Page 112 of Wolf Caged
Death probably.
This wouldn’t do.
Hiding in my room wasn’t going to solve anything.
Kaeleron had mentioned a library once and I wanted to see it. I wanted to see if I could read the records it contained, and if I couldn’t, I would ask him to cast a spell on me that would allow me to read them. I would learn about this world and its dangers, and grow stronger.
And one day, I would be strong enough to face Elanaluvyr and win.
I stood and crossed the room, casting off my robe and tossing it onto the bed. I smoothed my appearance, running my hands over my dark blue blouse and black leather pants. I could do this. I would find Kaeleron and ask him to give me directions to his library. Or better yet, I would find Jenavyr and ask her, avoiding the awkwardness of seeing the fae king after he had tended to me. I still wasn’t sure what to make of that, but the part of me that had been softened by his careful attention had yet to harden again, leaving me rather defenceless where he was concerned.
Better to not face him just yet.
Where would Jenavyr be?
I had spied guards coming and going from a squat, fortified building in the grounds of the castle, and had spotted Riordan among a group of soldiers gathered outside it once. Maybe it acted as a garrison of sorts, where the soldiers assigned to protecting the castle had their living quarters. I could start there.
I eased the door of my room open, half expecting to find guards stationed outside it. There was no one in the elegant hallway, but voices drifted along it, distant and muted. Several of them. I headed in the opposite direction, closing my door behind me and hurrying left then banking right, my pace quickening as I strode towards the end of the corridor, where it met the gallery.
I had discovered the gallery a few days ago during one of my adventures, avoiding Kaeleron although I hadn’t been aware he was away from the castle at the time. The paintings hanging on the wall to my right, facing a bank of arched windows that overlooked a broad green and the building I suspected was the garrison, were beautifully done. Each portrait was a blend of darkness and light, a masterful rendering of the figure it contained.
Jenavyr appeared very noble in hers, her head held high as she stood with a regal sword point down before her and a pale gold crown atop her black hair.
Kaeleron was far too handsome in his, and I avoided looking at it, partly because I found myself stood before it staring at it for long minutes, losing track of time whenever I looked at it, and partly because he had been painted seated on a spiked black throne before a night time lake.
The same lake he had swum naked in with me.
The next painting was the most intriguing.
A beautiful couple stood in the arched entrance of a half-timber building, eyes filled with love as they stood arm in arm, pressed close together, and gazed at each other. They radiated warmth and light. Love in its deepest, truest form, captured for everyone to see. I envied them. Even my parents had never looked as happy as this couple did, and all without either of them smiling. I didn’t know who they were, but their black hair and the female’s silver eyes made me suspect they had been Kaeleron and Jenavyr’s parents.
But the portrait that always stole my breath, that roused a deep feeling of sorrow in my heart, was the one at the end of the gallery.
It was smaller than the others.
Set away from them.
As if someone had wanted to hide it, or had been reluctant to put it on display.
It was a study of three children, each with black hair and silver eyes. A young girl who appeared barely six in human years, her silver-blue dress pooled around her legs as she sat on the ground before a seated rangy teenage boy with unkempt hair, dressed in a fine tunic. My gaze shifted to the boy who stood to his right, head held high, shoulders squared. A boy who looked no older than ten.
A boy who was smiling with all his heart.
Kaeleron.
I knew it in my soul.
He stood so proudly, reflecting the man he had become, but there was such warmth and light in his eyes, a softness to him I couldn’t see in the male he was now. What had happened to this smiling boy?
Did it have something to do with the reason he had needed to take care of me last night, had felt compelled to reassure himself that I was alive by being the one to tend to my wounds?
I glanced back at the portrait I felt sure were his parents, and then the boy seated between Jenavyr and Kaeleron.
Did it have something to do with them?
The seated boy was older than Kaeleron. The clear heir to the throne of the Shadow Court. But he wasn’t the one on the throne now. Meaning he was dead. I wanted to know what had happened to them, but I didn’t want to pry or reopen old wounds. Maybe in the library, I would find the answer to those questions too.
I dragged myself away from the portrait of happy siblings, trying to find one of them and hoping it would be Jenavyr.
