Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 55602 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 278(@200wpm)___ 222(@250wpm)___ 185(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 55602 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 278(@200wpm)___ 222(@250wpm)___ 185(@300wpm)
“Ask what?”
“About the only glimmer of light left here,” he whispers, as if should he speak any louder, even that light might extinguish. A chill licks up my spine. Yet his eyes hold mine, pleading me to find that light. To persevere here.
“I’ll keep coming, as much as I can. Until I have a way . . .”
To free you.
I rub his chest where he holds my hand to him, the wooden armband I gave him pressing against my wrist. “It’s too dangerous,” I croak. “If he knew how much you mean . . .”
His gaze sharpens on me, hand holding mine closer against him. Anguish floods his face.
I swallow tightly. “The duke wins this move if you give your weakness away.”
He closes his eyes and breathes deeply, in and out, and again. He drops my hand.
“You should remove yourself from this particular weakness entirely,” I murmur, “I can’t have anything happen to you because of me.”
Once the duke has been dealt with, when Nicostratus is a prince without troubles and my troubles are solely related to medicine . . . Perhaps then there could be a chance for us.
I breathe deeply on the dream. I’ll do everything to work towards it.
But I can’t promise him more until it’s reached.
“You’re ending things between us?”
I say nothing, but my silence is its own answer. His gaze holds mine, and for a moment, I think he might spill a tear.
“I just want to be your hope,” he whispers.
I briefly shut my eyes. “You coming here before anything else,” I murmur. “It’s already made me lighter.”
His breath hitches. He shakes his head over and over.
I tug the golden feather from my belt and hold it out to him, but he closes his hand around mine and pushes it back towards me.
“Nicostratus . . .”
“I’ll keep my distance. But . . . keep this.”
When he’s gone, I take water from the canal and pour it gently over the planting. It forms a smooth layer of pale mud. Murky. A stagnant pool in the darkness.
I glance through the mist toward the crumbling ruins.
What kind of light survives a place like this?
I find Casimiria meditating alone in the courtyard.
As if sensing me, she opens her eyes. “One thing to know about me.” She rises in a single, graceful motion and dusts off her robe. “I’m quite meddlesome. I listened in on you and Nicostratus.”
I blink at her. Then, unexpectedly, a short laugh escapes. “You are certainly his mother.”
She lifts her chin with quiet pride and a dry, unapologetic smile, and beckons me forward.
We descend into the ruins, deeper than I’ve gone before. A small orb of light flickers in her palm, casting long shadows that stretch along moss-eaten stone.
“Would you have shown me this,” I ask, “if Nicostratus hadn’t said something?”
“I’m still not sure I should.”
I glance at her sharply.
She stops at a wall overgrown with ivy and parts the veil with one hand to reveal a weathered door. “He called it light. Others call it hope.” Her voice turns cool. “I call it stagnation.”
The hinges creak as the door swings open; behind it, stacks of tomes on sagging shelves, every surface bulging with a forgotten time. A library, swallowed by dust and silence.
I step inside, heart lifting as I run my fingers along the spines. “This is history.”
Casimiria’s voice is flat. “History is written by victors. This is folklore.”
I flip through a book at random. Ancient scriptions, ones I’ve never seen before. “No,” I say, shaking my head. “This is a vault of wisdom.”
Her gaze sharpens. “It’s the past, Cael. Not the now. Not the future.”
She steps closer, her expression unreadable. “Be careful not to live for something that can’t be reclaimed.”
Casimiria isn’t wrong.
I start spending more time in the hidden library than I do in the garden—the very place that would help the most. But . . . how can I not?
I’ve found more than ancient scriptions. I’ve found writings from my forefathers. My great-great-grandfather, my great-grandfather. Their notes, their trials, their hopes. I feel part of a legacy written into these walls, and I want . . . I want to add to it, to keep it alive. I want healing methods to grow. I want to take what they’ve learned and push it further.
But how can that be done in this cold, forgotten tomb?
I drag myself back to the muddy patch of earth. I’d hoped for weeds at least, something stubborn and wild. But the patch remains bare. A sickly looking bed stares back at me like a dried-up puddle, mocking.
A bet starts: when will I give up? When will I start living like the rest of them, playing games to predict who will die next, scratching patterns on their skin to ward off fate, singing songs under the stars in memory of those long gone?