Page 20 of Crownless King

He’d opened up to me yesterday, more than he’d ever done before. He’d told me about his childhood, including all the bitter, tragic parts of it.

I tried to imagine what it must’ve been like for him as a ten-year-old child to be abandoned by the entire kingdom. His mother was taken away from him, and no one else cared about him enough to stop the cruel king from dumping the innocent boy in a land he’d never been to before.

But every time, he survived. Against all odds.

Voron thought of his life as borrowed time, believing he was meant to die at the very beginning. But didn’t everything he’d gone through mean his fate was tolive?The birth didn’t kill him. People failed to get rid of him. Not only did he survive, he thrived, finding power and success.

Many questions remained about Voron. But not all of them he could answer.

I had lunch on my own, then went for a walk and swam in the pond.

Voron and Alcon didn’t return before dinner, and I ate on my own again as even Brebie happened to be occupied elsewhere that night.

After dinner, I went back to the library and tried to read a little, but my attention wavered. With my mind crowded with so many thoughts and questions, I found it difficult to focus. After reading the same paragraph five times and still not getting the meaning of what it said, I closed my book and left it on the window seat.

Too restless to knit, too, I aimlessly paced the library for a while. Pausing in front of the fireplace, I remembered what Voron told me about the book in the hidden room behind it.

Coming closer, I examined the panels on each side of the fireplace and found the outline of the door on the right. It wasn’t locked. When I pushed on it, it gave in with a slight creak.

Remembering what Voron told me about the wards guarding the book, I didn’t rush in. Keeping the door open just a crack, I peeked in cautiously, ready to jump back at the slightest threat of pain.

It was dark inside, with only a faint bluish-white glow filtering through. Nothing had hurt me yet, so I carefully opened the door just a little bit wider.

The walls of the windowless room behind the door were of solid black stone with no crystals in them. The space was illuminated by a single column of pale blue light that stretched from the floor to the ceiling right in the middle of the room.

Inside the light column, at my chest level, a massive book hovered suspended by nothing. It was bound in leather of the same pale blue color as the ray of light that held it. Its corners were enclosed in silver, and its spine was set with gemstones.

There was no text anywhere, neither on the front nor on the spine. I was hoping the book would be open at least to the title page, but it was closed. Two ornate clasps of bejeweled silver held its yellowed pages together.

Crossing the threshold, I came a little closer to the book. The air was stale and permeated with scents of leather and old mortar. I slowly walked around the glowing column that looked like a beam of moonlight, except that there was no window here for the moon to peek in.

A single moth fluttered at the edge of the glow, its wings shimmered with the reflected light of the magic that protected the book.

“Shoo.” I waved at it, worried that it would get scorched if it came any closer. The moth swerved to the side, evading my hand. Drawn by the light, however, it turned around and flew right in.

“Careful, dummy,” I whispered, bracing for the poor insect to go up in blue flames or be ripped apart by lightning, or whatever other horrible things the magic wards were supposed to do to those violating their boundaries. But nothing happened.

The moth landed on one of the book’s glistening silver corners, then flew up again, unstoppable in its search for the source of light.

“Hmm, it doesn’t hurt you, then?” I tilted my head, watching the moth closely.

Maybe Voron was mistaken about the wards. Maybe they weren’t as bad as he thought, or their magic had worn out with time. Did those things have an expiration date?

Carefully, ever so carefully, I extended a finger toward the light. If the magic wards were there, what would they feel like? A zap of electricity? A punch in the chest? I didn’t remember personally experiencing either, but I knew both were unpleasant.

Biting my lip, I quickly poked through the glow with the very tip of my finger, then jumped back before any sensation came. I waited for the pain to register, but my finger felt fine. It didn’t look scorched or bruised either.

How did the wards work exactly? I doubted their effect would cause a delayed reaction. That defeated the purpose of keeping the book safe. The way I understood it, they were supposed to prevent me from taking the book, not to punish me for it later.

Halting my breath, I plunged my hand into the light and yanked the book out. There was no resistance other than the weight of the book. It slipped out so easily, I slammed myself in the chest with it and staggered backwards, nearly falling on my butt. Other than the impact of the book’s sharp, silver-tipped corners digging into my boobs, there was no pain, either.

I glanced at the book in my hands, then at the empty column of bluish light, expecting something horrible to happen any minute now.

But the walls didn’t crumble, and the ceiling didn’t collapse. Neither were there any giant stone balls rolling my way.

Moving carefully, just in case, I backed to the door slowly, then got out of the room and promptly closed the door in the panel.

The book proved heavy and even bigger than it looked when suspended in the light. Pressing it with both arms to my chest, I took it to my room, then closed the door firmly behind me.

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