Determined to take control of their fates, Arjen and Arien escape Derolina Castle at the age of sixteen after their cruel mother dies. They adopt new names and find a home in the city of Aramore, while the Emperor of Yuriana searches for his missing...
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The light orb guided Arien's path as she tip-toed down the stairs. She paused a moment at the bottom to listen for Arjen in the apartment above her. Everything was silent, and she sighed with relief. Her brother had a strange sixth sense, like he could detect her absence, even in his sleep. There were times when she would go use the toilet at night and come back to find him awake and asking where she went. Tonight, she didn't want that.
She moved past the front counter in the shop and headed toward the back. Her slippered feet scuffed softly on the floorboards. When she reached the door to the preparation room, she stopped once more to listen. She glanced nervously at the deep shadows around her. They seemed to bulge and shift, creeping out from crevices in the shelves to flick their black tongues at her. She shook her head to clear the illusion.
She opened the door and creaked on its hinges, echoing loudly in her ears. She sucked in a breath and entered the room. The safe against the wall loomed like its shadowy brethren among the shelves in the shop, a hulking monster hiding something terrible. Arien touched the combination dial—and hesitated.
What in the world am I doing? What is wrong with me? Something about the book had teased her curiosity. She should've wanted to throw it across the room in disgust when Arjen had pointed out the imperial crest. But that would've been wrong. It wasn't nice to damage someone else's property just because she didn't like them. But whose property was it?The question had nagged at her the rest of the day. The handwriting in the book had lent it a very personal nature. The script was beautiful, so at least a noble had written it, but no regular noble would use the imperial crest. There was only one answer to the question she could think of.
The writer is someone from the imperial family, maybe one of the princes, or maybe even the emperor himself. The mere thought of having such a thing in the shop slipped a cold blade into her soul. Why can we never seem to get away from these people?
She took the book out of the safe and unwrapped it at the table. Regardless of how she felt about the author, she was interested in the book's contents. Her initial intention was to read about poisons, something she didn't often find in the books that came to Marcus' shop.
But, in another way, she wanted to see if she could glean anything about whoever wrote the book. She and Arjen carried a deep bitterness toward the imperial family, but there were many times when she wondered about them. What kind of people were they, really? Did the princes know she and Arjen existed? What did they think of their half-siblings?
Not much, I guess. Otherwise they would've tried to contact us. But they didn't. What sort of family did that? No true family did that.
Arien took a stool and sat at the table. Gesturing to the ceiling, she used magic to activate the other lights in the room. She started at the beginning of the book and steadily read through some of the text. She skimmed the parts she didn't understand and closely examined the illustrations. It was clear different people had contributed to the book. She found dates written in some of the corners, which showed the research had spanned several decades. She scoured the pages to find a name, any name, but found none.
