The Wretched of Muirwood (Legends of Muirwood #1)

“Where did you find that?” Lia asked, startling him.

He nearly dropped the tome, but steadied himself, his eyes wide with wonder. “I did not hear you come down. This is…this is beyond belief. This place you found. It is singular. I have heard…but I did not know there was one like this at Muirwood.”

“Where did you find that tome?” she demanded with a surge of jealousy, for she had searched the ruins for years and found no such treasures.

“Over there,” he said, pointing to the far wall. Except it wasn’t a wall, it was open now. The door was made of stone. Lia approached eagerly and discovered that it opened up to a deeper cave. There were stone tables, and on the tables, tome after tome with no dust. Scriving tools of all shapes and sizes, tubs of wax, a bone stylus, parchment maps in long leathery rolls, and coins from many realms crowded around and beneath the tables. Just inside the door was an oil cruse, a barrel full of milled grain, and a basket of apples, which was absurd since it was not the right season for ripe apples.

“This was here all along?” Lia asked, staring in wonder.

“Yes, but you never would have found it,” he replied, carefully setting down the tome he was reading on the stone table. His face was expressive, his eyes alight. “Only a maston can open that door. It requires more than just affinity with the Medium. You need to know the right words to say.”

“Can you teach me?”

He shook his head. “No. That is forbidden. This is the secret place, hidden from the eyes of the world. A Wayfarer lives here, or stops here when he is in this country. Someone who has been writing the history of the land. The record on the table has a final entry – it seems to have last been written a dozen or so years ago. I do not think anyone has been here in at least that long. But there are other records, things I have never seen before. Earlier versions of the Tomes of Soliven, for example.” He shook his head. “There are passages missing from the version I studied when I was a learner.”

She looked him in the eye and watched for a reaction. “Is your name Garen Demont?”

His enthusiasm guttered out as if a bucket of water doused a candle. Wariness replaced it. “Why do you ask that?”

Whether or not he was the man, she could see that he knew the name. “Because the sheriff’s men are looking for anyone rallying to Garen Demont. And you would not tell me your name, so I was suspicious.”

He stared at her, squinting slightly.

She wanted to throw something at him out of pure frustration. “If I was going to betray you, I could have last night when the sheriff came sneaking into the kitchen with his black amulet and tried to force me tell him our secret. Can you not trust me still? Who are you?”

“Where is the sheriff now?”

“The Aldermaston sent him away. His men left in the night.”

“And he wore an amulet? Like the kind I warned you of?”

Lia nodded, then folded her arms and stared at him hard. She was not going to tell him yet that she had stolen it from the sheriff during their scuffle. Not yet anyway, especially if he was determined to keep secrets. “Please tell me.”

“This is madness,” he muttered to himself. “I do not know why I am even considering it.” He rounded on her. “For your own good, you should not know. It can only harm you and this abbey. You know too much already.” He ran his hand through his hair, clenching his jaw. The scab on his temple was black.

Lia dropped her shoulders. “I told you that I keep secrets. I will keep yours. I promise.”

He sighed, deep and heavy, his eyes closing. “Even if they kill you for it? You are nearly as old as my sister. I could not even trust her with what I was doing, and yet you ask it of me?”

“I am not your sister. I am only a wretched. Yet maybe…just maybe I can help you.” She squeezed her hands in frustration. Why wouldn’t he believe her? “The Aldermaston will not let them kill me. He is not that vicious.”

“I do not even know where I am going. So how can you help me get there?”

“I may know where you are going. If what I have heard is true, Garen Demont is mustering at Winterrowd.”

His eyes blazed, his expression frantic. “This you learned from the sheriff’s men? They know the gathering place?”

“How else would I have heard it? Do you know where Winterrowd is? If you are not Garen Demont, then you are loyal to him?”

He clenched his teeth even tighter, fighting to master himself and his frustration. Then he sighed heavily. A haggard look crossed his face. She knew she had won. “I am not Demont. Demont was the Earl of Liester. My father, the Earl of Forshee. The earldoms border each other. In a few months, I reach my majority where I may be invested with the earldom. Right now, my uncle holds it for me.” He sighed again, twitching with dread. “My name is Colvin Price. The king is my cousin.”