4: the book on the last shelf

Mira POV

I couldn’t find a single inn with space for both me and a horse, not for the few coins I had left. So I ended up sleeping in an old farmer’s stable, curled up beside Blaze and a couple of other horses.

I woke slowly, blinking up at Blaze and the others peering down at me like I was the strangest thing they’d seen all week. It took a moment before I looked down and realized I was clutching something the stranger’s cloak, tucked against my chest like I’d been holding onto it in my sleep. I threw it aside immediately.

Blaze let out a loud neigh, like he had an opinion about it.

“Don’t judge me, Blaze.”

I got up, washed off with a pail of water by the stable door, and thanked the farmer on my way out, pressing a few coins into his hand.

“Thank you too,” he said. “Always welcome to stop by again.”

I rode through the city on Blaze back. Jade Lotus held the largest library in the kingdom if I was going to find any real clues about what I was searching for, this was where I had to start.

I dismounted, tied Blaze to a post, and gave him a pat on the side. “Take care of yourself. I’ll only be a while.” I held onto him a moment longer than I needed to before I finally let go.

Inside, I went straight for the attendant’s desk.

“Good day, madam. I’d like to find a”

“You won’t find one here. Sorry.” She barely glanced up from the book in her hands, something on plants, from what I could see before going right back to it.

I stared at her, caught off guard. “This is a library.”

She peered over the top of her glasses. “You want a book?” Like the idea itself was unbelievable.

“Of course I do. Is that so strange?”

“Well no.” She studied me a moment longer. “It’s just not every day a lady walks in dressed like… this. Sword and all.”

I glanced down at myself. She had a point. “It’s important. Really.”

“Fine. What exactly are you looking for?”

“A book on gems. Stones. Pearls that sort of thing.”

“Ah.” She set her book down. “Which one? Emeralds? Sapphires? Rubies? Diamonds?”

“The Ember Heart.”

The color drained from her face like she’d seen a ghost. “The heart of magic?”

“Yes purely for research,” I said quickly, before she could form any opinions about it. “What else would it be for?”

“Down the hall. Farthest shelf in the back. Not many people go there.”

“Thank you.” I followed her directions, trying to walk quietly, though I still drew more than a few curious glances from the very proper-looking patrons scattered around the room.

I reached the back corner the last shelf, practically forgotten where exactly one book remained. I reached for it.

Another hand reached at the exact same moment.

Our fingers brushed. My eyes lifted to meet his.

“No,” he groaned.

The stranger. My necklace, still hanging around his neck.

“What are the chances?” I said, grinning despite myself.

“Not you again.”

I studied him openly this time. “You have an unusual hair color. Very rare.”

“I could say the same about your unusually blue eyes.” His hair was a pale, ghostly white, thick and falling just past his shoulders, framing his face in a way that was irritatingly striking.

“Anyway. I need that book.”

“I’m fairly sure you have the wrong one.”

“No, I don’t,” I said. “The librarian sent me here herself.”

“You know what this is, don’t you?” he asked, more serious now.

“Of course I do. Do you?”

“Yes.” Neither of us looked away.

“Fate seems to favor me,” I said. “I keep running into you. Maybe this is my chance to take back what’s mine.”

“Do you, perhaps, have a bag of gold you’d like to part with?” He leaned in slightly. “Make that two bags. I highly doubt it.”

“You thief.”

“*Shh.” He eased me gently back against the shelf, one finger pressed lightly to my lips. “Don’t say that,” he whispered.

Neither of us noticed the elderly librarian until she was already standing there.

“I heard there was a racket coming from the back,” she said, drawing out the word, “disturbing the other patrons.”

We split apart instantly.

“So I thought I’d come see for myself,” she continued. “Is everything alright?”

I stepped further away from him. “I’m sorry, madam?”

“Anya.”

“Madam Anya, I apologize for any trouble we’ve caused. It seems to be my luck lately, running into this man wherever I go. Unpleasant, truly. I’ll be on my way to find another”

“Ryo. I didn’t see you come in.” Anya’s whole face brightened.

Ryo, I thought. A strange name for an equally strange man.

“You weren’t at your usual table,” he said smoothly.

“What seems to be the trouble here?” she asked him, twirling a strand of hair around her finger. The smile on her face was almost too wide.

“I wanted that book,” I cut in. “The one on the Ember Heart. I got here first.”

“Did you, now?” Anya asked, not even glancing my way.

“Yes, I did, and this”

I realized, watching the two of them, that this was my chance. While they were caught up in each other, I slipped the book under my arm and backed quietly toward the door.

“Blaze!” I shouted the second I burst outside, already running for him. I tore the rope free. “We’re about to have the fastest ride of your life.”

I mounted, snapped the reins, and didn’t look back.

I caught one last glimpse of Ryo’s face pure shock and Anya’s, which had gone somewhere past shock into outright horror. I couldn’t blame her. Anyone would look that way after realizing they’d just lost the only known book on the Ember Heart.

**

I paid for a small room at a lodge on the edge of town one with a stable attached, thankfully, so Blaze could rest alongside a few other horses for the night.

Inside, I flipped through the book by candlelight. Page after page of paintings and sketches, each one showing a different shape, a different form. There was no single, definitive description of what the Ember Heart actually looked like.

I groaned and sat back. I still didn’t fully understand why I’d left Wuxia in the first place only that something had pulled at me for weeks, a feeling I couldn’t explain even to myself. I thought of the heart-shaped gem around my neck. Around Ryo’s neck, now.

According to the book, the Ember Heart had originally belonged to the ancient dragon kingdom of Islandia. The dragons had gone in search of wisdom and power, and what they found instead was the Ember Heart itself a relic that made them wiser, stronger, and allowed their kingdom to prosper beyond anything before it.

I sat with that for a long moment. My father had told me pieces of this story as a child, late at night but never *that* part. Never the dragons.

I kept reading. There were scattered clues about where the relic had last been seen, fragments of old sightings, half-finished theories. Eventually I fell asleep with the book tucked beneath my pillow.

***

I left the lodge again that same night, ready to begin the next leg of my journey. I didn’t have much to go on but I had the book now, and that was more than I’d started with. My best option was to find someone who might have actually seen the Ember Heart before it disappeared. And the surest source I could think of was a dragon.

Dragons were supposed to be nearly extinct gone into hiding generations ago, if the stories were even true. Finding one would mean traveling far past any human settlement. A full day’s journey, at least.

That was why I found myself in the market the next morning, gathering supplies anything Blaze and I might need to survive whatever lay ahead. I had no real way of knowing what I was walking into.

I’d just handed over a few coins for a loaf of bread when a hand clamped over my mouth.