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CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

A rran Zephyrus’s tiny, hidden room within the Stoneridge library was far more claustrophobic than Xenia remembered. And she couldn’t help feeling an odd kinship with the trinkets, relics, and dusty books lining the shelves. Like her, they were locked away, forgotten, discarded.

Fortunately, she still had the flute. When Arran had deposited her in here this morning, he hadn’t searched her person. Had merely shut her inside and left her some food—a loaf of bread, a few worm-eaten apples, and a wedge of moldy cheese.

She had no idea what he intended to do with her after Cael’s wedding, which Arran had informed her was to take place tomorrow.

Xenia had nearly cackled in Arran’s face. What would Elodie do if she knew how thoroughly Xenia had claimed her fiancé up in Leonard’s mountain cottage?

Xenia had been frantic for hours, banging on shelves, tearing through books, searching for the hidden door Erik had revealed. She’d yelled so loudly for so long that her throat was raw.

But no one had come to check on her.

She’d come to the terrifying realization that no one could hear her. Whatever spell hid this room from view must be masking the sound as well.

She didn’t even know what time it was. Maybe it was already tomorrow and Cael was stepping up to the altar at this very moment, promising himself to Elodie.

Xenia knew the only reason Cael would have agreed to go through with the marriage was to save her from Arran.

She wished she could see him, talk to him. Tell him to run away and steal the dragon and join the rebels. To forget about her. She was just a single human—a pittance in the grand scheme of things.

Tickling the back of her mind, also, were those hidden vials she’d found in Elodie’s room. Especially with nothing to do in here but count down the hours until her death. She couldn’t stop thinking about them.

She knew she’d read a description of something made with dienswort, some kind of potion, but the knowledge wasn’t coming to her. She’d torn through the books in here, but hadn’t found any botanical information.

Everything in this room was useless, including?—

Arran’s journals.

Perhaps he’d written the incantation to reveal this room in one.

She pushed up off the floor, then began searching the shelves. There were more than a hundred journals, many of which she’d combed through when she’d been in here previously.

But she dutifully checked each one again, hunting for Aramaelish phrases. As she removed each leather book from the shelf, not finding what she was looking for, she grew more and more frustrated. And that frustration led to mistakes. Like not bothering to put the journals back in the correct slot. She cursed herself for her inattention, especially after she began picking up ones she’d just reviewed.

She sucked in a deep breath to calm herself. She just needed a method, that’s all. After she was done checking each journal, she’d put it on the desk instead of back on the shelf. So simple a child could have come up with it. But she offered her brain a bit of grace, given her circumstances.

Her hope dimmed as she failed to find the incantation after several hours of eye-straining perusals. Her hands trembled with fury as she picked up the last journal on the shelf.

This had to be the one. It had to. If it didn’t have what she was looking for…

She said a silent prayer to Adelphinae—a Goddess she had never prayed to—then opened the journal.

Several minutes later, she launched it across the room with an audible growl.

Fucking nothing .

Despair and agony and helplessness brewed until she was a storm of heaving breaths and righteous tears.

She needed to attack something.

The shelves would do.

She kicked them, smashed her fists into them, shook their sides as furious screams tore past her lips. She kicked the unit so hard that the center shelf jumped off its pegs and fell to the floor.

Through her watery gaze, she noticed a small crack in the back wall where the shelf had been. She leaned in closer.

It wasn’t a crack. It was a hidden compartment. She pushed on it and it sprang open.

She expected to find another journal.

Instead, she found a pile of letters, some white as fresh snow while others were stained with age.

Each was addressed to Arran in a ragged scrawl. There were ink splotches on many and physical tears on others.

As if the author had scribbled each one in an incensed rush.

And upon every single missive was the exact same message.

Death for death.

There was a date at the top of each letter. The same date, year after year. Xenia flipped through the pile—several hundred. One for every year since Arran had stolen the dragon.

The name at the bottom chilled Xenia’s fury.

Lizbeth Burkhardt .

It also shook loose a piece of information from Xenia’s subconscious mind.

The line from a book she’d read on herbology years ago in the Temple library: Dienswort has an acrid, bitter scent and its dried leaves are the main ingredient in veiling potion.

Those vials she’d found in Elodie’s box. That bitter scent.

Veiling potion.

Oh, High Gods .

She needed to get out of this room.

She banged on the walls, clawing and kicking even more furiously.

No one came, no one answered. But she couldn’t stop trying.

Cael was in more danger than she’d ever imagined.