King of Forest and Fur (Wildwood Shifters Book 4) by Milly Taiden

Author:Milly Taiden [Taiden, Milly]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Latin Goddess Press, Inc.
Published: 2024-08-02T00:00:00+00:00

THIRTEEN

LEILA

The castle library dwarfed that of the Sorcerer’s Academy. Leila’s eyes widened when she and Yaldred stepped through the doors. Bookshelves climbed high to the ceilings all the way around the large square room with step ladders on rolling carts to get to those on the higher shelves. Several tables were placed around the middle of the room for study, each with paper, quills, and ink at the ready to allow note taking.

Leila’s wonder fell as she stepped close and examined the spines of the nearest books. All knowledge held an important place, but it seemed the majority of the books here were not about the mystical arts. She passed sections of the kingdom’s history, with a few on other kingdoms and doings. Some of the explorer’s journals caught her eye but she had a purpose for coming here today.

Shelves filled with tomes of poetry were passed by along with a large selection of books detailing farming methods and different crops. Yaldred stopped to pull out a book detailing the combat styles of the southern kingdoms, but Leila pushed on until she finally found the section on the mystical arts.

She slid her fingers along the spines of several books, shaking her head as she’d read the academy’s copies already. This section of the library appeared less used and taken care of than some of the others. A few books really needed rebinding. Leila thought of the crotchety old librarian at the academy and what he’d think of the damage. She moved to push back a hanging bit of leather on a particularly damaged volume only to notice something behind it on the shelf.

Leila carefully pulled a few books out and found an even worse-for-wear tome. Book mites had long made a meal of several pages and it was surrounded by bits of paper that had fallen away in its state. Smashed behind other books, the rest were crumpled. It had no cover and the ink on the yellow-tinted title page had faded too much to read. Leila had to be extra careful even picking it up. The ancient pages crumbled at the edges, exposing more damage from the mites.

“How old is that?” Yaldred said when Leila brought the book to the table she sat at. “Can you even call that a book?”

“At one point it was,” Leila replied, carefully setting the book on the table. “Can’t even read the title. I wonder if it was important to someone.”

Yaldred moved her chair closer and set aside her combat manual. “Maybe your magic can help. I don’t think you’ll even be able to flip the page.”

Yaldred made a good point. Even moving slowly, pulling the title page up, the corner snapped off before the rest of the page even moved. It took running the point of a dry quill under the page to unstick it from the page below, though it still crackled to small pieces of brittle paper shreds.

“If you can read it, you might be the last person to ever do so,” Yaldred said, picking up one of the little bits of paper.

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