Lorcan cast one last glance behind him, and then he pushed out into the night. She must follow him.
“I’ll be back in a moment, Father.” Reyna pushed up from the table, and those around her fell silent. She wished they would carry on with their conversations, paying her no mind. She had grown accustomed to being invisible these past years. With Prince Thane here at court and the question of the betrothal hanging in the air, the entire kingdom had grown far too interested in her every move.
Father dragged his gaze away from the feast and frowned up at her. “Do not tell me you are begging off from your duties already. I asked you for this one night, Reyna.”
“I will return,” she said with a tight smile. “I need some fresh air. It is stifling in here.”
“Very well.” Shaking his head, he turned back toward Lord Morcant, who sat on her father’s other side. He was one of the more esteemed lords of the realm, their distant cousin who oversaw the trade route up north.
Reyna hurried toward the door. It had taken far too long to extract herself from the feast, and she hoped she would catch sight of Lorcan before he vanished into the night. He was up to something. She was certain of it. A loyal warrior he might be, but there was something else lurking beneath the surface. Reyna was rarely wrong in her instincts. So, she followed the warrior into the night.
5
Eislyn
Eislyn often felt as though she and her sister, Reyna, were opposites. Reyna adored the wilderness. She thrived in the thorns and the snow. Eislyn hated the outside world. She would rather curl up beside a blazing fire with a book in one hand and a goblet of wine in the other, even if she was immune to the cold.
And yet, Eislyn found herself agreeing with her sister for once. The gods be damned. She had no desire to play power games while her skirts swished against the gleaming, golden floors of the Air Court. She would not marry Thane, no matter how desperately her father begged her.
Thane was a cruel male, and she had far better things to attend to than transforming into his polite, quiet little bride who followed his every command. He was known to spend his nights in wicked revelry, and he’d slaughtered hundreds of ice fae in the Battle for the Shard.
“‘Allo, Eislyn,” her old, dear friend, Albin, said as she whispered into the library and shut the heavy door quietly behind her. He sat at the table in the very center of the carpeted floor, a pair of spectacles perched on his nose, his long hair white at the ends. Albin was an old fae, even older than her father, from a time before war had ripped the world to shreds. A time when magic filled the ruined lands. As it disappeared, so did he. He had aged a great deal, just as the humans did in the kingdoms beyond the Mag Mell Sea.
“Glad to see you, dear Albin.” Eislyn crossed the room and sank into the high-backed wooden chair across from his. A familiar musty scent filled her nose. The stacks loomed high along the curving tower walls, reaching up toward the glass ceiling above. Some of the tomes here were ancient. Far more ancient than even Albin. They spoke of a time she wished she could have seen. Peace, tranquility, happiness. A world without Ruin.
“I cannot say I am surprised you have come here this night.” He glanced up, slightly smiling. His pale blue eyes twinkled. “Avoiding that prince then, are you?”
“I have no wish to be wed to a prince who would rather feast on venison pie than seek to heal these lands,” she said sharply.
“All princes and princesses must eat, my dear,” he replied. “Even the most honorable of them.”
As if in response, her own stomach growled.
“Well,” she said. “If you are so interested in meats, then why are you here in the library rather than at the feast?”
He sighed and pressed his withered hands against the curling pages of the book spread out before him. “I suspect our reasons for being here are quite similar. Your sister is ill. We must find a cure immediately.”
Hope flickered in Eislyn’s troubled heart. “I am glad I am not the only one who sees the importance of finding a cure. Even Reyna has attended the feast.”
“Your sister has a good heart. You know that better than most,” Albin replied, giving her a steady look. “She believes the alliance with the Air Court will save these lands, which will in turn save our people. And there may be truth in that.”
Eislyn sighed and glanced at the towering stacks. Somewhere in the pages of an ancient manuscript, she hoped to find the answer to her one and only question. Could the Ruin be destroyed? It had not come from nothing. She had been searching her entire life for a cure, but a new fire had been lit beneath her feet these past weeks. Her sister’s life hung in the balance.
And nowhere in these many books had she ever found the answer.
Still, she would keep looking. It was the only thing she could do.
“If she believes in the alliance, then why doesn’t Reyna marry the prince herself?” Eislyn asked.
“Because she cannot, my dear,” Albin said. “She removed herself from the line of succession. Even if everyone around her considers her a princess, she isn’t one anymore. The Air Court will not accept anything but a true royal blessed by our god.”
“Father would return the title to her if she asked,” Eislyn said. “You know he would. He wishes for it every twin moon.”
“Aye.” Albin nodded. “But she must ask.”
With a frustrated sigh, Eislyn pushed up from the table and drifted toward the stacks that stretched along the curved walls. Over the years, this library had become her home far more than her chambers ever had. Set at the top of the tallest tower, the library’s glass ceilings provided a view of the constellations on nights when the sky wasn’t full of snow-thick clouds. The shelves were a jumble of multi-colored spines, books collected from all across the continent. At the very top of each stack, only accessible by a tall wooden ladder, curling scrolls were bunched together.
She wandered to the far left where they kept their many tomes of history, so many that they flowed from the shelves to form towering stacks on the floor. She gazed at the titles even though she knew every one. She had read all of these books. More than once. Eislyn did not quite know what she was looking for. Some kind of sign, a signal that would aim her in the right direction to find a cure.
The library door clicked open. Surprised, she whirled toward the sound and almost gasped out loud at the sight of Prince Thane’s muscular form filling up the doorway. He wore a new set of gold-dyed leather armor, clean and polished rather than the dirt-stained set he’d worn when arriving in Falias. With his sleek hair topped with that golden crown, he looked very much the part of a powerful prince. She hated him for it, even as she stared in amazement at the elaborate hawthorn tree tattoo etched onto his forehead.
The prince gazed around the room until his eyes landed on Eislyn. She swallowed hard and grabbed a random book off the nearest shelf, just so she had something to hold tight to her chest.
“Hello, Princess Eislyn.” He tipped his head forward in a slight bow, even if he did not need to do so. “I need to speak with you.”
“If you have come here to change my mind, then you will be sorely disappointed. You should return to the feast. The celebration is for you, after all.”