Page 99 of Shardless

Taly nodded, pushing a stray lock of hair out of her face. In her rush to escape, she had forgotten to braid it that morning, something she was coming to regret. The humidity from the ongoing rain just made the golden tendrils stick to her neck. “When did it become forbidden? I feel like I read about it all the time in connection to the Hunt.”

Skye leaned back in his chair, sipping from a fresh cup of elfin tea. “About 150 years ago. Ivain doesn’t like to talk about the forbidden rites, but my mother told me once that desecration used to be employed as a method ofmercifulexecution. The Genesis Council would remove a prisoner’s immortality and then send him to live out the rest of his life among the mortals. But then during the Hunt... well, even the Genesis Lords of the Dawn Court found the Sanctorum’s practice of desecrating suspected time mages and their sympathizers before publicly disemboweling them rather distasteful.”

Taly suppressed a shiver, fidgeting with the cuff of her boot. She hadn’t failed to notice the small group of Sanctifiers among the refugees the previous day. “You know, the more I learn about the Sanctorum, the more I hate it.”

“You wouldn’t be the first person to feel that way.”

Picking up another dusty tome, Taly said, “Tell me again why the Ensigns were moving so slowly yesterday. We’ve already made it through twice as many of these old books in a few hours than they got through in an entire day. It seems like they should’ve already been able to figure out what those creatures were.”

With a yawn, Skye pushed himself out of his chair and stretched. Though she tried, Taly couldn’t stop her eyes from following the movement. He was dressed all in black this morning, a color that she had decided she found quite appealing on the lithe shadow mage. It was such a stark contrast to his pale skin, and he’d left the first few buttons of the plain, cotton shirt he wore undone, granting her a teasing glimpse of the flat planes of his chest. She watched him as he walked over to a large pile of books set against the wall, his long legs carrying him across the vast expanse of the library with a grace that made her heart flutter.

Just friends! she screamed at herself mentally. But her heart didn’t seem to want to listen to reason as it continued to beat rapidly in her chest. Maybe there was something wrong with it. After all, mortals had been known to die from weak hearts.

As he bent down to examine one of the stacks of discarded books, Skye’s words snapped her back to reality. “They were moving slowly because most scholars still like to record everything in Faera—a language that almost nobody speaks anymore. Unlike Ivain, the schools on the mainland don’t require complete fluency in Faera, and, as far as I know, House Ghislain is the only family left that still makes it a point to teach even the basic grammar structures to members of the primary bloodline—those set to inherit. Most fey only know the runes required for spellcasting and crystal inscription, so trying to translate full texts...”

“Ah,” Taly replied, forcibly tearing her eyes away when Skye started walking back toward the table. “So, the Ensigns had to use a transcriptionenchantment. What a pain.”

“Cé vas’anon, quivanana s’aris,” Skye replied in perfect Faera, trusting Taly to know the translation—indeed, it is.

“Plus,” he sighed, “you’re also assuming that those creatures were created using a forbidden rite. All we know for sure is that they were created using shadow magic. It’s entirely possible someone came up with some new heinous enchantment and decided to unleash it upon Tempris for… I don’t know. A test? Just because they could? Some delusion about time mages rising up to overthrow the Dawn Court? Who knows.”

“Time mages?” Taly’s head snapped up, and she was suddenly very aware of the bruises on her arm—the ones that flashed when she… “You think this could all be about time mages?”

Skye paused, scanning one of the shelves. “Huh? No, not at all. I was just talking out of my ass. I have no idea why anyone would do this. The only thing I know for certain is that those creatures were clearlycreated, so that means thatsomeoneis behind it. As for his or her motive, though, I’m at a complete loss.”

Taly hummed thoughtfully and did her best to ignore the tremor in her hands as she flipped through what looked like an old lab journal. “Well, at least one good thing came of this mess.”

“Really? What’s that?” Skye asked absently. He wiped at the spine of a book, squinting as he tried to read the title beneath the grime.

“Sarina being mad at me for tagging along with you is now the least of my worries.”

Skye sniggered as he turned his head to give her a playful grimace. “No, I’d probably keep that one up at the top of my list of priorities. If weactually manage to survive long enough to get back to Ryme, shewillkill you. And me. With fire, I’m guessing. But then again, I knew that when I agreed to bring you.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Taly muttered with a slight shudder. She went quiet a moment, focusing on the text in front of her. “Hey, what about this?” she asked when she came upon a passage that read a little differently from the other pages of dry, arcane language.

“What about what?”

Taly couldn’t stop the shiver that ran down her spine. Skye was much closer than she expected, close enough that she could feel the heat from his body as he leaned over her. Resting a hand on her shoulder, his fingers began to absentmindedly brush the skin of her neck.

Damn. He had been doing that all morning. Just when she would finally banish whatever new utterly inappropriate fantasy her subconscious had conjured, he would go and do something that would make the next daydream all the more vivid.

You’re just friends. Her mantra; her prayer for sanity.

Clearing her throat, Taly read aloud in Faera, “Though my sister expired at 15 minutes past the tenth bell on the fourth day of the month of Yule, I have successfully managed to trap and stabilize her anima within a shadow crystal. Her body continues to degrade, but the application of the aery and rho rites of preservation in 42-hour intervals has marginally slowed the decay. If I cannot solve the translation error while the body is still serviceable, then I may have to look into acquiring a new one.”

“Sounds promising,” Skye said distractedly,reaching past her to turn the page. “Morbid, but promising. What’s the date on that?”

“Uh…” Taly flipped the book to look at the spine. “Year 25,657 of our Lady Raine.”

“That was during the Shade Rebellion.” Skye’s fingers, which had briefly ceased their assault on her neck while she was reading, started up again, this time with what felt like a far more deliberate pattern as they pushed aside the collar of her shirt to trace lazy circles on her shoulder. His nails grazed a particularly sensitive area, pushing the straps of both her camisole and bustier aside and…

Taly stood abruptly, sidestepping Skye as she turned the corner and started scanning the shelves. She heard his footsteps following her. “That at least gives us a place to start looking,” she said in what she hoped was an even tone. “From what I can tell, the Ensigns have been working backward. Maybe we should start with when the Council first began regulating shadow magic and work our way forward.”

Stretching, Taly’s fingers groped for a book that was just out of reach.

“Not a bad idea,” Skye replied, once again far closer than she was expecting.

Whirling around, Taly almost ran into Skye as he reached over her, effortlessly plucking the desired book from the shelf.

---