Page 22 of Of Shadow and Moon

Her words settle over me, irritating as a grain of sand stuck in my skin. I know I shouldn’t care, shouldn’t feel anything about her seductive whispers. Nazriel’s life has nothing to do with me. But we literally just fucked four days ago.

Her tone, that smug gleam in her eye, stirs something sharp and unpleasant inside me. I can’t help the rage that comes to life at the thought of him giving her that kind of attention. It’s an anger I can’t quite explain. I know Ishouldn’t feel like this, but it doesn’t stop it from happening.

“Miss…?” Professor Thalor’s voice cuts through my thoughts, pulling me sharply back to the front of the room. His eyes narrow on me, and for a heart stopping moment, the entire class seems to turn in my direction. “Care to summarize the properties of arcane crystals?”

I feel the weight of Nazriel’s stare from the back row. My face remains perfectly neutral, my voice steady and measured. “Arcane crystals store the residual magic of ancient beings, acting as a conduit for specific spells. Their power depends on the magic source and the nature of the spell cast upon them.”

Professor Thalor’s eyebrows raise slightly, but he gives a curt nod. Satisfied. I exhale, careful to keep my expression even as he resumes his lecture. Evaline leans back, casting a lingering smirk in my direction, as if amused by my answer. Her voice is back at a low whisper, her words sliding between Professor Thalor’s lecture like venom hidden beneath silk.

Her conversation with her friend picks up again, snippets of words drifting my way.

I school my face to blankness, straining to hear her now, my senses tuned by years of survival. Evaline’s voice is hushed, but clear enough. There’s something sharp and delicate in her tone, a calculated edge that carries through the low murmur of the room.

“Did you enchant your room?” asks her friend, sounding slightly nervous. “My father told me the council is tightening up on surveillance, keeping track of…rare abilities. Abilities they thought didn’t exist anymore.”

Evaline’s answering laugh is soft, low, and full of a dangerous kind of confidence. “Please.Let them snoop. I’m not worried,” she replies smoothly, barely bothering to lower her voice. “Everything has been hidden well.”

I pretend to jot down notes, though my pen merely hovers above the page. Rare abilities. Surveillance. The council. The words circle in my mind, hooking into my thoughts like barbed wire. The council consists of every king and a few of their close advisors. Sometimes they include the heirs, sometimes they don’t. Alexander is typically in attendance of these meetings. I’ve already heard whispers of lost magic circulating, but nothing concrete.

Evaline has been here a day, no, less than that. And she’s already laying out protections, weaving spells to hide something she doesn’t want found. Something that, if discovered, could draw the council’s attention.

Her friend presses on, her whisper wavering, betraying her unease. “It’s not just snooping, Evaline. They’re making lists. Tracking…lineage. If they think you’ve got one of those powers—one of the old ones—they’ll come after you. My father said not even our family names would protect us.”

Evaline scoffs, a sound soft as silk but threaded with iron. “Then let them try, Camilla.”

My attention sharpens, though I keep my expression flat, eyes forward. Evaline’s confidence is maddening, but it’s also telling. If she’s hiding something, it’s something powerful enough to require layers of protection. I grip my pen tightly, unable to shake the sense that I’ve stumbled upon something important. Evaline’s voice is low and velvety as it carries a challenge, an assurance in herself that tells me this isn’t just empty posturing. She has something—maybe something dangerous. And she doesn’t care who knows.

If only she knew who she was talking in front of. If she had any idea who I really am, she wouldn’t be so quick totoss out careless threats and invitations to the council, she wouldn’t brush me off as another academy student, another nameless girl with a vague look of interest in her eyes.

I focus on the professor’s voice, forcing myself to tune her out, but her smug, sugary tone keeps pricking at me, each word winding tighter in my chest. Nazriel, Evaline—whatever petty games they’re playing, they’re nothing more than a distraction. I have no use for them. My focus has to stay clear, unwavering.

The moment Professor Thalor dismisses us, I’m up, my bag slung over my shoulder as I slip into the crowded hallway. The academy corridors teem with life and laughter.

I let myself sink into the crowd, weaving through the mingling students, listening, cataloging, blending in like a shadow. I breathe in the heady mix of magic, scents of herbs, traces of coppery blood, and something darker, more primal. Every detail matters, and I store each one away.

As I move through the hall, I can’t help but catch sight of Evaline’s blonde hair and triumphant smile as she chats with her friends. Whatever Nazriel is to her, it’s nothing compared to what I have to do here. I have my own mission, and no prince, no arrogant, charming noble, will distract me from it.

Chapter 12

Selestina

As much as I love acting as a normal student, the exhaustion of having to put on a front, to be polite all day, has weighed heavy on me. I need my place of solitude and I’m giddy as I walk towards it.

The path curves before me, narrow and shrouded in mist that leaks out from the edge of the Dark Forest. My footsteps echo softly, swallowed by the looming shadows of ancient trees as I approach my destination.

The Tower of Vigilance. The library waits up ahead, its presence a silent promise at the end of this trail. My pulse quickens, drawn to it by an almost magnetic pull, as if the building itself knows I’m coming.

Libraries have always held a strange magic for me, even beyond the spells and stories they contain. In each kingdom I’ve visited, there’s been one, quiet, endless, a place outside of time. Shelves stretching up to arched ceilings, the air thick with the smell of old paper and leather. I remember how, even in the grandest Citadel libraries, the smell always felt the same: earthy and comforting.

The one in the outer city of Itzalli has endless rows ofbooks as far as the eye could see, each book a door waiting to be opened, a new reality ready to unfold. Then there was the one in the northern mountains in Metztli, where the cold air drifted in through open stone windows, mingling with the scent of parchment and candle wax. Each library had its own character, its own spirit woven into its walls.

But none of those memories can prepare me for this library.. I catch sight of it now—a looming stone structure, half overgrown with ivy, standing as though it’s emerged straight from the shadows of the forest. It feels like an extension of the forest itself, as though the trees chose to shelter it, keeping it hidden and safe from the outside world.

I pull open the massive wooden doors, and a cool rush of air greets me. The scent is overwhelming and comforting. The ceiling looms high above, supported by thick stone columns.

The library is a large maze of towering shelves where shelves jut out in every direction, forming narrow pathways and hidden alcoves. Row upon row of volumes rest upon the shelves, bound in rich, old leathers, their spines cracked from the weight of time and secrets.

I close my eyes and inhale the silence; an old memory stirs in my mind, reaching back to a library in the Citadel when I was eight years old. I am standing there, like an ant against the giant shelves, feeling small and unimportant under the load of all that history. I remember the tone of his harsh voice, his fingers relinquishing my first book as if he was sad to part with it; the tracing of the faded gold lettering that danced around the cover in some long-forgotten language my fingers struggled to decipher.

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