“Camille, take another deep breath and tell me what you see. Keep your eyes closed. Let your mind drift.”
I followed his directions, and images began to flood my mind. “I see…warriors fighting—they’re Fae. I can tell by their eyes. They’re wearing purple and silver—and they have vicious-looking swords. It’s a battle—” I stopped. Someone came into sight whom I recognized, even though she was clearly far younger than I remembered her. Queen Asteria, creeping with Trenyth through the shrubs, watching for the soldiers who were all around the area. It was then that I realized whom the Fae were fighting. It was the elves. The Fae versus elves?
Queen Asteria looked so young, younger than I’d ever imagined. She was dressed in a simple dress, spidersilk and the green of the surrounding land. But even though she wasn’t wearing her crown, I could tell she had already taken the throne. There was a regal quality to her, even in her haste. Trenyth, dressed in a tunic and trousers and a simple cloak, barely looked old enough to shave. My heart hurt as I watched them. I missed her—she had become such an integral part of our lives that it was still hard to accept that she was gone. She hadn’t exactly been a mother figure to us, but perhaps, a grandmother figure.
I mouthed her name as I reached out, but I could only watch as she and Trenyth pressed up against the hillside behind one particular oddly shaped rock. I took note of where they were in relationship to the pond, watched as the soldiers swarmed the area. But for some reason, the Fae warriors didn’t seem to notice the two of them were there.
Queen Asteria turned to Trenyth, holding her finger to her lips. Then, she motioned to him and he reached in the pocket of his tunic and brought out a small metal disk. I couldn’t tell what it was, or what it was made of, but he pressed it against the side of the hill and there was a soft hiss—I could actually hear the noise—and the dirt vanished. In its place was a door.
A barrow mound. The hill was a barrow mound. I recognized it immediately as that, once the doorway had been exposed. Trenyth stood back as Queen Asteria reached out and knocked on the door. Once. Twice. Three times.
The door slowly opened. I could hear it in my mind, easing open with a cavernous silence that echoed through me. They slipped inside and I followed them, watching. Once inside the barrow mound, Queen Asteria crept over to the far wall of the chamber, a veritable repository of scrolls. There were small holes, the size of a scroll tube, covering the vast wall. Thousands of them. Perhaps tens of thousands. She stopped, then turned to stare straight at me.
She can’t see me, I thought. She’s dead.
But she looked at me as I gazed into her eyes. Then, reaching up, she pointed to one of the symbols painted on the wall. It was in Melosealfôr, and it was the symbol for eighty-one. Then, she slowly poked her finger against the side of a column of scroll holes. I counted carefully. At twenty-three she stopped and pulled out a scroll from her pocket. She glanced back at me, holding my attention, then slid the scroll into the hole in the wall. And then, before I could see anymore, she and Trenyth and the inside of the barrow mound vanished, and I was blinking, standing there with Venus.
Chapter 13
“CAMILLE? WHAT DID you see?” Venus was holding me by the shoulders, and I realized he was holding me up while keeping Smoky at bay. Apparently I had been so deep in trance I couldn’t stand by myself.
I let out a long breath. “I know where the scroll is. This is a barrow mound. I’m not sure if we can get in, but I know where to look for the entrance. And I know who hid it.” I turned to Delilah, my eyes wet. “Queen Asteria and Trenyth hid the scroll away. She was terrified that the Fae Lords would find her. It must have been near the end of the Great Divide. I think the legends have it wrong. I actually think the Spirit Seal was created by the enemy of the Fae Lords who wanted to divide the worlds, as a way of bringing it back together again in the future.”
Delilah caught her breath. “So you think Aeval and Titania know?”
I thought about it for a moment. They would have had no reason to lie to us, or keep the information from us. After a pause, I shook my head. “No, they were trapped by the Great Fae Lords before this happened. I think Queen Asteria carried on the work. She hinted to us more than once that she wasn’t in favor of the Great Divide. I think she worked on the side of the opposition. She was in the resistance, so to speak.”
“Do you think she actually created the seal?” Delilah’s eyes widened. She had loved the old Elfin Queen just as much as I had.
I shrugged. “I doubt we’ll ever know. But she hid the scroll, so I wonder if she also hid the Keraastar Diamond. The veils of time blur things together, and she had her reasons for keeping silent, I’m sure.” I paused, hesitating for a moment before adding, “I think she knew I was there. I mean, how could she? But yet, she looked directly at me. I can’t help it. I believe she knows—knew—I’m here to get the scroll.”