I slide from my stallion’s bare back at the rickety fence that marks the boundary of the neighboring Venon estate, still riding high on the smooth masterpiece of Sebastian’s powerful gallop on the way here. There’s nothing better than the freedom of riding, his muscles bunching and releasing in a long, rocking cadence that sings to my bones.

  Like he always does the day before High Court, my cousin Farnell sits on our chosen fallen log, whittling away at a hunk of wood with the little foldable knife that’d cost him a hand if he got caught with it. He grins at our arrival, exposing his missing front tooth. “Mornin’, what’s that I smell? Blueberry pastries? Something sweet. Raspberry?”

  I pass over my bag, now dressed in the shabby servant’s clothes I keep stashed in the manor’s firewood passage, a thin scarf wrapped around my neck and my hair tucked up into a cap. Then I lean against Sebastian’s side, both our chests still heaving from the exertion of our galloping ride here. I draw in a deep breath, trying to calm my racing heart and ease my lightheadedness; I wish Clara wouldn’t have taken so much blood. “There’s a tin of stew, too.”

  Farnell looks… alright. His cheeks are no more gaunt than last I saw him. His bright red curly hair is still matted, but those grey eyes are bright and full of fight—his mother’s, my father’s sister, and as peasant a lineage as it gets. No matter his lineage, I’ll take him with me when I finally marry. I’ll do whatever I must to make it happen. He’s the last blood family I have left.

  “Any news?” Farnell digs through the sling bag I brought and fishes out the tin of stew and bundle of pastries Lilianna left by the firewood tunnel exit for me, since she knows I use these opportunities to visit my cousin. He moans into the first pastry. “Oh Skies, I love these.”

  “Not yet. You know Clara. She expects it every High Court, but how many have there been with no announcement?” I keep an eye trained on the gaps in the forest canopy overhead. Nothing flies overhead except birds and bugs and retreating rain clouds. We should be plenty safe here, but I always look. Everyone does, and I have more reason than most.

  He nods, still chewing, and runs a hand through his matted hair, sending bits of carved wood shavings tumbling from it. “What’s Lily want in exchange for smuggling these? More books, I’d wager.”

  “Maybe, but I want to spend time with you for a while. How is everything over here? How are you?” I say, though I’m itching for the thrill of sneaking into the Venon library. Instead, I scratch away tufts of my horse’s shedding winter coat to reveal the underlying shiny black. This close, I’m filled with the wonderfully sweet, earthy richness of horse and alfalfa. Sebastian swings his head around to nuzzle my shoulder with a chuff. Bred a war horse, he stands over seventeen-hands-high, but he’s been my companion ever since father gave him to me on my eighth year.

  Farnell snorts and gathers up his things. “Oh, come off it. Let’s go. We’ll have more time if we go together.”

  “No way, it’s too risky.” I’ve seen the scars on his back. Maybe the staff won’t skin him, but if Maurus or his father catches Farnell getting books with me…

  He rolls his eyes and stuffs another pastry into his mouth. “The last time I let you and Ray run off together...” His tone starts off jovial, but fades as he takes in my face. “I’m sorry, Aub, I wasn’t thinking.”

  I lay my cheek against Sebastian’s warm, slightly sweat-damp side. The way that name shatters my composure… “You’ve really heard nothing? Not a word?”

  “I’ve asked again and again,” Farnell whispers, resting a hand on my shoulder. “There is no Ray Ashgar serving in the guard. I’ve even asked about just Ray, but none are the right age, not by decades. Word from the palace staff says he’s not there either.”

  He’s told me this before, but I keep expecting some new sliver of information, some clue, some hint that Ray’s still alive. Farnell’s grip on my shoulder squeezes because we’re both thinking the same thing: that Maurus had Ray executed for attacking an Heir. And I wasn’t there to save him. Father wasn’t there to save him. And all of it, every last drop, is my fault.

  Farnell loops his arm in mine and tugs me towards the Venon fields. “Come on, I’ll tell you all about my very uneventful life on the way. Besides, while the Venons are already at their city house for High Court tomorrow, you’ll need me to get you out of any trouble with the staff. What good is a fireboy, if not to lead you anywhere there’s a fireplace?”

  “You should be sleeping,” I argue, because I know he works nights almost exclusively in these warmer months when the fires don’t need daytime tending and I hate the idea of robbing him of anything related to his health.

  “And you’re pale again,” he counters, his gaze dropping meaningfully to my wrist.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  I tug my sleeve over the incompletely faded pink line marring the gold there. We don’t talk about what Clara does, but I know he knows. Just like I know what happens to him at Venon hands.

  We leave Sebastian wandering the woods bordering the Venon estate and hurry from one outbuilding to another, heads down and footsteps shuffling like the many other peasants on task. Fortunately, this estate is bustling with them, their coffers much larger and richer than ours—though Clara has heard rumor they’re also suffering financially.

  The firewood shed marks our target. Its shadow hides a door in the manor’s wall. Farnell easily finds the brick that triggers the latch and we slip into the disorienting darkness of the manor’s firewood tunnels. All the Founder manors have them so the nobles inside need never see filthy fireboys replenishing the hearths.

  With my hand sliding along either wall as guide, the passage no wider than my shoulders, we make our way through the familiar twists and turns so like the palace tunnels we ran amok in as kids with Ray.

  The glow of sunlight lights the hollow of a hearth at our destination and, after a cautious peek, we slip out into the vacant library.

  Bookshelves filled with leather-bound tomes line the massive room and stretch two floors high. Rays of sunlight filter through the murky glass of the domed ceiling, suspended dust sparkling in the air. So many riches contained here and the Venons can’t even be bothered to dust it. A mere marker of wealth to have; to covet, but not to use.

  The rich musk of parchment and ink and aged leather fills the room. So much like my father from before, when it was just he and I, tucked together in an old, creaky leather chair in our cramped palace staff quarters as we both escaped into the grand adventures only flipped pages could give us.

  Clara’s since sold all Father’s books to pay for dresses, jewelry, and my tutelage. Books are ‘frivolous expenses’. The Gallant library now holds nothing but dictionaries, the Founder’s History volumes, and etiquette instructionals. No fiction at all. Nothing fun like the swordplay and war and scandalous trysts in this library.

  “What’s your stepsister want this time?” Farnell asks, jerking me back to reality. “Though I don’t know why you even bother, she’d feed you to the wolves if it benefited her.”

  I make myself smile. “Romance. And something on embroidery.”

  It isn’t just for Lilianna. He could never understand how badly I need this. How desperately I crave these moments of freedom and defiance. How they get me through every awful moment, every slap, every day spent starving in the attic as punishment for my lack of perfection. He can’t understand that, not when he has it so much worse.

  “Right, needles and sewing and shit?” he says between bites as he eyes a shelf.

  “Lilianna would be offended.” I give him my best disapproving look. “And you shouldn’t talk like that.”

  “Why? Because one day I’ll grow up to be a noble, like you?”

  I snort, but can’t come up with a retort. Not with the way it makes my heart pang. “You know you’ll always be my best friend.”

  “I know,” he says, just like he always does, but doesn’t meet my gaze.

  “I really mean it, Farnell. Even if it’s not the Prince, I…” I cast my gaze at the dusty glass panels, almost blinding with the midday sun, up and away from the emotion clawing up my chest. “I’ll find a way to make this… this life, yours… better. Somehow.”

  He smiles, like a little piece of him is breaking. “If the Prince has eyes and half a brain, it’ll be you, Aubrey. No doubt. So long as no one ever finds out about your habit of robbing Founder Lords of their books…”

  My chest still aches, but I grip a sliding ladder and thrust out my chin. “It’s not stealing, it’s borrowing.”

  He laughs. “Alright, let’s get on with it.”

  I survey the books. My beautiful books, as far as I’m concerned. Looking at them feels almost as if Father’s still alive; a steady, guiding hand pressed against the pages of my life.

  I pull a book from my bag that I’d taken on my last excursion here and toss it to Farnell. “Here, if you insist on helping, put this back for me. It goes over there, by the Ps.”

  Farnell fumbles the book against his chest, nearly dropping his last pastry. He scowls down at it. “Sure thing.” Thanks to me, he has a rudimentary ability to read, despite his disinterest.

  I slide the bookshelf’s ladder down to the farthest corner section, one I haven’t explored yet. As I climb, a flutter ignites in my gut at the hint of danger at the growing height.

  At the top, I run my fingers across the book spines. The Venons—or their curators—liked to hide the most controversial books up in the dusty, cobwebbed corners. I once found a book on the opposite wall that depicted sexual acts in both detailed text and sketches. That one was too clinical for Lily, but I know she blows through the more explicit romances faster than the others.

  I’ve poked my own nose into Lilianna’s cherished romance novels more than once, but the contents feel more like a cruel taunt than an escape. Romance, love… All luxuries I can’t afford. Dreams for another girl, not someone who has the lives of others depending on her marriage—the most powerful marriage I can make. Love and attraction have no bearing. I’d rather read about warriors and battle.

  “Is P before or after S?” Farnell called.

  “Way before. Try the shelf above.” I pull out a book with coitus in the title and something shifts behind it. Nudging the neighboring books aside, I squint to make out the rough outline of another, smaller book wedged flat against the back of the shelf.

  I stack a handful of books on the top rung of the ladder until I’ve cleared enough space to get the book at the back. Hardly larger than my palm and no thicker than a forefinger, it has no title at all and tattered edges. I lean my hip against a ladder rung, wrap an elbow around the side rail, and flip it open.

  “Before or after L?”

  The cover creaks and out wafts the sweet scent of aged paper. I turn the first page to a handwritten title penned with long, sharp strokes, as if it’d been hastily jotted down. “The Conquering,” I whisper aloud. No author noted.

  “Aubrey?”

  “Um, P is after L…” I turn the next page and smooth my fingers over the paper, imagining the hand that wrote each word of the foreword in sharp, rushed quill-strokes: For when the Wyvern’s reign returns again.

  A vague murmur of voices sound and I lift my head.

  Farnell swears. “Someone’s coming. Climb down, quick!”