Born Of Fire And Darkness (Book 2) by India Drummond

Author:India Drummond [Drummond, India]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: epic fantasy
Published: 2015-04-27T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

Korbin tried to put aside his jealousy with all the time Octavia had been spending with the emperor in the past days. That first day when she’d lunched with him, she’d come back from seeing him looking flushed and happy.

The second day, he’d whisked her away mid-morning, and she’d not returned. When Korbin returned to his own rooms that evening after continuing their research on his own, he’d not so much as seen a light coming from underneath her door.

The third day, she hadn’t even shown up and he couldn’t determine where she was. He reminded himself that despite his attraction for Octavia, the two of them had never shared a romantic moment. She owed him nothing, and he didn’t have any claim on her time or affections.

That didn’t stop the twist in his gut when he imagined her with the emperor, though. He’d hoped in time she’d come to develop an attraction for him. But how could he compete with the emperor?

Octavia was not one to be swayed by things she could consider foolish, like money and power, but the emperor was a compelling and interesting man. Even Korbin could see that. But wasn’t Korbin also compelling and interesting? That wasn’t a question he could answer with objectivity.

After his third lunch alone, he returned to the library, trying not to focus on waiting for Octavia to return, and leafed through the tomes laid out across the long oak tables. The curator hovered nearby but said nothing, and for that Korbin was grateful.

He read silently, and one of the scribes settled into poring over the catalog ledgers. The curator would not let the stewards handle the books beyond moving them from storage, saying that too many fingers on delicate historical documents would compromise them. So they fetched new tomes when Korbin had determined another was of little use, and he was left to do the reading on his own.

Minutes ticked by, stretching into an hour, then another. In the corridor outside the archive room, a pendulum clock ticked, and the sound began to grate on Korbin, pulling his attention away from the text he was trying to read.

He found one interesting passage that distracted him from his annoyance. A letter from a high-ranking soldier was nestled into a larger text about the Age of Unity. Perhaps the letter meant nothing.

Although interesting, it didn’t appear to be of strategic significance. An imperial soldier had written to the praetor who commanded his legion. The tone of the letter was nearly one of panic. His company had been slaughtered in what he claimed was an ill-advised attack.

The line that caught Korbin’s eye read: Anyone who had seen what I have seen would know the foolishness of attacking the Children.

If he’d read that a year ago, he might have thought nothing of it. He would have assumed the hand of the soldier wavered, making the C of the word Children appear capitalized. Korbin would have understood that the solider was declaring that to kill children was unworthy of the empire, and that humanity must be maintained, even in war.

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