Page 55 of Kingdom of Today
I declare, “You are a chosen vessel.”
—The Book of Soal2.5.9.15
Cyrus eased back and scrubbed a hand over his face. “The librarian is here, I take it.”
“Yes,” I rasped, looking between the two men. Both projected a mix of irritation, resolve, and determination.
My boyfriend popped his jaw. “You could have waited, Dom.”
“No, I couldn’t.” The librarian jutted his chin. “I’ve been here the entire time.”
Yet not even I had sensed him. Could he hide himself from me, or had he created a block?
Cyrus noticed my reaction and pursed his lips. “How’s Ember?”
“Awake and recovering,” Domino and I replied in unison. “She sends a message,” he added, focused on me. “Use your second life well.”
“I will,” I whispered, ducking my head.
The high prince steadied himself while my friend pinned me in place with the heaviness of his gaze. “We’re bound together now,” he reminded me, “our roots connected.”
“I know,” I responded. But. Um. “What does that mean, exactly?” Clearly he was trying to convey something I hadn’t yet comprehended. “That you can never leave my side?”
“In a way. While I can leave your side physically, our lives are tied. We’ll never not be aware of each other. Or affected by the other’s actions. If you die, I die, and vice versa.”
I opened my mouth. Closed it. Opened. Closed. Strode into the living room. The boys trailed me. I stopped at the coffee table. Relocated to the velvet-covered settee before the unlit hearth. Then the couch. None of the switches assisted the processing of what I’d just heard.
A growl rumbled from Cyrus. “What did he say?”
I couldn’t tell him. Not until I understood the mechanics of it all. “I need more information first.” Sinking on the edge of the couch, I gazed at the librarian and demanded, “Start talking. Explain how this is possible.”
The librarian anchored his arms behind his back, adopting a prebattle stance. “Ask Cyrus about the seed he gave you. The one that grew the piece of the Rock you ate.”
I gulped and swung my gaze to the high prince. “Tell me about the seed you gave me when I awoke from Shiloh’s attack.”
Cyrus pursed his lips. “I removed it from a berry I’d found weeks before CURED sent me to retrieve the one I ate. It’s the same kind of seed CURED now protects.”
Jolt. “My seed matured into the Rock. Are you saying the berries growing in a Theirland field will also mature into the Rock?”
“Yes.”
“That is the third requirement for the rise of the gods,” Domino stated. “The Rock will reach full maturity in Theirland. It is at that time the chosen man will agree to serve as Astan’s host.”
My mind whirled at the implications, and I covered my mouth with trembling hands. The final two conditions were being fulfilled in tandem. How long did I have to pluck Cyrus from the god’s claws?
“Why would CURED protect a section of the Rock?” It made no sense. They despised the Rock and sought only to destroy and discredit it.Him.
“There’s a point in the growth that allows us to craft a deeper bond with Tsuri,” Domino explained. “We become a doorway into the library.”
The same way Domino had become a librarian.
Cyrus paled as I relayed the information, and I probably reacted similarly. If someone infected with Madness became a door to the library, the entire CURED army could march in, burn books, attack residents, and invade the utopia beyond it, bringing the infection with them. The perfect revenge.
“Let’s backtrack a sec,” I told Domino. Inhale, exhale. “I ate a fragment of the Rock to become Soalian, but I wasn’t”—I waved an arm between us in lieu of speaking the wordbonded—“to anyone else.”
“You were.” His unease flowed into me. Ifeltit. “The first time, you were planted in Tsuri, who is planted in Soal, who is bound to all who partake. This develops stronger, longer roots in him ... and in me. When I cloaked you, our roots twined.”
Dang. That made all kinds of crazy sense. It was the equivalent of grafting plants. “This isn’t ideal.” The understatement of the century.
