Page 58
Leave it to Fern to conveniently ignore her own lack of beds and sleep. Maybe if she wasn’t so far up your arse, she’d have a leg to stand on.
Lunara snorted, clearing her throat to cover the sound. “Find anything in whatever you’re reading?”
“Depends on what you mean by anything.” Fern turned the book this way and that, her eyes narrowed on the pages. “If we’re talking about an exiled wood nymph having a sordid love affair with a mysterious king of unknown origins who claims to boast not one, but two massive dicks, then yeah. I found something. If you’re wondering about the shadow stuff, then no.”
“Um…” Lunara blinked, wondering whether she was still asleep. “What?”
“Yeah, that was pretty much the same thought I had. Still, it’s better than the last one. You’ll never convince me that a random pixie maid-turned-princess saved an entire made-up world by fucking five dragon shifters at once and discovering they were all her fated mates. I mean…the logistics alone. Do you know how small pixies are? And shifting into a dragon? A dragon. Absurd.”
A genuine laugh bubbled up, but it sounded rusty and unsure as it burst from Lunara, like her mouth had forgotten how to do such a thing.
Shite, maybe it had.
Of course, that thought brought a rush of tears to her eyes.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Fern hopped down from her perch and rounded the wooden table. “It was just a joke. See?” She held up her book and pointed at the title—Chasms: Acknowledging the Shadows and Healing the Divides in One’s Self. “It’s utter shit, but it was in the research pile. You were meant to laugh and then tell me what the ridiculous plan is for today. Er, tonight. Whatever. Either way, don’t go thinking too hard. Just let the nice thing happen.”
“I’m sorry.” Lunara blew a slow breath through pursed lips. “You’re right. I know you’re right. I’m…all over the stars-damned place.”
“Yeah, well, only napping for a few minutes at a time in this dusty-arsed hole will do that to some people. You need some fresh air.” She tossed the book down then raised both of her arms, cranking her torso side-to-side. “So, what are we doing?”
The Imperial Archives were about as far from dusty as it got, the library practically shining from crystalline floor to soaring ceiling. She and Fern had planted themselves somewhere in the middle of the uppermost levels, encased by the mesa that the Palace of Argoph sat upon. As a result, the pounding fall of the Realm Rivers sounded faintly from outside, lending a muffled quality to the space.
Until Alwyn and Fionerys brought them down a week ago, she never would’ve guessed such a place lay within its earthen walls of rock and diamond, or that the shelves contained within were only scratching the surface of its extent.
“Same thing we always seem to be doing these days.” Lunara sighed, rubbing soothing circles at her temples to stave off a looming headache. “Trying to save my mate and the world.”
“I think it might be wise to start a bit smaller than that. You asked if I found anything, but have you?”
Lunara glanced down at the tome she’d been reading—a grotesque thing, studded on the worn leather cover with what looked to be actual teeth. “Well, speaking of dragons, their meat is considered to be a delicacy by some.” She skimmed a finger down the page and stifled a shudder. “Apparently, it goes quite well with Thodeleborian wine.”
Fern feigned a gag. “Eugh, that’s fucking revolting. Why are you reading that?”
“Because the title is A Dark Night on the Chasm’s Edge, and I was unaware that the contents were the single evening on which”—she flipped the cover shut to find the author name—“one A.S.J. descended into culinary depravity near the Arrajnaelon Dread Chasm for ‘research purposes.’”
“Blimmin’ filth.”
“Mm-hmm.” Lunara nodded, trying to find the will to keep searching the Imperial Archives when all they’d uncovered was that Bordoroth was rife with creatures scrambling to document its every perversion—except the ones they were looking for. “It’s all feeling rather pointless, isn’t it.”
That might be an understatement.
Indeed. It felt just as pointless at the end of their last visit, too. She wanted to have a word with whichever long-dead Emperor or Empress had decreed that every written work deserved a place within the Library of Argoph’s stacks. Maybe give them a swift kick to the shins.
Lunara looked over the balustrade behind her. “I wonder if we’ve gone about this the wrong way.”
Down the center of the library, from the underside of the palace’s lowest floor all the way to the furthest reaches hundreds of feet below, was a gargantuan, open expanse. The same vines that clung to the city’s buildings on the surface had infiltrated to wrap themselves around columns and dangle over ledges. Birds in every color flew from perch to jutting perch, zigzagging between floating orbs of golden light as they sang. A fine spray drifted through the air, the droplets sparkling before they landed upon leaf and feather alike.
Not what one would expect in a library, the animals and moisture presumably a horrific nuisance when trying to preserve paper. However, just when the water might have crossed the invisible threshold between open air and laden shelf, it dissipated. Likewise, the birds never entered the stacks, and there hadn’t been a hint of mold on any page she held.
One of the first things Lunara did during their initial visit was stick her hand out to catch some of the cool haze, feeling the wetness on her skin before drawing back to examine her dry arm. Sensing the hum of old magic around her and delighted by the enchantment, by the utter surprise that was the Library of Argoph, Lunara had forgotten her heartbreak for a moment.
A single, fleeting moment.
Fern sidled up to the railing with crossed arms and followed her look. “What do you mean?”
The library below the mesa exploded out beneath the Weeping City with glorious abandon—a metropolis of books and scrolls that wound its way through the bowels of the Great Plateau in the form of soaring offshoots and glittering caverns. In fact, it was possibly larger than the city above it when all was said and done.
Lunara sighed, tamping down the melancholy. “We assumed this part of the archives was the oldest, and that the rest had been dug out as needed. Even if that’s true, it doesn’t mean the books have been sorted that way. What if the answers we’re looking for are down there, buried in some random alcove reserved for all things dark and dangerous?”
