The Last Guardian || KTH

14: granny killed

Taehyung handed a dagger to Zeila, instructing her to press the hilt against anything hard enough, so it would enlarge into a sword. "Just in case." 

"In case I'm killed?" Zeila raised a brow. Three days with Taehyung had already felt like three long years. She was sure he had gotten accustomed to her wry sense of humor by now. 

"In case the granny kills you, yes," he confirmed her suspicion with a laugh. "The dagger was your mother's. Truly one of a kind," he added. 

Zeila observed its silhouette. Taking in the picture of the piece of metal she now held, as though trying to seek any memory or traces of her mother she could from it. Contrary to what she felt when she first saw Taehyung or her aunt, the dagger didn't invoke any emotions out of her. She felt oddly settled with it. "She gave this to you?" 

"Not exactly," he commented, walking past a pile of boxes scattered across the street. They had decided to park her bike two streets away from the bookstore—because God forbid anything happened to her ride. 

By now, night had already taken over a vast majority of the sky, mauling against the streaks of orange imbued across. "She uses many daggers. In our kingdom, every ranking gets you a new weapon. This was hers when she began as a soldier." 

"That sounds like a waste of weaponries," Zeila replied, gripping the dagger tighter. She could feel a different kind of magic lingering in the dagger—fresh vigor scented with the smell of roses that disappeared after a few seconds. "Do you really think this might be dangerous, considering we got something as valuable as Elena's book?" 

"Do you want me to answer that?" Taehyung questioned back, almost appalled at how trusting she was. "Well either way, we'll find out soon enough." 

"Nothing like dying in a bookstore," Zeila chortled as they both stood in front of the store. The street didn't have much movement, apart from the occasional smokers trying to hide in one corner to get a puff and the stray cats striding about. 

The store looked older than what Zeila had seen the last time, which was weird to her considering she had seen it four days before. "We came here the day after I almost died touching a tree." 

Taehyung didn't say anything. He only threw her a glance before redirecting his gaze to the store. There wasn't any signboard that would tell its name. But there was a piece of paper stuck on the dusted windows that told the customers the shop went by 'azure—your one stop haven for books' 

"Nothing peculiar," Taehyung commented when he tried to get a grasp of the magic around. Everything seemed to be in order. "So far." 

Zeila rolled her eyes, pushing open the door. The sound of a bell ringing reverberated inside the clustered room, bouncing off the very few bookshelves stacked in five rows that almost scraped the ceilings. Now that she thought of it, she never really had come inside the store. It was only Hyejin who ran whatever errands they had here. Zeila mostly ordered her books online to spare the energy of driving all the way to an actual bookstore. 

"Hello," Taehyung called out, loud. 

Silence. 

They both walked inside, Zeila nearly jumping when the door behind them shut close, a gust of wind escaping inside before it was isolated away from them. Taehyung looked at Zeila, showing his obvious skepticism when no one responded. 

"You've never been to a shop in the outskirts have you?" Zeila asked him, gesturing for him to walk around. 

"Are they always this poorly maintained?" Taehyung questioned looking up at the lights hanging from the ceiling between the shelves. The occasional flickering did not help rid his doubt of the place.