Standing on the fifth floor of the library felt a bit empty and cold, probably because I was the only one allowed in. Luna had to stay on the first floor and wait for me to finish. I had anticipated this but it still felt weird.
The place smelled like old books and the subtle mana in the air proved how good this place was. The books were high-level magic spells that were hard to come by, and some of them were exclusive to the school.
A dream place for any rising magician and knight.
I had only been given half a day to learn whatever I wanted as a reward, and it was enough time to try and find what I was looking for.
I took out the small notebook I had found at the count’s home and opened it to a page I had marked. The title of the page was written in old Elven language, but I couldn’t understand what was below; however, it was enough to give me an indication of what I was looking for.
I looked up the marked bookshelves, which were organized in rows that filled the large floor; there were a lot of them. Getting something specific was going to be a bit of a problem.
After a few walks around, I found the shelf I had been looking for with a small whiteboard at the top with its heading.
"Found you."
I mumbled to myself.
Elven spells.
The shelf was painted green with shiny white strips running around the wood producing mana. The mana preserved the stored books since they were very old and could easily wear or just be destroyedmanually.
I browsed through the books looking for a specific book until I found it on the third row of the shelf.
I pulled it out carefully. The book wasn’t large but the beautiful part of it was the cover. It was made of black tree bark, but it wasn’t rough to the touch as one would expect.
I carried the book to the sitting area, they were situated after every few rows. I started to look through the pages carefully. There were hundreds of elven spells in the book, but I was looking for one specific one.
Opening the pages one by one was tiring, but my hard work paid off when I stumbled upon what I had been looking for, hidden at the corner of the book.
I read the spell trying to decipher and understand it as I tried to form it according to the instructions, but I couldn’t. This was an elven spell I was learning, hence I could understand the difficulty.
It would be the first. Elven and human spells were the same most of the time, it’s just that some spells were strictly unique to each species, and I was trying to learn one.
The elves were really confident to put it in writing about how important it was.
"Ooh, come on, you can’t keep breaking in half, what am I missing?"
I mumbled to myself as I tried to reconstruct the light green spell. It was small, just hovering above my hand, but the little thing was draining my magic faster than any other spell I had learnt.
"Young master Lucian, time’s up."
The head librarian’s voice got me out of my concentration. I barely managed to make it last ten minutes before breaking. Time must have passed quickly without me noticing.
"Thank you, Miss Anne."
I said to her. She had short blue hair that reached her shoulders and was dressed in black mage robes with shimmering golden patterns at the edge. No one knows how long she had been running the library but most of the people speculated it was since the academy was established.
"I saw you’ve been struggling, have you encountered a problem?"
She asked suddenly. I turned to her in surprise. She never talks to students, just points you the way. She was the very definition of a strict librarian.
"Yes, I think it’s a bottleneck in my studies, or my understanding of spells needs to be renewed. "
I answered vaguely. She walked over to me and prevented me from closing the book.
"Aaah! Have you been practicing elven spells?"
She asked curiously her eyes shining.
"Yes, but it seems I cannot master it."
"That is not true, elven spells are still the same as human, but only a few words have been changed and written in old elven language. "
"Is there a different kind of elven language except the one I have learnt?"
Her words had really intrigued me. If that were true it would open a wider door for me.
"Of course. What you nobles learn is just superficial. Most of the spells in this book are sprinkled with ancient elven language. Unless you learn the language you will not be able to create the spell fully."
I nodded at her explanation, which meant I couldn’t learn it even if I wanted to.
"Miss Anne, if you don’t mind me asking, do you know the ancient language, since from your expressions and explanation, you seem to understand it well?"
She laughed softly, her green eyes narrowing slightly.
"I’m an elf after all young master."
She bent down and whispered into my ear
"You jest."
I turned and faced her. She smiled and straightened before putting her hair behind one ear. My eyes widened in both surprise and intrigue.
"You believe me now."
"Who wouldn’t. Forgive my curiosity, why are the tips of your ears cut ?"
That was what surprised me. Ears were the identifiers of one elf. Long pointy ears, but Miss Anne’s ears seemed to have been cut off, leaving a scar.
If she had not lifted her hair i wouldn’t have noticed.
"Now, child, you can’t be too curious about everything, curiosity kills. "
She rubbed my head destroying my perfectly styled hair.
"But satisfaction will bring me back."
I countered her excuse. She shook her head and sat down on the arm of the black couch. She was awfully close, I even got a whiff of her scent. Cool and calming something an elf would smell like.
"Do you want to learn the ancient language?"
She asked me breaking the silence. I looked at her sceptically, no one offers something without needing anything in return.
"Why would you want to teach me? It seems sacred to your species, no?"
I closed the open book and stood up. Miss Anne was silent and didn’t answer my question. I walked around her and placed the book in its designated place.
"You won’t be able to understand that spell, I can teach you that in addition. "
She said suddenly. That surprised me, she seemed desperate despite trying to sound confident.
"I can buy an elf in the slave market."
I dismissed her offer. I couldn’t just trust her words; it seemed too deliberate.
"Only royals know the ancient language. "
Her voice cut through my plan.
"Why should I believe you?"
I turned to her fully leaning against the bookshelf.
"You can try, I know you’ve already memorised most of the spells," she stood up and walked towards and came to a stop right in front of me," if you fail, come back to me, I’ll be waiting. "
"Tsk!" I clicked," If only royals knew the language, then tell me, how do you know the elven language?"
I moved closer to her until we were almost touching. She was tall, so I had to just lower my head a little to meet her golden eyes.
"Why else, I’m a royal ."
I almost burst into laughter, but I remembered we were in the library. My lips curved into a smirk.
"It’s not recommended to tell lies, Miss Anne, elves worship their royals unless you are a discarded ...one."
She flinched the moment I said discarded. My hand came to my mouth to cover the smile forming.
"Just leave, I’ve wasted enough of your time but remember I’ll be waiting for you."
She deflated her earlier bravado gone.
"Then you’ll have to wait for quite some time."
I bypassed her and went downstairs to where Luna was waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs with a book in hand.
The moment she saw me, she closed her book and bowed.
"How was your study young master?"
She asked. I looked back up to see Miss Anne staring down at us.
"It was good. I found out something interesting. "
I waited for Luna as she went to return the book while looking around at the students in the library. There were a lot. This library was, in fact, one of the best, hence anyone who was admitted to the academy will always put the library second on the list after classes.
The amount of knowledge it contained was vast and since it was old, there were tales of people finding secret spell books. I wasn’t in the habit of going scavenging around .
"I’m done master."
"Let’s go."
We left the library quietly. Night had already fallen over the academy and the crystal lights illuminated our way to the dorms.
Tomorrow mother will be arriving at the capital.