Like the Dawn (Lark #3) (13 page)

              I'm so absorbed in my thoughts that I don't acknowledge his remark.
              “Okay, what has you so distracted?” he asks.
              “Nothing. I'm just tired.”
              “You know you can't lie to me.”
              “I'm not lying—I really am tired,” I argue.
              “But there's something else.”
              I really wish he couldn't do that.
              “Fine. I'm distracted.”
              “I know that already. I want to know the reason.”
              “I just have a lot on my mind.”
              “Go on,” he encourages.
              I sigh, realizing that he's not going to let it go easily. I tell him about the vault and the glowing wall which I try to play off as a figment of my imagination. He doesn't seem to think so.
              “Did you ask Alberico about it?”
              “Not really. I mean, I asked if he saw something but he looked at me like I was crazy,” I tell him. “Which, I probably am.”
              “Well there's only one way to find out. Let's go.”

Chapter Eighteen

             
I
lead the way down the hall that Alberico just showed me and find the portrait of my grandparents easily.
              “I always wondered where you got your green eyes from,” Jacoby says, nodding toward Queen Astrid.
              Her eyes are the exact shade of mine. I hadn't noticed earlier. It makes me smile to uncover a connection with my newly discovered ancestors.
              I open up the hidden doorway and lead Jacoby into the vault. As we approach the opening I can already tell that what I saw earlier wasn't a figment of my imagination after all. In fact, it seems even brighter now.
              I glance over at Jacoby to see if he can see it too and he answers my unspoken question.
             
“It's over there, isn't it?” he asks, nodding toward the wall.
              “You see it too?”
              “Yeah. Alberico didn't say anything?”
              “No. It seemed like he didn't notice it and thought I might be crazy so I didn't push it. You really see it?”
              He nods and walks over to the glowing wall. He touches it, running his fingers carefully along the stone until he seems to find what he’s looking for.
              “I found something.”
              “What?”
              “Here,” he says as he leans in closer. “Yeah. There's something here.”
              “Like what?”
              “Do you see the slight discoloration there?”
              I lean in to take a look. My face is so close to his that I can feel the warmth radiating from his cheeks. I'm achingly aware of just how close we are. My heart flutters as the familiar stirrings begin and I know he can tell the effect he is having on me because he feels it too. I close my eyes, inhaling his familiar woodsy scent and, just for a moment, allow myself to consider the possibility of kissing him again. 
              I glance up at him through my eyelashes and realize he's watching me with smoldering eyes. He opens his mouth to say something, but I look away quickly and don’t give him the chance.  I can't let myself falter so easily.
              “Where?” I ask after I figure out how to speak again.
              Unfazed, he points to the spot again. “Here.”
              He presses down on it and, with a click, a cloud of dust pops out of the crevices and the wall opens.
              “A secret passage in a secret passage,” I mumble as I step inside.
              I am shocked to find an array of swords and daggers of all different sizes and metals as well as bows and arrows with gold tips carefully arranged on shelves and tables and covered in dust and cobwebs.
              “I'm guessing those are kind of important,” he says.
              I nod. “The relics.”
              “The what?”
              “The relics. Adele discovered some information about them. She thinks that they might be the key to defeating the Dark Elves. They must have been hidden down here all this time. I can't believe no one ever knew.”
              “This is exactly what we needed,” he mumbles to himself.
              “What do you mean?”
              He doesn't answer me though.
              Instead he says, “Lark, look.” He points over to where the glowing must be originating from—a familiar looking copper dagger with an iron stripe down the center and a wooden hilt. It looks eerily similar to the one in the picture that Adele showed me. “No way,” I whisper to myself.
              I’m shaking as I reach out for it, but instead of grabbing it my hand hovers just above it.
              “Are you going to pick it up?” he asks.
              “I'm kinda nervous to,” I tell him honestly.
              “Together?”             
              I nod and we both place a hand on the hilt and pick it up gingerly.
              It seems to brighten momentarily but then the light abruptly vanishes and suddenly it's just a normal looking dagger.
              “Weird,” I whisper, dropping my hand. Jacoby further inspects it.
              “It looks perfectly ordinary now—though I've never seen one with an iron center like this.” He turns it over again in his hand and I notice an engraving.
              “What's that?” I take it from him to get a closer look. It's a small circle with swirly lines branching off of it—I can't be one hundred percent sure but I think it's identical to the sun symbol on the spine of the book Adele showed me about the relics.  I relay this information to Jacoby.
              Jacoby studies the symbol for a moment. “You have to take it now. It's obviously yours.”
              “How do you figure?”
              “Lark, I think you're supposed to have it. I think Sól wants you to. I don't know how I know—I just
feel
it,” he explains. “Tell me you don't feel it too.”             
              Oddly enough, I think he's right because I do actually have the same feeling.
              “I think we should take it,” he states.
              “What—like steal it?” I ask.
              “It's not really stealing—I don't know, but I think—I think it was calling for you.”
              “That doesn't sound crazy or anything,” I quip. “It doesn't make any sense at all. Why would a dagger be 'calling for' me?”
              “I'm not sure, but don't you think that the fact that it was glowing
means
something—oh blessed-by-Sól one. If I remember correctly, you have been known to glow yourself from time to time.”
              “Don't be ridiculous,” I tell him, shaking my head. “I don’t know—I would feel guilty just taking it.”
              “Like I said, it's not stealing—everything in this castle is theoretically yours, isn't it?”
              “I guess so—but it still seems wrong.” I look around the room once again and take a mental inventory of everything that I see. “I think we should ask Alberico about this place.”
              “We will. But first, I think we need to find out more about these so-called relics.”
              “And how will we do that?”
              “I don't know, but what I do know is that we need to take that with us,” he says, pointing to the dagger.
              I reluctantly agree. He takes the dagger from me and hides it in the back pocket of his jeans. It's a little unconventional for him to be wearing jeans but today I'm glad he's going against the norm because I definitely have nowhere to hide a dagger, or anything else for that matter.
              Seriously, someone needs to start designing dresses with pockets—I knew that was a brilliant idea. It's times like this that it would especially come in handy. I need to figure out who to talk to about this.
              In the meantime, it's really a good thing Jacoby is here with me since I'm not about to shove it in my bra.
              We head up to my room and I lock the door behind us. Jacoby pulls the dagger out and hands it to me.
              “I think you should probably hide this for now.”
              “Yeah, I was sorta thinking the same thing.”
              I'm not sure how I'd explain suddenly taking up the habit of carrying around a dagger should someone see it.
              I scan the room for a safe hiding spot and my eyes land on the box of granola bars for the time being. I'll just have to remember to get it before Alberico has the servants move my belongings into my new chambers.
              Freya knows better than to touch my secret stash so that seems to be as good of a spot as any. I pull out the last two remaining bars from the box and stash the dagger in the bottom. I place one bar on top to cover the weapon and decide to eat the other one because I'm starving.
              “What is this?” Jacoby asks as he picks up the book I borrowed from Adele.
              “A book.” I'm tempted to add 'duh'.
              “What are you doing with it?”
              “What do you mean 'what are you doing with it?' I'm reading it obviously.” I roll my eyes.
              “You're reading?”
              “Yeah, I've been known to do that from time to time.”
              “But it's not Harry Potter,” he says with a confused look on his face.

             
“I read other things besides Harry Potter you know.”
              I'm kind of offended that he's implying my taste in books is so limited.
              “When?” he asks, and I can see the hint of a smile beneath his mockingly surprised facade.
              “Ha, ha, ha. I forgot just how
funny
you are.” 
              “No, but seriously, why are you reading it? Or should I say
how
are you reading it since it's obviously written in elfish?”
              “Okay, fine. I'm mostly looking at the pictures,” I admit.
              “The truth comes out.” He laughs. “Wait—this is the one that talks about the relics, right?”
              “Uh-huh. Look.” I turn the book over and show him the sun on the spine that was similar to the one on the dagger.
              “It looks the same to me. What does that mean?”
              “No clue, but I bet Adele could tell us. She might have already read it before I borrowed it.”
              “Why did you take it if you can't read it anyway?”
              “I don't know. I guess for the same reason you suggested taking the dagger—I just felt like I should.”
              He examines the pages of hand drawn depictions of the weapons we just saw in the secret passage in the vault.
              “It appears to be a text on the history of the Ljósálfar —like, a really long time ago,” he ponders.
              “That's what Adele said. This was written way before Alberico's parents were even on the throne. Speaking of which—did you know that we used to be like Lord of the Rings elves?” I ask.
              “In what way?” he asks, a bemused grin on his face.
              “We were bad-ass archerers.”
              “I don't think that's a real word,” he teases.
              “It's totally a word.”
              “It's really not.”
              “Well, it is now because I just said it.”
              “Whatever.” Jacoby laughs. “So you mean they weren't always such a peaceful group?”
              “Yes and no. I mean, from what Adele's told me, it's not like they went out looking for trouble but if trouble came to them, they definitely took care of business—all those so called 'relics' in the vault? They weren't always just relics. They were actually used.”
              “Have you brought this up to the council yet?”
              “No. You saw how they responded when I suggested learning to fight.”
              “Yeah,” he says before pausing thoughtfully. “Okay, I think we're on to something here. We need to go find Adele.”