The Hunter and the Mage (The Raven and the Dove #2) - Kaitlyn Davis Page 0,26
the bookshelves housed within. Xander was awake. And though she knew it would only make things harder, she found she couldn't help but gravitate toward him.
8
Xander
Just as Xander was ready to pull yet another heavy history volume from his shelves, a little tap, tap, tap, sounded against his window. He spun, surprised to find Cassi hovering behind the glass. After quickly crossing the room, he twisted the latch and yanked the pane open.
"Cassi?"
"I hope you don’t mind," she said and soared past him, shuffling the pages of his books as she swept into the room. It was refreshing that she didn’t ask for an audience or tiptoe around him, though at the same time a little alarming that she felt free to barge into his study. He supposed he had opened the window for her, but still… "I couldn’t sleep, and I saw your light on. What are you doing?"
"Oh, this?"
Xander turned toward his desk, thinking of the hours he'd spent roving through his library while the rest of the world was asleep, all in search of information he feared he'd never find. His books held only vague mentions of what the world looked like before the isles were lifted into the sky, the same stories he'd heard as a child—they'd been slaves to cruel masters who wielded magic like a weapon. There was no explanation of what that magic was or how to fight it, only cautionary orders to kill any who possessed it lest they anger the gods. Worse still, there were no theories as to what lands might now exist beneath the mist, and hardly any mentions of Vesevios, as though writing his name would conjure him into being.
He blinked away his frustration. "It's just research."
The owl sauntered across the room, fingering the corner of a leather-bound book. "Anything interesting?"
A dejected sigh escaped his lips. "No."
"Pity."
"What are you doing? Here, I mean?"
"I told you. I couldn’t sleep." Pressing her finger to one of the maps spread across the tabletop, she traced the rough edge of his homeland, an expression he couldn’t read playing across her face. Then she straightened abruptly and turned toward him. "Could I ask you a question?"
"Sure." He shrugged. "I don’t see why not."
"It's hypothetical."
"That’s my favorite kind."
She sighed and collapsed into one of the leather armchairs, her black-and-white speckled wings bending up and over her shoulders as she pulled her knees into her chest. It was the most childlike he'd ever seen her, except for the haunted look in her eyes, dark despite the firelight reflecting within them. He couldn't help but wonder from whom she might be hiding as he took the seat across from her.
"You're going to be king someday, right?" She finally broke the silence.
Xander couldn't stop his lips from curving. "I hope that's not your hypothetical question."
"It's not," she said. "My question is this. Imagine for a moment that sometime during your reign, Taetanos himself appears to you and offers you one of his infamous bargains. He tells you a great battle is coming, and if you sacrifice one of your people to his realm now, he will save one hundred in the future. Would you do it?"
Expelling the air from his lungs, Xander sank back into his chair. On paper, the bargain seemed easy—one in place of a hundred. But then he thought of Rafe, he thought of the people caught with magic who were brought to the executioner's block, he thought of that horrible, wet thunk, and the words wouldn't come. He had yet to order anyone's death—it was the one responsibility his mother had never forced upon him, perhaps fearing what the outcome might be.
He tore his gaze from where it had settled on the fireplace and flicked it to Cassi instead, arching a brow. "This is the kind of question that keeps you up at night?"
"What would you do?" she repeated, not relenting.
"Is the one person a criminal? Or completely innocent?"
"Would that matter?"
"I don't know."
"Then let's assume he or she is a little bit of both. Not a murderer, but not Aethios's chosen either. Someone who's done a few bad things, but isn't beyond redemption."
He rested his elbow on the leather and cupped his fingers around his chin, running through the possibilities. There was an answer his mother would want him to give, and then there was the truth. Alone with Cassi, no one else around to hear, he supposed it was all right to admit the latter. "No. I don't think I would."