The Shadows (Black Dagger Brotherhood #13) - J. R. Ward Page 0,223

out to be a seam.

Either that, or he simply made one.

Placing both hands on the knife’s hilt, he put his tremendous weight to the side and crack! He made an entry into the small gold room.

“Make it fast,” he said grimly.

Catra wasted no time. Running over the chips of stones, she jumped inside and slid on the gold floor, throwing her arms out to balance herself.

Numbers. She saw a thousand gold drawers marked by numbers.

It was all arranged by birth date, not name.

Closing her eyes, she cursed. She had no idea when Trez had been born.

Except, wait—up high on the right, there were two drawers that were not gold. They were white.

Heart pounding, hands shaking, she rose up on her tiptoes and pulled out the top one. The drawer was as deep as her arm, and she had to catch the back of it lest the contents spill out.

No, it had a lid.

Putting the thing down to the floor and opening the top, she found four rolled sheets of parchment, each tied with a ribbon of silk and sealed with red wax that bore the Queen’s star. Other than that they were not labeled. One was smaller than the others.

She took out the first she came to and broke its seal, unrolling the document on the floor. It was so old, the parchment cracked in places and so resented the flattening, she needed to put a lip of the thing under the drawer and kneel on the other end to keep it flat so she could look the chart over.

Sacred symbols and writing in black pen were interspersed with countless red and gold dots that, when she leaned back, formed a constellation.

It was her mother’s birth chart.

She let the thing curl up on itself and put it aside. The next … was her chart, and it, too, resisted an awakening from its slumber. The third …

The third unfurled itself as she released the bow and broke the seal, and as she leaned over to read it, she smelled the sweet scent of the fresh ink and paint that had been applied to the parchment. This brand-new chart was the infant’s, and the ritual death was marked in each corner with black stars—showing that the soul had been returned to the heavens. Or at least that was her interpretation.

After a moment of sadness, she set the thing aside.

The fourth one, the smaller one, had to be Trez’s. And indeed, when she unfolded it, she was right. For one, in the scribing, there were notations that it was a male, and born with a twin—it was this momentous birthing occasion that had first sparked interest in Trez and iAm. Catra could remember all her life palace staff remarking about the unusual and special occurrence.

His chart was not as big as the other three because he was not a royal, but in the corners of the parchment there were golden stars, showing an ascension to the heights of the Shadow court.

Sitting back on her heels, she read through its notations and symbols.

Then shook her head.

She had been so sure … and yet nothing seemed amiss.

“Stand down,” she heard s’Ex say out in the circular room. “Or, as much as it pains me, I shall have to kill you all.”

Wrenching around, Catra looked through the messy portal s’Ex had made for her.

Three guards, dressed in black, had surrounded the executioner, and they had their knives out.

Oh, stars above … what had she done?

She had made a terrible mistake coming here. What arrogance to think she had ascertained some secret that would save them all.

And now, there was nowhere to run. No way to win against what was surely just the first squadron of many that had been sent for them.

She did not want to die.

Reaching forward, she picked up the long, thin, heavy drawer. It was the only weapon she had—

For some reason—and later she would wonder exactly why—as Trez’s chart rolled up on itself, resuming the shape it had been trained to prefer, she looked down at the thing.

The floor had been perfectly clean as she had entered, no dust marring its surface, no scuffs, no scratches.

But now there were chips of … paint … and little flakes … around where the chart had rolled itself up.

Frowning, she put the drawer aside and flattened the parchment back out.

As the sounds of fighting commenced in the gazing room, folds of robes flapping, grunts and groans sounding so very loud and close, she leaned over