Awakening Arte (The Eldest Throne Book 1) Read online

  “Oh, she’s always furious.”

  The aide shook his head. “Not like this. I would sooner let you leap and crush my spine to soften your landing than go back and report without you.”

  Kuro raised his eyebrows and snapped his parasol shut. “Well!”

  He spun down to a nearby azure cherry tree, balancing on the swaying branch, and hopped his way down the rest of the branches and other makeshift steps until he landed on the pathway. The aide was waiting for him with a look of pure horror on his face.

  “Onward!” Kuro said to him.

  Kuro hurried through Avyleir’s arching hallways, all of which were lit by élanic lamps and lined with intricate statues of chimeras, clan heroes, and imperial magnates from throughout history. The walls held mosaics, scenic paintings, and, of course, many replicas of Rozaria and Avyleir Library’s shared emblem: a shattered crystalline targe held together by chains.

  They reached the heart of Avyleir before long, which was an enclosed orchard topped by glass that caught and enhanced the Throne’s light. At the center rose the master librarian’s tower, and it soared up through the glass to become the highest point in Rozaria City.

  Kuro rushed across the stone path, through the heavy wooden doors at the front, winked at the clerk that shook her head at him, and took the stairs two at a time until they reached the grandiose meeting chamber that claimed the entirety of one of the tower’s floors.

  He paused before the chamber’s massive set of doors, breathless, and placed a hand on the shoulder of the aide whose face was now beaded with sweat from keeping up with Kuro. The guards standing to either side of the entrance looked unsurprised.

  “Go,” he told the man. “There’s no need to fill two graves when one alone is enough.”

  The man frowned. “But—”

  Kuro squeezed his shoulder to silence him and reached into a pocket. A smile touched his lips as he handed the man a gold coin with a circle of obsidian at the center. The aide’s eyes widened, then scrunched with confusion as he stared at it.

  “Go treat yourself to a lovely breakfast,” Kuro said. “Don’t forget to raise a glass of wine to both your glory and mine.”

  The aide shook his head, sighed, and bowed low, arms crossed over his chest, before descending back down the steps to their left.

  “Fate be kind,” Kuro said to himself as he smoothed the blue robes of his station.

  He kicked one door open and stepped into the chamber—and deflected the gavel whirling through the air with his parasol. It clattered onto the marble floor, but was barely audible over the sound of his name echoing through the room.

  He bowed. “Indeed, it is I, Kuro—”

  “Silence!” shouted Lilisette, the master librarian of Avyleir.

  He glanced across the circular chamber that was every bit as extravagant as the rest of the library. Above hung a chandelier of deep obsidian, but it didn’t give off any light because the walls were made of clear glass—they curved around the chamber before joining with the stone surrounding the doors he had come through.

  A large wooden table—dyed a midnight blue, of course—stood at the center, and there waited the library’s five other exarchs, all of whom were gazing at him with a delightful variety of emotions. Lilisette sat at the head of the table opposite from the doors.

  She glared at him. “Give me back my gavel.”

  Kuro bent to pick it up, then tossed it over.

  She caught the spinning gavel with ease—and immediately threw it back at him. Kuro squealed as he leaped out of the way.

  “I’m sorry?” he said.

  She pointed at his empty chair with a trembling finger.

  Kuro shut the door and hurried over to his seat. Lilisette passed a hand through her raven locks and took a deep breath.

  “What did I miss?” Kuro asked her.

  “The vote for your immediate removal from the position of exarch.”

  “See, that’s why I always avoid the opening hours of these meetings.” Kuro leaned back in his chair. “What a waste of time!”

  The other exarchs rolled their eyes, but Lilisette pressed her fingertips together.

  “A Grimoire awoke this morning,” she announced.

  “Oh? That’s excellent news!”

  “We’re debating whether to hand him over to the Imperial Cantons for denouncement.”

  Kuro frowned. “Excuse me?”

  Exarch Vicdan sighed. “A dream eater appeared in the city this morning. We’re still not sure whether it ascended here or sneaked in during the night, but it was young either way and not very intelligent. Showed itself without a thought and then tried to feed.”

  “Where?” Kuro asked as he reopened and spun his parasol, to the annoyance of his closest neighbor. “Wait, don’t tell me—one of the outer districts. Probably westside. Too few Guardsmen and too many people all crammed into the districts. You know, they were already haphazard messes even before we approved the construction of additional hive-homes and made things worse.”

  “Yes,” Vicdan answered dryly.

  “It’s not truly the Guard’s duty to deal with chimeras,” another exarch snapped.

  “Well, Ralti, I’m left wondering to who that duty might fall when we send Grimoires away on missions so often that we never have any on standby.” Kuro waved his free hand and sighed. “I assume there were casualties? Dream eater is a terrible way to die.”

  Ralti shook her head. “No, actually. The awakened Grimoire fought it off before anyone could respond.”

  Kuro stopped spinning his parasol.

  “According to witnesses, his awakening happened right around the same time the Throne lost its halos and dimmed,” Lilisette said from across the table. “Those same accounts insist the young man tore at the chimera with his bare hands.”

  Kuro snapped his parasol closed and tapped it across his shoulder. A dream eater was dangerous to a mortal human—well, any chimera was—but its overall threat rating was low. “Is that supposed to be surprising? Grimoire awakenings can be explosively spectacular—literally, sometimes.”

  Lilisette clapped her hands together with force. “Oh, I didn’t know that! Thank you, Kuro! Perhaps you’d like to sit here on my lap and take over as master librarian?”

  “I’ll pass. My delicate complexion fares poorly with stress.”

  Lilisette stared at him for a stretch of time, then said, “Whatever happened to the Throne will alone incite enough outside investigations and audits to drown every Imperial Library in paperwork for Fate knows how long, but I have several other concerns about this awakening.”

  “Who cares?” Kuro said. “If he’s a Grimoire now, then he’s still a treasure from the Empress herself. What could stand against that truth?”

  “After nearly savaging the dream eater to death, the young man ironically tried to eat it,” Vicdan explained. “A chimera! Might as well slit his throat now if we write that down in his records.”

  Interesting. Could he be…? Kuro frowned. I’ll need to go see for myself. “We won’t, of course, and maybe he was just famished? Near-death experiences always leave my belly growling with a vengeance.”

  Six pairs of eyes bored into him.

  Senna sighed. “Don’t you find this the slightest bit peculiar? The Throne and its halos go dark without warning—nearly stopping my heart in the process—and then a Grimoire like him awakens?”

  “Peculiar? No, I find it fascinating, as should any librarian,” Kuro said. He glanced carefully around the table. “What does his clan think?”

  “He’s clanless,” Ralti muttered as she flicked her dreadlocks back over her shoulders with a toss of her head. “One of the Guardsmen that stood against the dream eater admitted as much, yet still vouched for the boy.” She shrugged.

  Silence fell over the great chamber and gazes fell along with it as the exarchs and master librarian submerged into their own thoughts. Kuro watched them instead. They were the fellow rulers of the Rozarian Demesne that enc
ompassed the surrounding lands, villages, and lesser towns and cities. Few others were as aware of the burdens Rozaria carried or the challenges they faced as a people, and, under normal circumstances, Kuro knew they would have welcomed a new Grimoire with shivering delight and relief.

  He sighed loudly, drawing the attention of several exarchs and Lilisette in particular. Well, that’s a little unfair, I suppose. Even I admit our situation is concerning enough to wonder if a gambit is really what we need—or can afford—right now. He grinned, prompting worried expressions to emerge from the faces of his peers. And the answer is yes.

  He jumped from his seat and onto the table. The other exarchs leaned back with sighs, waiting, while Lilisette rested her chin on a hand.

  “Let’s at least allow him the usual examination,” he said, snapping open his parasol.

  Lilisette eyed him, unmoved. “Are you volunteering to sponsor him?”

  “I’d like to have a look at him first, but my tower is on training rotation this year anyway and we happen to be a single member short, so this works out perfectly.”

  “That’s not good enough,” Vicdan said, scowling. “If the Imperial Cantons send someone we’ll have to do a lot better than shrug and say he’s been behaving.”

  “Full approval instead of majority, then. I’ll write his potentiality and moral assessments myself.” Kuro spun his parasol. “And since you’re all looking to skip straight to denouncement, I’m not opposed to an unfavorable examination, either.” He pointed at the others as he spun a slow circle. “It’ll prove we handled him with deliberate care if nothing else, so I doubt they’ll accuse us of dishonor even if the Cantons eventually take him into custody.”

  “Full approval?” Ralti asked.

  “Why not? It’s obvious you all fear something sinister might sprout from today’s events. If I can’t absolve you all of that fear, we’ll return his spirit to the Empress with our thanks and apologies.” He raised his free hand as if he were holding something up. “And if he survives your scrutiny, we stand to gain another Grimoire. Which, I remind you, we are desperately in need of.”

  Vicdan snorted. “You know where the path that is greed leads to better than any of us. If we’re not careful, even a single Grimoire might someday cost us the lives of another dozen, and that’s without considering the possibility that our citizens might learn more about them than they need to know.”

  “Those are risks every Imperial Library must endure.” Kuro shrugged. “Unlike the others, however, we still have very few veterans—most certainly not enough to be flippant about having a Grimoire executed.”

  “We’ll put it to a vote,” Lilisette said. “All in favor?”

  Kuro watched the other exarchs raise their hands, though some did so with obvious reluctance. With that settled, Lilisette gestured towards his seat, which he took with a flourish. Their discussion went towards more mundane things, beginning with how they would handle the day’s unrest and what they would officially tell their people. The rest was more of the same; more chimeras, more knots of night, more brigands—just more problems overall, really, but such was the life of those brazen enough to dwell so far from the Eldest Throne.

  Kuro was the first to leave when the meeting was adjourned, and he went straight to see his new charge. He found the boy down in one of their more cordial holding cells. Avyleir guards and an annoyed-looking Grimoire stood watch even though the boy was fast asleep.

  Memories rose like bile as he entered and approached the chamber’s bed. Kuro allowed the silence to stretch on for a while before reaching out to do what he had been too much of a coward to do over sixteen years ago. His fingers pressed against the boy’s chest. A ripple of soft, ghostly blue glyphs flashed across Kuro’s fingers—and confirmed his suspicions.

  The most obvious tells were missing, but if one looked close… yes, there in his nose, in the curve of his jaw. He might really be her son. Kuro had been told as much, but he hadn’t believed it back then.

  Speaking of which, where was the warrior who had vowed to watch over the boy?

  Kuro considered that mystery for a moment and eventually decided it didn’t matter. Roun had awakened and was now in his care; as far as Kuro was concerned, they had fulfilled their promise.

  3

  Roun woke to the sound of a key turning. He sprang upright and his eyes snapped open to find darkness, but a few blinks let his eyes adjust and cleared the cloudy haze in his head. He groaned and tried to remember what had happened. The dream eater was about to devour me…? Then he had woken up here, which made little sense. He glanced around. Well, I don’t even know where ‘here’ is.

  A few dim élanic lights and what he could only describe as a holding cell greeted him. This doesn’t look like the Guard’s hall. Still, if he was alive, that meant something had happened. Maybe Grimoires had reached them in time after all.

  “Are you awake, Honored One?”

  The voice and movement startled him, though he realized he had heard the key turning earlier. A door creaked open to reveal a figure dressed in flowing robes. She bowed, then straightened after a polite length of time and gestured outside the holding cell.

  “This way, please,” she said.

  Roun stared with a frown, but when she repeated her request, he obediently rose from the bed and followed. They stepped into the thin hallway of what did indeed appear to be a gaol, though it was a small one. It made up for that with the fact that the cells themselves seemed to be spacious and sturdy, if that was anything to be proud of.

  There were no guards, however, and no one manning the little desk they passed on their way to where he assumed the exit was. They took a series of steps that left him exhausted, but the woman slowed her pace whenever he lagged in order to let him catch up or rest. When they reached the end and broke out into a cavernous hall, however, he realized there was only one place he could be, because there wasn’t any other place like it in all of Rozaria City.

  “Are we…?” Roun asked as he looked around. The hallways were wider than the streets of the city but almost as crowded. Instead of hawkers, booths, and pedestrians, he saw a variety of robe-wearing individuals with distinct marks around their collars and chests. A few wore well-fitted trousers and elaborate coats and walked around carrying thin tomes.

  “Yes,” the woman answered. “This is Avyleir Library.”

  She let Roun gawk like an idiot for a moment before ushering him onward. They continued through the halls and corridors until they reached a tall, columned archway. His escort gave him a jagged bit of soapstone, a bundle of clothes, and some towels and waved him inside after instructing him to throw his old clothing into the baskets with red marks. That confused him until he stepped inside and realized it was a bath.

  Roun had visited public bathhouses before, though none as large or as extravagant as this; statues gushed water and even more cascaded down from ornate spouts along the walls, all collecting into a steaming pool at the center that was filled with chatting folk. The heated water alone was a shock, but it was probably one of the lesser wonders of the library.

  He moved towards the right side where it seemed there was less water and more space. It also seemed to be where everyone was storing their things in little alcoves with wooden doors and keys. Confused, he bathed by himself in a corner of the pool. No one spoke to or bothered Roun, which suited him just fine; he washed as fast as he could and went to dress.

  A frown spread across his face as he unfolded everything. The raiments of a Grimoire. It was difficult to mistake as anything else, especially for Roun, because he had dreamed of wearing these same clothes someday. A dream now poised to become reality, but it would feel wrong to wear them for the thrill alone—this had to be a mistake.

  He debated over what to do, then abashedly inched over to the bath’s entrance. People were entering and leaving, but no one gave him more than a cursory glance. He found the woman waiting for him at the entrance.

  “I think you gave me a Gri
moire’s raiments by mistake,” he said, hiding his nakedness around the corner of the bath’s arched entrance. A public bath was one thing, but there was an obvious line between what was and wasn’t appropriate elsewhere.

  The woman bowed. “It was not a mistake.”

  He retreated inside. Not a mistake…? Only Grimoires wore raiments. And she addressed me as ‘honored one’ before. Could I…? He froze after returning to the raiments and staring down at them. What if…? Roun shook his head, refusing to get his hopes up. This could all still be a mistake after all; maybe the dream eater had somehow choked on him and now everyone believed he had killed it himself. Or something.

  He pushed the thought aside and focused on getting dressed.

  The cloth felt luxurious and soft, and it was dyed a rich blue, which was Avyleir and Rozaria’s banner color. Roun dressed with care, starting with the undergarments, then a vest and trousers, both of which were well-fitted, before slipping his feet into the high socks. He completed the uniform by tugging on boots that looked more expensive than anything he would ever have been able to afford, then shrugging into the set’s open outer robes and wrapping the sash around his waist.

  He ended up fussing with the sash because he couldn’t recall the way he had seen Grimoires tie it. There was also a silver plate on it engraved with Avyleir’s emblem, and he was pretty sure it needed to be centered. A smiling old man came over and taught him how to tie it, then congratulated him on his ascension as if Roun really were a Grimoire now.

  This feels wrong. It was all he could think when he stepped back outside and the woman again bowed to him.

  They continued on towards a fat tower on the southeastern side of the library’s compound.

  “This is the Blue Moon Tower,” the woman said, gesturing. “Those buildings around it are the dormitories and support facilities.”

  She continued on towards the central tower itself, where they stepped into what seemed like a common lounge. They passed through it and descended into a basement that made him think of a workshop.