Pale moonlight drifted in through the skylight above, casting a gentle, hazy glow onto the familiar library. I stalked through the darkened halls, peeking around corners and shuffling through the book-jammed shelves. Searching for something.
Shelf after shelf, tome after tome, I searched, the moonlight never shifting. The dust on the shelves remained motionless even as I ran my hand through it, reaching for a book. I stepped out from the aisle, somehow stepping out right where I’d started despite never turning around.
I trailed my hand along the edge of the bookshelf as I walked down the next aisle of endless shelves. My fingers traced a depiction of Sinbad’s journey, particularly his encounter with the rook.
The moment shattered as a voice called out from behind me, and I jerked backward.
‘It’s not here.”
I turned to see Shahrazad dressed in a silky, plain slip that clung to her figure as she walked, a Greek statue brought to life. She stepped next to me, her hand brushing the path mine had moments before.
“Pardon?”
She dropped her hand, and our eyes met. “The piece you’re searching for.”
Static infiltrated the library, time and space blurring. The shelves on either side turned into the cavern walls, the floor fading into water that brushed against my knees, cool and damp. Shahrazad stepped forward, moving through the water like a ghost, the water still in her wake. I stuck my hand in the water, swishing it back and forth. The water was cold but still. It was as though…
“This is a dream,” she confirmed, looking over her shoulder at me.
That’s right. I’d fallen asleep after I finished writing down everything Sinbad had wanted to know. Her outfit suddenly struck me as odd.
“Do you sleep during the day as well?”
Shahrazad looked in a way that made me want to question my own existence.
“...Isn’t it?”
She plowed forward through the water. “It has been an entire day since I sent you on your journey.”
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
I shook my head, confused and certain it hadn’t been quite that long. “Not for me.”
Her shoulders lifted in a shrug, and our conversation lapsed into silence.
Eventually, the winding cavern opened up into a deep and massive room. Water trickled in from the tunnel we’d just walked through, tumbling into a waterfall that dropped down a few feet before sliding down to cover the floor of the room below. A couple of feet of flowing water moved across the circular platform in the middle, set alight by gemstones that glowed brightly around the edges like pool lights, highlighting the muraled floor.
Painted into ancient, faded stones was a picture of a massive blue djinn adorned with golden jewelry that might have been inlaid into the floor with actual gold. The water rippled across the image, shifting it and making it look as if the djinn was alive, swimming through the waves towards a giant tree on the far side of the platform whose roots pried the ancient stones from their places, lifting its branches toward the glass ceiling that acted as a barrier between the almost black waters flowing above our heads and the water below. Nestled between the branches was a massive bundle of trees and planks that wove together in a nest the size of a small apartment building.
The large, black, feathered head of a rook lifted from the nest, its head jerking to land its unsettling pitch-black eyes on our location.
Wings unfurled across the edges of the nest into a massive wingspan that spanned not only the size of the gigantic nest but reached over the edges. Sharp talons, easily taller than me, glinted as they reached over the edge, clinging to the side of the nest as the bird hauled itself up.
It tipped over the edge, rapidly gliding across the room to us as its wings flapped once, then twice, slowly lifting the monstrous bird up into the air. It kept a close eye on us as it circled before melting into the dark walls of the cavern. Perhaps I should have been terrified, but great sadness and longing pierced my chest. Heat dripped down my cheek, and I reached up to feel a single teardrop stream down my face.
I turned to hide my expression, catching Shahrazad’s teary face as I did so. My vision blurred with tears, stretching the darkness into a large expanse lit only by a tiny spark of light. It flickered and flared into a brief impression of a girl I’d seen before settling into the painfully forced-together puzzle that was the Collapsing Stars, a collection of sharp pieces that were held together by a shared fear of becoming mere dust on the wind, scattering into nothing.
Do you have it yet?
The ache of longing in my chest turned to a dagger that stabbed me straight through the heart as the full force of the Star's pain struck me.
I’m sorry.
I woke to stare at the blurry wooden planks to the left of my bed, my face still wet with tears.
I draped an arm over my eyes and sighed, a few of the small glimmers I’d picked up here and there in my time in Zenith Online slotting perfectly into place. The motion recalled the giant rook, and I shut my eyes so tight they burned.
Shahrazad hadn’t decided to send us there just for the trade route, apparently.