A Thousand Heartbeats

I’d fallen asleep with my face pressed against pages, my thoughts swirling around worries about how Lennox might receive my gift. Would it come across as if I had something he did not, instead of a glimpse of the thing he’d always wanted to see? I shook my head, trying to regain my bearings. I felt so disoriented.

When I sat up properly, there was a painful ache in my back from hunching over. I looked around blearily to see what had woken me and found Rhett’s adoring smile shining down on me.

“Good afternoon, Your Highness. I’m sorry to wake you, but there’s a soldier here who says he was sent on a mission for you.” His tone turned the statement into a question, as if he didn’t believe him.

“Oh goodness,” I said, sitting up and brushing my hair back with my fingers. “Please tell me I don’t have ink on my face.”

He chuckled. “You look like a woman who has been hard at work for her people. You’ve never been more lovely.”

“Thank you, Rhett.” I shook my head. “You have been such a faithful friend.”

He lowered his eyes, seeming pleased, but there was also pain in them when his gaze returned to me. “Annika, I hope you know that I have always, always been on your side.”

I nodded. “I do.”

“If I crossed a line that day when I asked you to run away with me . . . well, you’ll probably never understand what it feels like to fall in love with someone completely out of your reach. . . .”

I swallowed.

“But the feeling drives you to say and do the most desperately embarrassing things. I understand that you’re going to marry the duke; I know that, even in my wildest of daydreams, you and I were unlikely to be together. But I hope you will never hold my heart against me. I will love you, and I will serve you, and I will be utterly devoted to you until the day I die.”

The sincerity of Rhett’s words was a comfort. I couldn’t be what he wanted me to, but he was more of a friend than I deserved.

“How could I ever hold such kindness against you?” I replied with a smile. He returned it and then went to stand in a more respectable posture.

“He’s waiting in the foyer. Shall I bring him to you?”

I looked at the mess of books I’d pulled out, all of them still chained to the shelves. “No, no. Take me to him.”

I followed Rhett to the front of the library, finding Palmer leaning against a desk. He straightened up when he saw me and moved into a deep bow. I could see that, despite what he’d said, he was still in pain.

“I’m sorry to disturb your work, Your Highness, but I thought you’d like to know . . .” His eyes darted to Rhett, hesitant to share his news in front of others.

“You may proceed. Rhett is a friend.”

His unsure eyes looked over Rhett again, but hesitant to disobey my orders, he proceeded. “Their leader believes the king and your brother are dead. And we have reason to believe you could be in danger from someone inside the palace.”

Rhett stood up taller. “Who?”

“We don’t know. For now, you need to be kept under constant watch. Might I ask to be made your personal guard? I’d like to pull a few guards I think we could trust to be in rotation, but I must be by your side.”

“Of course,” I replied.

Palmer turned to Rhett. “Keep Her Highness safe until I return.”

“I won’t let her out of my sight,” Rhett vowed.

Palmer nodded. He turned to go but quickly stopped himself. “Ah,” he said, coming back to me, a small smile on his face. “He said the code without hesitation. He was moved by your token, and he sends this in return.” Palmer reached in his bag and pulled out a small rectangle wrapped in paper and twine. I could smell the cinnamon as soon as it hit the open air, and I felt my heart begin to race at the thrill of touching something Lennox’s hands had been on. “He also said to practice your steps.”

I smiled to myself. All I could think was that he’d fed me again.

“Thank you. That was a dangerous trek, and I know you’ve been pushed to your physical limits for me. I won’t forget this.”

Palmer bowed, heading off to his work.

Rhett watched as I pulled the parcel to my chest, looking at me with growing levels of confusion. I cleared my throat and wiped away my smile before walking to the seat I’d been in only moments ago.

I sat back down, moving on to the next book in the row, hoping I was getting closer.

Rhett reached down and picked up the bar, inhaling deeply through the paper. “Their leader sent you food?”

“Something like that.”

“You can’t possibly eat this,” he said in outrage. “That guard just said someone’s trying to kill you.”

“He said someone here was trying to kill me.” As the words came out, I realized there wasn’t much comfort in that. I changed the subject. “I’m sure this is safe. But it doesn’t matter, I’m not hungry anyway. I’m hunting for an answer.”

Rhett stayed beside me, his mood souring quickly. All his words about devotion and love seemed very distant now as he studied me and the gift on the table. I ignored him, carefully looking through yet another book chained up to the shelves.

So far, the mythology was appearing to be about as helpful as the history. Actually, no, even less. Half the books were written in a dead language I couldn’t read, and I had to put them back on the shelf. Still, all I could do was keep trying. For better or worse, I needed the truth.

Rhett finally interrupted my thoughts. “What exactly are you looking for about the seventh clan?”

“I’m not even sure. I’ll know when I find it.”

“Huh” was all he said.

He started pacing, and I wished he’d stay still because it made me anxious. But I kept reading all the same.

I shelved one book and picked up another, thankful I could at least understand this one. I felt a flutter in my chest when, a few pages in, the word Matraleit jumped from the text. I scanned it quickly, reading the tale of the first man and woman marrying on a dome-like rock.

It was here. The same story, only fuller.

Breathless, I kept reading. There were other stories, holidays. It was so rich, so full. I couldn’t find the word Dahrain, but that made sense to me if this was a book documenting themselves. Why would they need to call out their own name?

Toward the end of the book, I found something that sent a wave of ice through my body. It took me a moment to fully understand why.

It was a family tree of sorts. At the upper corner of the page, clear as day, was a symbol. I recognized it immediately; it was embroidered into the collar of the cape Lennox was wearing in the cave.

I’d run my fingers over it so many times, studying it. This was the same thing in ink.

And underneath it was a word: Au Sucrit.

If Lennox’s people had been scattered, if their entire history was oral, then it wouldn’t take much for Au Sucrit to become Ossacrite.

But the lineage on the page broke off, seemingly lost to history around the same year Kadier was founded. This seemed far too convenient, the dragging of one in and another out at that exact moment.

In fact, if I toyed with the words Kadier and Dahrain in my head, they almost overlapped: Kah-Dier-Rain. Like, if someone wanted to, they could blur their existence over one another. Like someone could make up a person we were supposedly paying homage to with our new title but never appeared anywhere but on that one page of history. Like an easy lie.

The symbol, the name, and the timing were too much to be coincidence.

Here, chained to the halls of my library, was the answer.

But it was even deeper than that, deeper than Lennox could possibly know or guess. If he’d had even an inkling of the truth, he’d have flaunted it the first time we met, bragged incessantly.

Because next to each male name on the Au Sucrit tree, a single word appeared in sharp, unflinching ink.

Chief.

I’d really met my match, hadn’t I?

“Your Highness?”

Rhett and I both turned to find a guard waiting. “Yes?”

“I’m Officer Kirk. I was sent by Officer Palmer. If you need to tend to something else, you may leave the library now. I’ll follow wherever you go.”

I could feel Rhett’s eyes on me, trying to read my face. Too bad for him, I didn’t even know what I was feeling. This was a lot to process, so it was good I’d been offered a way out.

“Thank you. I think we should head down for lunch. Be seen.” My voice sounded mechanical, even to me, but it was all I could do.

I reached down and put the bar of oats in the pocket of my dress, and I wondered if the sinking feeling in my gut—the desire to hold that book so tight to my chest that no one else might ever read it—meant that I didn’t deserve to have anything from Lennox at all.