A Queen of Gilded Horns (A River of Royal Blood #2) - Amanda Joy Page 0,63
wanted to be.
I traced the rendering of Assani beneath the words. Auburn ears peeked out from long, beaded braids hanging to her waist, and a spiny, reptilian tail curled around her body.
“That explains why you’ve been stuck on the same page for hours now,” a voice called from the other end of the library. Falun spoke again without turning his attention from a tapestry depicting a pair of ancient fey and khimaer allies crossing the Red River. Each held a sword and walked hand in hand. Allies or lovers or both.
Two days had passed since I had woken and I spent most of them here. The library at Nbaltir was an eight-sided room with a glass ceiling just ten steps away from the kitchen, where Tavan and Lirra spent most of their time. Every morning I entered to find a fresh cup of tea, flatbread dripping with butter and garlic, and a plate of eggs—Osir had taken me on a tour last night where I met the hens supplying the estate. Whatever else I thought about my new family, they had lived entirely self-sufficiently within these walls. It was admirable, the skills and crafts they’d developed to make life here comfortable. Yet the necessity of such isolation made me sick to my stomach.
Through the glass ceiling, one could see the pinks and golds of the sunset, which accented the heavy gilt work on every bookshelf and most of the other furniture within the room. A table long enough to seat twenty held an older, more ornate version of the family history Tavan had given me. A basket in the corner was heaped with vibrant blankets, woven by my cousin’s hand. Osir kept a small garden of flowers and herbs to dye the wool from their small flock of sheep.
I sat wrapped in one up to my chin, wings hanging uselessly over a low-backed chair. I’d found stools or sometimes just sitting on the floor was more comfortable, since most chairs were not built to accommodate wings.
Osir, Anali, Aketo, and the rest of the soldiers had left before dawn to scout the Plain far beyond the village to see if we were being followed or watched. I was glad to have the two of them out of my hair. When I had my first Khimaeran lessons with Lirra yesterday, Aketo, Tavan, and Anali had found reasons to loiter around the library. All of them except Aketo couldn’t help but offer corrections whenever I made a mistake. It was maddening. Even Aketo had to leave the room to keep from laughing at my enraged expression.
“Come here,” I said to Fal.
“I swear this one looks just like Baccha,” Falun murmured, more to himself than to me.
“It’s not Baccha.” Not enough violence to depict any tale from Baccha’s past. “Could be his brother or his great-father.”
Falun shrugged and, after another long look at the tapestry, joined me at the table.
I showed him the passage, the sketch, and my translation written on a long sheet of vellum. “What do you think?”
The fey tongue was similar to Khimaeran, both having roots in the language of the Godlings. Though I’d always found Faeyin much more opaque and full of bizarre rules, I would take any input.
“I can’t say for certain, but this word here, ibasi. There is a similar fey word, but I would translate it as ‘seize’ or ‘to capture.’”
Capture the light within.
I wrote it down, though it offered very little in the way of illuminating the phrase’s meaning.
“I’m surprised you haven’t tried to ask him yet,” Falun said, avoiding my narrowing gaze.
“Why am I not surprised you’ve found another reason to direct our conversation toward Baccha.”
Falun’s pointed ears went pink. “Forgive me for offering advice,” he said with a sniff. “I’m going to get a headache if I have to watch you glare at the same three pages for another hour.”
Falun wasn’t wrong, but the last time I asked Baccha for help, he’d abandoned me to the forest of my mind without a second thought. I didn’t want to beg him for help again.
“The last time I went into my mindscape, I was stuck for days.” And I still had no explanation for why I’d been pulled from my mindscape. I needed to go see Isa and ask her what happened before I woke up.
“Because you were healing. You’re better now, or so you said earlier.”
“And you were the one who said we couldn’t trust him.”