Page 26 of Mistress of Lies

“Oh yes, he’s quite the scholar,” Shan said, as if they were different things. Samuel supposed that they were. “Even to this day he takes his role as the founder of our magic seriously and is always working to push it to new heights.”

“I thought that was the Academy’s role,” Samuel said.

“Yes, but he is head of the Academy still.” Shan shot him a quick, pitying look. “It’s a lot, I know.”

Samuel nodded and squirreled that bit of knowledge away with all the other things he still needed to learn. Unlike Shan, he didn’t have the benefit of a lifetime.

They came to a stop before a wide, open casing, as if the architect had simply cut a hole in the wall. Through it, Samuel could see the Royal Library, stacks and stacks of books running back in long rows. He itched to explore, to run his fingers along the spines and see how they were organized, what knowledge and stories and power they contained.

He never had a formal education—his mother had taught him his reading, writing and arithmetic in the dim candlelight after dinner. He had skill with mathematics, yes, enough to build a meager career from it. But it was the novels that consumed him, that he had scrimped and saved for and hoarded.

He had, over the course of his life, managed to acquire a full dozen, favorites that he had read over and over until the spines cracked and the pages frayed. Hardly enough to be called a proper library. But this?

This was beyond any of his childish dreamings.

Shan was watching him, studying the way his face had lit. “Interesting,” she murmured. “Most people in your position would be lusting after the jewels or the clothes or the lavish trappings. You, though…” She gestured towards the library. “I’d love to let you explore, but we do have a meeting to keep.”

Samuel followed after her, biting back the retort on his tongue. He knew that Shan was only trying to compliment him, and that she couldn’t understand the truth. The LeClaires were a poorer Blood Working family, but they had never been truly destitute. She didn’t know what it was like to be starving, that you wouldn’t be thinking of books or knowledge, but things that would get you cold, hard coin.

In judging him as better, Shan had just shown her own ignorance.

But Samuel wasn’t in a position where he could correct her assumptions. Not yet. Maybe as their plans grew to fruition, maybe as this nebulous thing between them solidified into trust and friendship. So he just kept quiet, wondering if he was damning his own soul by playing along.

“Here,” Shan said, stopping fast. There at the end of the hallway was a pair of ornately carved doors. Even from where he was standing, Samuel could make out the delicately etched rose, its thorns standing out in stark relief—the King’s seal and the symbol of Aeravin. Two stern-looking Guards flanked the doors, arms crossed in front of them and swords at their sides.

Shan looked at him. “Are you ready?”

He wasn’t. Talking about introducing him to the King, planning it, playing dress up—all of it paled in comparison to the real thing. But he was already here and they had a plan. Together, they were going to make this country better.

Licking his lips, Samuel muttered, “As I’ll ever be.”

“If you panic,” Shan said kindly, “just follow my lead.” She strode forward, head held high. When they reached the Guards, she pulled a small card out of her reticule. “Lady Shan LeClaire and Mister Samuel Hutchinson here to see His Majesty, King Tristan Aberforth. We are expected.”

The Guards barely even glanced at them. “Very well.” She knocked twice on the door and then threw it open, repeating the same introductions that she had just given to the man inside.

The Eternal King.

He had stood when they were announced, studying them in a cold, calculating way. Samuel had seen him before, of course, both at this year’s sacrifice and through official likenesses spread throughout the city. It was different, now. Now he wasn’t looking at him simply as a man or a king, but as an ancestor, and it was like looking in a warped mirror. For all the similarities, the King had a hardness about him, in the sharp cut of his jaw, the harsh slope of his cheekbones, the thinness of his lips. He was carved from stone, looking more a warrior than a scholar, yet here he was amongst a pile of books with ink-stained fingers.

He had the same golden blond hair that Samuel did, though his was carefully cut and styled. And when he lifted his head to them, Samuel saw his own eyes in the Eternal King’s face, a green so bright and sharp that it hardly looked natural.

“Lady LeClaire,” the Eternal King said, slowly, as if weighing every syllable before it passed his lips. “And a friend?”

“A new friend,” Shan confirmed, stepping forward. “But perhaps something more to you. May I present Samuel Aberforth?”

Samuel’s breath caught in his throat as a hushed silence fell over the room. So that’s how it was to be done? With no preamble and no warning? He stood tall, drawing in deep breaths and trying not to panic as the Eternal King examined him. His gaze was incredibly sharp, as if he were cataloguing every detail about Samuel. He bit the inside of his cheek, holding back the burning words on his tongue—how dare the King look at him so? If not for an accident of blood, he’d care nothing at all.

But he’d have to get used to this. Every time he was introduced from now on, every time the name Aberforth would pass from someone’s lips, this would happen.

“It cannot be,” the King said, coming closer to Samuel. He was so tall that Samuel had to tilt his head back, and he looked ready to leap forward and grab him by the throat for this affront. “They are all dead.”

Samuel glanced at Shan out of the corner of his eye, and she gave him a slight nod, encouraging him to speak.

“My mother was a servant in the Aberforth household, Your Majesty,” Samuel said, repeating the information that Shan had been able to confirm for him. “She left Lord Nathaniel’s service a few weeks before the tragedy.”

The Eternal King began to pace, his movements as graceful as a snake and just as unnerving. He had produced a small knife from somewhere, its blade glinting in the sunlight. “And you claim Lord Nathaniel was your father?”

Samuel nodded, holding out his hand. “If you wish proof, you may have it.”

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