“So you believe her power has been trapped without an outlet for too long, and that is why it has this effect on her?”
Halvor nodded, his honey-brown eyes warm in the lantern light, even though it was nearing dawn and neither of us had slept. His wavy hair was askew from the countless times he’d pushed his hands through it during the night. Books were strewn around where we sat side by side on the floor, our backs resting against the cold windowpane. I’d been nervous to lean against it at first, but Halvor had studied the windows for several long minutes, his eyes wide and fingers pressed experimentally against the pane, before turning to me and assuring me that it was no ordinary window—that it was Paladin glass, created in Visimperum and imbued with Paladin magic making it clearer than any glass manufactured in Vamala, but twice as strong. He’d looked almost as excited about the glass as he’d been about the library.
“It’s the only explanation that makes sense. She uses that power to help her plants grow, and in so doing, it releases the ‘pressure,’ so to speak, just enough for the roar to recede—albeit only briefly.”
“That’s the part I don’t understand. If it is a buildup of power, why doesn’t releasing it help longer?” I looked down at the books Halvor had eagerly skimmed, longing to be able to understand them as he did. We’d spent hours there; he scanned the pages silently while I watched and impatiently waited for him to explain what he’d read, trying to wrap my mind around the reality that I was sitting next to a boy, in the library, reading Paladin books together. Talking. I was talking to a boy … and hopefully didn’t sound like a complete fool.
“Well … I do have one theory.”
“Yes?” I prompted when he didn’t immediately expound.
“What if…” He cleared his throat, keeping his gaze down. “Perhaps your sister is far more powerful than you realize. If that were the case, it would stand to reason such a small release of power—encouraging a plant to grow—would barely be enough to clear her mind and only for a few minutes, as you’ve seen.”
Could it truly be so simple? After all these years of trying and failing to help her … all I’d needed to do was find a larger outlet for her power? “But … what?”
Halvor had already gone back to his book, flipping pages eagerly, until my question made him pause and look up.
I clarified, “What else could I do to help her use a greater portion of her power?”
He placed his finger in the book before closing it to hold his spot. “I’m not sure. What else has worked?”
I rubbed at my eyes, trying to ignore the sensation of grit beneath my eyelids, as though I’d been standing in a sandstorm for hours instead of a library. “Not much,” I admitted. The burned curtains came to mind, but if she had regained lucidity after accidentally starting the fire, I hadn’t seen it, because Sami had rushed her away while I’d tried to calm Mother down and put out the fire.
“There must be something more than growing fruits and vegetables.”
“Is it possible that her power only works on plants?” I shifted on the hard floor. My back ached from sitting for so long, leaning against the night-chilled windowpane. Outside, the moon and stars had slowly been blotted out by clouds of onyx and slate slithering over the distant peaks and creeping across the sky toward the valley.
Rather than responding, Halvor began rifling through the stacks of books he’d pulled from various shelves. I forced myself to wait, having already learned in the few hours we’d spent together that he often seemed to be ignoring a question or like he’d forgotten to answer me, but in reality was searching for the very answer I awaited. He was so very methodical, from the way he moved, to the things he said, even the care with which he held the books and turned their pages with his long, tapered fingers. A scholar’s fingers, with residual ink stains still on a few knuckles, despite his months of travel from Mercarum to Gateskeep and the citadel. I had to resist lifting my own fingers to compare them to his.
Finally, he chose one—a beautiful tome bound in black leather with lettering that looked to be gold leaf embossed on the cover. He scooted slightly closer to show it to me until his arm brushed my arm. Halvor seemed oblivious to the contact as he tapped the words on the cover exuberantly, but I couldn’t ignore the proximity of his body to mine—the warmth and solidity of a living person pressed against my side compared to the lifeless chill of the glass at my back.
“This word here”—he underlined it with his finger—“means ‘power’ in the Paladin language. With any luck, we might find some answers in this book.”
“Do you really—”
The door across the library suddenly banged open and Sami rushed in, her nightcap askew and a robe haphazardly tied over her sleeping gown. Her age-worn cheeks were blotchy and her hairline was damp as if she’d run the entire length of the citadel. I launched to my feet, my heart lurching up to my throat.
“She’s up,” Sami gestured wildly, her eyes frantic. “She already summoned me for some tea. Come! Hurry!”
Panic seized me and I rushed for the door, the books forgotten in my alarm. I still wore my dress from the night before and my hair was untouched. If Mother found me in the forbidden wing of the citadel—with Halvor—and deduced that we’d spent the entire night there … I didn’t dare guess what punishment she would dole out. She’d preferred a wooden spoon when I was younger, but the days of isolation after trying to open the door to the Hall of Miracles last year came immediately to mind—and that small act of defiance was nothing compared to this.
The pain, the hunger … those I could handle. But being separated from Inara now, when I’d finally summoned the smallest ray of hope that I might be able to find a way to bring her back to us for longer periods of time—that would be nothing short of torture.
I glanced over my shoulder to see Halvor following after me, but his speed was hindered by having scooped up as many books as possible to take out with him. Behind him the windows revealed the first blush of dawn limning the cliffs to the east in a smudge of light, barely enough to separate the craggy peaks from the inky sky. But it meant sunrise—and my mother—were coming swiftly.
“Leave them!” I cried. The thought of abandoning so much knowledge—so many possible answers—was a pain as keen as the crack of a wooden spoon across my knuckles that was sure to come in mere moments when Mother discovered none of us were in our rooms. I hadn’t even thought to muss my bed to make it appear as though I had spent at least a portion of the night there. And if Halvor came dashing through the citadel clutching an armful of Paladin books …
His eyebrows sank over his crestfallen eyes, but did as I said and dropped the books onto the nearest shelf—all except one, which he stuffed into a pocket of his jacket. It bulged slightly, but didn’t warrant too much notice, especially on a scholar. I hoped.
As soon as he hurried past me, I remorsefully heaved the door shut, unsure when I’d be back. If Mother somehow discovered what we’d done, it wouldn’t be surprising if she devised a way to ensure that I was never able to visit this wing of the citadel again.
“Both of you go to your rooms. I’ll try to find a way to divert her, but she’s sure to wonder why I disappeared for so long after her summons as it is,” Sami panted as we hurried through the hallways still enshrouded in the darkness of night, though every window we passed revealed the sable sky ever-lightening to rich indigo shot through with streaks of tangerine.
In the space of a minute or two that felt like hours, as if we were running through molasses—sticky and thick, sucking at our feet and slowing us down—we reached the cavernous main hall. The sound of our footsteps echoed back to us from the domed ceiling that soared far above us, impossibly heavy with the intricate carvings of rakasa and Paladin locked in battle over our heads as a solemn reminder of what Vamala had once suffered—how the Paladin had done what we couldn’t have done for ourselves, no matter what the king came to believe.
“Do you remember the way to your rooms?” I paused to point Halvor in the right direction.
“I believe so—”
“What is the meaning of this?”
My mother’s cold voice shot ice through my veins, freezing me in place, too terrified to turn. Halvor’s eyes flashed to mine and then past me. My mother’s presence loomed behind us, every bit as foreboding as the hedge outside.
“Madam, please forgive them. I was lost and called out for help—they were kind enough to—”
“Spare me your lies,” she snarled.
The slap of her heels on stone stamped over the harsh throbbing of my heartbeat. She paused to grab my sleeve, yanking me to face her. “Slept in your clothes, did you, Zuhra?”
I kept my eyes on the ground, my guilt bitter and sharp on the back of my tongue.
Mother released me and faced Halvor. “What exactly were you doing with my daughter?”
“Nothing dishonorable, Madam. I swear it.”
“Nothing dishonorable,” she repeated. “Did you or did you not spend the entire night with her—unchaperoned?”
“No … that is, not like that…”
I barely swallowed my whimper of dismay. He’d as good as doomed us.
“Like that?” It was practically a shriek. “Like what, exactly? Like a young man and an unwed girl alone for the heavens only know how long in the middle of the night? The only proper recourse is to wed her immediately.”
“Mother!” My face was so hot it must have been vermillion.
“We were merely reading!” Halvor interjected and my stomach turned to lead. He probably thought himself helping, but he couldn’t possibly know that trespassing into the library was probably a much higher sin than fornicating on my mother’s list.
“Reading?” Her voice dropped to a frosty whisper.
I still stared at the stone floor that leeched the heat from my body, trying to restrain the trembling in my knees. I’d gone too long without sleep, without food; I was woozy with exhaustion and the ashes of my dying hopes.
Mother spun to face me. “You took him to the library, didn’t you.” It wasn’t a question. “Didn’t you!”
Finally I looked up, meeting her hazel eyes that I knew were mirror images of my own. The angrier she got the greener they were—and right now they flashed jade with only a thin rim of amber still visible around her irises.
“He could help, Mother,” I began, knowing my argument was lost before I even started. But I had to at least try. “He knows so much about them—he can read their language. If he had some time, he might even find some answers for—”
“It is forbidden!” She flung the words at me like they were knives, intended to cut me down, to slice through my defense. “Zuhra, you know that and yet you continually defy me!”
“I know, Mother. And … I’m sorry.” My throat was thick, words and air getting jumbled and caught and tangled. My head pounded with the force of a lifetime trapped in this place. “It’s just that Inara—”
“I don’t want to hear it.” Mother cut one hand through the air and turned her back on me. “If you won’t wed her, then you must leave.”
I didn’t dare look at him, didn’t want my last memory of Halvor Roskery to be a look of panic—or worse—on his face at the prospect of marrying me; a face that had somehow come to mean so much to me in the space of a single night. A night that would burn like a dream in my memory: the hours of watching him read by the light of the lantern, learning the angle of his jaw and the brush of his dusky lashes on his sunburnt cheeks when he blinked at my questions, always so careful to think before answering.
His silence spoke more loudly than anything he could have said.
“Then go. Now,” Mother barked.
No. Let him stay.
The words burned in my mouth, aching to be loosed, but I swallowed them, scorching my throat.
Mother stormed past me, a force of nature trapped in a cage of flesh, and snatched Halvor by the arm. She was already outfitted for the day, in her most severe dress of charcoal and black lace trim, her hair scraped into a hasty bun. I shrank back instinctively, though I hated myself for it. This night’s work was going to result in worse than bloodied knuckles and a hungry belly. Anger emanated from her like the spark in the air an instant before lightning struck.
“Madam, I am capable of walking on my own. I insist you unhand me.” Halvor’s voice was laced with steel as he yanked his arm free.
“You will leave my home at once!” Mother’s shrill command reverberated around us.
There was a pause, when Halvor’s eyes finally met mine for the space of a mere intake of breath. I stared back, fighting a sudden sensation of falling, as if the glass in the Hall of Miracles truly had disappeared beneath my hands, sending me plummeting to a sudden end that I wasn’t ready to accept.
“If that is your wish” was his stiff response.
I shook my head mutely. He couldn’t go, not yet. Not when I’d hardly even nicked the surface of what he knew, had dredged up the tiniest particle of hope that he might be the key to helping Inara. The book he’d managed to take was a telltale bulge in his coat pocket, a concealed reminder that he possibly held the answer right there, mere inches from his hands. But Mother had already turned on her heel and stormed to the door, dragging it open and gesturing for him to precede her outside into the gray dawn.
Halvor didn’t look back when he exited the citadel.
I stood rooted to the spot, my limbs leaden and unwieldy, but nothing heavier than the painful thump of my heart beneath my ribs.
“Don’t let him walk away,” Sami murmured, startling me. I’d forgotten she was there. “This is your window opening. Don’t let her shut it, too.”
I turned to her, my throat tight with the wishes and dreams I still hadn’t let fully form.
Sami raised a hand to my cheek and then nodded. “Go.”
I lifted my skirts and ran.