Dawn of Arcane Destiny

Chapter Thirty-Six

Lillia groaned falling back into a pile of books.

Drayce chuckled. “Comfortable?”

“Not in the least.” She said sitting up. Her anxiety increased looking at the almost bare shelves. “We’ve been looking through these books for ages. We haven’t found anything the least bit helpful.”

Drayce stood next to a bookshelf leafing through a book. His job was to check the books on the top shelves, while Lillia was going through the books on the lower shelves.

“We can take a break if you want.” Drayce said, still scanning the page he was on.

“No.” She said immediately. “I’m going to go over the journal translation again.” The translation she had originally come up with had been taken by the king and burned. With the book back in her possession she had gone through and translated it again, as best she could. It wasn’t as flawless as the original had been, but close enough. She translated it into Remulite instead Kamas. That had been easier in the short time she had the journal.

Drayce had convinced her to give the journal to the King. She had not wanted to do that. She had no idea what he was going to do with the precious book. He might have burned it for all she knew. Her stomach churned at the thought. But they needed as little distractions as they could for the next two days.

She prayed that they would be able to find an alternative solution than the one they had been handed. She didn’t want Drayce to put himself in such a vulnerable situation. Not only would he be putting himself in the presence of a crazy killer frequently, but he could be making himself more susceptible to Keir’s influence. She tried to calm her rapidly beating heart. It’s okay you’ll find a better solution, but not if you don’t read. She didn’t even want to think about what could happen to Drayce if they didn’t figure something out.

From the entries in the journal, Zavian had lived an extraordinary life, but that wasn’t her focus. She wanted to know more about Keir’s original fall. She flipped through her pages and zeroed in on three specific journal entries.

Veir is exceptionally angry tonight, I can feel her anger. Something has happened among the gods. I cannot say what it is, as I myself do not know. Veir is dark tonight, which is quite the anomaly. She is not eclipsed, as one might think the reason for a dark moon would be. No, she is absorbing the light.

Something is incredibly wrong.

Absorbing the light? That was quite the anomaly. Lillia had never heard of such a thing. Lillia wracked her memory back to when she had listened to religious sermons when she was a girl. Unfortunately, she wasn’t the most attentive child when it came to church.

If she was remembering right, Veir was Keir’s sister. Twins, in fact. But what did her absorbing the light have to do with Keir? She needed to know the cause and effect. She flipped a couple pages to another entry.

Things have escalated since my last entry. From what I have been able to ascertain, Keir has fallen. I was shocked to say the least. The fact an original god can fall from divinity is fascinating and horrifying all at once.

He has disappeared from the sky, never to be seen again. He awaits trial in the heavens for his grievous sin that I am currently unaware of. The gods are not inclined to share the situation, but I find myself exceptionally intrigued. I will try to find out what I can. But, alas, that may be nothing at all.

  Lillia kept flipping through her translation. She started making a soberingly small pile of the entries that referred to Keir. She glanced over at Drayce. He rubbed his eyes with his index finger and thumb of one hand, before going back to his research. She felt horrible for dragging him into this situation. She tried to tell herself that it had not been her choice to make him Crown Prince, but she couldn’t seem to shake her guilt. She returned her attention back to her papers. A certain entry caught her eye. The tone was panicked. She remembered that this entry had been written in shorthand, which was highly unusual. It was as if he was regretting putting the words to paper but felt he must.