The prince was a memory. Her hand clasped the watch. He was a remnant of another period of her life, and she had to learn to leave him there. Though, such a thing seemed more impossible by the day.
With a shake of her head, Vhalla dislodged the memories, returning to her work. The days in the bookshop had done more than remind her how much she loved the smell of parchment or the feeling of bound leather. They had given her time. Time begot thought. And thinking for herself was something she hadn’t had time for in far too long.
It was after her first dream that she started her journal, the record of her dreams of Aldrik. Originally, it had been out of a sense of obligation because she had promised to tell him when she dreamt of him. With time, she began writing all the dreams she’d ever had of him and expanded from there. She filled pages upon pages that culminated to the sum record of the memories he told her, the ones she’d witnessed when she slept, and the total of her knowledge on the history of the Empire.
With it all, she began to notice connections.
Her gray quill circled new words as she flipped through the pages, marred passages with arrows and circles and lines and more notes. Vhalla was connecting dots that she wasn’t sure she hadn’t invented. But a picture was taking shape, too easily to be chance.
Prince Aldrik Ci’Dan Solaris—born to Fiera Ci’Dan and the Emperor Tiberus Solaris, a prince of two worlds, the man known as the Fire Lord to his enemies and an aloof, off-putting royal to his allies—had much to hide.
Vhalla knew he’d tried to kill himself before he became a man. She knew he’d killed for the first time when he was fourteen—he’d told her that much. She knew the man she hated most in the world—the Head of Senate, Egmun—had been behind the first blood on the prince’s hands. Her quill rested on a date.
Standing, Vhalla walked over to the small section where they kept books on history. It was mostly Western, but there was a single general story she’d been relying on. Back at the desk, Vhalla flipped open the book and thumbed through the pages. The War of the Crystal Caverns, her fingers paused by the year the war started.
Three-hundred thirty-seven.
It was significant. It couldn’t possibly be chance. Aldrik’s hate for crystals, for Egmun, the guilt he shouldered . . . But, how?
“Excuse me?” a patron called, drawing Vhalla’s attention back to her duties.
Her days progressed much the same, split between bookkeeping, research, and language study with Gianna at night. Two more weeks slipped through her fingers before Vhalla finally cracked the spine of The Knights’ Code, and even then it was rough reading.
“Tokshi.” Gianna rested her hands on the desk.
Vhalla straightened to attention. Her back hurt from being hunched over and her fingers ached from the furious notes she was taking.
“Dinner is ready. Close up shop.” Gianna’s tone was enough to indicate that there was more to say without her needing to hover as Vhalla pulled the shutters. “Why do you read so furiously?”
“I like reading.” Vhalla smiled. It wasn’t entirely a lie.
“You do,” Gianna agreed. “But you do not like this book.” She tapped The Knights’ Code and put it back on its shelf.
Vhalla glared at the tome, as though the bound parchment had somehow betrayed her and told Gianna of Vhalla’s real intent in reading it.
“Why do you read something you don’t enjoy? Why this?”
“Do you know about the Knights of Jadar?” Vhalla asked.
Gianna visibly tensed. “Why would you ask that?”
The woman’s eyes darted to the open door, and Vhalla eased it closed, granting her host the illusion of privacy. “I want to know.”
“That is not something you, of all people, want to look for.” Gianna knew who Vhalla was. Vhalla had never lied to the kind woman who was putting her up, and she’d told the broad strokes of her own history over the countless dinners they’d shared together. Perhaps because Gianna knew exactly who Vhalla was, the woman respected the Windwalker’s privacy and wish to remain anonymous, preferring the Western term for student—tokshi—over Vhalla’s actual name.
“Why?” Vhalla knew why, but she wanted to hear Gianna’s reasons.
Gianna sighed.
“Tell me.”
“Dinner is ready.” The shop owner turned, starting for the stairs. “Come and eat. The wind will carry you away if you don’t put food in your stomach once in a while.”
Vhalla obliged mutely. She allowed the silence to stew after they both had settled at the table and started into the rice hash Gianna had made.
“I will tell you one story,” Gianna said finally. “And then you must put that book aside.”
“I can’t promise you that.”
“Try?”
“It depends on what the story is.” Vhalla played a game of mock carcivi with her hash.
“You are something else.” The woman chuckled and shook her head. “You could just lie to appease me.”