32. Chapter 32

Chapter 32

C yril woke up on her sofa—again. For her stiff body’s sake, this had to stop happening.

No vague note from the prince this time though, or any indication that he spent the night curled up on the sofa with her. She didn’t know if that was good or not.

It was safe to say she’d made a fucking fool of herself again in front of Mikael last night, and she owed him no shortage of apologies for dragging him into something she was wholly under-prepared for. Something that already felt like a mistake.

That striking, raven-haired woman haunted every fitful moment of Cyril’s sleep. Her smile. Her eyes. The soft warmth of her laughter.

The happiness she looked at everyone with.

All painful, aching reminders that Cyril single-handedly took her away from all the people who loved her. It didn’t matter what Mikael said to convince her otherwise, because it was her fault.

If Cyril wasn’t brought into existence, Malia would still be alive.

It was simple.

And her father? Gods. She still thought him a coward, for leaving her alone somewhere she wasn’t wanted.

But now?

Now he was a coward with a devastatingly clear face that every fiber of her being wanted to see again, with the sort of desperation that made her chest ache. Her cruel dreams tried to trick her into thinking it was his strong arms wrapped around her, not those of the prince trying to offer her silent comfort.

Safe to say, she was not well rested.

It took a concerted amount of effort for Cyril to get up off the couch and drag her ass to the bathroom to get ready. She didn’t want to spend all day in the archives, but she desperately needed something to focus on.

Her head felt like it was floating in a fucking storm cloud after the solstice, and the night before did nothing to help that. This was exactly why she avoided people and relationships, and the messy feelings that came with them.

Besides, Dion was bound to be back in a day or two, and she knew he’d have something to say if she hadn’t spent time there.

Not that he cared about what she read.

Or what she learned.

Or her theories and opinions about the murders.

Or her at all, for that matter.

He just wanted her quiet and occupied, tucked away somewhere safe.

Cyril sighed and raked her fingers through the stupid braid she’d spent so long working on the day before, reworking it into something low and loose. She didn’t think anyone even noticed she’d done something different and she…well. It’s not that she cared that no one noticed, but it might have been nice.

At least now the kitchen staff didn’t mind when she ventured in at odd hours of the day, on the hunt for tea and scraps of food. There was even a woman—who Cyril had been too afraid to ask for her name—that had taken it upon herself to give Cyril shit for not eating properly while she loaded up on odds and ends.

Her very own Sebille away from home.

Cyril ate as quickly as she could with a plate balanced on a ledge out in the servants’ hall, and washed down the bits of cured meat and bread with the dark, bitter tea she’d grown accustomed to drinking in Reykr.

Tobias was not overly fond of her bringing in any unsanctioned food or drink to the archives, and she couldn’t blame him. The rule just didn’t apply when Tobias found himself peckish.

She hovered her hand in front of the archive doors and they groaned petulantly at her as they swung in. No nausea, no dizziness, no hair standing up on the back of her neck. A welcome change.

Truthfully, she’d gotten so used to the magics of convenience they seemed fond of in the palace, that she had more than one embarrassing encounter with a regular door. She was sure Dion would never let her live those down.

A frazzled voice came from down a row of shelves.

“Just a minute, I’ll be right—”

Cyril smiled.

“Don’t worry, Isa, it’s just me.”

“Oh! Hi Cyril,” Isa called back. “I’m almost done with this cart. Just yell if you need anything.”

And that told Cyril that Isa was working alone today.

If there was one thing Tobias despised more than damaged books and disorganized shelves, it was people speaking loudly. He and Konnor—who Cyril had still never heard speak—had a hell of a scowl whenever anyone raised their voice in the archives. Isa, on the other hand, seemed prone to just yelling from one end of the archives straight through to the other whenever she needed anything.

Cyril wandered down to the shelves at the far end of the room, tucked closer to that breathtaking stained glass mural, where most of the history tomes lived.

She pulled The Dark History of Purism in Reykr out from where she’d shoved it back yesterday and tucked it in her arm. She skimmed her finger over the other titles housed on the same shelf, but they were all the same. Written in varying voices and points of view, they each detailed the rise of the purist movement in Reykr after the fall of the Great Kingdom and the subsequent resurgences in the following years.

Cyril had learned nothing different from the first book than the second, third, and fourth she’d read, but she’d give this one a try too, just in case Dark History was where all the secrets lay.

It hadn’t helped at all that Reykr was such a fucking big place, with more settlements and towns than Cyril could keep track of. And resurgences had popped up all over the kingdom in the hundreds of years since the initial movement. Some small, some large, but the names and geography meant nothing to Cyril.

Runa had even mentioned the names of a few problematic places—all spread out across Reykr—in the days after their history lesson, and Cyril recorded them down in the small notebook she kept in the archives. But outside of records of the initial movement, and a single resurgence over a hundred years ago, those names never surfaced again.

The guard she’d worked with in Brynnhold even let her skim through the files they had housed for the murders, and there was not a single record of the victims being from or having ever been to the places Runa mentioned.

“Isa?” Cyril called out, and a hum of acknowledgment carried from a few rows over. “Do you keep books on… places ? Like, of regions and settlements in Reykr?”

“Mmm. Other side. Should be theeee…third? No. Fourth row up from the window. Bottom shelf.”

Cyril had no idea how Isa remembered that, but it was exactly where she found what she was looking for.

She crouched down, brushing a thick layer of dust off the titles. She skimmed through names of places that meant nothing to her until one gold-leafed spine caught her eye—the Forn Peninsula. Runa hadn’t gone into too much detail about the region of Reykr that she, Reyna, and a few other court members hailed from, but the name stuck with Cyril.

Not exactly what she had been hoping to find. But after what Mikael had said the other night, about his concerns with Reyna’s health and the healers from her village…

Well, maybe Cyril could switch gears for a day.

It’s not like she was making any meaningful contribution to the investigation, or even knew what was going on with the investigation at all. For all she knew, Bron could have tortured a confession out of someone a day or two ago and they just forgot to tell her.

So Cyril freed the tome from its spot on the cramped and neglected shelf, grabbed a few sheets of parchment and a glass pen from the supply cart, and made herself comfortable at a worktable.

Her eyes didn’t leave the book for hours.

Balance and equivalency.

The two principles—at every size and scope imaginable—were heavily ingrained in the beliefs of the people of the Forn Peninsula, or so Cyril surmised after gorging herself on the tome about the region and its history.

Her notes were messy, haphazard things, but carried a clear theme;

For every blessing or good fortune given to one, another paid its price.

For every death, the gods brought about a new life.

For each day of sun, there must be one of rain.

The references went on, and on, and on.

Cyril had sworn Mikael said their healers were renowned, but the principles of their practice touched on in the tome seemed, well…foolish. They inferred that ill health was a matter of balances being upset and that their healers knew how to determine what had tipped the scales, and what was necessary to restore that balance. Nothing about how they knew, of course, just that they did, and that the practice was never taught to outsiders.

She supposed it was all interesting, but not in a useful manner.

If Reyna was truly sick, and traveling back for treatment, Cyril wasn’t particularly hopeful about the quality of care the crown princess was receiving. But that was the sort of conversation she did not feel like broaching with anyone, especially just working off of Mikael’s hunch.

She should have just read the Dark History tome and kept her uselessness contained to a single crisis.

“Oh, just a second!” Isa called out from the row she camped in, organizing shelves that Cyril had heard her swear at? repeatedly.

The archive doors had creaked open a moment ago, but Cyril hadn’t bothered to look up from where she had her forehead rested on her fingertips, staring down at her half-legible notes.

“What— Oh! Your Highness.”

Isa’s squeak of surprise had her eyes darting up though.

Mikael.

“Don’t mind me, I’m just here for Lady Cyril.”

He flashed Isa a polite smile as he strode straight down the row of desks, and Cyril thought the poor woman might blow right over. If only the scribe knew he was a prickly, insufferable arse beneath the uniform that he had no business looking that good in.

Cyril leveled the prince with a flat, unimpressed stare as she rose and tried to shuffle some order into her papers.

“None of that lady shit in here,” she said, and a half a smile tugged at her lips. “I’m surprised the wards even let you in.”

Mikael huffed a dry laugh.

“That makes two of us. I was worried I was going to have to knock.”

“Oh, but that would have been—”

It was Cyril’s turn to squeak as Mikael came to stand flush behind her, caging her against the table. He pressed a kiss to the crook of her neck as he leaned over to peer at the books and parchment spread out in front of her.

So much for discretion.

Isa was still planted at the end of the row she emerged from, staring wide-eyed at the two of them. She looked…happy. Maybe? Cyril wasn’t sure.

“ Mikael ,” Cyril hissed, “What are you doing?”

“Well, Cyril,” he said softly, “when two people are attracted to each other, they tend to display this thing called affection , and—”

Mikael groaned when Cyril elbowed him in the stomach.

“I know that, you arse. What are you doing here ?”

“I…” His amused expression turned scrutinizing. “Why are you reading books about… purists and the… Forn Peninsula ? Did my mother put you up to something?”

“No, she didn’t. I’m just…educating myself, that’s all.” Cyril stepped away from him to stack the tomes and tuck her notes between the two volumes. He didn’t need to see the evidence of her failed attempts at usefulness. “Did you come to bother me, or do you actually need something?”

“Such hostility from you, wrath.” Amusement glimmered in his eyes as he leaned against the desk behind them. He was quiet, though, as he said, “I wanted to see if you were alright, after last—”

“I’m fine.”

They were not going there.

“Noted. I also need you to come eat dinner, so you have a fighting chance at keeping your feet under you when we go to the barracks.”

Dinner ? Cyril blinked.

A cursory glance towards the other end of the archives told her that the sun no longer filtered through the stained glass window. She’d been at this stupid tome for hours .

“How thoughtful of you.” Cyril flashed him a tight smile. “Does anything other than drinking happen at the barracks, or…?”

Mikael shrugged. The arse.

“Guess you’ll have to wait and see.”

That felt like a no to her.

She shook her head at him and gathered the tomes up in her arms. Mikael followed behind her as she wove out of the desks and back towards the doors.

“Isa?” she called out, the woman having made herself scarce again. “Is it alright if I take these two tomes upstairs? I’ll bring them back in a few days.”

A soft thud and a curse traveled down an aisle.

“Yes, yes, that’s fine!” Isa stumbled down, sticking her head out. “Have a good night Cy—Your Highness and Lady Cyril.”

Cyril was certain Mikael grabbed her around the waist and kissed her cheek as they walked past Isa just to see the poor woman stammer and zip right back down the aisle.