The Unmaking (The Last Days of Tian Di, #2)(26)
Tears spilled unexpectedly from Eliza’s eyes. Nia’s face fell.
“Go on, that was funny. You don’t feel sorry for them, do you, Smidgen? Look, these beings have kept me locked away in the Arctic for more than twelve years. Why should I take pity on them now?”
Eliza wiped her tears away angrily. “They had no choice,” she said. “They had to protect people.” It was absurd, really, trying to rationalize things to Nia.
Nia tilted her head on one side and smiled warmly. “One of these days, Smidgen, I’m going to have to enlighten you about your friends the Mancers. But that’s not what I want to talk about with you right now. Something has been baffling me ever since you snuck off the last time and I’ve just got to know – how in the worlds did you lay your hands on Faery blood? I’ve been dying of curiosity for more than two years now!”
It had not occurred to Eliza that, of course, Nia didn’t know she had stabbed the King of the Faeries and so her escape must have remained a mystery. Sealing her inner thoughts away tightly, she said, “The Mancers and the Faeries are allies. They help each other.”
Nia shook her shining curls and laughed scornfully. “Eliza, please! Don’t insult me by suggesting that Faeries are giving their blood to the Mancers! They only tolerate each other at all because they’re all terrified of me. No, Smidgen, the Mancers don’t have a secret stock of Faery blood. And yet you had some. I haven’t been able to figure it out.”
“Lah, let me know when you do,” said Eliza, struggling to keep her voice steady and calm.
Nia laughed again. “I couldn’t stop thinking how clever you’d been. Just a little girl really, not even able to use your Magic, and yet you escaped from me. And look at you now, so much stronger and more confident! Oh, I know better than to underestimate you, Smidgen, I’ve learned my lesson. It’s left me with a difficult decision to make. I could come for you first and take your power the way I always intended, but then my enemies would have time to get ready for me and I do prefer to keep the element of surprise on my side. So I settled on the second option – crushing them all as quickly as possible and then coming back for you when I’m done. But starting with revenge meant that I had to come up with something to keep you entertained and out of the way in the meantime. You see, I’ve been terribly busy since we last saw each other! So many things to prepare and the timing had to be perfect.”
Eliza drew her dagger and waited. She didn’t trust her own voice, she didn’t trust what words might come out of her now. She was feeling that familiar, awful, irresistible tug, the helpless desire to be embraced by Nia, to do as she said, to be as she wished. It took all her strength not to drop the dagger and run to fall at her feet.
“I intend to be merciful towards two of my enemies,” continued Nia, “and give them quick deaths. For the other two, I have something more elaborate in mind, something along the lines of eternal torment. Nothing so easy as oblivion. And then you, my lovely Eliza, will live on in me always! It’s going to be very jolly. I should be getting on with it but I got a bit sidetracked here. The Library of the Mancers! I know the place will be crawling with every kind of horrible fiend once the word is out, so I thought I should get what I can while this place still exists. Watch this!” She tossed the book she’d been holding over her shoulder and it landed with a thunk. She picked up another book, opened it wide so Eliza could see, and ran her fingers across the pages. The pages flew aside rapidly and as her fingers passed over them the ancient ink disappeared, leaving them blank. Foss had taught Eliza such a deep reverence for the books here that to see them drained in this way was like a knife to the heart.
“You cannay,” she gasped, relieved for a moment that Foss couldn’t see what was happening in his cherished Library.
“For millennia the Mancer Library has been revered in both worlds as the greatest Library ever to have existed,” said Nia cheerfully. “Even the Faeries coveted it! And now...most of it is here.” She touched her temple with her fingers and tossed the empty book with the others. “Smidgen, are you all right? You don’t look very well.”
Eliza was not feeling very well either. She steadied herself with a hand on the half-hunter’s shaggy arm. The destruction happening here, the erasing of thousands of years of lore and history, was unthinkable.
“Are you frightened?” asked Nia sympathetically. “Fear is so unpleasant, isn’t it? I believe it’s the worst sensation there is and it’s best to banish it altogether. If you fear nothing, you’re truly free. As long as you’re afraid, everything requires courage, and courage is an exhausting thing to maintain.”
Eliza gripped her dagger tighter with her right hand.
“Get on with it, aye,” she said. “Whatever you’re going to try to do to me, stop talking and just do it.”
Nia laughed aloud at that. “Quite the teenage attitude you’ve developed,” she said incredulously. “Well, Smidgen, if you’re so impatient, I won’t bore you any longer. I could just turn you to stone like the Mancers or shut you up in a barrier while I take care of my other business, but I have far too much respect for you to do anything so prosaic. Instead, I’ve spent a great deal of time and energy making something very special just for you, something to challenge that sharp little brain of yours. Would you like to see it?”