“My father was furious. My mother was heartbroken both for me and herself. She was eager to have a daughter.”
She shook her head. “Rafe, I am so—”
“Shh, don’t say it. You don’t owe anyone an apology.” And then I told her the rest, that it was never proposed to me as a real marriage and that my father had even suggested I take a mistress after the wedding if the bride didn’t suit my tastes.
“A mistress? Well, isn’t that romantic?” She leaned up on one arm to look at me. “What about you, Rafe?” she said more softly. “What did you think when I didn’t show up?”
I thought back to that morning, waiting in the cloister of the abbey along with the entire Dalbreck cabinet, pulling at my coat. We’d had to ride all night, delayed because of the weather, and I just wanted to get it over with. “When the news came that you had left, I was surprised,” I said. “That was my first reaction. I couldn’t quite figure out how it could happen. Two kingdoms’ cabinets had worked out every detail. In my mind, it may as well have already been chiseled in stone. I couldn’t understand how one girl could undo the plans of the most powerful men on the continent. Then, when I finally got past my shock, I was curious. About you.”
“And you weren’t angry?”
I grinned. “Yes, I was,” I conceded. “I wouldn’t admit it at the time, but I was furious too.”
She rolled her eyes. “Ha! As if I didn’t know.”
“I suppose it was apparent when I got to Terravin.”
“The minute you walked into that tavern, I knew you were trouble, Prince Rafferty.”
I wove my fingers through her hair and pulled her closer. “As I did you, Princess Arabella.” Her lips pressed to mine, and I wondered if there would ever be a day we didn’t have to cut our time together short, but I was getting worried about Ulrix. He’d been gone almost an hour, I guessed, and I didn’t want to take a chance in case he returned early. When I pushed her away, she promised to leave in five more minutes. Five minutes is hardly enough time to drink an ale, but we filled it with memories from our time in Terravin. I finally told her she had to go.
I looked out the door first to make sure the hall was clear. She touched my cheek before she left and said, “Someday we’ll go back to Terravin, won’t we, Rafe?”
“We will,” I whispered, because that was what she needed to hear, but as the door shut behind her, I knew if we ever got out of here, I would never take her back to anywhere in Morrighan, including Terravin.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
I tried to stop counting the days as Rafe had told me to, but each day that the Komizar took me out to a different quarter, I knew we had one less. Our outings were brief, just long enough to show me off to this elder or that quarterlord and those who gathered around, planting his version of hope among the superstitious. For a man who had little patience for lying, he sowed the myth of my arrival freely, like seed thrown by handfuls in the wind. The gods were blessing Venda.
Strangely, an equilibrium settled in between us. It was like dancing with a hostile stranger. With each of our steps, he got what he wanted, the added devotion of the clans and hillfolk, and I got something I wanted too, though I couldn’t quite put a name to it.
It was a strange pull in unexpected ways and times—the glint of the sun, a shadow, the cook chasing a loose chicken down the hallway, the smoke in the air, a sweetened cup of thannis, the brisk chill of morning, a toothless smile, the resonance of paviamma chanted back to me, the dark stripes of sky as I chanted eventide remembrances. They were all disconnected moments that added up to nothing, and yet they caught hold of me like fingers lacing into mine and drawing me forward.
The advantage of having Kaden gone was that I was left to my own devices at night. In his rush to make arrangements before he left, Kaden had only told Aster to come and escort me to the bath chamber if I requested it and help me with personal needs, but he hadn’t defined what those needs might be. I assured her my nighttime request was one of those needs. It turned out she was happy to conspire with me. The Sanctum was far warmer than the hovel she shared with her bapa and cousins. I had asked her if she knew of a way to get to the catacombs without passing through the main hallway. Her eyes grew wide. “You want to go to the Ghoul Caves?” Apparently Eben and Finch weren’t the only ones who called it that.
Griz was right. The little urchin knew every mouse trail in the Sanctum—and there were many. In one of them, I had to get down on my hands and knees to crawl through. As we walked through another, I heard a distant roar.
“What’s that?” I whispered.
“We don’t want to go that way,” she said. “That tunnel leads to the bottom of the cliffs. Nothing there but the river, lots of wet rock, and bridge gears.” She led me down an opposite path, but I made note of the way. A path that led to the bridge, even though it was impossible to raise, was something I wanted to explore.
We finally emerged into a wider cavelike tunnel, and the familiar sweet smell of oil and dusty air welcomed us. I thought at this hour it would be empty, but we heard footsteps. We hid in the shadows, and when the dark-robed men shuffled past, we followed a safe distance behind. I understood now why it was called Ghoul Caves. The walls weren’t just made of broken ruins. Human bones and skulls lined the path, a thousand Ancients holding up the Sanctum, poised to whisper their secrets—ones Aster didn’t want to hear. When she saw them and gasped, I clapped my hand over her mouth and nodded reassurance. “They can’t hurt you,” I said, though I wasn’t so sure myself. Their empty-socket stares followed our steps.
The narrow path led in a steep downward slope to an enormous room, one that bore the art and architecture of another time, and I guessed that it might date all the way back to the Ancients. Deep in the ground, and perhaps sealed away for centuries, it was in remarkably good repair, and so were its contents. It wasn’t just any room but a roomful of books that would make the Royal Scholar pale—it dwarfed all his libraries put together. At the far end, I saw the robed men sorting books into stacks and occasionally tossing one into a mountain of discards. Similar mountains were scattered throughout the room. Partially hidden from view was a wide curved opening to another room beyond this one. Light poured out o
f it, bright and golden. I could see at least one figure inside hunched over a table writing on ledgers. This was an extensive organized effort. Passing shadows flickered across the floor. There were others in that room too. Those who sorted the books in the outside room occasionally took one in to them. I desperately wanted to see what they were doing and what the books were that they studied.
“You want one?” Aster whispered.
“No,” I said. “They might see us.”
“Not me,” she answered, showing off how low she was able to crouch. “And it ain’t really stealing, because they burn those piles in the kitchen ovens.”
They burned them? I thought about the two books I had stolen from the Scholar, both of their leather covers scorched with fire. Before I could stop her, Aster darted out, quiet as a shadow, and snatched a small book from the discards. When she ran back, her little chest heaved with excitement, and she proudly handed me her prize. It was bound differently from any books I had ever seen, razor straight and tight, and I didn’t recognize the language. If it was some form of Vendan, it was even older than the Song of Venda I had translated. That’s when I knew what they were doing. They were translating ancient languages, which explained why the services of skilled scholars were needed. I knew of three other kingdoms besides Morrighan that had a stable of scholars with any measurable skills—Gastineux, my mother’s homeland; Turquoi Tra, which was home to mystic monks; and Dalbreck.
Since they had discarded this book, I knew it wasn’t important to them, but at least I knew now what their purpose here was—deciphering a saved tomb of books, the lost books of the Ancients. For a society where few of its people even read, this was an odd scholarly activity. My curiosity burned, but I fought the urge to confront and question them because it would reveal my nighttime wanderings and put Aster at risk as well. I tucked the book under my arm and nudged her toward the pathway of skulls, and we hurried back to my room.
When we closed the door behind us, she giggled nervously at our adventure together. She asked if I could read the book to her, and I told her no, it was in a tongue I didn’t understand.