Fear was a useless concept. All it was good for was robbing a person of a life they could’ve had, had they not allowed that spark of doubt to stay their hand. Foolish, to put such power into an intangible thing.

{Yes. You are being foolish.}

Scowling, I stopped toying with a blade of grass and looked up to where Theo was perched in the tree I was leaning against. {Shush,} I said, futilely throwing the grass in his direction. {I’ll go when I’m ready.}

He clicked his beak. {You’ve been staring at the building for a while, and I’m growing bored.}

Just as I was about to send another retort down the bond between us, the words died in my thoughts. I couldn’t exactly fault Theo’s annoyance. We’d been loitering outside the House of Scholars for at least an hour now, and after four false starts, I was no closer to walking inside and retrieving what we’d come here for.

Yes, fear was useless. But it was effective, too.

The answer to my problem lied a short distance away, in a towering white-pillared building at the heart of Kolasino’s plaza. While a bustling crowd enjoyed the paved walkways and blooming gardens around the House, I was left cowering beneath one of the many landscaped trees dotting the area.

And since when did I cower?

{Since today.}

I shoved myself upright from the tree and craned my head back to level the full force of a glare upon Theo. He matched my expression, adding in a mocking head tilt that caught a stream of sunlight, making his mud-colored feathers appear redder than I’ve seen it in a while.

“Fine,” I bit out, drawing the confused glances of a few passersby. To them, I probably looked like a strange woman yelling at a tree. But if they stepped closer, they would also see a strange hawk nestled among the browns and greens of the boughs.

I supposed that was the advantage of our roles—the peculiarity. Although Theo’s appearance changed with time, mine did not, but that didn’t mean the passing decades wouldn’t dull my identity to the public eye.

Leaving the tree behind, I brushed off Theo’s amused tittering and strode along the travertine path toward the House’s courtyard. Scholars lounging there glanced up from their books, but I had my sights locked on the ornate entrance. With a weighty grace, the door swung open, ushering in the balmy breath of spring to mingle with the library’s crisp air, a silent herald into the world of knowledge.

Nerves rippled through my limbs like a tossed pebble disturbing still waters. I’d never thought I’d return to a House of Scholars, not after last time, when Menos’ House purposely misinterpreted the glyphs I’d enlisted them to decipher. Turned out, not even a Menosian king was above holding a grudge for his own misinterpretation of my vision.

Once he learned of my desire to seek the Menosian scholars’ wisdom, the king had ordered the House to steer me in the wrong direction, just as he’d believed I’d done to him. But I’d warned him repeatedly when he came to me with coin in his hand and vengeance in his heart.

“Heed the vision with caution,” I’d said.

He hadn’t listened. Powerful men rarely did.

His arrogance had been driven further by what he’d gleaned from my divination, and it was that arrogance that had cost him most of his military from a failed conquest. Then it was his resentment that tore down my pillars of hope when I’d unknowingly created a sabotaged elixir that had no intention of freeing me. All it did was leave me bedridden for a month. But that was centuries ago.

Now, with a renewed purpose in my step, I ventured into Vasilya’s House of Scholars, in search of the Master Savant and the findings of their own inquest. It didn’t long to spot him descending the curved grand staircase of the entrance hall. Our gazes locked, and Arcenio’s dimpled smile greeted me with a wave of nostalgia, mirroring the warmth it held all those years ago.

He’d been just a boy when I’d first entered this House and handed him another copy of the glyphs for his master’s review. But now, every gray strand on his head and age spot on his skin added to the wisdom he’d no doubt accumulated over the years.

“I was starting to think I’d be dust by the time you showed up,” Arcenio chuckled, his voice bouncing off the arched ceiling as he glided across the tiled floor. Even in those cumbersome robes, he moved with a surprising elegance.

A playful grin crept onto my lips. “Would you believe me if I said I’d gotten held up?”

He raised an eyebrow, a teasing glint in his eye. “For fifty years?” His wrinkled face brightened with another smile. “Must’ve been quite some detour.”

I could’ve returned decades ago when the House had first sent word of their successful translation, but I could never rally myself to revisit this ancient edifice, even though it’d always been a few days’ ride away. Perhaps it was why I’d settled my homestead so close to it—it had been a comfort to know the answer to a true death was so near. Then again, proximity never truly mattered when it’d taken me an hour to come inside.
Arcenio gestured toward an arched passageway. “Shall we?”

I trailed behind him, our footsteps echoing down the corridor, passing by serene chambers where the air was filled with the gentle rustle of pages turning and the soft thud of tomes finding their places in the stacks. It was the sort of place where I supposed sneezing would be more than a mild disturbance.

We arrived at a closed door at the end of the passage. Arcenio retrieved a strung key from its place around his neck, swiftly unlocking the door with a flick of his wrist. Once the key was safely slipped back over his head, he opened the door to his office.

Like many of the other chambers within the House, stacks of annals decorated his space. My eyes lit up at the sight of a familiar book resting on a shelf. While Arcenio busied himself at a cabinet, I plucked the book into my hands and thumbed through the pages.

“This was a good year,” I said, grinning as I skimmed my inked Oreynish words.

Arcenio cast a quick glance over his shoulder as he delicately extracted a small wooden box from the depths of the cabinet. His eyes caught sight of the book in my hands before he spoke, his voice carrying a hint of intrigue, “Ah, yes. I had to request that Oreynos send it back so we could do a fresh translation. There were errors in the previous copy.”

My annual chronicles were usually written in the language of whichever country I happened to be in at the time. Documenting the major events of each nation was one of the few duties my role as the Montissa entailed. After I submitted it to a House of Scholars, it was up to them to pass it along to the other nations’ Houses so they could translate it for their own collections.

“Here we are,” Arcenio announced, closing the distance between us with the box nestled securely against his chest.

With a sense of trepidation pulsing through me, I returned the book to its designated spot on the shelf, trying to quell the rising tide of anxiety within. His outstretched hands presented the box to me, the lid tilting back to reveal a rolled-up parchment, its edges yellowed from age.

I wrapped my fingers around the note, studying it intently in my palm. “And you’re confident of the translation?”

“As confident as I am that the sun will set tonight,” he affirmed. “I worked on it myself.”

A glimmer of hope ignited within me. Expressing my gratitude with a nod, I tucked the parchment into the folds of my cloak and left the House with much more courage than I’d entered with.