Despite how highly esteemed the Audens were and their closeness to the Crown, Irene was pleased that the Earl and his wife seemed to be such laid-back people. Her expectations were shifted upon this realization.
Regardless, the girl was thrilled to take advantage of the Audens’ hospitality and, the moment she had dropped her things in the guest room she was to share with her family, she went off to the library with the other apprentices. It seemed that her mother and brother were in the township with the Countess enjoying tea with other noble ladies who had already arrived.
She imagined that if she were still a noble lady, she might have been forced to participate in that sort of thing. How interesting that her brother was forced into the environment just because he was still a child. It must have been a pain for him to have to sit and play nice.
She silently hoped that there were other children for her brother to be around so he could at least have some company.
Since Irene was staying away from the other apprentices who were in guest rooms in a different hallway, she was surprised to see that Leif was also going to spend his time in the library that day.
When she walked into the library and saw Leif already browsing the shelves, she raised her reddish eyebrows.
Immediately seeing her expression, Leif felt the need to defend himself.
"What else are we meant to do?" he asked. "Sir Gunnar said we must be on our best behavior and the knights are occupied with the nobles."
"I suppose you’re right," she admitted. "There isn’t much we can get up to in a library, after all."
It also helped that there were pious artworks hanging on the wall depicting important religious events which always seemed to make her feel somewhat guilty even when she wasn’t doing anything innately bad. Although, she supposed that lying to one of her dearest friends in life could be considered bad.
The contradictions within her were insurmountable.
"I’m going to look for books about magic," she decided. "I have a feeling the tone in the library of someone so very much associated with the south will be... interesting, to say the least."
By ’interesting’, she assumed Earl Auden was someone who villainized the mages as well. While she knew it shouldn’t dictate how she felt about certain people, she knew she would lose a bit of respect for someone knowing they were placing all the mages in an unfair box despite how helpful they had been historically and in present times. ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ꜰʀᴏᴍ novel-fire.net
Sure enough, Irene found a corner that seemed much unused—unfortunately the entire place was well dusted so there wasn’t really a way to see if the place was of high traffic or not. It was off to the side on a low shelf without decent lighting from the candles or fireplace that were lit up and illuminating the whole room.
Since the old book covers were difficult to read, the girl had to crouch to even understand that the words written were beyond her comprehension anyway.
Her hand still drifted towards one of the thicker books and she pulled it off of the shelf before standing up at her full height and flipping through some of the old, yellowed pages.
The words were similar to what she saw Stanley and Siverly writing whenever they performed magic. She had a desire to further understand what the symbols meant but people would probably scrutinize her if she were to take magic more seriously while she was forgetting the Sunstoian tongue the less she was around her grandmother.
Irene’s thoughts about Sunstoian suddenly clashed with the outside world when she heard Leif call to her from deeper in the library.
Normally she might shush him but they were the only ones there.
She debated bringing the magic book with her, but she decided to shelve it. If someone came into the library, she didn’t want her father to be put to blame for her interest in mages.
That was one thing she had missed in her past life: she never got close to mages the way she was now.
"What is it?" Irene wondered when she found Leif perusing the light wooden shelves on the other side of the large room.
"Languages I’ve never seen before," he explained. "This one I know comes from the southern kingdom. This one the ancient language in the east. Is this...?"
Ever since Irene explained a little bit about her tattoo, he couldn’t help his curiosities growing. People in the north were more familiar with the Sunsto language even if they didn’t know what any of it meant. The particular tall, arrow-like letters were distinct enough to be recognized, however.
"Sunstoian," Irene gasped. "I can’t believe they have these books here. My grandmother says when she went over the mountains, she had no choice but to leave quite a few things behind because she was traveling with my father and his brother."
"Do you know how to speak it?" Leif asked.
"Only a little bit," she admitted. "To my grandmother’s chagrin. I should have kept up with it better but there isn’t anyone to practice with except her. I’m not even sure my father remembers much of it anymore."
"I bet you can learn it again sometime," he insisted.
Irene pulled one of the Sunstoian books off of the shelf and she noticed that Leif was pleased with her choice so she felt she had to read it.
However, the denseness of a language she wasn’t entirely familiar with struck her and, after sitting in a comfortable chair for a while, Irene began to nod off. The constant travel they had been enduring clearly weighed on her greatly.
Meanwhile, Leif stayed in that area of the library and he found a book about Sunstoian customs. However, this one was written by a Perodian and in the only language he could understand.
Not thinking much of it, he decided to plant himself on the ground in front of the shelf. He wasn’t sure he would read for long anyway. While the illustrations were interesting, it was more research based and a bit over his head.
It wasn’t until he got to a section where he recognized a symbol—it was the very one he saw on Iro’s arm.
Happy to find something he was faintly familiar with and feeling like it might be something he could ask her about if he knew more, his smile quickly turned to a frown after only one paragraph.
As the apprentice sat on the floor with his back against the shelves, the book fell from his hands as he looked over at the apprentice snoozing with her face resting against her arms.
There had always been an itching at the back of his thoughts that he could never completely confirm.
But the words on the page held a truth he wasn’t sure if anyone else was aware of.
Would she ever trust him enough to share her secret with him?