They Drugged Me Into Darkness, Now I Am Its King novel · Chapter 9 of 32

Chapter 9: The Book Temik Would Not Open

Temik lifted Carrion's Saturn signet off the library table between two fingers, the way a man picks up a dead beetle, and set it down beside the open catalog.

'You cannot wave a ring at a forge-hall and expect the underworld to kneel,' Temik said. 'We have survived worse than a prince with a grievance.'

Carrion did not reach for the ring. He stood with his arms loose at his sides, his warm brown eyes moving slowly across the shelves, and for a moment he looked less like a rival and more like a man cataloguing exits.

Aquas watched from the nearest shelf, one hand flat on the spine of a book he had not pulled down. He had not spoken since they left the hall. He had not needed to.

'I am not asking anyone to kneel,' Carrion said. 'I am asking to see the entries.'

He nodded at the catalog on the table, the great leather-bound register of Pluto's protected royal persons, open to a page near the middle.

'The entries for sovereign blood under foreign protection,' Carrion said. 'I have heard Pluto keeps them current. I would like to see where Aquas is listed.'

Temik's smile showed the tips of his fangs.

'He is the consort of the dark prince. He is listed under the crown.'

'Then it will take you a moment to show me.'

Aquas turned his head slightly, as if he had only just noticed the catalog, and let his gaze rest on the lower shelf where the older volumes were chained.

'I did not know the catalog had a section for protected persons,' Aquas said softly. 'I thought it was only bloodlines and war claims.'

Temik's pale eyes cut to him, sharp and quick, and Aquas let his face stay open and mild.

He knew exactly what the catalog held. He had spent three nights in this library with a candle and a borrowed key, and he had read the protected-persons clause until the words stopped meaning anything.

The clause was old. It predated the sun ruins, predated the moon court's current dynasty, and it said plainly that any royal person under the formal protection of a foreign sovereign could not be claimed, traded, or bound by any court without that sovereign's consent.

It had been written for a princess of the northern seas. It had never once been used for a moon prince.

But it existed. And Carrion of Saturn, standing in Temik's library with a signet ring and a witness hearing behind him, was exactly the kind of man who would find it.

'I am not a scholar,' Carrion said. 'Show me the page.'

Temik did not move.

'The page is not the issue,' Temik said. 'The issue is that you walked into our forge-hall unopposed and now you are asking our library to do your arguing for you.'

He picked up the catalog and turned it so Carrion could see the open spread.

'But by all means,' Temik said. 'Read. I promise I only bite those who ask nicely.'

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