Ezekiel groaned as he rolled out of bed.His mattress sagged beneath the weight. The wooden boards that held him and the mattress creaked beneath him. He should ask Azuriel’s father to fix it for him, but he didn’t like owing people favours.

His mind drifted to Emry and her tawny skin. He has never seen someone with that skin before. And the way she conducted herself was strange. She didn’t shy away from questions the Tralechs asked like the other humans that entered this village. She was dangerous. If there was one thing he knew, that human was dangerous. He had to prove to her that the forest wasn’t safe. The minute she sees the silver-encased dead animals, she would turn tail and run. It would keep his library safe. She’d tell others of the tales of the forest and less of them would visit. Those that would visit would have valuable information. They would be the ones that were seasoned and have the knowledge Ezekiel craved.

He sat on the edge of his bed. His hands held his head up. The sleepless nights were getting to him. Exhaustion was like a sword. It cut right through and didn’t care who was in the way. He exhaled. His breath formed a small cloud that dissipated in the air. The cold kept him awake, kept him from being lulled back into slumber’s embrace. If it wasn’t for Emry, he would have fallen back asleep. Ezekiel was certain that if he didn’t show, she’d head into the forest and get herself killed. But maybe that was a good thing. She couldn’t be dangerous if she was gone. Her mortality would prove to be her weakness.

Ezekiel rose to his feet. He grabbed his brown pants. They were tight around the waist and ankles, but loose everywhere else. They had a small, handmade hole for his tail to slip through. He threw on the loose fitted undershirt. It was tattered with holes from his adventures into the forest. He added it to the list of clothing to repair. The crimson vest was next. It served two purposes: protection and warmth. It dug into his armpit. Each time he threw it on, he regretted not spending his money on new clothes instead of the useless information broker. The black cloak was next. He slid his arms through the sleeves. The hood concealed his blonde hair from view. The socks and broken shoes were the last to go on.

He opened the door to his bedroom. His steps were silent as he walked through the short wooden hall. He stepped into the dining room. He looked at the cabinet that held his supply of bread. His stomach grumbled as he thought of the rolls that waited for him in there. He had to save them. He’d have to forgo another breakfast today until he picked up a job in the forest.

A smirk made its way across his face as an idea dawned on him. Emry could pay him for escorting her into the forest. He could make money off of her. She’d be a temporary source of income, and knowing humans, she’d pay a handsome amount for following him into the forest. Ezekiel walked over to the cabinet. His tail waved back and forth beneath the cloak. The few rolls that were in the cabinet smelled heavenly as he opened the doors. He grabbed the hardened bread and bit into it. It was hard, but delicious. His stomach enjoyed the indulgence very much.

He shut the cabinet and placed the piece of bread in his pocket. He opened the door to the outside, shuddering as the cold air struck him. His door slammed behind him as he took a step forward. If there was one thing he hated about early fall mornings, it was the cold. Goosebumps lined his arms as he walked towards the forest. The wooden houses he passed creaked with each gust of wind. He half expected them to fall apart right then and there. It seemed even inanimate objects had a similar mortal life to their living counterparts.

Ezekiel walked past Azuriel’s house. He stopped in front of the gate that shielded her garden from rodents. It had the last of the flowers blooming in it. They were stunning with their white petals and their orange centres. They were a hardy daisy. Azuriel had said that daisies mean innocence. She said it comes from the language of flowers. She told him what every flower that she grew meant. Her favourite was the morning glories. They symbolised undying love and the cycle of life and death. Her words were: “It’s a poetic flower. They might spread everywhere, but their meaning and their beauty sets them apart from the rest.”

He plucked a daisy from the stem and placed it in the pocket that didn’t have the bread in it. His walk past the rest of the village was quick. The ground crunched beneath his feet. The frost had frozen it. Soon it would melt with dawn coming soon. As the sun rose higher and higher into the sky, it illuminated the wooden buildings and the silver forest.

His eyes landed on Emry. She donned a brown cloak that covered a blue and white dress. The blue covered much of her torso. She looked radiant under the dawn’s light. The hood of the cloak was down. Her brunette curls were tied in a bun. Her skin glowed. She had a smile on her face as she turned to Ezekiel. She waved at him.

Ezekiel nodded as he neared her. He looked her up and down. Her outfit wasn’t built for entering the forest, but it would have to do. Maybe she wasn’t as dangerous as he had originally thought. Perhaps she was just a fool.

“You’re not one for talking, are you?” Emry asked.

Ezekiel grunted. “Yes.” At least she cut straight to the point. “Follow me.” Ezekiel entered the forest. He didn’t care if she followed him or not. It might be better if she didn’t follow him. He could enjoy the peace and quiet of the forest and read the books without her being a distraction. Except he couldn’t find out who she was if she didn’t follow him. He looked over his shoulder, seeing her behind him. With each step he took, she followed. She moved like a traveller, a well seasoned adventurer. Her steps were confident. Her eyes were taking in the surroundings. Her hand rested on the hilt of a dagger Ezekiel didn’t notice until now. Little did she know that her dagger wouldn’t be needed.

There were no monsters here for her to slay. Everyone might have thought there was, but it was a tale. Spun by bards after they entered the forest and saw the silver entombed bodies of animals. The sap dried long before they entered the forest. So they relied on their imagination, an imagination that kept Ezekiel’s library safe from others. While he laughed at their stories, they were weaved masterfully.

“How can you walk in this forest and not be tempted to pluck the gold leaves and steal the silver sap?” Emry asked suddenly.

“Easily,” Ezekiel responded. “Death follows the trees. I will do anything in my power to not die.” He pointed to the pool of sap that formed at the base of a tree. A fawn approached it. Her back had two lines that went from her shoulders to her hip. In between the lines was dark patches of brown. “Watch.”

The fawn raised its head when Ezekiel spoke. It looked around the area. When it’s amber eyes landed on Ezekiel and Emry, he thought it would run away. He knew otherwise though. The sap smelled like everything the animal desired, like everything Ezekiel desired as well. It drew him in, but he resisted. Would the fawn be just as lucky as him, or would it succumb to its desire?

Its stubby tail twitched. It lowered its head to the sap. Ezekiel wondered what it smelled, what it tasted in the air. Its lips parted. The fawn drank the sap. Silver moved from its head to its neck, over its shoulders to its front legs. The process happened fast. The fawn had no time to react. In an instant, its life was gone.

Emry gasped, drawing Ezekiel’s attention to her. She covered her mouth. Tears rolled down her cheeks.

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“Why do you cry?” Ezekiel asked. Another emotion he didn’t understand. One that made tears fall. There was no point to it. It didn’t sustain you. It didn’t provide anything for others. So why did she weep? Why did Emry have tears falling down her cheeks?

“Because I witnessed the loss of life. Does that not make you feel some type of way?” Emry wiped her tears with her hands.

Her question was strange. Ezekiel witnessed death often. It was because of this forest, he saw death for what it was: mortality. It was because of mortality that he would find a way to become immortal. He read the tales, heard his grandfather talk about the time, saw it in the way he and the other Tralech’s lived. Mortality was something unfamiliar, foreign. He felt it so himself. He felt that he was missing something important. It was something to fix, like his shoes and undershirt. Should he cry when death comes and takes a mortal life? Should he shed his tears for a life he never understood? His brows furrowed as he thought.

“I suppose that’s an answer of itself,” Emry said. Her words were confusing. “Let’s continue on. I saw what you wanted to show me. I have yet to see the rest of this forest.” She walked past Ezekiel. Fear had no place with her. She was a river that forged its own path through the stone. A current so strong that it drowned fish. Ezekiel could see that now. It was the first time he ever feared a human, the first time he felt afraid.

Ezekiel picked up his pace. He wasted enough of the early daylight hour. He would show her the library. She would get bored of the books because they’re faded and destroyed. She would then struggle to climb over the rubble in that dress of hers. She would leave the library and him. It was perfect.

Ezekiel looked back at her. The hem of Emry’s dress was stained with the green grass and the brown dirt of this forest. She didn’t even seem to mind the forest all that much, aside from the loss of the fawn. Which shouldn’t have affected her as much as it did. She did witness the loss of life, but what did that have to do with those tears she shed? Why would she spend time having her eyes get puffy over a deer? There were thousands of deer out there. Why did this one’s life matter so much to her? All these questions. He knew she wouldn’t tell him why. She’d spin the question back on to him and confuse him more. She was just so human. She was more human than any humans he encountered in the village. Why? What’s different between her and them besides their sex?

The two of them neared the edge of the forest. The trees thinned out. The marble walls of the library stood out like a sore thumb against the silver and gold trees. Ezekiel could feel the book he treasured dearly in his hands already as Emry realised the library wasn’t for her. A smile covered Ezekiel’s face as he thought about the book he treasured. It was valuable. It was his. If Emry saw it, she would take it away from him. She would want the knowledge it held for herself. It is what any Tralech would do. Ezekiel was certain that humans weren’t too far off in that manner. So he would show her the dangers. He would finally enter the basement where he was certain the secret of immortality lay.

“It’s beautiful,” Emry said. She smiled. “This is the secret that the forest was designed to protect, right?”

Ezekiel nodded. He didn’t want to waste more time with idle chatter. He walked to the entrance. His hands gripped the stones. His feet found the slots. He climbed it with ease and jumped to the bottom on the other side. Pain shot up through his feet into his legs. He turned around to face the entrance. Curiosity filled him. Would Emry climb over the broken entrance just to see the library?

His eyes landed on her fingers. They gripped the stone tightly. Her face popped up over the tip of the hill. Sweat lined her brow. She lifted the skirt of her dress up. She donned leather boots. They weren’t worn down by adventure. It contradicted her entirety. Emry chose to come into the forest. She wept at the death of the fawn, yet she continued on in the forest. She was dangerous, yet she had boots that have never seen an adventure before today. Emry leapt down from the top of the pile. Her brows furrowed.

“Well, that was certainly a climb.” She wiped the sweat off her forehead with her forearm. “You come here every day?”

Humans had a strange habit of phrasing statements like questions. Ezekiel despised it. If they were going to speak they should phrase questions like questions, not statements like questions. He nodded. Giving her that small piece of information wouldn’t change anything.

“I don’t blame you. The library is glorious. I’m sure when it was in its prime people filled this place. I wonder what happened,” she mused. Emry wasn’t wrong. Ezekiel saw the blueprints for the library. Its walls from top to bottom were filled with information. It harboured several levels. The library had books that ranged from myth to reality. Now, vines hung from the ceiling. Birds built nests in its crevices. Storms brought in water. Small rodents moved around the place like it was their own. It had become their own. Time passed, people stopped caring, stopped coming to it. So it fell. Knowledge was lost to time.

“Time happened.” Ezekiel said. He walked over to a fallen bookshelf. The books that laid on it were covered in vines and dust. Nature took its course. It ate away at the books. Ezekiel ran his fingers down the spines.

“Is it okay if I wander around it?” Emry asked. He wasn’t sure why she asked him for permission, it wasn’t his. As if she could read his mind, she said, “It feels wrong to not ask for permission.”

He nodded. “As long as you don’t destroy the books anymore than they already are.”

Her cheeks turned rosy as she smiled. “Thank you, Ezekiel!” She turned around and ran to a section of the library that Ezekiel had visited multiple times before. It was filled with books of fantasy. They had no truth to them. They spoke of Gods and Goddesses that would come down to the world and bless people. Those people would be heroes to the common folk. They would go on to be kings with kingdoms that only lasted until they died. People united under one place, one person. One person that held it all together. It was a fool’s section.

Ezekiel turned the corner. His hand glided over the bookcases. The wood was rotted. It held on by a thread. The weight of the books forced the wood to bend to the point it should have snapped. Anymore pressure and it surely would have snapped. The books would be added to the pathway, another item to walk over. Once they fell, they were useless. They’d sit in the puddles of water and rot. Birds would tear out their pages for their nests. Ezekiel had no use for books that couldn’t give him all the information they contained. That was a lie. He wouldn’t come here everyday if he didn’t want the information in the books. He should have left it a long time ago, but the library called to him. It was his silver sap.

Ezekiel crouched to the corner where his favourite book lay. He pulled it out. The mice must have been on top of it. The vermin’s scat rolled off of the spine of the book. More chew marks lined the spine. He opened the book. It smelled like time itself. It had to be time itself. The book was the only myth Ezekiel read. He sought the truth it told of. It had to have truth in it. His grandfather talked of the stories it contained. If it was a lie, if his grandpa lied, his trips out here would be for nothing. The reason Tralechs lived would be for nothing. They’d have no purpose.

“Ezekiel!” Emry’s voice rang out through the library.

He grumbled. He shut the book and returned it to its spot.

“Ezekiel!” she called out again. She was closer than she was the last time. If he waited here, would she find him? Could he stay hidden from her view? His hope was meaningless. The blue of her dress came into view as she turned the corner.

“There you are. Did you not hear me call your name out?” Emry approached him. “I found something. Follow me.”

Ezekiel grumbled.

“Oh, you’ll like it. I promise.” She held out her hand to him.

Ezekiel ignored her hand and rose to his feet. “Show me then.” Humans had a habit of promising things. They had a worse thing of promising things that weren’t true. So why did he follow Emry? Why was he wasting his precious reading time to follow a human through the library that he searched every corner of, save for the basements and any floor higher than the second?

She led him down to the mythology section, near the rotted door to the basement. She stepped over rocks and weeds. Her hands clasped the metal hand of the door. The hairs on his arms rose. His stomach dropped as she opened the door. Torch lights flickered to life, one by one. A staircase revealed itself to the two.

“I saw in a book about this library is that the lower you went, the more information you could find. It was in the mythology section. I found it to be true. I found forbidden books about gods,” Emry said. She walked down the stairs. “You know what that means, right?”

He nodded. It meant that he was one step closer to his goal, and he needed this human.