Page 18 of Night’s Fall (The Four Realms #1)

He Knew

M y head was in the clouds.

I’d never experienced that sensation, but I knew exactly what it was as I walked at Aleksei’s side toward the door to the Catalogues , feeling his arm brush against mine, the heat of his body, the strength of his biceps under my fingers.

I was his.

And that meant he was mine.

By all the gods…

He was mine .

I was in such a daze, my greeting to the female who’d been waiting for us was vague, perfunctory, and therefore rude, but for once, I didn’t have it in me to care.

I was all about Aleksei and what just happened, even though I’d been looking forward to this.

Very few were allowed access to the Royal Catalogues .

Just staff, curators, historians and researchers (those last two, only if they jumped through hoops and cut through a ton of red tape). So I’d wanted to take it all in.

We’d entered, walked to the lifts, the lift doors had opened, we stood in them, and hearing Aleksei’s silken voice switch to steel was the only thing that clicked me back in.

“Precautions will be taken, Nata ,” he bit. “ It’s unnecessary for you to accompany us. As you know, this isn’t my first time here, and Mistress Laura has made comprehensive study of a variety of garments. She knows to take care.”

Mental note: I needed to ask Madam Garwah about that “ Mistress Laura ” business.

The tall, cool, slender, attractive blonde human began, “ Your highness, it would be?—”

“You’re dismissed,” Aleksei cut her off with uncharacteristic (as far as I could tell in our short acquaintance) impatience and authority. “ I’ll comm you when we leave so you can engage the lockdown sequence. Therefore , I’ll thank you now for staying late to allow us entry.”

To my surprise, her mouth tightened in open annoyance, she bobbed a curtsy, then, without even a glance at me, she turned on her sleek pump and swanned away.

Aleksei drew me into the lift.

“What was that about?” I asked when the doors closed.

“My guess, Timothee or Errol slept with her, making promises they didn’t keep, and now she’s compromised.

And since she works in a sensitive area, she’ll need to be reassigned,” he clipped, his anger sharp, but I couldn’t tell if he was angry at his brothers, having to reassign a female when that shouldn’t have to happen, or both.

Hmm.

Timothee or Errol got their jollies, and it was the female who had to uproot her life because of it.

I was beginning really not to like his brothers, and I hadn’t even met them.

He ordered the lift. “ Sublevel five.”

Hang on.

Sublevel?

Five?

There were five sublevels to his joint?

I didn’t know there was even one.

“Erm…how big is this place?” I asked.

He looked down to me, and the instant his gaze fell on my face, the irritability left behind by the blonde visibly melted away.

Really, he was just so lovely .

“There are two buildings devoted to the Catalogue . Three levels in both above ground, where there are vaults but also administrative offices, extensive records and databases and conservation labs. This building has six sublevels. The other, which was an add-on when an overflow became necessary, has seven. Quite a bit of that is empty, but it was built proactively to be filled at a future date.”

I wished I had a better response than I did, but there really wasn’t more to say but, “ Wow .”

He grinned, the lift doors opened, and, outside of the light coming from the lift, utter darkness greeted us.

“There’s twelve hundred years’ worth of history to preserve, some of it even older,” he remarked. “ And that takes space.” He then ordered, “ Lights on, seventy percent. Display cases full illumination.”

Immediately, the vast room lit, and at the wonder that met my eyes, I gasped.

Loudly.

“Oh my…” I drifted forward as if walking on air. “ Oh my…” I repeated as I approached the first large, glass display box. “ Oh my gods ,” I whispered, staring at what was in the box.

I felt Aleksei come up beside me, his hand lighting on the small of my back, but my eyes swept the long line of glass vaults, and I was transfixed by the bounty that was before me.

And that didn’t even take into consideration whatever treasures were hidden in the plethora of cabinets meticulously positioned to stand at attention, ready for perusal.

“My mother’s wedding gown, my father’s wedding suit,” Aleksei informed me of what was on show before us.

Though I already knew. I’d seen the pics thousands of times.

But to see it, live and in person…

Divine .

His hand glided to the side of my waist, his fingers pressing in, and he moved us to the next box.

“My grandmother and grandfather’s. And then there’s my great grandmother and grandfather’s. I think you can take it from there.”

I stared at the extraordinary garments fastidiously exhibited on custom-made, headless mannequins.

And I knew he knew.

He knew before he brought me here, he was giving me this remarkable gift.

He knew .

My eyes started to tingle as he murmured, “ Come .”

I would have gone anywhere with him at that juncture.

He took my hand and led me down the line of wedding apparel that ranged from YoD 2080s to…

He stopped us at a glass case.

“Princess Mathilde . Married to Prince Atlas . Year of the Dragon 1319, five years before the trolls invaded,” he said. “ Our clan was Starknight then, and that was the name of the land we ruled.”

Oh yes.

He knew .

I tore my gaze from the flame-red velvet gown with its cameo neckline, stunning gold silk-braid edging, pearls and ambers stitched into intricate gold embroidery, the deep fall of the bell sleeves that nearly brushed the floor, the intricate gold lace of the undersleeve embellishment and the sumptuous sable cape that flooded down the back of the gown and flowed across the dais the mannequins were standing on.

And I looked up at him.

A million words filled my mouth, but before a single one could escape, he tugged my hand again.

He guided me from the display cases into the long rows of cabinets sporting wide, shallow drawers. Along the way, he nabbed a pair of white gloves from one of the many cannisters of the same that were readily available.

We stopped in front of some drawers that started at ground level and went up to my neck.

Aleksei called, “ Open DR dash SK thirteen, twenty-five dash seventy-eight M .”

He pulled me back as a drawer around calf height slid out and up to hover at waist height in front of us, whereupon the top slid away, folding into the back panel.

I expected to see troll skin.

It wasn’t troll skin.

It was a gold gown with a gossamer white tucked shawl at the square bodice. The fall of the bell sleeves were prettily scalloped. It was folded over itself precisely to fit in the flat, wide drawer, but still in a manner that exhibited the features of the garment.

And it was so painstakingly conserved, it looked brand new.

I’d never seen a garment of this age so well presented.

“You can touch this one,” Aleksei said. “ With the gloves.”

I tipped my head back to look at him in surprise.

“It’s also Queen Mathilde’s ,” he shared.

“ From 1325. The trolls had invaded. As I’m sure you learned in history class, on our continent, there were nine realms then.

They often clashed, disputing territory, boundaries, the legitimacy of kings or queens.

Any event could be twisted into a grievance.

Case in point, infamously, the King of Cliff’s Mountain once declared war due to a thunderstorm he swore was cast on his realm by neighboring Day’s Rise . ”

“But the Troll Invasion stopped these petty skirmishes,” I put in.

He inclined his head. “ For a time. They had to band together to defeat a common foe.”

“And in the end, the four monarchs who were credited with vanquishing the trolls, sending what was left of them back to their boats, divvied up the land and created Night’s Fall , Sky’s Edge , Land’s End and Dawn’s Break ,” I concluded our shared history recitation.

But I loved that he started talking about it, drawing me in.

It was giving me all sorts of ideas about what the feel of the costumes should be for the vid.

He nodded, moved us down the line and ordered up another drawer.

It opened, and there it was.

Troll skin.

Right before me.

Troll skin .

“Not our suits, I’ll show you those in a minute,” Aleksei said. “ But these are strips and samples that I thought might help you build your textiles.”

He thought right.

“Can I have the gloves?” I asked eagerly.

“You don’t need the gloves, darling,” he murmured, reaching into the drawer and selecting a largish strip of greenish-gray scaly hide.

He offered it to me.

“I shouldn’t—” I began.

“It’s virtually indestructible.”

I knew that.

However.

“That’s why it’s so valuable, along with its scarcity,” he went on.

“ Why it was so difficult to defeat them, even if it’s since been estimated their capacity for thought and logic was so low, strategy for them was impossible.

Their invasion wasn’t tactical. It was instinctual.

It was about the survival of their race.

Multitudes of scientists have gone back to the isle they abandoned, and they speculate that the trolls had raped the resources of their land to such an extent, they’d go extinct if they remained.

In order to survive, they needed new horizons.

Their boats were decidedly elementary. It’s projected that at least three quarters of their population drowned before they even reached the shores of the Four Realms . ”

“It was also why their invasion was so terrifying,” I put in. “ There was no reason to it. It was widespread kill, rape, burn.” I made a face. “ And eat.”

His lips tipped up at my expression. “ Definitely a common enemy when they considered babies, breasts and male genitalia delicacies.”

I made an even bigger face.

He chuckled and shook the skin at me.

Hesitantly, holding my breath, I took it.