The light returns to me slowly, illuminating the cult’s emblem again. There must be dragon blood in the paint to have it so vivid still. Somebody puts their hand on my arm and I look over into summer sky eyes. Senach stands close to me, his other hand coming up to cup my jaw as he keeps my face turned towards him. I lean into him, closing my eyes as he rests his brow against mine. I wouldn’t go with the dragon knights or my brother when they rescued me from the cult, not until a knight stepped forward with Senach in tow. He was the one to get me home, the two of us leaving the mountains on Aedín’s back to return to the castle tower that held my room, and he didn’t leave my side for days. I step closer to him, holding onto his arms.

“They’re long gone,” he whispers.

“I know,” I reply, nodding.

“Who are they?” Estrid asks. “I’ve never seen this before.”

“My father called them the Cult of the Beast,” I say, stepping away from Senach and rubbing at my face before I open my eyes and step towards the door.

Estrid frowns, trying to push it open. It moves, then catches. She places her shoulder against it as she tries again, throwing her weight against the door. It slides open, groaning loudly in the quiet of the buried manor. She bats away cobwebs as she holds her glowing water up, tossing it up into the air as it becomes brighter. Senach reaches for me but I step into the room even as the world tilts around me and my breath catches in my throat.

It’s a large, open chamber with a vaulted ceiling, full bookshelves along the walls, but my gaze goes to the center of the room. A stone altar is covered with a moth-eaten cloth, chains resting around the base of it. Under the cloth, the sides of the altar are carved with dragons and warriors, gold paint shining under Estrid’s light. The floor around it is carved with a map of stars, constellations pointing to different bookshelves. One constellation points to an arch carved into the wall, though Estrid’s light shows only stone there. Cages line the wall next to the arch. In the mountains, it was a shadowy alcove the god came out of. In the mountains, the altar had cloth covering it but no chains, as the priests would put me there while I was asleep and allow me to wake to the god’s presence.

And the god wore a different face each time. He liked wearing Senach’s face the most.

I turn, reaching blindly. Senach is there immediately, placing one hand against my cheek and taking my hand with the other. “Come,” he says. “Let’s go. We don’t need this room.”

My father would have killed to find a room like this after my rescue. Too many members of the cult escaped, including the former commander of the dragon knights. A room like this could have given us so much information about them. Their caverns had been too empty to learn anything, not so much a home but only a new meeting hall.

I touch Senach’s face, looking into his eyes. It was his eyes that told me it was Senach, not the god, when the dragon knights rescued me. I stare at him without truly seeing him now, but I know it to be him—I know his touch, his scent, the care he takes with me. I know how his hands feel against my skin and the way he looks at me when he’s worried. The god could never mimic him well enough, could never find the right summer sky shade for his eyes. It was Talorc the god was better at mimicking, my brother’s easy smile and poise. His love and anger.

“Bridei,” Senach says softly.

“Mm, I’m here,” I reply, blinking as I focus on him. Estrid stands behind him, face full of sympathy. I look away from both of them—or try to, but Senach’s hand on my face keeps me from looking away from him. “I’m all right.”

“Let’s go,” he says, still in that soft voice. “We’ll find a way out of here.”

I shake my head. “The book—”

“Not here. Why would it be here?”

I point to the shelves. “We should try. Look at the floor.”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” he says. I shake my head again and try to step back, glancing up. Above the door rests the skull of a young dragon and I stare at it. Senach looks back and grimaces.

“I’ll search the shelves,” Estrid says, stepping farther into the room. Her light bounces, then slowly lowers to hover above her hand again, an orb of twisting and furious water. The skull falls into shadows. The altar will be in shadows if I turn around.

Senach doesn’t let me turn around. He takes both of my hands in his, never looking away as he steps back and leads me out of the room. I go with him because I can hear the sounds of Estrid searching and because I can see Brighthollow standing in the doorway, fading away before Senach can step through him. He reappears next to me as I step through the doorway, his fingers ghosting through my ribs. I shudder. Senach’s grip tightens.

“Do you think Westhollow knows about them?” I ask.

“Does it matter?” he asks in return. “It’s been over ten years since there’s been any sight of them, and this place has clearly been abandoned for a long time.”

I don’t quite meet his gaze. How could it not matter? They never told me why it had to be me, none of them—not the priests and not the god. Not the dragon knights I asked afterwards, desperate to make sense of the cult. Even the traitorous knights who’d been part of the plot to kidnap me, the ones loyally following a commander who could be alive or dead right now. No one had answers, and neither did the books I hunted down. And here . . . I look back; it’s too dark to see it now but I look for the altar anyway, the chains at its base. I can imagine all too easily how the chains would feel, for the god had given them to me once when I’d poked at an injury to his heart with an insult about how he’d worn Senach’s face wrong. It was a deliberate jab and he’d known it, and a hint of his draconic nature had shown with his fury. That had been the first time he’d worn Senach’s face correctly.

My Senach pulls me out of the room and down the hallway, standing as close as he can to me and taking my face in his hands. “The cult is gone,” he whispers.

“Some ran,” I reply in the same whisper. Díchu, the Knight Commander when we were children. My favorite dragon knight—Odrán, and he’d only been knighted for two years when he ran. There were others who ran, but my father had hated those two until the day he died.

“We’ve heard nothing about them since they ran,” he says. “They may as well be dead.”

“What if they’re alive?” I ask.

“It will only matter if they threaten you again. But why would they take over a decade to do it?”

“I don’t know,” I admit. He nods, nose brushing against mine. “I don’t know, but why would they be here? Why would they come to Dál Macha? Where else have they gone?”

He tucks my hair behind an ear. “Do you really want to know?”

I let out short, quiet laugh. “No. Yes. Maybe.”

“Then we’ll hire someone,” he says. “We’ll see if the others know anyone, and if they don’t, we’ll find someone. We’ll make it their job to learn about the cult. Let them make it less of a nightmare.”

I nod, and we stay there until Estrid finishes searching the room. She comes out empty handed, shaking her head. I stare at the door as she pulls it shut, not moving from where I stand until Senach gently pulls me forward. I stumble and cling to him, and he walks backwards until he has me walking at his side and I lean against him with my head on his shoulder. He doesn’t say anything now, but he holds my arm as much as I hold his and rests his head against mine. Estrid walks ahead of us silently, holding her water up again. We leave the cult’s chamber behind us and I refuse to look around in case I see Brighthollow—or the god I was supposed to be claimed by.

I approach the next door we come to first, silently pulling away from Senach. The door bears no emblem as the other had, but he stays close behind me as I shove it open. It opens to reveal a small parlor, empty of any books that could be the one we seek. We leave the door open as we continue on, attempting to open each other door we come across. Some open, some don’t. In the ones that open, only a few hold books but none are the Book of Stars, or anything else that could be considered helpful. I step lightly around Brighthollow’s spirit. He only watches me now, leaning far too close for comfort but never speaking. Once I turn and step directly into him, cold creeping down my spine and into my lungs. He laughs as I hurry away from him, laughter echoing as his spirit fades from sight.

The library comes as a surprise, Estrid having to throw herself against the door to make it move even an inch. The door only opens when both her and Senach throw their weight against it, the noise of tumbling rocks coming from behind the door when they finally get it open. They both freeze, holding onto the door and doorframe as they wait for the rocks to settle. I stand behind them, ready to grab them even if my hope to actually catch them is quite small. But neither falls and the rocks settle. Estrid pushes the door open farther, revealing the library. I step up to her side, staring down at the room.

It’s far larger than the cult’s chamber, walls and walls of bookshelves. None sit empty and the library was three floors on its own, but the floor above us caved in and left only half of the library accessible to us. I don’t wait for Senach or Estrid, walking into the library and carefully making my way to the ground floor of it. I hear them scrambling down behind me as I step up to a bookshelf, running my fingers over the book spines. They’re covered in dust, a few in cobwebs. I brush my hands off on my trousers as I turn to Estrid and Senach.

“If the Book of Stars was ever in this manor, it was likely here,” I say.

“You start there,” Estrid says. “And Senach, over there. I’ll start under the door we came in.”

I nod and turn back to the shelf, but Senach steps up to my side. Brighthollow is right behind him, blowing lightly on Senach’s neck. Senach frowns, rubbing his neck as he glances back. I grimace and hide the expression by pulling a book off a shelf. “What’s Aedín doing?” I ask, peeking at Senach over the top of the book. It’s not the Book of Stars, but it works well enough as a shield.

“Trying to find a spot to dig us out,” he says as he looks back at me. I point to the ceiling here in question, but he shakes his head. “Whatever’s left above us is too weak. She needs an area with more stability.”

“Oh.” I place my book back on the shelf and run my fingers along the book spines. Many of them have titles visible, or some sort of symbol, and I pull one with three stars down only to find the book blank. Senach follows me as I move along the bookshelf, arms crossed as he stands like a silent sentinel. “What is it?” I ask him, trying not to smile as I pull an unmarked book off a lower shelf. “You’re supposed to be searching your own section.”

“I want you to tell me what’s wrong,” he says.

Brighthollow’s laugh is so sudden and harsh that I almost drop the book as I flinch. “Nothing’s wrong,” I say over the laughter, putting the book back. Any smile I had is dead now as Brighthollow leans against the bookshelf next to me. I glance at him, then walk away from the bookshelf to search another one.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Senach follows. “What made you flinch?”

“Caught a nail on something,” I answer, pulling books out. None are the one we want. “I’m fine, Senach. Stop worrying.” He stays with me for a moment more, then sighs and walks away. I want until he’s occupied with searching to glare at Brighthollow’s spirit. “Leave me alone,” I hiss, grabbing a book off a shelf. A small trinket tumbles to the floor. I stare at the trinket, then crouch to examine it.

“Never,” Brighthollow says, crouching with me. “I’ll be with you until you die. Maybe I’ll scare you into falling off a roof. Will everyone think you jumped?”

“I wouldn’t jump,” I murmur distractedly. “Not anymore. Senach knows that.” The trinket is a small necklace, a man’s face carved into pearl. He looks familiar but the necklace is too dirty to know how, even when I try to brush the dirt off. The silence from Brighthollow makes me look up, but the spirit is nowhere to be seen as I stand and pocket the necklace. Senach and Estrid both continue searching their sections of the library, neither having heard or seen Brighthollow.

I pull a book out slowly, opening it without really seeing what’s on the pages. What remains to us of the library is fully illuminated by Estrid’s glowing orb of water that floats high in the air, and Brighthollow has completely vanished. Estrid’s halfway up the rubble, digging a shelf out to look at the buried books. Senach looks back at me as I look at him, his head tilting to the side in question. I smile and shake my head at him, placing my book on the shelf again before I close my eyes and rub at them. A dull ache is beginning to form behind my eyes and I sigh as I step away from the shelf, wishing I hadn’t drank all the brandy in my flask three days into our journey. Dealing with a mysterious, buried manor that may or may not have ties to the cult that once kidnapped me and could house the book that can help me deal with a fay death curse is too much.

I stare at the shelves for a moment before abandoning the search and turning around. Estrid’s taken to tossing books that aren’t what she wants aside, so I walk over to Senach’s side to avoid getting hit. He doesn’t quite turn towards me as I approach, but his head tilts in my direction as he flips through a book. I lean against his side, resting my cheek against his shoulder.

He flips to an illustration of a dragon and its rider. “Tales of Ímar,” he says as he shuts the book. “Can’t get away from him even here.” I hum as he places the book back on the shelf and takes another one, brushing the cover off and flipping it open to see the title. “Tell me you’re all right,” he whispers as he puts the book back on the shelf.

I don’t understand how he doesn’t hate me for running. “I’m as well as I can be right now,” I whisper back.

“You’re being a terrible liar again.”

I almost smile. “I’m starting to think I’ve never been a good liar.”

“You are when you need to be,” he says. “And when you want to be. Remember when you lied to your mother about us in the dragon tunnels during mating season? She knew you were lying but she couldn’t pick your story apart. It was perfect.”

I do smile at that. “Perfect until Cainnech told her the truth.”

He smiles wryly. “He’s the commander of the dragon knights. It’s his duty to tell her when we’ve been stupid.”

My mother had put three of her own guards on me for weeks after that, and I wasn’t allowed to leave the castle without them. Senach and I couldn’t be trusted alone. We might have run off again. “My head is starting to hurt,” I tell him. He deserves the truths I can give him. “I want to go home. I miss my bed.” I miss crawling into his bed. “I think finding this book is pointless. Death curses are meant to kill, aren’t they? Slowly or quickly.”

He tsks and stares at the books. “Maybe the book will tell us how to transfer it.”

I snort. “You’d kill someone else just for me? I don’t think Estrid’s god would like that.”

He scoffs. “Her god isn’t mine. Why should I care what he thinks?”

“She can heal people,” I remind him. “That’s very useful. More useful than me.”

“You are one of the best fighters I know,” he says. “Incredibly charming when you want to be. Too curious for your own good sometimes, but you just like knowing things. Knowledge is useful, too.” He pauses. “And your sword can cut through magical attacks. Who knows how useful that is now that we’re dealing with the Fair Folk.”

I frown. “My sword can what?”

He frowns back. “I thought you noticed. During the duel?”

I stare at him, but Estrid shouts at us before I can even think about it. I turn—she stands halfway up to the door we entered through holding a thick book high in the air. “Found it,” she says with a grin. “Westhollow was right.”

“I was hoping to disappoint him,” I say.

“You can’t disappoint everyone,” Senach replies.

“I know. It’s a pity.”

He shoves me towards Estrid. We scramble our way up the rubble to her, but she gestures for us to follow her as she leads us back to the door we entered from. Once we’re all in the hallway, she holds up the book. The cover is hard, deep brown leather with nothing on the front but a golden keyhole. The keyhole is useless, as if the lock for it had broken off years ago. The frontispiece is a thick forest, a redheaded figure sitting on a tree stump as another figure kneels and presents the book to them. Two moons hang in the sky surrounded by stars. I run my finger over a pair of eyes peeking from the forest shadows.

“Who wrote it?” I ask softly. Something about the book makes me want to whisper, makes me want to find a spot under the stars to sit with Senach and talk about our dreams.

He flips to the next page, then ahead by a few more before he shakes his head. “It doesn’t say.”

I close the book. “Do we continue on down the hallway, then? Or try the other direction?”

“If that much of the library was destroyed, I don’t think we’ll have luck continuing in the same direction as before,” Estrid says.

Senach nods in agreement, eyes unfocusing. “Aedín is searching the area, but she doesn’t think it likely.” He blinks as he focuses on us again. “She wants us to rest for the night.”

I look towards the ceiling. “It’s night?”

“Evening,” he says, turning me around and giving me a gentle shove. “We’ll go this way.”

I let him push me along, Estrid’s water bobbing ahead to light the hall in front of us, and open the book again. It doesn’t look old, but I’m not sure what that means for a book the Fair Folk are interested in. It could be charmed to never age. Whatever it may be, though, it is in a language I can’t read. Senach glances at the book as I flip through the pages, then silently flips the pages back to an illustration of a young man marked with feathers. His red hair is the only color on the page, spread across the ground like a bloodstain as he looks up at a moonless night sky.

“Do you recognize him?” I ask quietly.

Estrid steps around us as we slow down. Senach glances at her as she investigates a door, then shakes his head at me. “No,” he says. “But then you liked the libraries across the island more than me. Do you recognize him?”

I shake my head and open to a page in the middle of the book, text surrounded by borders of ravens and frost-covered tree branches. Senach continues to lead me along as I flip through the book, eventually leading me into a large bedroom that doesn’t seem terribly disturbed. A chair still stands behind a desk along one wall, both covered in a thick layer of dust and dirt. Estrid runs her hand along one of the two couches in the room, using the blanket draped over one to clean it. I set the Book of Stars on a table as Senach tries the other doors along the walls. He moves on to finding clean blankets as I rip the one on the bed off, throwing it aside and grabbing the pillows to smack them into shape and clean them of dust and dirt. Then I throw myself onto the bed, laying on my back and closing my eyes.

I don’t mean to fall asleep, but I do. I wake to Estrid’s glowing water creating a small, dim light in a corner of the room and Senach on the bed next to me, his eyes opening as soon as I roll onto my side. “Tell me you slept,” I whisper. I don’t know where Estrid is, but if she sleeps, I don’t want to wake her.

He smiles. “I did. Aedín woke me a little bit ago.”

“Are we about to be freed?”

He nods. “She’s been digging throughout the night. It won’t take long to find her. Do you feel better?”

“Hm?”

He sighs and rolls onto his side to face me, his dragon eyes reflecting the light cast by Estrid’s water. “I said,” he starts, slow and even, “do you feel better? You said you haven’t been sleeping well. Your head hurts. You miss your bed. Do you feel better now?”

I smile. “A little, but I still miss my bed.”

“I’ll have you back to it soon.” I nod, closing my eyes again. He’s silent for a moment, then says, “I meant what I said earlier. You need not stay there if you aren’t sleeping well.” I open my eyes and stare at him. He waits for me to speak, frowning lightly when I don’t. “Bridei . . .”

“Do you miss Dál Macha?” I ask quickly.

“No,” he answers. “I like where we are now.”

“Really? You don’t miss the other dragon knights?”

He stares at me. “I’ve missed you more lately.”

The urge to run rises, but I don’t know where I’d run to in this buried manor. I can only smile and say, “I’m right here.”

He closes his eyes and takes a slow breath, the way he does when I’m trying his patience more than usual. I try not to grimace. “Then tell me what’s going to happen between us,” he says as he opens his eyes.

The urge to run grows and I struggle to speak. “We survive,” I say. “Remember? What we’ve been doing. You said that yourself.” I sit up to ignore the way he stares at me. “Where’s Aedín? We should find her. Maybe help her dig.”

“Bridei,” he starts, but I pat his leg as I climb off the bed.

“Come on. Let’s get out of here so we can go home.”

The noise he lets out is not quite a sigh. I glance back as I cross the room, combing my fingers through my hair. His jaw is clenched, shoulders tight. He cracks his knuckles as he follows me, staring at the ground. I want to reach out—I know that look, I’ve chased that expression away from his face before, it’s so rare to have it there because of me. Instead I take the Book of Stars and walk out into the hallway, nearly bumping directly into Estrid as she examines the walls and ceiling. Her water bobs in the air next to my head and I hold my hand next to it, watching the light and water reflect against my palm.

“They taught you to do this at your temple?” I ask her.

She nods. “There was a bad quake one year. We couldn’t use fire when we were searching for people, so we needed another method to light our way. Five of us figured out how to make this work.”

“It’s amazing,” I murmur. I move my hand and the water moves with it, avoiding contact. I look back. Senach’s face is devoid of any emotion now, the look he would get in the great hall when he had guard duty. I used to make faces at him to try and get him to break. I can barely manage a smile for him now. “Which way?”

He points to the end of the hallway, dark and outside the range of Estrid’s light. I sigh, but follow when Estrid leads the way. Senach walks behind me, far enough that I can’t easily turn around to talk to him, and I miss his presence at my side so fiercely I ache with it. I hug the Book of Stars to my chest, staring at Estrid’s back instead of slowing my steps like I want to. We pass by closed doors and open ones, even a skeleton propped up by a sword. We all stop next to it, Senach kneeling to examine it. The remnants of its clothing reveal the same emblem of the cult and I shake my head as I step away, continuing down the hallway. They follow after me a moment later. I hold the book to rest my cheek against it, glancing at the doors we pass.

And through an open door, I see a figure sitting at the foot of a bed.

I stop.

I walk backwards, looking into the room again. No one sits on the chest at the foot of the bed, only a long abandoned cloak resting there. I frown, then walk into the room. Senach says name but I shake my head at him, never looking away from that chest. The figure was a slight one, a youth with red hair that reflected the light from Estrid’s water. They were facing the door, watching us pass them. Estrid’s light enters the room behind me and I look around, but only Senach and Estrid stand in the room with me. I stare at Senach, holding the book even closer to my chest. He looks so concerned, stepping forward slowly. I turn away, looking to the chest again. Someone was there.

“Bridei?” Senach asks in a whisper, hand on my shoulder gently. Like he doesn’t know if he can touch me.

I lean into his touch. The cloak on the chest is purple, lined with black and trimmed with fur. I pick it up slowly, rubbing it between my fingers. I don’t know the fabric, but there are stars sewn into it.

“What’s wrong?” Senach asks, hand moving down my back.

It looks remarkably whole for having been buried with everything else.

“What?”

I blink at Senach. He looks between me and the cloak, then returns my stare. He looks as confused as I feel. Realization is slow to dawn. “Oh. I said that aloud,” I mumble.

He almost looks fond. Definitely looks amused, trying not to smile. “You did. And you’re right, it doesn’t look like it’s been here as long as everything else. That doesn’t answer my question. Why did you come in here? What’s wrong?”

“I thought I saw someone,” I say.

“Shadows playing tricks, maybe,” he offers, tucking my hair behind my ear. “I can’t smell anyone else, nor can I hear anyone beyond us.”

I nod. “Are we close to Aedín?”

“Yes, and she’s been digging to get us out. Come on. Let’s go home.”

He turns me around, staying at my side as we leave the room. I wrap the cloak around the book, then run my fingers over it again. It’s better than most cloaks I had on Dál Macha, better than the Fair Folk-made one Taran gave me, and it fills me with a sense of dread so thick I’m surprised it doesn’t bury me as the mountain buried the manor. I grab Senach’s arm, holding onto him as we walk. He looks at me but doesn’t say anything, covering my hand with his.

We reach a wall of dirt—but as we watch, the wall is agitated and rocks tumble down to land at our feet. Slowly at first, and then a small cascade of them as a small hole reveals sunlight near the ceiling. Senach squeezes my hand as a talon inserts itself into that hole and scrabbles at it until a snout can replace the talon. I smile as Aedín huffs into the room before pulling back. Estrid laughs as her glowing water fills up a waterskin once more.

I look to Senach. He’s already staring at me. “Let’s go home,” I say softly.