With her father's memory failing and her mother gone, Soraya Thenayu enrolls in distant Darkwood Academy and immediately becomes enemies with the richest kid at school. Between hiding her father's gift of illegally harvested magic, befriending socia...
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The Rivinsdeep library was located inside the All Saints Church at the other end of town. It was a beautiful blue building with stained glass windows, a tall bell tower, and large, spacious rooms. Phases of the moon circling Etheria were engraved in stone above the entrance.
Most of the books inside were donations made by locals, and even Tishva had given some of his novels to them over the years. Soraya knew this because she had been the one to carry them down the mountain every time he cleaned out his office. She would, of course, read through the books before giving them to the library just in case there was something new for her to learn, but none of them had ever been from his personal collection on Arcanology.
"Mrowr!" Yabo chirped, leaping from Tishva's shoulder onto Soraya's. She knew he wanted some of her cinnamon roll since he had finished his egg, so she tore off a small piece of the bread to give to her pet. She loved the glaze too much to want to share it with him.
"Soraya, I'm sure Yabo would love to try more than just the bread," her father scolded, noticing her small selfish act.
"Oh, okay," his daughter sighed, blushing at being caught. She tore off another piece, this time with cream cheese frosting on it, and placed it into Yabo's outstretched paws. Her pandacoon sniffed at it, licking the morsel with his small pink tongue before shoving the whole piece into his mouth.
"See? He can eat most anything you can," Tishva said, his frown deepening. "Yabo's the only sibling you have, treat him nicely."
"Sorry," Soraya kissed her pet's fuzzy face. He returned the favor by licking her cheek.
Finally, they arrived at All Saint's Church. The girl gave her pandacoon one more piece of her second breakfast and inhaled the rest.
Tishva opened one of the beautifully decorated iron doors. Above the entryway was a crescent shaped stained glass window with a white squared cross in the center.
Soraya entered into the narthex of the church, the main hall where churchgoers socialized before and after services. It was a wide open space with a large blue carpet with golden flowers and vines decorating the frayed edges covering the white marble ground.
Mannequins stood proudly in the four corners of the room, clothed in traditional Azakuin garments. Long blue robes with white fur on the collars and ends masked their royal blue porcelain bodies. Colorful beaded necklaces embedded with fangs and claws shrouded their necks, and their heads were crowned with feathered headdresses of all colors from Rivingales and Gremowlkins, the two best hunters of Azakua's native birds.
Colorful tapestries, traditional Azakuin tribal masks and flags from different clans covered the stone walls. All of the masks were a combination of human and animal features and represented the twelve Zodia that had lived over a thousand years ago.
