Page 1 of Fate Unchained

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The special books glowed as the pale pink of winter dusk settled inside the arched, stone walls of P.W. Nihova Library. The fading light peeked through the high, arched windows revealing the wheel marks, now permanently etched into the dark wood floor, from when the building had once been the city’s main stagecoach station.

Lilah Cherkassy left her office and walked to the right, where, against the wall, a tall, ebony cabinet dominated most of the space. The decorative circle in the center of the doors looked like a benevolent eye staring out at the span of bookcases in front of it. Withdrawing the key on the lanyard around her neck, she brought it to the lock, then hesitated.

She was alone—but it was after closing time, so that was normal. No one else could see the eerie shine cast by some of the books, not even the famed magicwielders of the city. Some tomes cast a faint light, little more than a sliver of a violet-flecked milky glow. Others beamed like small beacons, desperately trying to catch the attention of someone who could see the hidden secrets within their pages. Those were the ones she’d hidden away in this cabinet. They demanded her attention. Needed her.

She took a deep breath and turned the key.

Seven shelves, each with seven books sitting squarely on them, lay ensconced in front of her. She narrowed in on the book second from the left, with its plain linen cover.

Was she ready to work on this one again? She shivered but plucked it from the shelf. Her stomach clenched. She had to know what this book really said.

With brisk steps, she returned to her desk. Opening the book to the first page, she inhaled deeply. Her magic whispered from her fingertips, its pulse cool along her skin, not helping with the chill already present in the air. Letters danced on the page, whirling in a complicated pattern until they took shape into a set of symbols. Four runes.

“Purisaz jera,” she whispered. Nothing happened. Last night she’d performed a different unbinding, looking to free the bespelled words hidden among its pages, and it had done little, but she’d really thought this one might work.

She squared her shoulders and stared at the four runes scrawled across the page, glowing in vivid, shiny light. They wanted to reveal what they had hidden. They longed for her to coax them to life.

But they might demand too much in return.

These four runes were far more powerful than any she’d worked with before. She studied them a long moment, then nodded. She had to know.

Holding her breath, she traced her finger over the four symbols. The runes danced on the page, and she let her power wash over her. The dust motes swirling through the waning light seemed to freeze in place, and the library around her dimmed. The runes brightened, and all the warmth leached from her skin. She shivered, her teeth rattling. More, the symbols whispered.

She obeyed, pouring forth more of her power. The icy chill wrapped tighter around her, and the edges of her vision turned black. Her heart raced. The library was gone. She was falling down a dark hole, the runes leading the way. Her heartbeat slowed, the sound echoing in her ears like a sluggish beat.

She sucked in air, but couldn’t get enough, as if the symbols had pushed the air out of the room. Black crept into the edges of her vision.

Wait. There! With the runes brightening, it was clear the rune to the right had a small notch removed from its base. On the page, she’d thought it was the mistake of a quill, but it wasn’t. The notch was a miniature arrow, providing the clue to read the runic word for unbinding in reverse.

Her vision swam, and she swayed. “Tricky,” she whispered, but it came out as a croak. Air, she needed more air.

She clawed at her throat. All she needed was a breath. Half a breath. Enough to say the words. Her chest heaved. The cold tightened around her. Her heart thudded. If she battled the rune, more of the cold would take her over. She pushed out a little more of her power and finally gasped in a breath. “Jera, purisaz.”

The book glowed intensely for one bright moment; the paper fluttered, then the runes disappeared, sinking into the pages.

Lilah slumped forward, chills shuddering through her so hard they made her desk rattle. She’d tapped into her power like this once before, and that time she’d passed out. The runes not only leached her warmth away, they also lured her into them, making her forget exactly how much power she was wielding. She’d gotten lost the last time, stuck in the fog of using her magic, barely able to find her way back to the real world. When she’d awakened, she’d crawled to the sofa along one side of her office and huddled beneath the blankets. She’d been cold for days, her fingers refusing to properly obey.

Her vision cleared, and she gulped a large breath. She lay on her desk until she stopped shivering, then shoved herself upright. She’d recovered more quickly this time. Either she hadn’t used as much power as she thought or was getting better at recovering.

It was time to find out what this book was hiding.

The book had appeared to be a treatise on the trees of the north, but now with the unlocked runes, its real contents would be inside. She flipped to the first page and read the inscription. I choose you. Always. Let me love you forever.

Lilah rolled her eyes. Right. The only place where love actually worked was in books.

As she turned to the first chapter, her brows shot up, and she laughed. Taking up her quill, she removed her large journal cataloging the secret books in the library and wrote the title of the work in front of her. In the next column, she wrote Book of poetry. Interesting limericks.

“All that work to unlock another dirty book.”

Many of the books she’d cataloged in the library hid questionable material, most of it risqué, but the ones glowing the brightest usually held an alternate treatise on an event of the past or an unflattering portrait of some of the famous people of Coromesto, not scandalous poetry. In really rare cases one of the glowing books held secrets about the broader world of Ulterra, and she’d hoped this was one of those. She sighed. Oh well, maybe next time.

The question, though, was why had someone sunk their true work into the pages of these books, hiding them away? The dirty books were easy—not everyone approved of that kind of material, and some of them were clearly written for a lover with the intention of never being shared elsewhere—but it didn’t make sense to have the history of Ulterra hidden. Especially here, on the human side of Coromesto, far away from the magicwielders with their tomes and spell books.

The front door flew open, the knob striking the stone wall with a loud crack. Lilah jumped from her seat. She’d locked that door like she did every evening.

She swayed slightly and clutched at the side of the desk. Her vision swam as a wave of dizziness swamped her, reminding her of all the power she’d used tonight.

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