Page 230 of The Ascended
Inside were several scrolls and a leather folder tied with black ribbon. My heart quickened as I pulled the folder free, untying the ribbon with fingers that suddenly felt clumsy. A small notebook tumbled out, bound in dark red leather.
I picked it up, curious, flipping through pages covered in Xül's handwriting. It appeared to be some kind of journal, documenting his thoughts on contestants in the Trials. Most were crossed out. Deaths. The entries were brief assessments—"Marx: unpredictable, favors ambush tactics, weak defensive posture" or "Elian: adequate command of elemental magic, lacks imagination, unlikely to survive."
I found my own name. "Thais Morvaren: stellar manipulation beyond expected parameters, tactical mind, concerning attachment to twin." The last part made my stomach twist. Of course he'd seen my love for Thatcher as a weakness.
I was about to close the hidden compartment when something else caught my eye—a folded piece of parchment shoved into the back of the space. I reached for it, my fingers closing around the thick paper.
As I pulled it free, I noticed it had been sealed by a wax impression I didn’t recognize.
My fingers hovered over the seal, guilt and curiosity waging war in my chest. This wasn't meant for me—this was Xül's private correspondence.
But a prickle of unease gnawed at me, and I tugged out the folded parchment.
It was a single sheet covered in elegant, flowing script—not in any language I recognized.
But one word leapt out at me, clear as day: Morvaren.
My heart stuttered.
I refolded the letter and slipped it into the pocket of Xül's robe, determination hardening within me.
I needed to translate it.
I closed the compartment, making sure everything else was exactly as I'd found it, then left the study. My fingers brushed the letter in my pocket as I headed for the only place that might hold the answers I sought.
The first timeI'd entered the Bone Spire’s library, I'd stood gaping like a village idiot, overwhelmed by the scale alone. Even now, pushing through the massive iron-bound doors, I felt a twist of vertigo as I took in the space before me.
Where was I supposed to start?
Under normal circumstances, I'd have asked one of the librarians for help, the silent, translucent figures who drifted through the stacks. But he'd sent all the servants away this morning, leaving the vast library empty and eerily silent.
In a way, that was a blessing—no one to question why I was suddenly interested in ancient divine languages. But it also meant I was completely on my own in this labyrinth.
I wandered the ground floor for what felt like hours, trying to decipher the library's organizational system. Most were labeled in scripts I couldn't read, and the few in common tongue seemed to use some arcane classification system I couldn't begin to understand.
Finally, I spotted a familiar symbol on a distant shelf—the same flowing script from the letter. It was on the third level of the eastern wing, accessed by a narrow spiral staircase that groaned under my weight.
My eyes strained in the dim light as I scanned page after page of dense academic text. The headache that had been threatening since morning bloomed behind my eyes, a steady pounding that made it hard to focus.
By late afternoon, I was ready to scream with frustration. I slumped in my chair, rubbing my eyes, the letter mocking me from the table. What had I expected? That I'd find a convenient "High Divine for Beginners" guidebook?
I needed to be smarter about this.
If I couldn't translate the letter myself, maybe I could find something already translated—something with parallel text that would let me match symbols to meanings.
I left my mess of books and moved to a different section, where I'd noticed volumes with multiple scripts on their spines. Treaties, perhaps, or diplomatic records? It was worth a shot.
The shelves here were even higher, the uppermost ones accessible only by a rolling ladder attached to a track. I climbed carefully, the wood creaking beneath me, scanning titles as I went.
Near the top, almost out of reach even with the ladder, I spotteda promising volume—"Concordances of the Twelve Domains," its cover bearing symbols from multiple divine scripts.
It was heavier than it looked, bound in dark blue leather with silver symbols embossed on the cover. I carried it back to my reading table, hope flaring as I opened it to find exactly what I'd been searching for.
My excitement dimmed as I delved into the contents. It was full of treaties and formal agreements between the domains, pleasantries and legal jargon. The vocabulary was specific to inter-domain relations, unlikely to help me translate a private letter.
Still, it was a start. I began the laborious process of matching letters from the letter to words in the concordance, creating a key on a scrap of parchment I found tucked in another book. Progress was agonizingly slow, each word requiring multiple cross-references and educated guesses.
Hours passed. My eyes burned, my hand cramped from writing, and my stomach growled, reminding me I'd eaten nothing since breakfast. The light through the high windows shifted from the perpetual crimson of Draknavor's day to the deeper burgundy of its dusk.
