A River of Golden Bones (The Golden Court, #1)(73)

I took the book over to one of the rickety desks tucked in the corner and sat. I flipped through the yellowing pages, my eyes scanning the detailed borders and drawings surrounding the blocks of text. My eyes snagged on a sentence, and I read it over again:

Sameir Marriel, third child and second son of Their Majesties, King and Queen Marriel.



I flipped over to the next page, but there was no more detail about my father. I read it again. Third child? I never knew my father had any siblings. I knew my mother’s side of the family had been killed by Sawyn, along with the rest of the Gold Wolf pack. I also knew my father’s parents had passed away before the night of my birth, but siblings? With a sigh, I shoved back from the desk and returned to the nook of royal books. Scanning, I found a book of Olmdere royal lineages: Wyn dese Olmdelaire—the kings of Olmdere.

I set the heavy leather-bound tome on top of my mother’s story and began flipping toward the end. I got to the last chapter of recent descendants and found the family tree. My stomach lurched when I saw two names above Sameir with an X next to them: Leanna, and below, Sahandr. I had an aunt and uncle that I had never known about.

I turned the page, fingers tracing Leanna’s name:

Born under a waning moon, Leanna Marriel, the first child of King and Queen Marriel, was betrothed to Prince Luo of Valta upon her birth. The crimson-haired princess was an accomplished singer and painter. She died of a sudden illness, along with her younger brother, at the age of fifteen.



I turned to Sahandr’s page:

Born under a new moon, Sahandr Marriel, the first son and crown prince of Olmdere. He was strong, with excellent sparring and hunting skills. He died of a sudden illness, along with his elder sister, at the age of eight.



Whereas my aunt and uncle’s pages were little more than a paragraph, my father’s biography took up two whole pages. He was born one year after the death of his siblings. They called him a surprise and blessing. His pages detailed the days and moons of his many accomplishments, his coronation, and his wedding to my mother. And at the very end of the page was the announcement of the birth of his only child, Briar. I don’t know why it still stung to see her name there alone.

But it did.

I flipped to Briar’s page, the borders only half-drawn and the words hastily written. The halfhearted text made me wonder if the scribe had given up after Sawyn’s attack. How the book ended up in a Taigoska library, I had no idea. Perhaps the scribe fled from Olmdere along with so many other humans. Curious, I skimmed over Briar’s biography.

Born under a full moon, Briar Marriel, the first child of King and Queen Marriel, was betrothed to Prince Graemon of Damrienn upon her birth. Nicknamed the Crimson Princess for the blood that was spilt on the night of her birth. Her whereabouts remain unknown and many believe her dead.



My mouth dropped open. I had always thought they called Briar “the Crimson Princess” because she had red hair, but the moniker originated from something much darker. No one even knew she had red hair, I realized. No one had known her at all except Grae, King Nero, and Vellia.

My fingers trembled over the pages. It was too much. Everyone on these pages was dead or cursed, or both. The only Gold Wolf that still lived never made it into the book to begin with. A book of sons and daughters . . . and then there was me—both and neither. I traced my name over the blank parchment. I existed between the ink and the pages. I existed in the breath after a long-held note. I existed safe in my mother’s womb before the world could tell me who I was. And even if the world forgot those silent spaces, those in-betweens, in that moment I knew I had always been entirely whole—that I existed, remembered or not.

I shut both heavy books, the loud thwack echoing in the silence.

I hefted the tomes into my arms and returned to the nook to shelve them. When I turned into the last row of shelves, I smelled the smoky earth scent of Grae before I even saw him. I craned my neck down the stacks, seeing the whipping wool of a cloak. I hastily shoved the books back onto a random shelf and followed, cutting down a narrow row and popping out in front of him.

He halted, hood shifting backward just enough so that I could see his tightly clenched jaw and vexed eyes.

“Is this what we’ve come to? Tailing me, but also avoiding me?” I asked, leaning back to check again that the library was vacant. “I saw you in the plaza.”

“Your performance was beautiful, little fox.” The sound of his voice made my body respond with a deep, sorrowful twang. I missed his voice, his smell. I’d been mourning him this past day without knowing it, and now I felt it all rushing into me.

I folded my arms, trying to hide my trembling hands. “And why are you here now?”

“I wanted to make sure you were safe.”

“I’m safest when I’m with you.” I peered up into his shadowed face, feeling his eyes pierce into me. “Would it really be that bad? To be with me?” I repeated the words he had asked me so many days ago in that tent.

“No, little fox.” He reached out and swept a thumb across my cheek. “It wouldn’t be bad at all.”

I covered his hand with my own, holding his palm to my cheek as I fixed him with my gaze. “Talk to me.”

His eyes guttered and his hand pulled away. I let it drop, knowing that I had just touched upon some festering poison within him.

The library door swung open and two humans walked in, shoulders raised against the torrent of snow that followed them in the door. Grae pulled the rim of his hood higher, concealing his face again.