Forbidden Library

Forbidden Library smells like leather, oaky vanilla, and musk.

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TO BETRAY A GOD

The moongate doorway turned the midday sun into a spotlight as I entered, the leather tomes glowing like river rocks. Outside, the waves crashed, rising in startling curtains against the magic barrier that kept this space invisible.

Ironic how such a secluded place could make such a spectacle of itself.

The library stretched tall and wide, currents of staircases braiding themselves over my head, stretching to reach bookshelves that had been chiseled into the layered cliffside. Peace lilies sprouted from the cracks in pearly defiance, as though determined to protect the books from the island humidity. Stumps of warm, oaken tables dotted the floor, well-kept and inviting despite the lack of patrons.

It almost seemed wrong that a place housing blasphemous texts on the gods and their weaknesses could be so beautiful.

I ran a hand over a nearby shelf, feeling the cracked leather, the gilded lettering that transitioned into a language long forgotten. Unsure and unable to read some of the titles, I began grabbing books at random, the old spines crackling, plumes of vanilla and musky perfume flying free as the pages became exposed to me. The text inside was equally indecipherable, but movement in the corner of my eye quickly halted my studies.

Through the maze of stone and oak and stories, a nymph glided towards me on cautious feet.

Her eyes were wide, curious, the same brilliant cerulean as the sea outside. As she closed the distance, the smell of leather emanated from her, inked fingers curling in her wariness, as though she herself were becoming a book in her seclusion.

When she spoke, her voice was cracked from disuse, yet echoed in bellows in the quiet room. “Blood of Sister Mayana.” A cleric, then, and one who recognized my ancestry despite us never meeting prior.

I relaxed my tensed muscles enough to nod. Mayana: brilliant cleric of the church, contributor to a library no one knows exists. Were I not her son, I would never have found the invisible structure, let alone its secluded cove. Were she not my mother, she would’ve sooner killed me than direct me to the forbidden records .

“Show me books on breaking oaths with a god.”

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