Spirit Animals: The Stolen Crown

Chapter 13

Nazeer stood there staring at the brick. He didn't recognize it immediately because the rest of the bricks were somewhat the same color. The bricks were mostly black and it spread outward turning orange, and then into the normal color of bricks. The orange brick in his dream was in the middle of where the black and orange met. It looked like the a fire happened in the library and the wall was the only thing affected.

"Hey Nazeer, you with me?" Kai said snapping his fingers in his face. 

"Oh, uhm yeah. I'm here." He pointed to the wall where the black mark was, "what happened there?"

"Oh, that. Do you know about the Wyrm?" There wasn't anyone that didn't know about the Wyrm. The way they ravaged the world, infecting people of every land to do their bidding, turning them pale with twisting spirals on their foreheads. And once that twistiong spiral appeared, you weren't anything more than a mindless slave to the Wyrm. Nazeer's father didn't like to talk about it a lot, but he knew how the Four Fallen had stopped the Wyrm.

Admittedly, most of the stuff Nazeer knew about the Four Fallen was from sneaking into the villages' library trying to find books about them and their journeys since the people in his village weren't exactly kind towards him and his family. The books he were able to find he read them so many times that he practically memorized every single book there was in the library word for word.

"What does the Wyrm have to do with the library?" 

"Zerif took control of the castle when he was under the control of the Wyrm and threatened to burn the library if the Erlan didn't surrender. He refused and Zerif did what he said he would. So when Erlan was trying to put it out, Zerif infected him."

Before Nazeer could respond, a voice sounded behind him. 

"Kai? Is that you?" 

"Yeah it's me. I'm here." A short Niloan man stepped into view from behind a bookshelf at the sound of Kai's voice. He had a book under on of his arms and was wearing a sea foam blue cloak unlike the regular green cloaks that everyone in the castle wore. "Who's your friend?"

"This is Nazeer. He joined the Greencloaks yesterday." Erlan was staring at him in a weird way. Nazeer couldn't figure out if he was just curious about him or reading him. 

"Your name is Nazeer, right?" he said slowly. 

"Yes?" He mumbled something under his breath although Nazeer wasn't able to tell what he was saying. 

"Never mind. I mistook you for someone else. I knew someone else who had a name that sounded a lot like yours. So what did you guys come to the library for?"

"I was going to ask if you had any books on Niloan animals and what they are." 

"Sure there are a lot of books on animals in general. If you're looking for Niloan animals. is there something that you want specifically? Land animals, water animals, etc. You understand what I mean right."

"Yeah uh." Nazeer racked his brain on what type of category Maki would follow. "Do you have anything on diets? Maybe animals from Nilo that like to eats stuff like plants, roots, leaves? Those kind of stuff.

"Sure let me see." Erlan went to one of the many bookshelves and pulled out a book. "Here. This one should have you what you're looking for." The book Erlan gave him was old and made of leather and was titled The Many Animals of Nilo. 

Nazeer accepted the book gratefully and went to the nearest table to sit down to read. Kai followed him and also sat down. 

He began to read silently, but the further he read, the more disappointed he became. The book just kept talking about many of the famous animals that Nilo was known for. Giraffes, zebras, elephants, lions, etc. Nazeer couldn't find any animals that even looked like Maki. 

"Maybe we can find something if you show Erlan your spirit animal."

"No way. Not happening." Nazeer closed the book and got up. He didn't want show off Maki anymore than he had to. He was at the door when it swung open by itself. Nazeer was startled not because of the door, but because of who opened it. 

Kinta was at the door with bandages covering his face and left eye. From what Nazeer could tell, he still had a black eye he gave him. He could feel his heart thudding in his ribcage as it did before whenever he saw him in the village. They just stared at each other for a few seconds before Kai spoke.

"Uh, did I miss something?" 

"Nothing" Kinta said sneering. "Come to the docks at dawn tomorrow. Both of your assignments start then." Nazeer felt his heart drop as he knew what was exactly about to come.