The Broken Ones (The Malediction Trilogy 0.6)(61)
“Of course.” He bobbed another bow. “We have several pieces of your work here, including your portrait of Her Majesty, which–”
On any other day, I’d be willing to discuss artwork for hours, but not today, so I interrupted. “What is your name, sir?”
“Martin, my lady. Fifth librarian.”
He couldn’t have been any older than I was, only just having completed his guild training, though he must have scored high to earn a placement here. “Martin, I require some assistance in my research, if you are willing.”
“Of course.” He bowed again. “On which topic?”
“Bonding.”
He led me through the towering shelves of books with the confidence of one who all but lives among them, stopping next to one, the crystal sconces in close proximity brightening to reveal the titles. Extracting two volumes, he held them out. “These are particularly well done.”
Opening one, I took in the pages of drawings of intricate bonding marks, all labeled with the names and titles of those who bore them. Some brilliant silver. Some greying with a mate’s illness.
Some black.
“Every bonding mark is unique,” Martin said, seeming to misinterpret my silence as I stared at the blackened marks of a woman who’d survived her husband’s death some two hundred years past, the image filling me with both terror and hope.
Handing back the volumes, I said, “I’m rather more interested in the nature of the magic. Whether–” I swallowed hard “–whether there is anything about the chances of surviving the death of a spouse.”
His face filled with sympathy, and though Marc’s and my situation was well known – and discussed – in Trollus, it still troubled me that we were seen as a tragedy. “I’m not dead yet,” I snapped, then pressed a hand to my temple as he looked away in embarrassment. “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.”
Martin made a noncommittal noise, then ran a finger down the spines of a long row of books. “There are innumerable accounts of survival, as well as the steps certain individuals took which they believed allowed them to endure the loss, but…”
That was exactly what I was interested in, although his hesitation told me all I needed to know.
“But there is no pattern,” he continued. “No way of predicting who will survive the severing, and no proven method for improving one’s chances. If there were, it would be well known and practiced. I’m happy to set the best of them out for your reading, but I do not think you’ll find what you’re looking for.”
The words on the spines seemed to blur and dance, taunting me with the futility of this errand.
“And there is no way to break it?” To even have asked the question felt like infidelity on my part, to consider destroying the greatest gift that had ever been given to me.
Silence, then, “None other than death, my lady.”
Which circled back to the only solution: my survival. “What literature do you have on afflictions?” I asked. “Specifically, my own.”
The section was enormous. Row after row of volumes detailing the impact of iron, inbreeding, and confinement on my people, but as much as I was tempted to blame the human witch Anushka and her curse, my fingers drifting to the gold necklace at my throat told the truth. It was our own doing, our ancestors’ greed that had tied us to this world. All Anushka had done was make our world smaller.
“This isn’t one of my areas of focus,” Martin said, examining the shelves. “I’m afraid it never really captivated my attention.”
“Because you aren’t afflicted.” I immediately bit my tongue, because it was possible his was an affliction that was as hidden as my own. But in my heart, I knew that wasn’t the case. There was a certain selfishness to interest: one cared about what affected oneself, and only the best of people cared for what lay beyond that sphere.
A frown furrowed his brow, but he didn’t answer, only selected a volume. “This is specific to your concern, my lady.”
Sweat rose on my palms. I knew I couldn’t be cured. But maybe, just maybe, the key to understanding my ailment, to surviving it, resided within these pages. But as I flipped the cover, only unmarked paper greeted my greedy gaze. Startled, I flipped from cover to cover, but there was nothing. “These are blank.”
“Pardon?” Martin snatched the volume out of my hands, staring at it in bewilderment. “How strange.” Setting it aside, he extracted several more volumes, and the prickle of agitated magic across my skin told me that it was more of the same. I stood frozen in place while the librarian tore into the shelves, swiftly tossing aside those specific to my affliction and turning to those more encyclopedic in nature, but everything to do with uncontrolled bleeding had been excised from the pages.
“Impossible,” Martin whispered, a book held loosely in one hand.
Except that it wasn’t. Every scrap of research the royal library possessed about my affliction had been purged. And I knew who was responsible.
My father.
And there was only one reason I could think of for him to do it. He wanted to eliminate any chance of me surviving my pregnancy. The worst part of it was, there might have been something here. Something within these pages that would have ensured that Marc, our child, and I would endure, and now it was gone.