“A highly questionable ancient library,” Micah said, shifting his weight to his other foot.
When Rylan tried to enter again, I realized where the hissing noise came from. The eyes of the snake-woman statue glowed. Her jaw had dropped a few inches. And then she made that noise. I freaked out, immediately drawing Pointy to defend myself.
Kael rested a hand on my shoulder. “Relax. She’s just doing that but nothing’s coming to attack us.”
“Someone has to follow Sera in,” Rylan said.
I bit my inner cheek. “Not really.”
Micah placed his hands on his hips and paced around the dress like some vulture, ready to tear it apart. “All of us could.”
“Or just one,” Gaius said.
Together, their gazes snapped to Kael, who shot back a befuddled expression.
“Me?” Kael asked. “Why me?”
“’Cause you’re always doing silly things,” Gaius said.
“To others. Not myself.”
“So we all agree?” Micah said. “Kael’s accompanying Sera in?”
Kael walked into the tiny closet I’d revealed, pulled a dress out, and threw it at Micah’s face. “If we go, we’re all going in together. I refuse to suffer this indignity alone.”
They all looked at each other and reluctant acceptance seeped into their features.
When they tried the dresses on, I was so amused, I didn’t say a thing. I didn’t want them to back out of it. I enjoyed this thoroughly, entertained by every second they struggled with putting on women’s clothes. The princes never wore shirts much. Covering their torsos with anything, much less dresses, was foreign to them.
“Let’s get this done and over with.” Kael had gotten stuck with the frilliest one, with rose petals on its chest area, pink in color. There was a huge bow that hung from his back and tied neatly around his waist. His broad shoulders stretched the material out too much, although the rest of the huge garment hung over his frame loosely. The anger he wore didn’t compliment his outfit. He walked forward and met the barrier again, which still refused to let him through. The snake-woman statue hissed one more time, as if scolding him for trying to get passage. “What is it now?” Kael shouted.
“I think we need to put these on,” Micah said, his cool voice sounding much less charming now that he wore a silky, red frock. At least it matched his hair. He pulled out wigs from the closet, with ratty ends.
I lost it. I clutched my stomach because of how hard I laughed and rested my hand on the doorframe for support. “You guys really don’t fit into dresses.”
Even Gaius’s scowl looked far less intimidating when he put on an auburn wig. He’d grown a beard, and he looked like a grumpy, bearded, manly woman. I couldn’t take much more of this. I almost choked on my guffaw.
Rylan smirked. “I’m not going to lie. My brothers look quite silly.”
I snorted and pointed at his head. “Says the man with the poofy hair.”
His smile lowered right after I said that—all four of them obviously weren’t amused by how funny I thought they looked. If only Frederick were here to see this. We’d be talking about it for days. Frederick didn’t look good when he tried to cross-dress, but at least I thought the princes would.
They didn’t.
Not with their masculine, towering forms. They should leave looking pretty to the ladies.
Tears had gathered in my eyes, and I swept them away with the back of my hand while trying to catch my breath. I had to thank the witches for their strange sense of humor. I wondered if they’d ever brought their males in here, and if each time they entered, they had to wear all these ridiculous outfits.
“Can we enter now?” Kael asked, scowling at the statue, treating her like she was the reason why they had to put up with all this in the first place.
The snake-woman gaped at him with her scary, widened eyes, not making a sound. Kael sighed, smoothed a hand over his peach-colored dress, brushed his hair away from his face, and trotted through. This time, he wasn’t stopped by the invisible wall, and his body slipped into the library, just like he would with any other ordinary room.
“There,” he said. “Lots of trouble for just walking through a door.” He tugged the wig off his head and threw it onto the ground, before rubbing his boot over it. He waited for something to happen. No one was sure if the spell only applied to the door or the entire library. When no danger appeared, he sighed in relief and tore the entire dress off his body in one, fluid motion, not bothering to fight the fabric by lifting it over his head.
Huzzah. He slammed the dressed into the ground and stomped on it.
“You don’t want to leave the dresses behind for future travelers?” I asked. My cheeks hurt from my grin.
He replied with a curt, “No.”
I didn’t think I’d ever seen Kael this peeved before. It was entertaining to see Kael dressing as a woman. I never thought I’d be able to see one of Constanria’s princes, much less all four of them, doing something undignified. But I did prefer him as normal Kael—the handsome, mischievous prince who normally walked about with his sculpted, tattooed form.
The king of Constanria and his other two brothers quickly walked through, eager to relieve themselves of the dresses like Kael had. But Gaius’s dress was longer than the others, and the fabric got in the way, which forced him to stumble. I caught him but not before a huge rripp sound came from his behind, which made his angry expression deepen with embarrassment, too. Kael had a look at Gaius’s back and snorted.
“That’s it,” Gaius said, finishing off the dress with one final rip and tossing his where Kael had dropped the first one. “I’m never coming back here again.”
It was only Micah who’d taken off his dress slowly, not tearing it to shreds like the others. He struggled with it, acting like he didn’t quite know what to do with his hands because the garment was so long. I helped him push it up his frame. My fingertips pressed against his skin and created the light humming sensation that always made my cheeks feel hotter.
Micah drew the fabric off his head once it became slack enough and glanced down at me, eyes crinkling with a smile. “Thanks,” he said. “I thought we probably shouldn’t ruin all of them, in case we need it to get out.”
“Good thinking,” I told him, grinning back. “And you’re welcome.” Micah looked at me with his sweetness, already shedding away the ridiculous image I had of him, and gave me a gentle kiss over my forehead.
“So,” Rylan said, returning to his stature of a king. He scanned around the library. “This is where we’ll find what we need?”
“It better give us something. After all that trouble,” Kael replied, pulling one of the unmarred books out of a shelf and opening it. “But nothing here is in a language that we can read.”
“Micah can,” I said.
I walked up to Kael and plucked another book out. “I wonder why some books are preserved, and the others aren’t.”
“What else?” Gaius said. “They used a preservation spell, probably for the books they found important. We’re counting on you, Micah.”
Micah shook his head. “I wouldn’t count on me that much. I can make out words in the language but knowing how the letters should look doesn’t translate to being fluent at ancient witch tongue. It’ll take days just to get through one of these.” He squinted at a spine and sighed.
I clicked my tongue against my teeth. “There has to be something that’ll stand out.”
We decided to split up, since so far, our paranoia had been for naught, and there hadn’t been any monsters to come out and eat us just yet. Micah accompanied me, and as we walked, he had a nose stuck in one of the tomes he’d picked up, making me curious.
“What are you reading on about? I don’t believe you’ve looked up for the last ten minutes.” This place was a maze. The shelves weren’t arranged neatly in rows, not like how I was used to them being. Some of them ran diagonally to each other, making the layout of the library difficult to na
vigate. I doubted Micah had any trouble, however. He knew exactly where we’d been, and where else we hadn’t explored. It was almost like he was building a map in his mind.
“It’s interesting, although it’s a pain to decipher. The Effects of the Holy Sect on Magic. It’s talking about the different ways magic can be separated. First, there’s dull souls and bright souls, single sources of magic capable of creating two different properties. And then there’s black and normal magic, how differently tiers of magic can corrupt or invigorate. There’s always a balance when it comes to the art, and when that balance is ruined or tipped, problems arise.”
“Just like the famine.”
Micah nodded. He continued to read, turning back to the words and holding the book open with one hand. When I’d almost gone in the wrong direction, Micah raised his arm and turned me around, so I’d face the right way and not get lost. How did he pay attention to so many things at once? I didn’t see him pry his eyes from the book.
The maze of the witch’s library seemed endless, making me wonder whether the other men were getting any luck with finding clues. We’ve already spent half a day searching around this place. I hoped we didn’t take too long finding what we needed because the group of us leaving the palace meant that Constanria was missing its king and their head of the Council of Fortitude.
Rylan had given instructions to Frederick and many of his trusted advisors on how to manage Constanria during his absence, but those instructions would only last a few days, at most. If we stayed out for too long, there’d be chaos and a power struggle once we got back. Luckily, Vancel Gavril was missing, and the country was still reliant on me to keep their bellies full. Thus, we didn’t have to worry too much about opposition.
“Now, that’s interesting,” Micah said.
“What is?”
“The witches posit that there are two realms determining what are dull souls and what are bright. They think that dull souls were created by Aereala and bright by Gaean. When in small, opposing quantities, these souls repel each other. But when you have the right amount of it, they are eager to join and are attracted.”
“Attracted?” I replied, trailing my fingertips across some book spines. These books were dusty, but they still had the smell of parchment, which always helped to calm me. Nothing was better than the smell of books. “What does it have to do with anything?”
Micah shut the book and tucked it underneath his arm. “I’m not sure. Maybe you can ask Aereala if the witches are right, if you ever do meet her again.”
I chuckled. “Yeah, I’m not sure I want to. Every time she meets me, it’s to give me a death sentence. Maybe she’ll tell me it’s six seconds instead of six months. No thank you, goddess.”
Micah held me by my wrist, then pulled me backward. I stumbled and fell against his chest. I turned to question him. “What is it?” I asked. “Did we go the wrong way?”
“Don’t say it like that,” Micah said. He set his jaw tight. Anguish appeared in his expression, so severe that my heart constricted and the only thing I could do to stop myself from crying was to press my body deeper into Micah’s. I grounded myself by latching onto him. Perhaps he thought the same thing and wanted to taste more of me, so he lowered his lips, until all I could think about was his sweetness.
His eyes glistened when he pulled away. He drew a hand down my hair and kept his other hand on the small of my back, holding me close to him, treating me like something dear. “You’re good at hiding your feelings. Good at pretending and laughing away your pain because that’s what you’ve had to do all your life. You’ve had to hide your troubles. I know because I needed to pretend, too. But it’s okay. You don’t have to be smiling all the time, to act like you can take the punches. I’m here to support you. We are. Sometimes it’s okay to allow yourself to cry.”
I didn’t think I needed permission, but the moment those words left Micah’s lips, the waterworks began. I tried to hold them back, to keep the dam I had placed on my emotions strong, but Micah tore it down. Micah was right. I had been joking around, pretending, laughing, but now all I could do was cry. He cupped my head and pulled me to his chest. He didn’t care that snot was probably coming out of my nose or that my salty tears were making a mess of his skin. He just held me as I shook with sobs, and when I looked up, I realized tears had rolled from his cheeks, too. There wasn’t much—only enough for me to wipe away with a thumb, but they were tears spilled for me.
“I love you so much, Sera-kit,” Micah said, with all his heart, and held me tightly against him. The ache of his heart gushed out of him, so palpable that it thrummed through me and made my knees weak. I dug my fingers into his hair and sucked in a deep breath as we kissed. I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want to leave Micah and his brothers. They were wonderful, and we were wonderful together. Ending this so quickly would tear them apart. Would they be okay if I passed on?
Probably not.
But at least there wouldn’t be a chance of them going hungry anymore, and Frederick, too, wouldn’t have to starve. There would be meaning in my death. Some people died for the stupidest things, like maybe choking on cabbage or something, but I got to save an entire continent and would have my name written in the history books. Couldn’t I be happy with that?
What was happiness if I was dead?
Was it wrong for me to just want to live? I’d take a simple life with the princes, spending our years together, over spending the rest of eternity as a historical figure to be remembered.
“We’ll figure this out,” I told Micah, catching my breath. He brushed his fingers across my cheeks, helping me get rid of my tears. I sighed. “We must.”
“I know. That’s why we’re here, right?”
“Right,” I said.
“Hey, lovebirds!” Kael called from above. He had his wings unfurled behind him and hovered in the air by flapping them in a rhythmic motion. “What are the two of you doing? We’ve—” He went silent, and the grin from his face simmered away when he saw my distraught form. He lowered his voice, saying, “I think we’ve found what we needed.”
I brushed away the remainder of my tears with the sleeve of my shirt. Micah spread his white wings from behind his back and pulled me up with him, carrying me so we could get closer to Kael. “What is it?”
“Another book,” Kael said. “What else would you expect from a library? It was guarded behind a door covered by red vines that didn’t want us to go through, but Rylan’s got the book. We’re wondering whether you can read it, Micah.”
“Let me have a look,” Micah replied. He pulled his expression together quicker than I could, and my heart slammed against my ribcage when he pulled me in his arms.
Chapter Nine
Massive doors splayed open, waiting for us to enter. The entrance was so high I had to arch my neck to take it all in.
“They made a mess,” I said, kicking aside a burned vine with my boot.
Kael pursed his lips. “How else were we supposed to get rid of the vines?”
“Trim them away neatly? You have Lefty and Righty to help you with that.” Those were the names of Kael’s daggers. If we ever had a child, I would forbid Kael to name him or her.
He returned an eyeroll. “Burning’s easier.”
Rylan and Gaius were already inside, looking at a thick tome which had been placed on a pedestal. A massive, magical orb containing soul magic, larger than the rest of its peers, lit this room, almost blinding me since my eyes had adjusted to how dim the rest of the library was.
“That’s it?” Micah asked, looking at the tattered book sitting in the middle of this giant room. There were red vines crawling down the sides of the room, and it was built like a circular amphitheater, all of its decorations and embellishments leading to this particular tome. “That’s what we’re here for?”
Kael, Micah, and I paced forward, nearing Rylan and Gaius, who spun around to meet us.
Rylan nodded. “I share your confusion. I assumed it’d look more . .
. important.” He glanced at me, and his features softened with he saw my face. Were my cheeks too red and puffy?
Micah strode past his brother, peering down at the new finding. I followed him and squinted at the tome. It wasn’t completely destroyed like half the books here or perfectly pristine like the other half. It settled on an in-between, like a family heirloom passed down a reasonable number of generations, just enough to get torn up so it looked vintage.
Micah shut the tome to read its title. “This is . . .” His eyes widened. His mouth slackened, and he hovered his fingertips over the printed words, treating the object as sacred. Silence gathered between the five of us as we waited for Micah to explain.
“Well,” Kael said. “Out with it. It’s not like we have forever.”
Micah swallowed, and I watched the lump in his throat swell and ease. “It’s the list of spells that the witches of the old used to open the portal from Gaia to Ayesria.”
“Gaia?” I asked. “Where the humans lived?”
It was common knowledge among Constanrians. An eternity ago, the first queen, who was a human witch and from Gaia, had wished for dragons to separate from humans because she deemed the two species unfit for co-existence. The Dragon Mother, the first ruler of the Drae Lands, previously known as Ayesrial, had been defeated by the first queen, and after that happened, the first queen and king ordered a mass migration for dragons. The witches of the old created a huge portal, capable of transporting all hidraes to the Drae Lands. The spell for the portal had been long lost, and the dragons forgot about the humans, as was the intention of the first queen.
But now, here it was.
Which meant Gaia was still out there, habited by the humans. What if they had food? The image of fields of crops, ready for the picking, glittering with abundance, glowed in my mind.
This was hope.
Maybe the abundance would convince Aereala she wouldn’t have to come, and I’d have more years to spend with the princes.
Fall of Dragons (Sera's Curse Book 3) Page 8
