Page 32 of A Court of Bones & Sorrow

The three of us started searching the cave wall for any sign of the glyph, but because of the constant moisture, algae grew in patches on the rocky surface, making it challenging to see what was beneath. I started running my fingers across the surface instead of relying only on my eyes. Even when glyphs were completely tapped out of magic, something about them still called to the magic in our blood.

Minutes ticked by, and I started to lose hope when I felt it, the slight tingle across my fingertips when they went over a rough patch of rock. I slid my dagger out of my thigh holster and scraped the algae aside, a triangle with three horizontal lines through it greeting me.

“Found it!” I called out.

Vail and Alaric moved towards me, but I didn’t wait. I dragged the blade across the back of my hand and dipped myfingers into the blood that welled. Magic pulsed as I pressed my bloody fingertips against the glyph, a static charge filling the air. I barely felt it across my skin, but two pained grunts sounded from behind me.

“What the fuck was that?” Alaric cursed.

“I don’t know,” I said, frowning at the glyph. “It didn’t hurt me though. I felt it brush across my skin, but that’s it.”

Before we could debate it more, the rocky surface shimmered and vanished. As soon as I stepped across the threshold, Fae lanterns blazed to life, painting the large room in a warm, soft glow. It wasn’t nearly as big as the space I’d explored with Draven earlier, but it was more than the simple tunnel I’d been worried we’d find. The walls were lined with shelves, most empty . . . but not all.

I moved to a section that had several shelves full of books and carefully pulled one from the shelf. Just like in the previous room, no dust covered the leather-bound book. Whatever spell the Fae had used to keep this room clean was still working, along with the lanterns.

Alaric appeared at my side, pulling a different book from the shelf while Vail moved around somewhere behind me, but I couldn’t pull my eyes from the page, not believing what I was seeing.

“This wasn’t written by the Fae,” I whispered.

“What?” Alaric’s fingers froze mid-page flip.

I swallowed. “This is my mother’s handwriting.”

Chapter Eleven

Samara

“Your mother?”Alaric leaned closer to look at the book I held open with trembling hands. “What language is that?”

“Ours.” Heat built behind my eyes, and I blinked several times to clear away the gathering tears. “My mother liked to use it for personal things she didn’t want anyone else reading. She taught it to me.”

Alaric glanced between my book and his. “The handwriting in this one is different. Look.” He held the book out to me, and I compared the writing to my mother’s. He was right. It was written in the same language, I recognized that, but the handwriting was completely different, and the pages looked older.

I carefully set my mother’s book back onto the shelf and took the book from Alaric, flipping to the front. “Rosalyn Harker,” I read the name out loud. “This is the journal of my ancestor. Rosalyn and her daughter were part of the original ritual that changed us from human to Moroi.”

The Velesians and Furies had been born from the same ritual. We still didn’t understand exactly how they’d done it or why there were three distinct branches of magic. All we knewwas that the ritual had been connected to the moon, and that was why we considered ourselves Moon Blessed. Aside from that, we’d only been able to find part of the wording for the ritual.

“We will give our lives for the blood.”

“We will yield our fates in the wild.”

“We will lose our souls to the fury.”

I hadn’t realized Rosalyn had clawed back enough of her humanity to be able to write. Most of that first generation had been completely lost to their bloodlust. They had basically been Strigoi.

The small amount of writings we’d found from that time period suggested the House bloodlines had been the first to come back to themselves, but I didn’t think it’d been to this extent. There were at least three dozen journals here. Did they belong to all the Harkers who had come before me? Why hadn’t my mother ever told me about this place?

Metal groaned, and I winced when a particularly high-pitched sound echoed across the chamber.

“Sorry,” Vail grunted from where he stood before a dark hallway. “This must be the tunnel that connects this room to the one you found earlier.” He disappeared into the darkness, and I set the journal down on the shelf before wandering over to inspect the tunnel myself.

I had to step back when Vail appeared again, almost bumping into me. “It’s completely caved in.” He shook his head. “Unclear if it was an intentional cave-in or if it just happened on its own, but there’s no getting through it now.”

“Do you think it’s worth clearing out?” I looked around him into the inky darkness. “It would give us an escape tunnel if we ever needed it, but it also means someone would have a way to sneak into House Harker.”

“I’ll think about it.” Vail’s stormy grey eyes once again fell to my neck, and I suddenly became aware of just how close Iwas standing to him. I took a small step back, and the silver bled through his eyes until they were like bright moons.

“You good?” I asked warily. Usually, the rangers were pretty good about wielding their bloodlust as a tool. It was rare for any of them to turn Strigoi, but that didn’t mean they didn’t occasionally lose control for small amounts of time, like Vail had in the temple. My fingers slid down to rest on the handle of the dagger at my thigh.

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