Page 42 of The Devil In Blue
“Yes. But not for long. There is always a balance. The realms see to that.” He took a few breaths before continuing. “Some of us believeshewas his balance. Before she appeared, Rune was on the brink of something very dark. Something that could have destroyed a lot of this world. And others, if he had gone unchecked.” He glanced over his shoulder at me. “If that delicate little bird hadn’t shown up, the realms might have been at war by now. A much more brutal one than the one you’ve heard of.”
“He must be very lonely,” I said under my breath, knowing loneliness all too well.
Even with all the sisters, Father Eli, and Lucien, I felt more alone than I would have buried in a coffin six feet under. At least in a grave, there were no whispers in my ear. No punishments. No expectations.
Petris stopped outside a pair of mahogany doors and looked at me.
“You have no idea,” he spoke softly.
Petris was being polite referring to the king’s lover as “she,” but I knew that he didn’t believe himself when he said it. He thought I was that woman, too. But it was too heavy a weight to bear.
I dropped my eyes in shame and tucked my hair behind my ear until I heard Petris pushing one of the doors open.
“Ah,” he said. “Unlocked. I thought it might be.”
“What do you mean?”
“These doors locked themselves the day she disappeared.”
I didn’t like that…
The more signs appeared that I could have anything to do with Rune’s lost love—the woman who betrayed him—the more I was squirming in my skin.
But I swallowed my unease, eager to know what was behind that door.
The old hinges whined like the knees of an old woman standing from her seat. I peered into the room and saw a burst of moonlight from across the chamber. Leaves and dried flower petals blew toward us from inside and carried the scent of leather, paper, and wood.
“The king may not like the idea of you coming in here,” he said, lowering his voice to a whisper. “But it hasn’t seen visitors for many years.”
Petris led me inside and I found myself standing in a giant, circular room with shining glass floors. In the middle was a massive tree with branches that fanned out like an umbrella over the whole room. I could tell that it used to be lush with leaves and flowers, but the branches were bare and brown now, the poor thing forgotten.
Along the walls were shelves taller than four of me and they were filled with books in pristine leather binding. Petris let go of my hand and walked across the room from me while I stared at the collection of books in utter amazement. Before long, I heard a match strike and glanced toward Petris where he was lighting something on the wall. I expected candles but instead, veins of white light suddenly burst through the wall like quiet lightening and climbed into the ceiling, creating a dome over us that lit up the entire chamber.
“Is that magic?” I asked.
Petris returned to me and slid his hands neatly behind his back. “Something of the sort. This room is alive, you see. The whole palace is, in a way. It just needed to be woken up.”
There was a smile on my lips and it wasn’t leaving. I was enthralled by the ceiling. The tree. The floors that looked like frosted glass. Looking at the now illuminated shelves, I saw so many titles. My mind was overwhelmed with a need to look at every one of them. I skipped toward the nearest one and ran my fingers across the leather spine, reading the gold lettering.
“Sveric Memoriatum,” I said, unsure what language it was but so eager to know. “The Dragon and the Sky. A Marriage to Winter.How many are here?”
“Thousands. I’ve never counted. Kings have been collecting them for centuries.”
“He reads, then?” I asked, excited to find something about him that I could relate to.”
“Of course, he did,” Petris said gently like he didn’t want to upset me by mentioning her again. “But she did even more.”
My smile drooped and I bit into my lip, trying not to feel that weight return.
“Don’t,” Petris said, stepping toward me. “I prefer your smile over your frown.”
I veiled my emotions as I always did, with straight shoulders and my hands neatly locked in front of me.
“You’re the first to have seen it in a very long time,” I said.
“That’s a pity. It’s a beautiful smile.”
My cheeks flamed and I had to press my lips together to keep from smiling again. A bout of silence made my blood rush and I had to wonder why Petris was such wonderful company. I didn’t even know his face, but he’d been so good to me. If it wasn’t for him, I might have sunk back into that cold, silent darkness I knew so well and just drifted away like ashes on the wind. Especially with the way the king had prodded me so aggressively about a past that wasn’t mine.
