Page 4 of Destroyer

Lyr nodded briskly. “As I said. We’ve been sent to bring you to the Sh—” He stopped short as Sybeth elbowed him. He coughed, his brows lowering as he pulled himself together. “We’re under orders to take you to another dig site. Your experience is needed there. You’ve been requested by name.”

Ru and Archie turned to stare at one another. Their expressions were of mirrored disbelief. There were dozens of renowned scientists, philosophers, and artists whose work first came to light at the Cornelian Tower. Ru was not one of them.

“Sorry,” said Archie, cutting through Ru’s silence, “but I’m convinced you’ve got the wrong Ruellian Delara. Unless you need an expert on vases and vessels, which I can’t imagine isn’t readily available among the palace scholars.”

Ru pursed her lips. Normally, she hated when Archie spoke for her. But now, so caught off guard and plunged into reticence, Ru was grateful for him.

Sybeth and Lyr glanced at one another.

“You are Ruellian Delara,” said Sybeth, slowly, as if explaining to a child. “Daughter of Laurelian Delara.”

“Yes,” admitted Ru. Her unease expanded, filling her.

At Ru’s admission of her identity, Sybeth nodded once. “Good. Then you’re the one we need.”

“Better confirm the paper,” said Lyr, watching Ru with steady dark eyes.

That was it, then. The paper. Ru felt equal parts sick and embarrassed, almost on the verge of bolting. Not here, not now, not likethis.

“Fine,” said Sybeth. She reached into a pocket and pulled out a slip of paper, peering at it. Then she said, “Miss Delara, please confirm that you’re the author of the academic text entitled ‘From Sorcery to Science: A Study Of Particle Matter Dilation, The Transformation Of One Substance To Another, And The Transfer of Energy Between Invisible Lines, An Argument In Favor Of The Existence Of Magic.’”

For a brief moment, Ru closed her eyes. If she thought about her room in the Tower very desperately, the softness of her bed and the music of birds outside her window, maybe by some miracle she would open her eyes and appear there. Safe. Far away from the gazes of Sybeth and Lyr, from Archie’s tensed shoulders and the leering academics in the distance.

Lyr raised an impatient eyebrow.

Something occurred to Ru then, a cruel thought. She spun, facing Archie. Anger welled up in her. “Is this a joke? Are you making a fool of me?”

It wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility. Their friendship was lighthearted, full of mutual jabs and taunts. But neither of them had ever gone to lengths like this. Still, she couldn’t wrap her head around another explanation. What else could this be but a joke?

Archie, though, gazed back with clear wide eyes. He shook his head. He, too, had gone slightly pale.

This wasn’t a joke. Not one set up by Archie, anyway.

Ru, consumed by equal parts embarrassment and anger, turned her attention back to the riders. “Yes,” she said, working to keep her tone steady. “I wrote that paper. But if this is some kind of prank set up by my brother Simon Delara, then please go back to Mirith and tell him I’m going to kill him.”

The attempt at ironic hyperbole fell flat. The riders glanced at each other.

“Are we missing something?” asked Sybeth.

They were missing plenty. But Ru didn’t want to go into it. She didn’t want to go into the academic work she was most proud of, the work she’d put so much of her heart and mind into writing and researching. The work which, upon publication, was promptly maligned and dragged through the mud by what felt like every academic and intellectual in Navenie.

Because what sane scientific mind could possibly believe inmagic?

Ru would never live that paper down. Its subject had been the fire that lit her life, her passion project, and now… well. She had been a laughing stock for six months. And in that time, she’d done her best to fade into the background of academia. She’d turned her attention to archaeology and found a love for vases, old pottery, the lives of those who came before. She was happy, and even, sometimes, fulfilled.

And yet she hadn’t entirely given up — she was quietly determined to write a follow-up to her paper one day, a hypothesis that she couldprove. Something indisputable. She felt in her bones, in the quietest part of her soul, that magic, or something like it, had to exist. It didn’t matter that she had never seen it. It didn’t matter that no one had, that she had no reason to be so adamant. But this, the age of science and discovery… this couldn’t be all there was. There had to be more.

Yet after all that, the humiliation and the crushing failure, here stood the King’s Riders. Sent by the regent, who had sought her out by name.

“Why would you reference that particular paper?” Ru asked, ignoring Sybeth’s question. “I’ve written half a dozen since. They were far better received.”

“We were told to find the author ofthatpaper,” said Lyr, as if he couldn’t understand why Ru was being so difficult.

“I’m a joke,” she managed to say, despite the tightness in her throat as she said it. “My hypothesis was never proven. I failed.”

“Sigrun seems to have taken the paper seriously,” said Sybeth, her words tight with impatience. “Seriously enough that she requested your professional assistance. Will you come with us willingly?”

“Or do we have to carry you?” added Lyr.

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