Page 10

Fumbling in the dark, Vahly reached into one of the bags on her belt and pulled out a handful of distura feathers.

The finger-length glowing plumes came from the birds that lived near the Fire Marshes beyond Nix’s cider house.

Vahly had found these on the ground where a fox had obviously enjoyed two of the creatures for dinner.

She held them up and tried to get her eyes to adjust to the low light.

The glow of the feathers wouldn’t last long, but it was bright enough.

She rotated slowly, studying the small chamber. Floor to ceiling shelves covered the walls, but they differed greatly from the ones in the main library. These were made of, what was it? Vahly walked over to one and gripped its edge, holding the distura feathers up.

They were made entirely of lapis lazuli.

Vahly blinked. The shelves were worth a fortune, and here they were, hidden away where no one would ever see them.

Shaking off the puzzle of why an ancient dragon had decided to waste the beautiful stone on a room no one saw, she counted the scrolls. She gave up at one hundred nine.

None of these writings were labeled, but they were each enclosed in a leather case with a symbol burned into the bottom end. Perhaps the symbols indicated what was inside?

Vahly started with a set of scrolls closest to the stairs so she could keep an ear out for Lys and Draes. The first of the set of four had a case that boasted a sunburst symbol.

Setting the feathers on the step that was head-high, she slid the scroll from its case and set the container on the ground by her boots. She opened the scroll slowly, careful not to crack or tear the vellum.

Faded writing started in the center of the piece and spiraled out. It was written in the dragon language and spoke of a battle against the elves. There were place names—Birne, Typeth, and Grigain—that she’d never heard of.

This one was no help although it did offer an explanation about why dragons hated elves. They’d been at war ages ago. Though the battles weren’t recent, many dragons made it to four hundred years of age, or more, and their memories were long.

She went through the rest of that set, only to find more detailed accounts of battles with sea folk, but no more mention of elves or anything about ritual practices. So most likely, the sunburst symbol indicated battle history.

The next set also showed sunbursts, so Vahly moved past them to the third collection, stowed on a lower shelf.

The image of stag antlers marked the end of the first two scroll cases and an acorn showed on the smallest of the bunch.

Vahly read through the first two. They were dry accounts of hunting grounds and who owned what.

Lord Maur was mentioned in these, but she wondered if the writing was actually talking about another dragon with the name. Maybe an ancestor of his?

The final scroll didn’t look like much before she unrolled it. Tattered edges. Small. Reeking of decay.

But when Vahly spread the vellum, she had to stifle a gasp.

Braids and leaves in gold powder ink framed the faded writing.

Small illustrations decorated the left side.

A rabbit danced with a frog. A gryphon, thought to be extinct, flew over a trio of mountain peaks.

Humans with several different skin tones laughed and raised toasts in large mugs as simplebeasts—a small bear, two wolves, and a rather fat beaver—gathered in peace around their legs.

Under the weakening light of the glowing feathers, she tried to read the minuscule lettering. Many phrases were so worn, they were completely illegible.

But two words caught Vahly’s eye.

Earth Queen .

She read as much as she could, murmuring to herself. The scroll detailed a meeting between an Earth Queen and the matriarch that had come three generations before Amona.

Vahly mumbled the words to herself as she scanned the parchment. “… under the Sacred Oak …”

The next section had faded into nothing. Then, later it read, “… to lay out negotiations between Jade and Lapis concerning hunting grounds made fertile by earth kynd and air kynd …”

So the humans— earth kynd —and elves— air kynd —had worked together?

That was new.

The scroll under Vahly’s bunched fist had one last paragraph. Controlling her frustration, she read on. There had to be something here.

“ Because the land in question is the birthplace of an earth kynd, it must be protected. Hunting should be limited to …”

Why would the birthplace of a human need to be protected?

Another set of lines ran along the bottom of the scroll.

They were written in elven language, brighter than the brown, inked letters on the rest of the scroll, as if the elven had been added later. Beside them, an illustration of a woman with pointed ears and a pair of vicious-looking throwing knives rose a few feet above a field of brazenberry bushes.

Vahly cursed herself. Why hadn’t she taken the time to learn the elven language? Did Nix know any?

There was a bump outside the room.

Someone was coming.

Pulse ticking, faster and faster in her neck, Vahly rolled the vellum and tucked it into its leather case. But they would notice if she attached the case to her belt or held it in her hands.

Eyeing the various hiding places on her person, she took the scroll back out of the case, set the case back into its place on the shelf, then loosened the front ties of her vest to make room for the scroll between her shirt and the leather.

Squeezing her eyes shut, she hoped with all she had that her actions wouldn’t completely demolish the beautiful scroll or its potentially key information. She hurried up the steps, just then realizing she’d let the feathers drop.

A rumbling voice Vahly was almost sure belonged to Draes echoed through the library, followed by something Lys said. Vahly heard her own name.

The glowing feathers lay in a scattered heap near the base of the stairs. But there was no time.

Well, she had to make time or the next dragon in here would know someone had been in the room.

Holding her breath, she leaped down the steps, then shoved the feathers down her shirt. Pulse racing, Vahly vaulted up the last three steps, then reached across the opening to push the mechanism that would seal the chamber.

Draes and Lys were coming up the main stairs from the first floor.

Vahly was trapped on the second tier.

She grabbed the nearest scroll, sat abruptly, and threw the writing open on her lap.

Lys and Draes would find it incredibly odd that she was reading by moonlight, but that was fine by Vahly.

Odd worked. Breaking into highly prized and restricted scrolls did not.

One ended with a shaking head or an eye roll, the other concluded with a whipping.

But then another voice joined Draes’ baritone and Lys’s alto.

“If it’s her, I’ll deal with her infringement. I’m here on the authority of our Matriarch.”

It was the deep bass of Lord Maur.

Vahly swore silently, her palms sweating. He would never swallow her little act.

The window bled moonlight over her shoulder.

Vahly winced, knowing what she had to do.

Getting to her feet, she faced the window. In one movement, she jumped and grabbed the window’s stone ledge. As she hauled herself up—smashing the stones out of the poor scroll she’d stolen and probably ruining everything—the footsteps closed in, coming around the corner. Maur would see her.

The leaded glass pane opened with a squeak. She latched it on the hook above, then on her belly, she edged out of the wide, rectangular window. She let her feet drop away from the opening, on the outside of the palace.

Night air rushed up the mountainside and tangled her hair as she flipped over carefully and slid lower, using her hands to hang from the outer ledge.

Her two injured fingers were quite insistent on this caper not lasting long.

She had to find a foothold or she would topple and plunge into the dark drop.

Turning to peek at the elevation, she heard the voices as if they were right above her. The amber glow of a lantern reflected off the window glass.

Had they noticed the window was open?

It was impossible to know exactly how far Vahly was above the forest that surrounded the mountain, but she had a pretty good guess. The library wasn’t on the highest level of the palace like hers and Amona’s chambers, but it was only two levels below. Still very high.

“Nice work here, Vahl,” she whispered to herself.

In a second, Lys would look out here to investigate.

Draes would’ve noticed the night air, surely.

And Maur would accidentally shove her off the edge.

It would be the perfect solution for him.

Vahly would be out of the way. He didn’t believe she would ever have the power to save them anyway.

Maur stubbornly refused the idea that the sea folk might win the war.

Hands shaking, Vahly tried to still her brain.

The voices faded. The light from their lantern disappeared.

Vahly had no energy to celebrate that. Her fingers were giving out.

One by one.

First, the one she’d injured on the seaside cliffs. Then the two beside that one. Next, the one that she’d ripped getting into the chamber.

Panting with the effort not to fall, she moved the flexible soles of her boots right and left, up and down, desperate to find a foot hold.

At last, her toe found purchase on a tiny ledge. She put her weight on it.

“Please hold me, rock,” she whispered. “I’ll never step on you again if you keep my arse in the air for a minute or two longer.”

The rock did hold. She moved each hand to a new hold, ignoring the pain in her fingers. When she thought the dragons had moved far enough from the library, she dragged herself back up and through the window. Panting, she slumped against the wall.

Her gaze went immediately to the place where the floor had opened earlier.

She blew out a heavy breath.

It was still closed.

No one knew she had been in there.

After closing the glass over the window, she crept down the second tier stairs and slipped out of the library.

It was late, but Nix and the Call Breakers would still be up. Vahly touched her chest and felt the scroll under her vest. If anyone could help her translate the elven words at the bottom, it was Nix.

After a stop in the dark kitchens to grab a loaf of bread and a crock of cider, Vahly walked the labyrinth of passages to the palace entrance.

She handed the cider to the taller of the two entrance guards.

“Big day, huh, Rip?” The taller of the two was infatuated with Amona and he knew that she knew.

It was enough to keep the male on her side.

“I thought maybe you had missed out on some of the festivities, this being your watch and all. Ty?” She handed the second guard the bread.

The guards accepted her offerings, nodding.

“I’m going for a short walk. All this attention is a little much for me, you know?”

“I can imagine,” Ty said.

With a wave, she made her way into the night and headed straight for the cider house.