“Wail, oh mighty storm. Cry, you heavenly gates. For only dirges do we sing after the surges you bring.”

- Elven poem, (Author unknown)

Prometheus.

He was here. He—He’s real.

There was never any true doubt in my mind, but like how a secret can drive one to madness if never shared, the weight of my brother’s existence threatened to drown me if I let it. But this name was confirmation that I was not, in fact, losing my mind.

This single word was such an obscure reference I was sure no one would know it save for me. Me and my brother heard it off of some traveling merchant when we were kids. Never before or since had I heard or read it used save by that old dwarf and my brother. He’d use it each time we played outside and pretended to be anything more than we were, which was often.

“You shouldn’t be here,” a warm and buttery voice cooed from behind me. I turned, and all the color fled my cheeks.

“Wh—what?” I stammered out, completely caught off guard by the man in front of me. He loomed like some hungry Skyrifter, regal in his lethality.

“You should be in bed where it’s safe,” Alaric Hawthorne replied smoothly. His smile wormed its way along his face. There was no kindness there, just some sickness that pretended to be honey in the light. “Why aren’t you in bed?”

“I–I couldn’t sleep. I’ve found books are better company than my thoughts on surge nights.” It was an honest answer if for a different question.

“Well, shall I accompany you back to your dorm hall to ensure no guard mistakes you for an Orion destined for the wall?” He held out his elbow in the fashion young ladies might take for a stroll. Warring emotions barred my mind from decisive action. “Apologies, Professor Hawthorne, but I need to grab one more book before I leave.”

“Oh?” He answered sweetly, as if my rejection of his invitation were merely a part of some game. “What pray tell is more important than your safety?”

“Wards,” I said before I could think better of it. “Your class got me thinking. If I am to truly gain power here, then I should prioritize it without having to compromise on size or spread. Why wear one enchantment that benefits only me when I could fund a ward for an entire city? A country even?” My words came quickly, and I only hoped they would be enough. A spark flicked behind Alaric’s eyes, but it was gone in an instant. If I hadn’t been paying so much attention to his features to see if he would call my bluff, I might’ve missed it.

“Wards are indeed the true heart of our society. Come, I know right where the best ones are.” Alaric strode away, his cloak and uniform immaculate in the everglow’s warm light.

I followed him but spared a final glance at the entry I had pulled up. But even as my eyes searched for that single line of text, the ink swirled, and it was gone. Sorrow gripped my heart, but I schooled my features as best I could.

“Come, Thea!” Alaric called over his shoulder. Inwardly, I was hitting myself as I’d been so caught up in discovering a clue of my brother's machinations that I hadn’t even written down the title of the book he’d checked out. It was in some dwarvish dialect I didn’t recognize, so it didn’t necessarily stick in my mind.

Alaric led me through the various corridors and narrow pathways through the densely packed shelves like he owned the place. Before I knew it, I was completely lost. An intrusive thought struck me.

How many people have died in this library? Were all of them found?

I stepped back from Alaric.

Will I join them?

Half a pace behind him, Alaric’s finger skimmed the spines of some old tomes like a long-lost lover might.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Ahh, here we go!” He finally declared and pulled several old books off the shelves. “Wards and their Infinitum—Vol 1—A Shell for the World and The Sage’s Omen.” He turned to me with what I suspected was the first honest grin he’d ever given me. “These are the true beginning to any honest wardcrafter. I pray they serve you well. Come, let’s away.” He snatched the books I held in my free hand and added these three to the stack. Then, with confident strides, he swept us out of the library.

We walked in silence, and I decided to fill it with a question I was fairly certain couldn’t be traced back to my discovery of my brother.

“Professor?”

“Yes?”

“Why didn’t we have to check out these books?” My question was honest. It alarmed me when we crossed over the library’s open frame and into the hallway without addressing a single attendant, save for a few curt nods from Alaric. Without breaking the soft rhythm of his steps, he grinned patiently at me. It annoyed me to no end.

“Curious, isn’t it? I suppose this might’ve been your first chance at a true library worth their wards. Well, it’s simple, really. The aura reader is but a subset of the academy’s cache of signatures. It reads who enters and what books they may possess and then notates it in the index with what books they might leave with.”

“Fascinating,” I replied, meaning it. Nervously, I tucked an errant strand of my wavy hair behind my ear and played into the naive commoner he saw me as. “Do the books have auras too?”

Alaric laughed high and loud before he shook his head slowly. He must’ve thought his reaction paternal and warm, but to me, who knows what a true father felt and sounded like, his laughter came off as nothing but condescending.

“Oh, who I adore the minds of the young! No, Thea. The books have rudimentary tracking enchantments engraved into their leather bindings. Nothing complicated, really—just enough to help us connect the dots between the reader and the book. It would be far too expensive to etch full tracking runes on each and every tome we possess.” He laughed at his own idea. I didn’t join him.

His words got me thinking, but I would investigate it further.

“Well, this is me,” I told him as we reached the fifth floor of the dorms. I snaked my arm under his and grabbed the stack of books before he could protest or worse, offer to carry them into my room. There was no way in the seven hells that I would give him access past the wards into my dorm.

“Ah, alright.” And the man seemed genuinely disappointed to lose a walking partner. “Stay safe, Thea.” He said in far too familiar a tone for my liking. “The surge brings out all sorts of dangerous monsters.” With that enigmatic omen, he left the way we came. When his head disappeared past the cylindrical staircase, my shoulder sagged, and I let out a deep sigh of relief.

Finally.

I walked back toward my dorm as another cascade of lightning and thunder lit up the midnight sky. Inverted rain shot up into the air outside, and I was again grateful that for all its faults, the academy had excellent enchantments and wards. Slumping my stack of books onto the desk, I slid into my bed. Exhaustion rolled over me like a lead blanket even as my mind whirred with possibilities.

Kaelin was here. Kaelin was looking into wardcrafting.

Why? Why wards of all things?

I might’ve expected enchanting or even mental runes, given the amulet that slung atop my breasts, hidden from the world. I groaned and rose to a seated position, my free arm clutching the wooden frame of my bed like so many cadets had before me in this very room. I stared at the volumes Alaric had recommended and steeled myself.

I’m not here to play. It’s time I found my brother.

I had a clue—a way forward. I would get my hands on that book he’d reserved. But first, I needed to know what in the hells a ward really was and why my brother was so interested in them.

More thunder rolled overhead and got my heart racing. It was so primal—so untamed. A part of me wanted to be brave like my brother and experience it from outside the safety of an enchanted building, but the rest of me knew his survival was a fluke. Without wards, the surge killed. Even those on the high wall were protected by the city-wide wards.

A sound pierced the night, and at first, I disregarded it as the usual cacophony of the surge. Monsters made all sorts of noises when they crashed against our gates, after all. Attention became fixated on the brass doorknob that let out into the hallway. More thunder. More of that faint shriek. It sounded hoarse and distant as all things did through the sound dampening effect of my room’s enchantments. It grated against my ears, and I found my heart began to quicken. A shout rang out from somewhere. It was masculine and angry.

“Oh, skräg it.” I rose to my feet, boots still laced around my tired feet. The second I opened my door, all seven hells broke loose. Cries and screams mixed with the angry voices of men slammed into my ears. I rushed out, uncertainty and adrenaline giving new life to my wearied limbs. To my right, several heads of other curious souls peered between the cracks of their doors. None came out into the hallway. To my left, I found the source of the noise.

An elf I recognized was currently getting kidnapped by six grown men in dirty brown cloaks. Bruises and cuts laced her body beneath her nightgown. A strange sense of disorientation spread over me as I took all this in. Anger rose within me as I related with the elf whose place I’d taken in the circle just hours before.

Lysandra.