Page 30 of Lore of the Wilds

Lore didn’t press the subject, though she wanted to. If the humans were allowed to have a militia of sorts, would she join it? Yes. Absolutely. She would join as a healer and help protect Duskmere. If only they were allowed.

***

Lore decided to work in the alcove beneath the open windows.

She carefully arranged the books on either side of her, so as not to step on them and damage them further. Then, she began to sort them by salvageable and unsalvageable, as she had done every day. She wouldn’t throw any away until she talked to Chief Steward Vinelake.

These all appeared to be research and medical books. They were old and heavy, with lots of diagrams of fae anatomy and plants of this world that could help heal. As she flipped through the pages, she noticed there were no human diagrams. Then again, there wouldn’t be. This library had been locked to the outside world before the appearance of the human race on Raelysh.

Lore would wager the healers back home would kill for a chance to read one of these books. The healing properties of the plants surrounding the village were incredible, but often it tooklots of trial and error before the healers deduced how best to use them and in what quantities. And those were just the few they had learned to use; judging by these books, there were clearly so many more that they didn’t know about.

She made a mental note to peruse some of the information before she left and try to take notes. Maybe she could take something useful other than coin home with her. Especially as she hadn’t yet come across any magical texts. The chief steward had hinted at the library being full of them, but she’d seen none.

She picked up another medical text—this one discussed the different fins of merpeople who apparently lived off the coast of each corner of the continent—before adding it to the general medical stack.

The sun was setting, and she’d just completed organizing one of the tall shelves when she heard whispering from the shadows. A shiver went down her spine and chills burst across her flesh. When the astronomy books had answered her requests it was in response to her speaking out loud. Since then she’d used that trick a few more times to find similar subjects. But she was sure she hadn’t spoken a word today.

Whatever this was, was unbidden. The sound was soft, like a breath almost. But one on the back of her neck. Lore whipped her head around, but of course, she was alone.

She set down the book that she was holding and strained her ears, trying to make out the words in the whispers.

The hair on Lore’s arms stood up and she couldn’t shake the feeling that she wasn’t alone.

Lore stood and tiptoed out of the stack. Her head cocked to one side as she tried to make out the direction of the voices. She looked around for a weapon and grabbed a candlestick with an unlit candle. It was heavy and, she suspected, made of solid brass. If Lore was fast enough, she could do real damage with it.

She knew she should leave and tell the boys and Asher to fetch Chief Steward Vinelake.Hewould be interested in learning that she wasn’t alone in there. It seemed there were other creatures that could get through the wards.

But she found herself drawn to the voices, and the thought of getting help flitted from her as though the idea had never crossed her mind.

Despite the initial fear the voices had induced, Lore soon realized that their tones were pleasant, inviting rather than malicious. It made her distrust them even more.

She walked toward the whispers, picking her way over the tomes and scrolls still scattered in this area of the library. She moved carefully, her candlestick in hand. Despite her boots, her steps were near silent on the marble floor.

The voices were getting louder, and the hair on the back of her neck stood up when she smelled an earthy scent, wild and untamed like an animal that had lived its whole life in the heart of a forest. But there was a sweeter note beneath it, that of a delicate rose, freshly bloomed and lovingly cultivated.

She clenched her jaw when she realized where the sound was coming from—the dark stack in the far back corner, the one Lore had avoided all this time because the sunlight couldn’t reach it and none of the candles in the area seemed to react to her flint. Any light she brought with her from elsewhere in the library went out in a mysterious gust of wind as she approached the corner.

That had been enough to keep her away.

Today, though, she reached out with her candlestick and lit the closest candle to her, one with a wood wick that crackled and popped when it ignited. Odd. She had tried to light this exact candle a few days before and it had refused to even spark.

The space around her began to brighten, though the shadows didn’t dissipate. Now she could understand the words. Sherealized it was not multiple words, but one said by many voices altogether. Some were deep, some young, old, both masculine and feminine, or neither.

Just one word, again and again.

Lore.

Her name.

There were voices whispering her name. She knew she should stop, drop the candlestick and run as fast as she could toward the iron doors, and get out of this library forever. But she didn’t want to. She wanted to find out where the smell and voices were coming from; the scent was both exciting and familiar, as if she’d known it in her childhood or in her dreams.

Wild sage and roses. It called to her.

Memories from her childhood fluttered through her, of sitting at Mama’s feet, helping her tie string around bundles of sage, then, later, threading plant fibers together to make a basket. Her mama’s patient voice directed where to place each strand. Then, a separate memory of her baba’s laughter as he held her tiny, chubby hand and dabbed Mama’s perfume on her wrist. She distinctly remembered the sound of her sneezing as the scent of rose rushed through her.

She stepped into the darkness and the shadows melted away with her memories.

She was in a small alcove. There was a couch against the far wall and two chairs on either side of an end table stacked high with books. Where bookshelves should have been were floor-to-ceiling tapestries, embroidered with stories.

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