Page 20 of Destroyer

He caught her gaze, his gray eyes steady. “Are you sure you want to know?”

“I need to,” she said, setting down her sandwich, her appetite suddenly gone.

Fen leaned forward, then, elbows on knees. “Where would you like me to begin?”

“With you,” she said, the answer coming easily. She instinctively felt that he was somehow meant to be there, just as she was. “Who are you, really?”

Fen seemed unsurprised by the question. He frowned slightly, and Ru noticed a fleeting darkness pass across his eyes, but it could have been a shadow cast by a cloud, or the waving trees.

“I’m Fen,” he said at last. “You can probably guess it’s not my full name. And before you ask whatthatis, a man is entitled to his past.”

Ru could read people better than most — it was all a calculation, just the common sum of countless little movements or hints of the body — but he was a closed book, somehow. An unknown.

“Are you in disguise,” she said, “or trying to forget?”

He smiled sardonically. “Trying to forget.”

“You’re not much older than I am, surely. What past could you possibly need to forget?”

“You’re steering the conversation away from what scares you,” Fen said, hitting the mark so perfectly that Ru almost flinched. “Who I am doesn’t matter. I study things. I have an interest in history, the occult, the strange and misunderstood. I’ve always been drawn to the Shattered City. At first academically, and then the urge became too great. I had to see it myself.”

“If you’re a historian, then you must have visited the Cornelian Tower,” said Ru.

He shook his head. “Never.”

“But how else would you study the Destruction?”

Fen gave her a look of incredulity. “Do you really think all the knowledge in the world resides in that pretty little palace you call the Tower?”

“It’s not little—”

“My apologies. Thatlargepalace you call the Tower.”

He was obviously joking, but Ru wasn’t in the mood. “So you’re a historian, a scholar who’s never been to Navenie’s center of learning. Is that all?”

“You know,” he said, “plenty of people read books and study outside of the Cornelian Tower. There are libraries in Mirith, Solmaria, even in my own home. Which is, for the purpose of continuing my story, where I typically read things.”

“Where do you live, then?” asked Ru. “Are you an aristocrat? You must be if you own so many books.” She knew she was being difficult, prying into irrelevant details. Who cared where he lived? Where he studied? She pressed a knuckle to one eye. The artifact’s touch was uneasy, unsettled. “It doesn’t matter.”

Fen huffed a grim laugh. “You’re right, it doesn’t. But you deserve to know who I am, the man who came upon you at your most vulnerable. Shouldn’t I reveal myself equally?”

The response surprised Ru. “All right, Fen. Reveal yourself.”

“You’re right. Iamfrom a noble family,” he said, without preamble. “My father was a marquis. I'm the third son of three. I was raised on books. My family home had a beautiful library in the east wing. I spent most of my time there, curled up on chairs by windows, reading about any strange topics that I could get my hands on. And I never really grew out of it. That’s what brought me to the crater yesterday. My unwavering sense of curiosity.”

“But weren’t you afraid of, I don't know, being arrested?” wondered Ru.

“It hadn’t crossed my mind,” he admitted, running a hand through his hair. He seemed agitated, as though recounting this tale was setting him on edge. “In fact, I had never dreamed of going to see the site of the Destruction in person. But something in me…” He looked up at her, his face softened by the fall of hair over his forehead, the dappled sunlight on his skin. “Do you believe that some things are meant to happen?”

Ru hadn’t expected a question like that. “You mean fate?”

“Destiny, fate, whatever you want to call it.”

“I think so.” She was surprised at her own answer. A day ago, she would have said no. She would have listed all the reasons why those who believe in such a force are misunderstanding the inherent chaos of the universe. But everything was different now. When she had first seen the artifact… how else could she describe the sense of knowing, of a missing piece falling into place?

Fen seemed to relax at this, the muscles of his jaw loosening, and he sighed. “I woke up one morning, and my only thought was of the Shattered City. I couldn’t have explained why, and I still can't. But I knew somehow that I had to see it, that I’d been waiting my whole life, and now was the moment.”

Ru watched the fire, her fingers playing thoughtlessly along the edge of the artifact, pressing against its uneven curves until they were almost warm from her touch. Fen glanced at the artifact for a moment, and Ru worried suddenly that he would ask her about it. But almost immediately he looked away again.

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