“Welcome to the Great Scriptorium of Alder,” I say. “Or what’s left of it.”
The remnants of a once grand structure lay in the clearing before us. Fire has reduced the building’s outer walls to charred rubble, leaving only a few pillars and arches standing. The roof has collapsed entirely, now a warped mass of wooden beams and ash. Through the twisted trees, I can just see the towers of the keep, including the balcony connected to our chamber.
Despite the destruction, I can still make out the remains of intricate carvings on the surviving pillars. Fragments of once-beautiful stained-glass windows litter the ground. The treasures held here—the books and pages—have long turned to ash.
Carefully, Rosalina steps toward the wreckage. She looks out of place, too much beauty for such devastation.
I don’t know why my mother never ordered the removal of these ruins. Maybe she wants it to remain as a reminder to me.
A massive alder tree stands in the middle of the rubble, its trunk a stout pillar that stretches up to the blue sky. The tree’s canopy is ablaze with fiery hues, the leaves transformed into a tapestry of golds, oranges, and reds that shimmer in the sunlight.
I hold Rosalina’s hand and walk into the burned remains. I can practically see it take shape around me: the old entranceway so familiar, the smell of books and ink a sanctuary in itself.
My boots crack over the burnt rubble. “I used to spend every moment here. If only you could have seen it, Rosie. The ceiling stretched so tall, it seemed to blend in with the sky. The bookstacks moved, and you only had to change your thoughts to find the proper shelves in front of you. This place was home to writers and visionaries, philosophers and strategists.”
Rosalina touches what may once have been the leather cover of a tome. Her fingers come away black. “There was more knowledge here than at Castletree?”
“Yes.” I spin, images coming to life: gold-plated shelves, political debates, the grinding gears of a printing press. “But it held more than history or spells. Much of our culture was recorded here, and of civilizations long past. Tales of the world Above, a place so old only the Queen knew of it.”
Rosalina blinks up at the sky. Her hand stretches upward. “The world Above…”
My eyes rest on the huge alder tree. “And the Scriptorium was home to many rare grimoires.”
“What’s a grimoire?”
“A book of spells. But not the usual kind that we write on parchment and share with one another. The spells recorded in a grimoire are… more advanced.”
She grabs my arm. “The spell you were looking for. Could it be in one of those?”
“Possibly,” I say. “But if it did, it’s more than likely nothing but ash now.”
“Farron, how did the library burn down?”
My chest clenches, and I can’t meet her gaze. Everyone in Autumn knows this story. The other princes know. But to tell Rosalina…
But she takes my chin in her hand and guides me to look back at her. The softest smile caresses her face.
“It’s my fault,” I say. “I let the library burn to the ground.”
Rosalina opens her mouth to respond, but I cut her off before she can say anything. “I told you my mother was the High Princess before me. She’d grown tired of the role and decided to pass the title on. She asked if I was ready. I said yes, not because I wanted it or because I thought I would be a good leader, but because I didn’t want to disappoint her.”
I shake my head and move deeper into the rubble. “I hated the responsibility, the pressure. Everyone always needed me to fix something. How could I fix the realm when I couldn’t even tell my mother the truth?” I throw my head back, staring into the sun until my eyes burn.
Rosalina stays silent but hovers close.
“Things only got worse during the War of Thorns. I was High Prince in a time of war.” I grab Rosalina’s hand and squeeze. “It is hard to describe the horrors that were unleashed by the Below. Of the choices that had to be made.”
“I can’t imagine,” she whispers. “What did you do?”
I laugh joylessly. “What did I do? I hid. Every day, I held up in the scriptorium and let my mother make the hard decisions. The ones that cost some lives to save others. But she had passed her magic onto me, and without Autumn’s Blessing, the realm became harder and harder to hold.”
Rosalina’s face scrunches up. “I understand what it’s like to be afraid. To be unable to act even though your whole being is screaming at you to do something, anything. I’m… still working on it.”
“Rosalina,” I say softly and stroke the smooth skin where her scar used to be, “you willingly became a prisoner to the fae to save your father. You are no coward.”
Something twists in her expression, but she shakes her head and looks back at me. “The library…”
“There was an assault on Coppershire by an army of goblins and other creatures created in the Below. They weren’t looking for terms of surrender; it was a pillage, plain and simple.” I can see and hear it all in my mind’s eye: the screams, the fire, the dark shapes scrambling through the night.
“My mother rallied the forces, but it wasn’t enough. She needed the magic of Autumn’s Blessing.” The words tear up my throat. “She needed me.”
“Where were you, Farron?” Rosalina whispers.
“I was here!” All energy drains from me, and I sink into the charcoal. “When I saw the assault, I ran. My mother needed me on the front lines to protect the people, but I fled to the one place I always thought was safe. But the thing about being High Prince is you’ve always got the magic with you. And those creatures can smell it like a stink. They knew I was hiding.” Shards of ashen wood crush beneath my fingers. “So they tried to smoke me out.”
“Oh,” Rosalina whispers. She drifts to her knees to sit beside me. “They set fire to the library.”
“Every text with irreplaceable knowledge, every map of lands now lost, every piece of precious artwork… Gone.”
“But you survived. And you are most important of all.” She grabs my shoulders, then looks around. “How did you endure the fire?”
I stand on shaky legs and walk over to the huge alder tree. Leaves whisper in the wind, carrying a magic I know only I can feel. The tree is untouched by any damage, its roots anchoring deep in the ground, stretching out amongst the ruins.
There is an image carved into the trunk, the outline of the ram’s head: a symbol of the royal family. I place my palm over it, and golden light floods through the etching.
The trunk shimmers, fading away to reveal a luminescent doorway.
Rosalina gasps and I grab her hand, pulling her with me inside the tree. We step into a dimly lit room, cramped with old shelves and even older books.
“A secret library?” Rosalina asks.
“The Queen planted the alder tree when she first created Autumn. It’s enchanted so that only the royal family can enter. It’s protected by a very ancient warding spell, so the fire didn’t affect it. I stayed in here for hours, but I could hear the fire blazing, the walls collapsing around me. The goblins, laughing.”
Rosalina stares at a space between the stacks. Could she know that’s where I’d curled into a ball, hands pressed to my ears, listening to my realm’s destruction but doing nothing to stop it? The memories keep flooding back, unwanted and unbidden. I try to push them away, but they propel at me, one after the other. Each feels like a weight pressing down on my chest, suffocating me. Coward, coward, coward.
My heart races faster, and I want nothing more than to get out of this cramped space, but my legs have forgotten how to work. I shuffle backward, smacking into a bookshelf. My eyes are wide but unseeing, and I think my lungs may burst from my chest—