The Forsaken Hero

The room was quiet for a moment. Elaine looked at me with renewed interest.

"You can read it? Not even our most comprehensive runic dictionaries included some of the runes. Our archivists were stumped."

I touched the cover again, smiling despite myself. "The runes are old, and I’ve never seen them in the texts of this world. My guess is this spell was granted by Fate to a believer long, long ago."

"Not of this world?" Elaine asked.

I nodded, but didn’t bother explaining. The only reason I could read it was because of the tome Nithalee had given me and the studying I’d done in the library in Haven. There was no reason to share those secrets with her, however, as they would surely lead to more invasive questions.

Elaine seemed content to leave it there and clapped her hands. "Well, in any case, it’s now yours to do as you wish."

Fyren sat down again, but his stare burned into the raven-haired woman. "You’re giving this away, not loaning it? A ninth-level tome? There can’t be more than fifty in the entire realm!"

"That value is precisely why, " Elaine said. She flashed me a smile. "Besides, books only have worth if they can be read. Right now, all we’d get out of this tome is using it as a bargaining chip. But the number of powers who could even begin to afford it could be numbered on one hand, and all owe allegiance to the church. We’d rather burn it entirely than sell something like this to our enemies."

"It’s that expensive?" I asked.

She nodded. "It would bankrupt a small kingdom like Brithlite to afford even half the spell, let alone the entire thing."

"Is this really okay?" I asked, rubbing my eyes. Moisture streaked the back of my hand.