Cass lay in her bed, staring at the ceiling. Sleep should be easy. It had been a long day. Travel and dueling and banquets. Sleep should be easy.

She should be tired.

And she was. But useless questions drowned out that exhaustion. Questions she didn’t want to think about. Questions that she did not have answers to and no amount of pondering would derive the answers.

She turned over and over, from side to side. The bed was criminally soft, yet she could not find a comfortable position. The room was chilly, but the heavy comforter was too warm. The room was quiet, but after a month of sleeping surrounded by the little noises of nature, the quiet was unnatural.

She turned over again, fluffing her pillow as she shifted.

Salos had given up trying to sleep on her lap hours ago. He has since found a much stiller spot on the nearby armchair. He appeared dead asleep, in no way troubled as she was. She could feel his consciousness next to her own. It pressed against her like a weighted blanket. Another night, it might have been comforting.

Tonight, it was just one more thing she didn’t want to think about.

She sat up, throwing the comforters off her body. If she wasn’t going to sleep, she’d find something else to do until she was ready.

She activated Stealth and crept out of the room so as not to wake Salos, pulling her night robe tighter around her shoulders.

The halls were dim at this hour. All was quiet. Even the servants had turned in for the evening.

It was just Cass walking the halls like a ghost.

The walls were lined with glass murals. She imagined in the daylight they shone in bright colors and glimmering light. In the dark, they were cold and difficult to interpret. She was pretty sure they were all scenes of battle, though. Armored soldiers raced across the hall’s length into an enemy force. Above the fray, a dragon led the charge, its mouth open in a bestial roar. Upon its back, an armored figure raised a sword.

Just bloody glory after gory conquest.

How would these look in the light? Would she feel the pride their creators felt or would she simply find herself awash in the red light filtered through the glass?

She sighed. Perhaps staring at the ceiling of her room would be a better use of her time.

Was it already time to head back?

She rounded a corner of the hallway to see a light leaking from a doorway. The door was just barely ajar, casting a thin beam of light into the hall.

Cass hesitated.

If the light was on, didn’t that mean someone was there? Would they want to be disturbed this late at night?

Then again, she didn’t feel the breathing of anyone near her with Atmospheric Sense. Maybe someone had just forgotten to put out the light? Then wasn’t it her duty to investigate and turn it out for them when she was done?

She opened the door and stepped in.

Beyond was a library, two stories tall, with sweeping shelves covering every inch of the walls in books. The air was still, carrying a faint smell of must and paper. Most of the library was dark, except for a single lamp lit on the far side of the room.

Cass walked along the shelves, taking the long way around to the light. The tomes varied, some heavy, hulking thinks as wide as her palm and bound in thick leather, others thin packets of paper with little more than string keeping their pages together. Some wore gems on their spines; others, words in scripts she did not recognize.

Cass didn’t dare touch them. There was a foreboding over the room that she couldn’t attribute to any one thing. There was no dust, but the books seemed pressed into their places on the shelves like they rarely moved.

A pair of tables stood in the center of the room. Around them, stiff-backed chairs stood at attention, like soldiers on guard. Blank paper sat in neat stacks weighed down by a curling serpent paperweight, writing tools lined up neatly beside it. Waiting, never to be used.

Such was the feel of the place until she reached the glow of the lamp. Here, the shelves thinned out, gaps appearing between books. The lamp sat on a small writing desk. On one end was a stack of books, easily a foot high, on the other scribbled notes covered in blotchy ink and a quivering script.

There was an indent in the chair’s cushions and a throw blanket hanging over the chair’s back. This corner alone in the room appeared to be used.

“Ah!” a voice squeaked behind her.

Cass spun. A boy hung in the doorway, thin and gangly and not a day over eighteen.

“Er, hi?” Cass said with an awkward wave. Who was he? He looked a little like Alyx and a lot like Kohen. Another sibling? They had said something about there being another brother, hadn’t they?

Was he going to be just like Kohen? All pride and bluster?

Cass prepared herself to find an excuse to leave as quickly as possible.

But the boy waved back, slow and awkward, from the doorway, almost like he was afraid to approach. He called from the door, “Can I help you?”

Offering assistance? Maybe he wasn’t like Kohen. Or maybe that was noble speak for ‘what are you doing here? You aren’t supposed to be here!’ Then again, his voice wasn’t forceful. Rather, it was wavering, like a real question.

“No,” Cass said. “I’m just wandering. Is this your stuff?”

He nodded as he scurried toward the table. “I’m sorry. I meant to clean that up but—“

“No, no need to apologize.” Cass stepped away from the writing desk. “I’m just trying to get out of your way. Sorry for poking around without permission.”

He shook his head. “This isn’t my study. I shouldn’t leave my stuff out like I own the place.”

The words echoed in his mouth like he was repeating something said to him rather than words he had picked himself.

“This isn’t your library?” Cass asked. Was he not one of the Veldor children? He looked like he was, even if he lacked the backbone she’d come to expect.

“Oh, no. This is my father’s library,” he said. “Um. I’m Ahryn Delim Veldor, youngest son of the Warden Thaycer Delim Veldor and Grand Mage Litya Delim Veldor. I would never claim this was all mine.”

Cass cocked her head to the side. His father’s library, his library? She didn’t see the difference. There were plenty of things that might belong to a parent but not the child and plenty of contexts she might even agree a library was among them, but in this case, she didn’t see the difference.

Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

This was his home, wasn’t it? That made this his library.

“I’m Cass,” Cass said with a wave.

He stared at her another minute, perhaps expecting her to say more.

“Nice to meet you,” Cass said finally, more to break the silence than because she thought it was what he was waiting for.

“Nice to meet you too, Lady Cass?”

Cass chuckled. “Lady? No need for anything that fancy. I’m not nobility or anything.”

“No?” he asked. “Aren’t you a houseguest?”

Cass nodded. “That’s right.”

The boy looked like Cass had just told him the sky was green.

“How do you know my brother?” he asked.

“Kohen?” Cass’s eyebrow twitched at the memory of their meeting. “I met him when he’d burst into my room before I’d gotten dressed. He had—” Cass paused. Was it wise to vent her frustrations at his brother? The kid might assume it was slander and do who knew what to her. Better take it down a notch for now.

But the boy already looked scandalized. “K-K-Kohen did what?”

Cass looked away. What did she say now? He had asked. It wasn’t like she had been indecent. “I was relaxing in the guest room after a bath…” Cass explained the incident.

The boy’s confusion appeared to only grow at it. “Wait. You met him here? At the manor?”

Cass nodded.

“He invited you before you had met?”

It was Cass’s turn to look confused. “No. He didn’t invite me.”

Ahryn inhaled sharply. He stood a little taller and took a step back. “I’m sorry. I misunderstood. You are my father’s guest, then?”

Cass raised an eyebrow. She shook her head. “No.”

“But, mother didn’t invite you,” he said, his body noticeably relaxing.

“I’m Alyx’s guest,” Cass explained. He must not have heard.

“Alyx has a guest?”

Cass waved a set of jazz hands at the boy. “Hello!”

“But Alyx doesn’t have any friends.”

Oof. Cass winced at the boy’s brutal takedown.

“And if she did, why would she bring them here?” He looked at Cass inquisitively. “She hates it here.”

“She’s here for the Festival,” Cass said with a shrug.

“Ah,” the boy visibly deflated. “Then are you here to help her with that?”

Wasn’t that the question.

“Are you competing as well?” Cass asked instead of answering his question.

He shook his head. “I’m not strong enough for that.”

Vaisom Noble (Lvl 23)

“You’re a higher level than me,” Cass said with a shrug. Though, as a slyphid, she probably had more stats than him.

Then again, it wasn’t her business whether a kid was planning on entering the Catacombs. She wasn’t even sure if she was going. And Alyx didn’t need more rivals.

“What are you doing up this late?” Cass asked, changing the subject.

“Studying,” the boy said.

“Studying?” Cass repeated.

He stepped around her to the desk, shuffling the papers into a singular pile. “I’m planning on joining the Institute of Arcane Arts in the fall. The entrance exams are coming up after the Festival.”

Cass smiled sadly at the papers on his desk, bitterly remembering her own application process to undergrad. Some things were the same no matter the world.

“What are you planning on studying?” Cass asked. Magic, probably, based on the name of the institute.

“I’m not sure yet,” he said. “Mother wants to see me specialize in Gestural Combat Magic, but I don’t know if I’ll make the cut for that.”

Cass couldn’t help herself. She’d heard that tone of voice all too often in the past. That was the classic ‘my parents want me to be a lawyer/doctor and make lots of money but I hate the idea’ voice.

She patted him on the shoulder. “It’s a tough world out there. Even the things they say are sure shots won’t necessarily be by the time you graduate.” How many of her peers had forced themselves into tech because everyone had agreed that was where the jobs were, only to end up on the other side in an over-saturated market? “So pick a major you’re interested in. Or at least one you won’t hate for the rest of your life.”

He was looking at her funny again. Maybe they didn’t call them majors of study here? Well, whatever, he’d figure it out. Or he wouldn’t. And again, it wasn’t really her business to meddle.

“I should probably let you get back to it,” Cass said.

“No. It’s alright, really, sorry for taking up the entire library.” He stammered as he scrambled to put his books away.

“Don’t worry about it on my account,” Cass said, backing toward the door. It was probably time to try to sleep again, anyway.

He scooped up a pile, only to bump into an armchair in the corner. He fell, his books falling around him.

“Woah!” Cass rushed back over to him. “Are you okay?”

“I’m sorry!” he squeaked from the floor, scrambling to get back up.

“Hey, wait, calm down,” Cass leaned over and put a hand on his shoulder. “Are you okay?”

He blinked up at her. He repeated her slowly, “Am I okay?”

“Did you hurt yourself?”

He shook his head.

Cass sighed in relief and crouched beside him, gathering his books into a stack. “Good.”

“Good?”

Cass raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure you didn’t hit your head?”

He shook his head. “I’m fine, really.”

“Alright. Be careful though, okay? Concussions are serious.”

“Ah, okay?”

The books were mostly thick textbook-looking things, the covers decorated with abstract designs. She couldn’t read any of the titles.

Perhaps that shouldn’t surprise her. She had not tried to read anything yet. Jothi Language Comprehension was currently only trained on the spoken word and wasn’t particularly high leveled either.

She’d have to ask Salos to teach her later. She refused to be illiterate any longer than she had to.

A few books were much smaller and more colorful, closer to fifty or a hundred pages than several hundred. Cass picked up the first of these. It had a very round, armored character on the cover with a long, twisting banner and a drawn sword.

“AH!” the boy snatched the book from her hands and clutched it to his chest. “That’s not—I mean—You see…” his sputtering continued, his face flushing.

“What was that book?” Cass asked.

“Well, um,” he looked away. “You saw it.”

That was true, but she still had no idea what it was for him to be so embarrassed.

“I should be past this kind of thing,” he murmured.

Whatever it was, he seemed convinced she knew what it was and that he should be embarrassed about it. Cass sighed.

“I can’t read,” she said finally. “I have no idea what that is.”

His eyes jumped to her. He didn’t quite gape.

Cass shrugged, continuing to stack the books for him while he stared.

“Right,” he said finally. “You said you weren’t a noble. I’m sorry. You just—You look like someone who can read.”

Cass shrugged. She could, just not Jothi.

“This is a children’s book,” he said, holding the book out so Cass could see it again. “A story of heroism. Fiction.”

She flipped it open. The text within was in a large font and there were pictures every dozen or so pages. On Earth, it might have been classified as a children’s chapter book, but was still too complicated for Jothi Language Comprehension to translate it.

It wasn’t something a high school senior looking at college would generally still be reading, but easily something he’d be embarrassed about.

“You should read what you like,” Cass said, handing the book back to him. “Are there more of these here?”

He nodded slowly, his expression incomprehensible to Cass. “This way?”

He led her to the back corner. On one of the bottom shelves, he pointed out a collection of books. Cass flipped through them. They appeared to all be similar chapter books. They’d be good practice once she had the basics, but she wasn’t going to be able to teach herself with these tonight.

She’d have to come back with Salos and have him translate for her.

“I think the public library has some more beginner books,” Ahryn said as she carefully worked the last book back onto its shelf. “And, um, another night, I might be able to help you, if you want.”

“I couldn’t ask you for that,” Cass said. The boy was studying for exams. He couldn’t possibly have time for distractions.

“I read to—” He stopped abruptly and coughed. “I read a chapter or two of these every night, anyway. I’m done for tonight but, if you come out to the back balcony after sunset while you’re here, I don’t mind reading it out loud to you, too.”

“Well, if you’re sure,” Cass said. She supposed breaks were important too and if he was going to be reading anyway, she would be foolish to pass up a willing teacher. “If I have time tomorrow evening, I’ll look for you.”