The Theft of Sunlight by Intisar Khanani (story reading .TXT) 📕

every sense screaming at me to follow Bren, to grab him and shake him and demand he take me with him. But I can’t move. Even without the manacle of the Scholar’s cool fingers wrapped about my wrist, my feet are rooted to the ground, as if I no longer had legs at all but stood upon a single immovable trunk. Bren has left me as surety against the Scholar’s demands. Surety against one hundred gold pieces, with no way to pay them. He won’t come back.

The Scholar releases me, returning to his armchair, where he settles himself comfortably, his robes smoothed out upon his lap, the book once more in his hands. I watch him, head turned.

“I don’t suppose you country girls are taught to appreciate the finer arts,” the Scholar says with biting contempt, “but you are welcome to browse my library while your room is being readied.”

I stare at him.

He directs me toward the stacks with his eyes, then returns his attention to his book. There is no sound from outside, no boots passing along the hall, no voices drifting down stairways to us. Nothing. I wait, listening, as if by mere force of will I could make Bren come back and take me with him.

The Scholar turns a page, glancing my way as if amused. I close my eyes, gather my courage, and find myself thinking of Bean, who never sits still and never stops trying. She would have hollered at Bren, stamped her foot, and, if still finding herself captive, stomped over to the stacks to complain in a loud and carrying voice about the pathetic selection before her, regardless of its actual value.

My breath comes a little easier with that imagining. My feet drag themselves free, and while I don’t stomp over to the stacks, neither do I stumble. I trace the spines of the books before me, pull one out. Poetry.

He smote the dragon high

Twixt the ear and the eye

The Sword returned to bite his neck

And so fell foolish Recknameck

I stifle a groan. Bean would have burst out laughing at this rubbish. I slide the book back and make my way down the shelf, hoping only to pass time, distract myself from what might happen tomorrow morning if Bren doesn’t deliver up a hundred gold coins. But very soon I’m engrossed in what I find.

Recknameck is the worst of the books available, for the shelf holds also some of the great poets of old, ancient ballads, and—as I pass to the next shelf—histories, logbooks, and political treatises. I browse through the books, pulling out this red leather tome with gold leafing, then looking through that aged brown volume so worn the title stamped on the cover is nothing more than a series of ridges. As I pull out another history, a small book no larger than my own hand falls from the shelf. I stoop to retrieve it.

The cover is weather-stained, the pages so thin they crackle as I turn them. Intrigued, I sink down where I stand, sitting cross-legged with my skirts in a rumple around me, and begin to read.

It is an account of the so-called Fae Attack roughly one hundred years ago. Not to misrepresent—they attacked because our own fool of a king attacked their land some twenty years before that, looting and pillaging before returning home. As long-lived as Faeries seem to be, their memories are equally enduring. They repaid his visit in kind, and it was during those bloody years that much of our royal family was slaughtered. And, as some claim, a curse was laid upon the Family, so that their numbers have continued to dwindle, leaving us now with only the king, his son, and Verin Garrin.

Zaria’s words about the real reason for the Fae delegation’s presence come back to me—a curse, she had said. Perhaps I should not have dismissed her words out of hand. Filadon hinted that Kestrin had not been able to look at issues such as the slavers because of what he termed “more pressing concerns”—and that Alyrra had helped him when he most needed it. Somehow.

It seems an unlikely possibility that there might be dark magic at work here. . . . Yet, for the royal family to welcome a powerful Fae mage, unsworn to Menaiya? There must be some hidden trouble, with a very real possibility that the Fae are at the heart of it. Still, it seems unlikely at best that the journal in my hands might shed some light on just what has haunted our royal family. Yet I can’t help being drawn into the account before me.

The journal is written in a light, elegant hand, the script flowing and perfectly formed. It takes me a few pages to discover the author’s identity: a woman archer among the king’s elite guard, part of a quad of archers who served in his bodyguard—unusual but not unheard of. What’s curious are the doubts she holds concerning her king.

We march for Lirelei today, she writes. The king remains adamant that a small show of force will drive back the marauders—that they are nothing more than pretty-faced pirates. I fear he underestimates them. Dare I suggest otherwise? Or will he think I criticize him? Fastu spoke out, albeit foolishly, and look where he ended: his bow broken along with his fingers and arms, left for a beggar in the street. Better not to speak. I will string my bow, and protect my people, and keep my tongue still.

Behind me, I hear a knock on the door. At the Scholar’s word, a maid steps in. I twist to peer at her from between the shelves; she is tall and gangly with a sharp chin and a crooked smile. “Room’s ready, kel.”

“Ria,” the Scholar says, the name a command.

I scramble to my feet, slipping the journal into my pocket as I turn to reshelve the history book I had taken down. If I’m to be imprisoned in my room, at least I can take some good reading