooms and wings through the initial columns of shelves.

The sanctum they stood in offered shelf upon shelf of tome, folder, and scroll.

Stacks of loose papers sat off to their right, beside boxes she assumed they’d be sorted into.

The left bore shelves filled with heavier, thicker books, dyed in an array of deep jewel tones whose spines were inscribed with emblazoned script.

Bottles of dry ingredients peppered the shelves sparingly, along with the occasional skull—human and animal.

What spanned before them was no mere library, Lilac realized, inhaling deeply the aromas of aged leather and worn parchment.

This was an archive .

There was rustling at the head of the room; directly across from the foot of the spiral staircase, there was a worn oak desk. A stack of papers floated, thumbing through and rearranging itself.

A low rumble warning began in Garin’s chest as his hand found hers, and the papers jumped—then put themselves down. “Oh, my. My apologies,” said the same voice that had rumbled up from the pond—quieter and more bearable this time. It no longer echoed in her skull.

There was a clang of metal, and a man appeared in front of the desk. Sort of.

The creature that stood before them seemed half-something her anglers might bring back from a long seafaring expedition—and half-human.

Pale, green-blue skin, palm-sized fins and gaping gills that flanked his cheeks, right where his ears would be.

Long gray hair hung down to its mid back with twigs and moist seaweed tangled in it.

Lilac swore she’d spotted an orange piece of coral—yet, his features were clean cut, sharp and probing. He was strangely, oddly handsome.

Standing at nearly Garin’s height, it regarded them with saucer-sized, bulging, toad-like eyes at the front of its face above a wide mouth—with several rows of wide, jagged teeth, not like a vampire’s fangs but a shark’s.

Just like the Morgens’.

The creature shrugged further into an oversized brown coat that had seen better days and placed a thick banded circlet with emeralds encrusting each spire down on the desk, and folded into a brisk bow. Lilac swore she could hear his bones creak, despite his nimble movements, like a fish in water.

“Welcome to my library,” he said, speaking with a distant yet familiar accent. A mortal one. “We’ll keep this quick and simple, won’t we?”

Lilac had heard the legends, which said the Bugul Noz had once been a guardian of sacred groves, but grew too lonely, too monstrous in its mourning to show its face.

Some, according to her father, had said it walked after nightfall, weeping for those who strayed from their paths.

Others would claim it stole memories to preserve them from the rot of passing time.

She’d never heard of it living underwater—in the courtyards of castles, hers nonetheless. But Lilac believed the last part now.

“This place is…” Garin trailed off, breathless as he gazed up at the ceiling. “Has it always been here? ”

The Bugul Noz smiled at him, unsettlingly wide.

“Astute as always, my boy. Her Majesty’s little lake is but a door.

You sense that this is not of the world—your world, anyway.

The many ponds and waterways of Breten are accesses to my library and what lies beyond—with an invitation, that is. I don’t get much company.”

Garin snorted, but the sound was tight. He stiffened beside her. “I can’t see why.”

“It’s been a while—several decades since I’ve seen anyone, actually.” The comment was forlorn. “But I have a feeling that’ll soon change.” The Bugul Noz rubbed his slimy hands together. “And you two are most certainly invited, esteemed guests of mine.”

Lilac grabbed the hilt of her blade—but a low rumble shook the marble floor.

At the center of the atrium, a pale statue rose from the floor.

It was covered in moss and roots—a half-nude woman adorned a towering, brittle crown.

Iridescent scales covered patches of her body, and her hair had been meticulously carved in a way that captured the essence of the motion of it underwater, billowing out from behind her.

It looked like stone, but something about it pulsed faintly.

Its hands were open in front of it. On it sat two small tomes—one bound in a deep red bark-colored hide, its clasp etched in gold. The other was a green leather book.

It looked familiar, though she couldn’t place where she’d seen it.

“Your wedding gifts,” he sang. “Two books in your favor.”

“We aren’t—” Lilac exchanged a reddened glance with Garin.

“We don’t need your books,” Garin said curtly, eyes fixed on the statue’s offering. “No one asked for them.”

“And I requested the company of the Breton queen and her vampire. I wasn’t expecting a Strigoi, yet here we are.

” The Bugul Noz turned back to Lilac and offered a kind smile.

“I collect books, letters, passages of experience etched in time and tome, everything one can read that is lost to the Breton sea, from the Channel to the seas ouest . The Argent River, lakes, marshes. Ponds,” he added, looking extremely proud.

“Oh, come on. It is merely a gift, and what one chooses to do with a gift is entirely up to fate herself, is it not?”

Garin exhaled in frustration. He marched forward to snatch the books, but another presence stirred, and the base of the statue began creaking. Beneath the altar, before their very eyes, the roots unfurled to reveal an inscription that had been grown—not carved—into the moss itself.

No truth is dredged without the tide taking its due.

No memory is opened that a forest does not mourn.

For every truth, an heir must drown.

“Drown?” snarled Garin.

“This is an age-old inscription. You mortals and once-mortals take everything with such weight. Relax . Let the tide guide you, as you’ve allowed it to guide you here.”

“ You summoned us .”

“All the same. The ancient waters brought you here. Your truths await.”

Lilac finally found her voice, hand still on the Dawnshard. Nothing arcane ever came for free—the Fair Folk taught her that. “What do you want in exchange?” The Bugul Noz’s eyes sparkled. “What must we offer?”

“Smart girl.” The creature tilted its head.

“Well, nothing much. Just… the weight of your blood, the very thread of your line. The memories that root you, deeper than the ones you hold in your conscience, but ones bound to your soul.” He chuckled when they exchanged another alarmed glance.

“Each tome you take shall cost you one ancestral remembrance. One loss, one forgetting. You’ll keep these memories for yourself, of course…

maybe even learn something new of yourselves, and each other?

This is as much of a gift to you as it is to me, wouldn’t you say? ”

Lilac stared at the altar, then at the creature, instantly thinking of Freya. Piper’s gaunt face at the Mine’s vestibule. “Why would you demand that?”

Solid as it was, the library creaked.

“Because this place remembers too much, Your Majesty,” the Bugul Noz replied. There was a grief, a contorted heaviness to his words. “And you mortals remember far too little.”

“What are you playing at?” Garin stepped forward. “What’s your ruse?”

“Nothing. I am the guardian of memories scorned. Lost. I find—and do not lose—what is precious. I keep it safe here.” His eyes narrowed at Garin.

“Even from you. I’ve been trapped here for a couple centuries, you see, and am prisoner to the archive.

I simply enjoy seeing the world for what it is today, and take great pleasure in the visceral human experience.

Or inhuman. I can’t afford to be picky.”

“Fine,” said Lilac, silencing Garin’s glare of protest. “And as soon as it’s done, we’re leaving.”

“ With the books,” the Bugul Noz said. “When you’re ready, step up to the statue and introduce yourselves. One at a time.”

The chill in her lungs felt ancestral. Bracing herself, Lilac stepped forward—but Garin made an unsettled sound.

“I’ll go first. Get Myrddin if anything happens.”

“I will.” She pulled her blade from its sheath, and the Bugul Noz’s breath hitched.

But then, Garin began speaking. “I’m Garin Austol Trevelyan, of—” He gestured vaguely—“no house worth mentioning. Born to lines of botanists, physicians, and lavender farmers. Brother of nettles, and dragged reluctantly into immortality. Cornwall forged the roots of my blood, the battlefields of Brittany saw it spilled, and the forest fermented it. I’m now Doyen of the Coven Brocéliande, heir of the Sanguine Mine, north of the High Forest…

which sounds impressive, until you meet the vampires who reside there.

” Nothing happened. He glanced back at Lilac, then at the Bugul Noz, who waited patiently beside the statue.

“What I lack in pedigree, I make up for in persistence, poor decisions, and a working knowledge of the blade, tavern tap, and arcane soil.”

The shelves shivered. Every root, every branch upon the statue creaked in ancient fervor. A sound like wind rushing through dead canopies passed overhead, but there was no breeze. From the farthest shelves, something gave a slow, longing groan.

And then the room went dark, the only source of light were the white-blue spheres that floated to the outlying shelves.