doubt be locked. Maybe someone else had already moved into the archive. The thought both chilled and offended him. He knew the building had never belonged to him, yet it had still been his home.
The door wasn’t locked. In fact, it was wide open.
Kalai froze, then retreated against the wall. He let a minute tick by, listening intently for sounds from inside. Slowly, he leaned around the door frame and peered inside. His heart dropped.
It looked as if a tornado had swept through the main room.
Cautiously, Kalai crossed the doorstep, pushing the door closed behind him.
Papers and books were strewn across the floor. A lamp lay overturned, its glass bulb shattered. The desk was shoved aside, the old beautiful chair discarded against the wall. Every shelf had been cleared, books tossed into piles, some of them spine-up with half their pages crumbled. The floor was barely visible under layers of paper.
Kalai dragged the tips of his fingers along the spines of books stacked in piles near the door. All of them were books he’d spent hours meticulously organizing on the shelves, several of them sacred texts from the Sharoani temples. All his work, undone.
There was no way he’d find the book he was looking for.
Tears rose in his eyes, and he angrily wiped at them with the back of his hand. It was a stupid thing to be upset about. They were only books, and most weren’t even ruined. It simply looked as if Kalai had never been here. No, it looked worse, even, than before he moved in.
He wandered to the kitchen, eyes lingering on the unwashed cutlery in the sink he’d placed there months ago. He walked upstairs, stood by the stairs and looked at the unmade bed, went back down and came to a stop in the center of the main room. The house was silent and cold. Tauran’s absence saturated the air, painful and quiet. This place was no longer a home. Just a house. Suddenly, Kalai felt overwhelmingly, desperately alone.
The click of the front door echoed through the quiet space. Kalai flinched. He rushed forward, slipping on a loose sheet of paper, and slammed his elbow against the side of the desk. He scrambled behind it as the front door knocked against the wall, followed by the sound of two pairs of boots.
“Is this the last of them?” a man asked.
“We’ll see if we can fit them all on the wagon, otherwise we might have to go again,” another said.
The first man sighed theatrically. “I’m sick of hauling these books. It has taken them months to sort this shit.”
The second man’s voice faded and grew louder as he moved about. “It would take you months, too, if you had to stare at nonsense symbols trying to figure out if they mean anything important.”
“Let’s just try to hurry,” the first man said. “I want to finish in time to watch the rebels dangle.”
Kalai’s eyes widened. He hardly dared to breathe, his racing heart making his lungs burn for more air.
“Relax. Sundown’s an hour away. I don’t understand why that stuff fascinates you so much,” the second man said.
“Oh, come on. You don’t think it’s satisfying to see shitheads get what they deserve?”
The second man’s voice grew softer. “I don’t think death is ever satisfying to see.”
“Whatever. Are you done?”
“Sure.”
“Great.”
Boots shuffled. Then the door closed again, and everything fell silent.
* * *
Kalai’s feet carried him toward the guard grounds before he’d even fully formed a plan, fueled by barely contained panic that threatened to paralyze him if he stopped for even a moment to think.
He had half-heartedly searched the scattered piles of books, but he already knew finding the book about the caves was a lost cause. It no longer seemed important. Emilian, Catria and Tauran were the only known rebels in the city. Unless Falka had found more since they’d left Valreus, they had to be who the guards had talked about.
Tauran hadn’t returned to him because they were going to kill him. It was everything Kalai had feared.
Anger warred with the panic inside him. Tauran, that bastard, had promised him he would be careful. As if Kalai didn’t have enough problems already!
An older lady came down the street, shooting Kalai a concerned glance. Kalai slowed. He probably looked like a mess.
Leaning against the white-washed facade of a building, he closed his eyes. If he knew Tauran, and he did, then bursting headfirst into trouble had gotten him into this mess. Kalai had to do better