Page 137 of A Crown of Tears and Treason
I took a step back, mind whirling with possibilities.
What if…What if only secondhand accounts made it out of whatever swamp the Quoroliths had bloodied with sacrifices? Dara had guessed as much.
Whatever witnesses or historians survived delving into their territory would have written on something portable.Scrolls.
But which ones?
So many of them, all in similar shades of beige that didn’t help determine their age.
Think, Evie. Fucking think.
I hadn’t come here to just shrug and go back up empty-handed. I turned around, eyes hectic. No flecks of blood, no metallic stench, but…some of them, stuffed on the last shelf, had small blueish splotches on their edges, barely discernible in the sphere’s flickering light.
Swamp.
Dampness.
Mold.
Bluemold.
I allowed myself one small smile, hoping I wasn’t horrifyingly wrong. I doubted I could make the trip a second time if someone discovered these scrolls were missing.
Careful not to crumple the fragile parchment that looked one good breath away from disintegrating, I slid scroll after scroll from the stone niches and inserted them gently into the satchel, which quickly filled up.
By the eighth scroll, its leathery edges were already straining. But I could stuff one more inside, I knew it.
I bent down lower to get another scroll, lying close to the floor. The armor’s collar slipped from my nose as I inhaled.
A puff of foul dust went straight down my throat. I couldn’t stop my cough this time. I covered my mouth with my elbow, balancing the sphere and the scroll at the same time as a cloud of grime rose around me.
Eyes watering, I packed the last scroll and rose. I needed to get out of here.
I looked up.
My heart dropped.
The cloud of dust had risen all the way up toward the vines–which had swelled as if they’d fed on my fear.
Spikes, sharp and long, burst from their undersides as they lowered straight toward me.
There were no more gaps as the horrific tendrils continued to inflate my way.
A blaring noise vibrated through the walls, disturbing the dust further.
The library had sensed the intruder–and wanted to impale me for my recklessness.
The vines advanced so fast, I had to hunch my shoulders and kneel to avoid the spikes. But they’d reach me eventually. I had maybe a minute of life left.
No.
I wasn’t dying like this.
On instinct, the little pocket of power inside me burst open. I raised my hand as far as I dared, my blue tendrils swirling around it.
Protect me against the thorns. Help me burn the vines. Save me, I chanted in my mind.
My power listened.
