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“It can only be the work of an Elder,” the lieutenant insists. “The others cannot read the early texts.”
“The Elders are loyal to the Monarch,” Aban spits back. “They would never join the rebels.”
Rebels? Rebelling against what? I wonder. Life on Ashra and her lands is peaceful, with no need to rebel.
“An exile, then,” the first voice says.
Aban shakes his head. “And how do you suppose they got off Nartu?”
It’s the first I’ve heard of exiled Elders. It’s true that the life isn’t for everyone, but Elders who retire or Initiates who give up their instruction often choose a life of solitude on Nartu. Don’t they?
“It is your fault for not keeping Burumu under control,” Aban says. “The rebellions should have been quashed by now, not spreading. And if they’ve learned of this!”
Learned of what? And who has read the early texts? Too many questions flood into my mind at once. I think of the unrest Jonash mentioned, the one my father hesitated to mention in front of me. Is it so serious as to pit the tempers of Aban and the lieutenant against each other? The Elite Guard and the Elders have always worked together to serve the lands of Ashra. All our roles build the Phoenix together to protect its beating heart, our people. And what the lieutenant suggests is ridiculous. Even the Elders can’t read the earliest texts.
None of it makes sense. But if the unrest is bad enough to worry either group and make them accuse each other, then there is more happening than my father has let on.
My thoughts muddle with confusion as I peek over the tops of the annals. Aban and the lieutenant have stopped at a small desk on the other side, where the Elders occasionally place the annals to study them. Aban reaches around his neck and produces a small key on a string. I’ve never noticed a key around Aban’s neck before. He turns toward a cupboard near the desk and fits in the key, turning it with a creak. He rustles through the darkness and produces a bloodred tome with gilded pages. It looks just like the rows of annals on the shelf, and every volume is accounted for. Why would there be one locked in the cupboard?
Aban lifts it onto the desk with an echoing thud and begins to flip the pages.
“I’m telling you,” the lieutenant tries again. Aban whispers to himself in what sounds like a foreign tongue, his eyes scanning the words as his finger runs down the page.
My hand goes to my open mouth. He’s reading the ancient script. He’s reading the early annals.
There’s an illustration on the page, but I can’t make it out from here. I can only see where the block of text ends and the fanciful sketching begins.
The lieutenant leans over, impatient. “Well?”
Aban falls silent, his finger stopping at one paragraph. “It’s just as they’re saying,” he says, his voice nearly a whisper. “The barrier, the generator...word for word, it’s what’s on the flyer. Show me again.”
The lieutenant reaches into his pocket and flattens the crinkled piece of paper. Aban compares the information on the paper to the lines he’s pressed his trembling finger against in the annal. He nods, his face ghostly white.
The lieutenant snatches the paper back and balls his hand into a fist. He quickly turns back to Aban. “And no one has seen this annal but the Elders?”
“And the Monarch, and you,” Aban says. My father knows of this secret tome, as well?
The lieutenant holds the edge of the paper to the candle that flickers on the desk. The flame licks up the side as the paper curls in on itself and burns. “Are there other copies of the book?” he asks.
Aban closes the massive tome with effort, and I stare over the tops of the shelved books to glance at the volume number. It glints, a single line golden in the dim light. The first of the annals. But that’s impossible. Another copy of the first volume hidden under lock and key? It makes no sense.
“Only this one,” Aban says. “And the one on the shelf, but it was dealt with nearly two hundred years ago. I believe the others were burned.”
Burned? Dealt with? Quietly as I can, I slide the first volume of the annals off the shelf and crouch down, placing the heavy book on top of my red skirts. I flip soundlessly to the image of the Rending, staring at it. What could be different about this volume than Aban’s special copy? What was “dealt with” two hundred years ago?
Then I see it, though I’ve looked at this drawing so many times before. Now that I know something’s wrong, it jumps off the page at me. The Phoenix is a much darker red-brown sketch than the rest of the fading drawing. I look carefully in its filled-in wings. There are rings of red encircling the space below the floating continent. There is some sort of mechanism buried in the Phoenix’s tail, some sort of...of machine.
The Phoenix has been drawn later, to cover something previously drawn. But what exactly, and why?
I slide the heavy book to the floor and peek through the shelves again to watch the men. Aban appears to think for a moment.
“Ashes,” he says. “There was an Initiate many years ago. He had a talent for deciphering the older annals. In the end he wasn’t suitable, and we sent him away. Perhaps he made a copy, or found another, and has deciphered its meaning. But he went to Nartu so long ago. And the retired Elders wouldn’t risk their safety by revealing the truth.”
“Then he’s made his way to Burumu, his message with him,” the lieutenant said. “It must be stopped.”
“I agree, but carefully. If you did your job, Lieutenant, we wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place.”
“I could say the same,” he grumbles.
“The Sargon better control the rebellion. It must not advance here.”
“The rebels are disorganized and marginalized anyway,” the lieutenant says. “We can easily stop the people. But ideas spread like wildfire. We need to discredit this information as lies.”
Then a lighter voice rings out, friendly and unburdened. “Kali?”
It’s Elisha, looking for me.
My heart seems as loud as the citadel bells. Aban rushes the tome to the cupboard, locking it as the lieutenant looks around nervously. I’m not sure what I’ve stumbled on to, but I know it isn’t wise to let on that I’ve been here the whole time. Even with my rank as the Eternal Flame and heir, I feel the fear flicker inside me. They could erase me, too, if they wanted. It would be easy. I’m just one person, noble or not.
“Kali, are you in here?” Elisha shouts. Her voice echoes in the domed ceiling of the library. I glance down the row of annals, press my hands against the thick concrete wall at the end. There’s no way to leave this corridor without walking past the two men.
Aban slips the string with the key back under the neckline of his robe and clasps his hands. He and the lieutenant step toward the entrance of the library just as Elisha appears in front of them. She knows how much I love books. She knows where to find me.
“Oh,” she gasps, surprised. “Elder Aban. And the lieutenant, isn’t it? From the Elite Guard?”
“Elisha,” Aban says, his voice cool and collected. I can’t see any of them now because I’ve shrunk back against the wall. It’s as if I’m watching a play, like this couldn’t really be happening.
“I’m just looking for Kali,” she says cheerfully.
I hear the