A Storm of Glass and Stars (The Oncoming Storm Book 4)

by Marion Blackwood

  The scholar motioned for me to approach the tower so I took a step forward and held out a hand next to the closest hole. Short claws grazed my skin as a dove fluttered out and landed on a peg next to me. Furrowing my brows, I studied the small tube secured on its back by straps.

  “You place the letter in there,” Niadhir explained. When I began rolling up the sheet of paper, he lifted his hand. “May I? It is only to make sure that the dove will be able to carry the weight.”

  I had a feeling that it was actually to check what I had written in it, which annoyed me quite a bit, but I had nothing to hide and I didn’t feel like fighting so I handed it over without protesting. Pale violet eyes skimmed the page while he pretended to weigh it in his hand.

  “Yes, the dove will be able to carry this,” he announced as he handed it back to me.

  Unscrewing the top of the tube with one hand, I stuffed my letter inside with the other. The dove flapped over to my empty palm. After telling it where to go, I launched the bird into the air.

  “Good luck,” I said as it flew into the bright sky.

  “You do not need to wish it luck.” Niadhir took my arm and gave it a small pat. “It will arrive at its destination regardless.”

  With my eyes still on the disappearing white dot, I nodded. “I hope so.”

  Watching the dove take flight felt like screaming my decision to the sky. It was a nice feeling after all this time of uncertainty and doubt. There was no going back now. After this, everything would change.

  35.

  A procession of scholars in white suits stood in two rows at the entrance to the library. Queen Nimlithil in her sparkling silver and gem-covered headdress waited in front of the open doors. I wiped my hands on my dress as Niadhir led me towards her. The plain one I had opted for today once again fit my frame well.

  In the weeks since I had informed everyone about my decision, I had made a few changes. I had stopped going to the Spirit Garden. There was nothing more to say to the dead so there was no point in going there. I had also started eating regularly and exercising again. Both by sorting books in the library but also at night. The sunken eyes and the withering body was gone and my lean muscles were finally back again.

  My mind was doing better too. Ever since I made my decision, the nightmares had stopped. And so had the ghostly visits from people I had killed. If that wasn’t a sign that I was making the right decision, I didn’t know what was.

  “Do not be nervous.” Niadhir gathered up my arm and gave it a squeeze. “You are making the right decision,” he confirmed as if he had heard my thoughts.

  I drew a deep breath. “I know I am.”

  We stopped in front of Queen Nimlithil. She bent her graceful neck in a slow nod right as the scholars around us started up a rhythmic humming. The sound vibrated between the smooth walls of frosted glass.

  “Welcome, the Oncoming Storm of Keutunan,” the elegant queen said in a confident voice. “Today, you will leave your dark past behind and become one with the light.”

  In a swishing of skirts, she whirled around and glided into the library. Captain Hadraeth stepped out of the shadows inside and followed her while Niadhir guided me across the threshold. The chanting scholars trailed behind us as we moved through the empty library towards a large space in the middle. An old and incredibly thick book waited on a small side table.

  Niadhir had talked me through the ritual earlier, so I knew what to expect, but my heart still thumped in my chest. It would soon be over.

  The star elves in their white suits formed a ring around me while Niadhir took up position behind the heavy book. Hadraeth’s eyes flashed with displeasure when he was forced to stand further away but he kept his mouth shut as his queen stepped into the circle. She raised her hands.

  “Stars, we ask you to bring this wayward soul into your kind embrace.” Bracelets clinked as Queen Nimlithil drew her arms in a sweeping pattern. “Show her the way into the light.”

  Around us, the rhythmic chanting grew louder. Niadhir cleared his throat and began reading a passage from the book but it was in a language I didn’t understand so I had no idea what he was saying.

  The other scholars raised and lowered their voices in tune with the ritual reading. Clothes rustled as they started tracing symbols in the air. Nimlithil threw her arms up and joined in with the sacred words being spoken. Blood pounded in my ears. I drew my hands over the white sleeves on my forearms. With her arms still raised towards the ceiling, Queen Nimlithil closed the distance between us.

  “Stars, show her the light.” She turned in a slow circle in front of me. “Let her forever leave the violence behind.”

  Old texts, long forgotten by the rest of the world, echoed against the library walls. Slender hands swished through the air as the scholars drew the air patterns faster and faster. When the queen opened her mouth, a commanding voice crackling with ancient strength and wisdom rose. The air was thick with thrumming power. My heart slammed against my ribs in time with the vibrations that bounced off every surface when the deafening chorus approached the climax.

  Nimlithil whirled around to face Niadhir. My muscles tensed as I stood up on my toes and raised my arms.

  The chanting stopped. Violet eyes stared at me from every direction as dead silence descended on the library. I pushed the knife tighter against Queen Nimlithil’s throat.

  “Now, you will do exactly as I say or your beloved queen dies.”

  Niadhir stared at me with such a dumbfounded look on his face that, for a moment, I thought his brain had frozen completely. The other scholars appeared to be in similar states of shock.

  With my hand on her silver dress, I tipped the tall elf a little further back to get my blade in a better position. “You know who I am so you know I’m not bluffing.”

  “Storm!” Niadhir finally pressed out. His distraught voice echoed through the utter silence that had fallen. “By the Stars, what are you doing?”

  “That would be a mistake.” Ignoring the distressed scholar, I moved my eyes to the seething Guard Captain outside the ring. “Do you really think you can draw that sword and get all the way over here before I can slit her throat?”

  Captain Hadraeth’s handsome features were twisted in rage. “That’s an empty threat because as soon as you kill her, I will kill you.”

  “I bet you will.” Shrugging was difficult in the awkward position my body was in so I only managed a slight lopsided one. “You might get to kill me but that won’t change the fact that your queen will also be dead. So, go put your sword on that table over there before I run out of patience.”

  Anger darkened his eyes but my gamble on his unwillingness to see his queen murdered just to get revenge on me proved well-founded when he stalked over to the table and surrendered his weapon.

  “Good choice.” I nodded towards the entrance. “Now, take all these fine scholars and lock them up in the room to the left of the library. Then get back here and close the library doors on your way in.” I shot him an iron stare. “I’ll be watching. If you try anything, she dies.”

  “Storm!” Niadhir called as the captain herded him and the others towards the doors. “What is the meaning of this?”

  “I thought it was obvious.” Frowning at him, I gave him the same look of an exasperated teacher explaining something to a particularly slow child that he had so often given me. “This is me rejecting your offer to get rid of the darkness and become an upperworlder.” A grin spread across my mouth. “I look so much better in black anyway.”

  “Storm!” he called again, alarm present in his pale violet eyes. “It is not too late. You can still renounce the darkness. Storm!”

  With a firm grip on the queen, I moved us sideways so that I could see all the way down the corridor and into the hallway beyond the library doors.

  “I do not understand,” Queen Nimlithil said in a sad voice. “I thought you understood that giving up your curse will help others live a happier life. Why would you deny the world a chance
to be free of pain?”

  “Because you’re going about it all wrong! I understand what you’re trying to do but this isn’t the way.”

  Between the rows of bookcases, the group of confused scholars shuffled forward with an impatient Guard Captain behind. Hadraeth cast a quick look at me over his shoulder before flicking his hands at the other star elves, telling them to hurry.

  “Getting rid of pain isn’t the answer.” I let out a long exhale and shook my head even though the queen couldn’t see it. “Pain and grief are a part of life. It’s how you know it was real.”

  Queen Nimlithil clicked her tongue. “You are not making any sense. Hurting when thinking about someone you loved is not a good thing.”

  “Yeah, it is. Yes, every time I think about Rain or Elaran, my heart will break.” Just speaking those words proved the statement true because a flash of agony shot through me. “But that’s not a bad thing. My heart breaks because I loved them. The pain you feel when they die is the price you have to pay for all the years of love they gave you. It’s what makes the connections we form real. And precious.”

  Captain Hadraeth glared at me from outside the library as he locked the door behind the scholars. For a moment it looked like he contemplated leaving to get backup but then he gave his head a violent shake and stalked back towards us. Queen Nimlithil shifted awkwardly in front of me as I pulled us both away from the main corridor. The library doors rattled as the captain slammed them shut.

  “You are wrong,” she said. “Pain is never a good thing.”

  Deciding not to argue my point further, I just continued moving us towards the side of the room in silence. To never again think about Rain or Elaran and feel sad was not what I wanted. The pain of their passing was how I honored their memory and remembered my love for them. Removing people’s ability to feel pain and grief wouldn’t make the world a better place. It would only give everyone a half-life. Maybe in time, she would realize that I was right. I tipped my head from side to side. Though she had already lived for centuries and not figured it out, so probably not.

  “There, I’ve locked them in,” Captain Hadraeth said as he appeared between the rows of white bookshelves.

  “If the door isn’t locked, you’ll regret it.” I moved the kitchen knife I had stolen at dinner yesterday higher up under the queen’s chin to really drive the point home.

  “It’s locked,” he snapped. Silver-decorated armor shifted as he crossed his arms. “Now, let her go.”

  Nodding at a metal pipe set into the wall, I flashed him a quick smile. “Yeah, I’m not giving up my leverage just yet. See that pipe over there?”

  Captain Hadraeth followed my gaze before turning back and giving me a curt nod.

  “Good. Take out your handcuffs.”

  “I don’t have any handcuffs on me.”

  Grabbing the back of the queen’s neckline, I bent her further back and pressed the blade tighter against her throat. “You really wanna play this game?”

  Violet eyes so cold I almost got frostbite bored into me. For a second, everything was still. Only the soft popping of the candles in their glass containers broke the silence as the Guard Captain and I stared each other down. Then, he averted his gaze and yanked out a pair of manacles from the back of his armor.

  “Yeah, I thought not.” I nodded at the sturdy metal cylinder again. “Go stand next to that pipe.”

  The delicate glass candle holders on the tables clinked as he stomped over.

  “Lock one side of the handcuffs around one of your wrists and then throw me the key,” I instructed.

  Metal clicked into place as he pushed it shut around his left wrist. After another icy glare, he lobbed the key in my direction. It slid over the smooth floor and came to a halt next to my feet. Leaving it there, I pulled the queen with me and moved towards the fuming guard.

  “One wrong move and she dies,” I warned as we closed in.

  Hadraeth didn’t respond but he didn’t move either so I stepped closer until we were standing on the other side of the pipe.

  “Hold out your arm,” I told the queen. When she did, I turned to the captain. “Draw the handcuffs around the back of the pipe and then lock her wrist in the empty one.”

  Outrage flashed in his eyes but he complied with my orders. When the final click signaled that both Captain Hadraeth and Queen Nimlithil were locked together with one arm behind the sturdy metal tube, I whipped my knife from the queen’s throat and darted away.

  While lifting a hand to my brow in a mock salute, I shot them a satisfied smile. “This is goodbye, then.”

  “As soon as you try to get down the stairs, the other guards will catch you,” the Guard Captain said. “And then you’re mine.”

  My smile turned into a smirk. “They can try.” I whirled around.

  “Wait!” the confused queen called right as I was about to stride away. “Why are you doing this? I do not understand at all. No one forced you to agree to this ritual. Even if you did not want to do it, you could have lived here with us. Why would you want to leave?”

  I stopped. Tapping a finger against my thigh, I considered whether I owed them an explanation or not. A small chuckle escaped my throat. I didn’t. But they were going to get one anyway because I wanted to finally tell them how I really felt.

  After swinging back around, I lifted my shoulders in a light shrug. “I don’t want this.”

  “A safe and comfortable life in a palace, free of pain and struggle.” She furrowed her manicured eyebrows. “How could anyone say no to that?”

  “Because I hate it here!” An exasperated laugh bubbled out from my chest. “I have since day one. I’m not an upperworlder.” Shaking my head, I pulled at the white fabric of my skirt. “The ridiculous dresses and being escorted around like some weak defenseless child! The formal dinners, the five hundred different forks, the polite small talk about stuff you don’t even mean, the synchronized dances. I hate it all.”

  “Those are lovely parts of our culture,” Queen Nimlithil protested.

  “There are too many rules!” I threw my arms to the sides in a frustrated gesture. “I’m not allowed to wear what I want, eat when or how I want, do what I want! Women here sew and do embroidery and the most exciting part of their week is trying on dresses. Dresses. That’s the most exciting thing that happens to them!” Disbelief dripped from my whole body as I shook my head. “How can anyone want that kind of life?”

  The queen shook her head as well. “I do not understand you at all. It is a wonderful life.”

  “No. It’s not. Not for me.”

  “If not that, then what is it that you want?”

  “Freedom! I want to do whatever I want, whenever I want, and however I want.” A wide grin spread across my mouth. “I’m an underworlder. Always have been. Always will be.”

  Queen Nimlithil stared at me, uncomprehending. “How could anyone desire such a complicated life full of death and disappointment?”

  “Yeah, my life is violent and complicated and messy.” I gave them another shrug. “But it’s my life. I decide what to do with it.”

  Memories of Liam, the twins, and all my other friends rose to the front of my mind. They all had their own lives now but that didn’t mean there wasn’t a place in it for me too.

  “And I will always steal, cheat, and kill to protect the people I love.” I flicked my hand in a nonchalant gesture. “If that makes me a villain, then fine, I’m a villain.”

  The beautiful queen stared at me in complete befuddlement while the captain’s stern eyes flashed from anger to uncertainty to confusion. An insane chuckle slipped my lips. I whirled around and set course towards the entrance to the library.

  “I’m a villain!” I shouted, still laughing like a crazy person.

  As soon as I was out of sight, I veered right. I wanted them to think that I was leaving by the front doors and that I would be trying to get down the stairs. My mouth drew into a smile as I snuck further into the library instead. It was tim
e to head to my real exit point.

  36.

  Towers made of books rose before me. I hiked up my skirt and launched myself from the ground. Leather creaked beneath me as I raced up the staircase of books I had secretly built in the back of the library these past weeks. Bracing myself on the smooth ceiling, I put a hand to the wooden trapdoor and pushed.

  That day in the library, before I had my complete breakdown in the Spirit Garden, when I had come here to sort books in order to clear my head and work up the courage to talk to Elaran, I had pushed the tallest stack of books a little to the side. That was when I had discovered the edge of a trapdoor. Since the library was on a different floor, I couldn’t go back and check it out at night. But I had managed to sneak up there and see where it led one day when Niadhir had been occupied.

  Having an escape route was always good, even if I hadn’t planned on using it at first. However, after that day in the dining room when we ate breakfast and the reality of what life here would be like had hit me like a brick to the face, I knew what I had to do. And by then, I already had a plan in mind.

  I climbed up the hole in the ceiling and then rolled over on my stomach. Leaning back down, I grabbed a hold of the spare door I had found on my first visit to the library. It was a very tall door but it wasn’t long enough to reach all the way from the floor to the ceiling so I had secretly propped it up on a stack of books. Wood creaked as I hauled it up.

  Once it was through the hatch, I placed it carefully on the ground and closed the trapdoor behind me. Hopefully, they would never realize that this had been my exit point. Or if they did, I banked on it being after I was already gone.

  The full moon painted the empty room in silvery light. There were no windows in the library but here, a whole row of wide windows provided an excellent view of the adjacent wing. I threw open both sides of the clear glass panes.

  Jasmine and roses drifted in on the cool night wind. Hoisting the spare door, I carried it over and braced one side on the windowsill. This was the one thing I hadn’t been able to actually test beforehand since I would never have managed it before Niadhir discovered I was missing. Instead, I’d had to rely on my eyes. Praying to Nemanan that I had accurately judged the distance, I pushed the door forwards.