Honour or Reason - Book 1# in the Burning Prince Chronicles

Chapter Twenty-One

"I shouldn't have left him alone."

"He's a big boy, he will be fine," Zoysia groaned. Aglaesha was pacing up and down the aisle, wringing her hands. Yaslin grabbed her arm.

"He'll be okay, Aglaesha. I'm sure of it."

She smiled. "You always know what to say, Yas."

"What about me?" Zoysia snapped, clearly offended. "I literally said the exact same thing!" Aglaesha ignored her and fidgeted with the dusty volumes on the bookshelves. Yaslin sneezed as Zoysia pried the biggest book she had ever seen off the shelf, followed by a cloud of dust. The shifter began to flick through the yellowed pages, frowning. The other Mages peered curiously over her shoulder. The pages were covered in disturbing paintings of human-like creatures with long pointed ears dressed in plated armour dripping with blood and marked with tiny passages of script. Aglaesha gulped nervously. "What is this, Zoysia?"

Zoysia closed the cover and read, "The Log of peculiar and magical happenings of the Isle of Maidora." They exchanged bewildered glances with each other, before hurrying to one of the dusty library desks and setting the book delicately upon it. Yaslin opened the cover with shaking fingers. "Shit."

Aglaesha almost swore too. The first page was yellow, like it would turn to dust if they touched it. Zoysia brushed her fingers carefully over it. Tiny purple sparks sizzled beneath her touch. Yaslin laughed. "It is shielded - thank the gods for the Old Historians." Zoysia rolled her eyes and muttered, "Yes - thank the gods for a council of old people who restored history so well the following generations could never find their works."

"They were not a council of old people, they were a group of Mages who wanted to preserve the history for all, so that we could know who we were, where we came from. Their works were hidden for a reason - people do not like it when someone writes the truth," Yas replied indignantly. The shifter smirked. "You are so easy to rile."

Aglaesha ignored them and began to turn the pages. She traced thirteen pages of contents before something caught her eye on page fourteen. Queen Userra's victories against the Fey of the North - page 675. Feeling immensely guilty, she dog-eared the page and continued to flick through. She did not bother to read over the rest of the listed topics until she came to the last page of contents. The very last topic listed was written in red ink that was too stark to be older than thirty years. Her heart skipped a beat as she read it slowly; The prophecy of this Age: the shadows to come - page 1091. She dog eared that page and slowly began to scan the next pages. Instead of history, the pages were titled: Introduction to Fey species.

A shiver ran down her spine as she studied the first image. A Fey with scarlet eyes and fangs shrouded in shadow. From the shadows emerging around it were anguished and screaming faces all blended together into a cloak of monstrosities. In stark black ink the label read: Wraith - most devious and wicked of the Fey. Can transform into those they killed and those with stronger power can sometimes give visions of the dead to others. Kill on sight - do not make deals with them. Aglaesha's chest constricted. She kept reading.

The next inking was of a Fey with her hand outstretched toward a young man cowering at her feet. Misguide - dangerous and severely intelligent. Mostly female Fey, although males are not excluded. Can read minds, telepathically speak and even manipulate one's reason if powerful enough. Kill on sight - they may be able to overcome your mind. Aglaesha turned the page, hand shaking. She was met with more gruesome pictures. Swallowing hard, she turned page after page, searching for something, anything that could calm her rising panic. Conlaed made a deal with a Wraith. The Wraith that surely murdered his father. Con made a deal with a devil.

Her breath was coming short and strangled as her eyes traced over horrible Fey after horrible Fey. Fey that disembowelled their victims and wore their skins, Fey that shifted into incredible dragons, Fey that drank the blood of their lovers, Fey that slept on beds of knives and sprouted leathery wings, Fey that pitted their children against each other to ensure only the strong endured. The Fey sickened her. The consideration that they ruled the Quartered Realm thousands of years ago... it seemed too close. Thousands of years were nothing in the eyes of the world. She could understand why they had been driven back by the humans to the North. Each and every one of them was a monster. They had tormented humans for centuries before they were driven from Maidora and Caspleigh and Talkrie. While the other races and creatures learned to endure the other peacefully, Fey had refused to accept it, refused to see other creatures as more than prey. Thus, their terrific downfall.

Just as she went to close the book, fear getting the better of her, Zoysia's hand flew out.

"Stop!"

Aglaesha and Yaslin stared at Zoysia confusedly. The shifter's eyes were bright. Her voice was laced with wonder as she inclined her head toward the book. "Read that page."

Aglaesha obeyed curiously. Her eyes were met with a brilliant ink drawing that covered two entire pages. One page had the sketch drawn in thick black ink, while the other was inked in gold. Together, the pages formed the brilliant picture of a young man. He was suspended in mid-air. His eyes were shining like two stars and his silver robe billowed around him. From one hand came whirls and tendrils of shadow. It was not the sickening shadow that surrounded the picture of the Wraith, but the shadow of the Moon. From his other hand can brilliant gold beams - not sunlight as Aglaesha had first thought, but the silver-gold light of the Moon's reflection upon dark ocean waves. In big violet script at the bottom of the was: The Penumbra - saviour of us all.