All I Am

Chapter 48

Safania's POV

We had scoured through hundreds of books since we arrived in Shyra a week ago. Some books contained references to marked women, including a highly entertaining account depicting us with horns and a forked tongue. We had all laughed over that for a bit. But as far as finding anything useful, we had come up with nothing.

We needed to find a book that treated marked women as something other than monsters or objects.

“We have to leave in the next few days to make it back by King Cassius’s deadline,” Eli told us on the walk to the Great Library that morning. “He made me promise that I would have you back before the eighth month of your pregnancy.”

“We haven’t gotten any answers yet,” I protested.

“Your Majesty, respectfully, you will come back to the castle with me, or I will carry you there. I am not going to defy His Majesty.”

“Who are you more afraid of – me or him?” I asked.

“You both terrify me,” Eli admitted. “But I think the King is far more likely to kill me than you are.”

I sighed. He was right. And I had promised Cassius I would come back too. I just didn’t want to give up on finding answers. If we couldn’t find something in the Great Library, we weren’t going to find something anywhere.

“I know you want to keep looking until we find the answers you seek,” Riko said gently. “But we’ve been very thorough. Nothing we’ve found in any of the books here has even been true.”

“I know,” I acknowledged as we entered the library together. So far, Cassius’s childhood book about marked women being “of the sun” was more accurate than anything we had found here.

Cassius’s childhood book...

“Is there a children’s book section here?” I asked.

Avouelle nodded and began to lead the way.

“Why?” Layla asked.

“There was a book Cassius read to me about elementalists,” I explained. “I know it’s a longshot, but that book was more accurate than anything we’ve seen so far.”

“But Cassius already read it to you?” Emalina said questioningly. “So wouldn’t you know what’s in it?”

“Yes,” I answered. “But I don’t know who wrote it. Maybe if we figure that out, we can find it they have any other books.”

Riko made a small noise of approval. “That’s a really great idea, Safania.”

We made it to a large area filled with rows upon rows of more colorful books than we had been looking at for the past few weeks. I had hoped the children’s section would be a smaller collection to search, but there were easily thousands of books here.

“Well, what are we looking for?” Avouelle asked.

“I don’t know...it was in Pitkan,” I told the group. “But it was a collection of short stories. I’m sorry, that probably doesn’t help much at all.”

“It actually helps tremendously,” Riko replied. “Pitka is the second smallest Kingdom, and most there speak Ledish, so we shouldn’t have many books to go through. Unfortunately, I don’t know if we have anyone in the group who speaks Pitkan.”

“I do,” Eli volunteered.

“Really?!” I exclaimed. “Do you know the book I’m talking about?”

“Of course,” Eli replied. “My mom was King Cassius’s mother’s maid. She actually took my mother with her from Pitka to Peria. The book in the King’s study originally belonged to my mother.”