“That sounds a little sacrilegious,” he warned. He was old enough to more vividly recall the burnings and executions ten years ago. What had it been like to grow up in the shadow of the king who had ordered so much destruction? To have lived here when royal families were slaughtered, when seers and magic-wielders were burned alive, and the world fell into darkness and sorrow?
But she went on, needing to dump the contents of her mind in case all the pieces somehow assembled by speaking them aloud. “There’s an idea that before the Goddess arrived, there was life—an ancient civilization, but somehow, they disappeared. Perhaps through that Wyrdgate thing. Ruins exist—ruins too old to be of Fae making.” How this connected to the Champion murders was beyond her. She was definitely grasping at straws.
He set his feet down and put the book on the table. “Can I be honest with you?” Chaol leaned closer, and Celaena leaned to meet him as he whispered: “You sound like a raving lunatic.”
Celaena made a disgusted noise and sat back, seething. “Sorry for having some interest in the history of our world!”
“As you said, these sound like radical and outlandish theories.” He started reading once more, and said without looking at her, “Again: why the frustration?”
She rubbed her eyes. “Because,” she said, almost whining. “Because I just want a straightforward answer to what the Wyrdmarks are, and why they’re in the garden here, of all places.” Magic had been wiped away on the king’s orders; so why had something like the Wyrdmarks been allowed to remain? To have them show up at the murder scene meant something.
“You should find another way to occupy your time,” he said, returning to his book. Usually, guards watched her in the library for hours on end, day after day. What was he doing here? She smiled—her heart skipping a beat—and then looked at the books on the table.
She ran again through the information she’d gathered. There was also the idea of the Wyrdgates, which appeared numerous times alongside the mention of Wyrdmarks, but she’d never heard of them. When she’d first stumbled across the notion of Wyrdgates, days ago, it had seemed interesting, and so she’d researched, digging through piles of old parchment, only to find more puzzling theories.
The gates were both real and invisible things. Humans could not see them, but they could be summoned and accessed using the Wyrdmarks. They opened into other realms, some of them good, some of them bad. Things could come through from the other side and slither into Erilea. It was due to this that many of the strange and fell creatures of Erilea existed.
Celaena pulled another book toward her and grinned. It was as if someone had read her mind. It was a large black volume entitled The Walking Dead in tarnished silver letters. Thankfully, the captain didn’t see the title before she opened it. But . . .
She didn’t remember selecting this from the shelves. It reeked, almost like soil, and Celaena’s nose crinkled as she turned the pages. She scanned for any sign of the Wyrdmarks, or any mention of a Wyrdgate, but she soon found something far more interesting.
An illustration of a twisted, half-decayed face grinned at her, flesh falling from its bones. The air chilled, and Celaena rubbed her arms. Where had she found this? How had this escaped the burnings? How had any of these books escaped the purging fires ten years ago?
She shivered again, almost twitching. The hollow, mad eyes of the monster were full of malice. It seemed to look at her. She closed the book and pushed it to the end of the table. If the king knew this kind of book still existed in his library, he’d have it all destroyed. Unlike the Great Library of Orynth, here there were no Master Scholars to protect the invaluable books. Chaol kept reading. Something groaned, and Celaena’s head swung toward the back of the library. It was a guttural noise, an animalistic noise—
“Did you hear anything?” she asked.
“When do you plan on leaving?” was his only reply.
“When I grow tired of reading.” She pulled the black book back to her, leafed past the terrifying portrait of the dead thing, and drew the candle closer to read the descriptions of various monsters.
There was a scraping noise somewhere beneath her feet—close, as if someone were running a fingernail along the ceiling below. Celaena slammed the book shut and stepped away from the table. The hair on her arms rose, and she almost stumbled into the nearest table as she waited for something—a hand; a wing; a gaping, fanged mouth—to appear and grab her.
“Do you feel that?” she asked Chaol, who slowly, maliciously grinned. He held out his dagger and dragged it on the marble floor, creating the exact sound and feeling.
“Damned idiot,” she snarled. She grabbed two heavy books from the table and stalked from the library, making sure to leave The Walking Dead far behind.
Chapter 28