Page 40 of The Fae Lord

As I swim, a strange sensation washes over me, as if I am being pulled forwards by an unseen force. Something begins to glow, pulsing with a purple light that grows brighter and brighter until it fills my entire vision.

I squeeze my eyes shut, disoriented, and when I open them again, I find myself in a completely different place.

I am standing in the centre of a vast, circular room. The entire place glows with the same purple light, although it is impossible to tell where the light is coming from. Its walls are lined with towering bookshelves that stretch up into the shadows above, and the air is thick not with the scent of sea water but with the smell of aged parchment.

My clothes are completely dry.

As I walk, my boots tap gently on the tiled floor. I look down. It is a mosaic of coloured tiles. Smooth, beautiful.

Something about this place reminds me of the way the citadel used to be. Before my brother died, and my mother died, and I was left in charge of Luminael.

If the truth about Alana is here in these walls, perhaps I will find other truths too. The reason for Raylon’s death. The reason my powers did not manifest in their full strength until long after both he and my mother were gone.

As I move deeper into the library, the air grows heavier but cooler at the same time.

I scan the shelves, but inhale deeply and let my instincts guide me, my fingers trailing along the spines of the books, until I find myself standing before a small, unassuming volume bound in deep blue leather.

Something about it calls to me, a tug in the depths of my soul that I cannot ignore.

I lift the book from its resting place and carry it to a nearby table.

For a place that is no longer cared for, it surprises me that there are not layers of dust covering every surface. But it is as if the library is immune to such things.

Everything is pristine, and perfect.

I stare down at the book. I do not know what made me choose this one, only that as soon as I touched it, it felt familiar.

The cover is embossed with a symbol I don’t recognise, a twisting knot of silver that gleams in the dim light.

I trace it with my fingers, then open the book.

I scan the words, frowning, then laugh. They are completely meaningless, a jumble of ancient elven script that I cannot decipher.

Of course, Garratt sent me on a fool’s errand.

I slam the cover closed and turn away from the book, but as I whirl back past the shelves, towards the pool which will take me away from here, something clatters to the floor behind me.

I turn slowly, poised to call to the shadows if I have to.

A small black book lies on the floor.

I stoop and pick it up. As soon as I flip open the cover, I recognise the ink; it is the shade my mother used to write with. Deep violet. Like the petals of an iris. And that is her handwriting.

I start to read, and quickly find myself needing to sit down.

I lower myself to the floor and lean against a nearby pillar.

It is a journal. The pages are filled with my mother’s thoughts, her fears, and her desperate search for a way to save Luminael from the destruction that haunted her visions.

Her visions sound exactly like mine.

She writes of the darkness that threatens to engulf the kingdom, of the ancient evil that stirs in the shadows, waiting to be unleashed.

She writes of her fear for me because my powers had not yet emerged, and because Raylon was supposed to be the one to save us all. She writes nothing of his death or how she feels about it.

For that, I am thankful.

And then, I find it. The passage that changes everything.