Page 47 of The Curse of Golden Blood
He wanted to win me.
And it was working.
He smirked, no doubt seeing the facial expressions I couldn’t hide, then turned back to the shelves, scanning them with the ease of someone who knew every spine, every title by heart. His fingers brushed along the leather bindings, pausing here and there, pulling one volume halfway free before sliding it back in place.
Finally, he stopped. He drew out a thick, slate-blue tome bound with strips of black hide. The cover was plain, except for a single sigil stamped in silver at its center.
He weighed it in his hand, then crossed the space between us. “If you’re going to read the old tongue, you’ll need this first.”
I took it, surprised at its heaviness. “What is it?”
“A Lexicon of the High Courts,” he said. “Every word, symbol, and root from the old tongue, matched with its modern translation. There are thousands of words and phrases, and they change with the seasons, the moons, the courts. You won't learn them all. Not quickly. But you'll learn the basics."
I turned it over in my hands, running my thumb over the embossed sigil. “This is… an actual dictionary.”
“Not quite,” he said, his eyes glinting. “Some words don’t have a clean translation. Some don’t have one at all. You’ll have to… interpret.”
“Interpret,” I repeated. “Which is code for guess and hope you’re not accidentally insulting someone’s mother.”
That earned me the smallest of smirks. “Exactly. And if you get stuck, ask me.”
He was volunteering to spend time with me. To help me. Without me doing something for him in return. Now I was definitely dreaming.
The sun was rising, peeking through the windows. The room grew brighter, the gold inlaid with gilt on the shelves like the first rays of sunrise. My thoughts felt light and hazy with early morning sunlight.
"Miralyte."
His voice shifted into something lower, something that sent a thrill shooting up my spine.
"It's time to start the trials."
Trials. Damn it. I'd forgotten that part.
I set the book aside and looked up. "I'm ready."
twelve
All This for Her
Zydar
Tendaysshehadbeen like this, and still the sky wept as it always did. Rain traced the windows in those familiar restless patterns, lightning split the clouds at every turn—the Thunder Court unchanged, indifferent to suffering, while the healers bled her.
They took the crimson thread from her veins and sifted it down to its pale heart, steeping that marrow-water into draughts they swore would slow the rot. And each night, after they finished, the girl collapsed into sleep like she was suffocating in it.
I watched her fight it, those first few days, as though sheer will could hold her upright, until the blood loss pulled her under. She would drag herself to the training grounds in the morning, stubborn as a wounded hawk, and in the afternoons she buried herself in the old tongue.
Even then, I saw the slip in her balance, the faint tremor when she reached for her cup, the way her eyes would glaze and blink back into focus as though she had been wandering far from the present.
The healers claimed it was nothing unexpected — the weakness would pass, they said, when the body learned to live with what was taken from it. But I could see how each measure they drew left her thinner, her color dulled. By the end of the second week, she barely held a spoon.
She sat at the edge of the low couch in my chambers, a shallow bowl of broth in her hands. The steam curled against her face, catching in the loose strands of her hair. She lifted the spoon once, twice, her wrist trembling under the weight, and each time more of it dripped back into the bowl than reached her mouth.
"Miralyte."
Her head snapped up. There was something defiant in her eyes, but the rest of her expression was shuttered. It was the look of someone who had learned to keep her secrets close.
I knelt before her. "Let me."
