I watched Thalia as she searched through my father's library. She threw each book she found onto the growing pile in the center of the room. After the loss of so many of my servants, I felt numb. I had been na?ve to think that my home was safe.

  "You will have to read through these," she said, pointing at the pile of books she'd discarded. "I'm going to go over the rest of the library."

  "How long do you imagine that will take?" I asked.

  Her dark eyes glanced up at me. "I don't know. I can't read the titles, but there are a lot of books. Your father is quite the scholar."

  "Indeed."

  The house was too quiet; far more than it had been before the berserker had broken into the estate and slain every servant. Thalia and I had spent the majority of the day burying them. My arms hurt, but it was nothing compared to the deep, aching pain in my chest, as though my heart had been ripped out along with the bodies of my servants. I buried them myself, as they had been with me for a long time.

  There was no time for me to feel the grief they all deserved. We needed to find out what my father knew so we had a fighting chance if, or rather when, someone came looking for us again. All there was left to do was to keep moving forward.

  The berserker's body would be discovered downriver, and rumors would spread about the servants’ deaths and all the fresh graves. It would not take long for the interested parties to surmise that someone had survived this massacre, and that it was a good bet that someone was me. I was a wanted man. We couldn't afford to do anything but focus on this.

  Looking through my father's extensive library was arduous, tedious work. Hours passed, and still I could not find any evidence as to what my father might have known, or any information that could help defend our village. I wanted to believe that the answer was in here, amongst his books, and yet it felt like what I was searching for was nowhere to be found. I had been diligent, reading through each book, page by page, but nothing connected.

  I rubbed my weary eyes, rubbing my temples, trying to lessen the pounding headache that had begun to crack behind my eyes.

  I hadn't been able to find any mention of who might have been behind the attack, which, given the information my father seemed to have access to, was odd.

  After what felt like a while, I picked my head up. "Have you found anything?"

  "Nothing of note," she said. "There are more books to read, but..."

  "What?"

  "They're old. I don't know if they'll help us." She looked up at the last row of books at the bottom of the bookshelf. "We have to try," I said, exhaustion in my voice. "We can't afford to leave anything unturned."

  Thalia gave a nod, rising from her spot to begin searching through the books. She handed me a few, and we sat, side-by-side, our knees touching as we began to look through each book.

  I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to clear my mind and center myself. When I opened them again, my gaze landed on an old, leather-bound book sitting on the shelf. It was unlike any of the other books in the library, with worn pages and a rough, unrefined cover.

  Curiosity getting the best of me, I reached for the book and ran my fingers over the rough leather. It felt ancient, like it had been around for centuries.

  I hesitated for a moment, then finally pulled the book down, opening the first page. The pages were yellowed with age, the ink faded, but I could still make out the strange symbols that covered them. Even as I tried to drag my gaze away, I couldn't stop looking at it.

  "What is it?" Thalia asked softly.

  "I'm not sure," I replied, my eyes still transfixed on the ancient book. "But I have a feeling it might be important."

  I flipped through the pages, trying to decipher the symbols etched onto them. They seemed to be in some sort of code, but I couldn't make any sense of it. There was also some text, written in a difficult to discern calligraphy thatI was having a difficult time translating.

  Stolen story; please report.

  "It looks like an ancient spell book," she said, then her brow furrowed as she set her gaze on a faded paragraph. "Wait. Isn't that your name?"

  I looked at her, surprised. "What?" I asked, leaning over to look at the paragraph she was pointing to.

  "There," she said, pointing at the text. "Tristan Silverblade. It's written right here."

  I furrowed my brow, studying the text. "What does it say?"

  "It's hard to tell," she replied, squinting at the page. "But it looks like it's talking about someone named Tristan who...I don't know, something about power?"

  "Power?" I echoed, my interest piqued. "What kind of power?"

  "I'm not sure," she said, shrugging. "The text is too faded to make out and the language is old to begin with."

  "I share a name with my ancestors."

  "But not a birth year," she replied, tracing her finger over the ink. "Look."

  Sure enough, as plain as day, my name and birth year were etched onto the ancient page. They even made note of how much I weighed at birth. "I have never seen this book before. Why would it be talking about me?"

  "I don't think it's just talking about you. I think it's about your family, too..."

  My heart raced as I continued to flip through the pages, searching for anything else about my family. Finally, I came across a page that made my blood run cold.

  In the center of the page was a drawing of a figure with a sword, surrounded by symbols I didn't recognize. And beneath it, in bold, black letters, were the words:

  "Tristan Silverblade, the chosen one."

  "What does it say?" Thalia asked, her voice low and cautious.

  I read the words aloud, my voice barely a whisper. "The chosen one..."

  "What does that mean?" she asked, her eyes widening.

  "I don't know," I replied, shaking my head. "But I have a feeling that it's not good."

  "Maybe this is why they're after your village," she finally said.

  "Because I'm this ‘chosen one?’ That's ridiculous."

  "I don't know," she said. "I think this book predates your existence in this world by centuries. Yet they have predicted everything about you, there’s even the moon chart for the night of your birth here on the next page. I wouldn't dismiss that so easily."

  I stared at the page, my mind racing with possibilities. If this book was to be believed, then I was destined for something greater than I ever could have imagined. But what did it mean? What was my purpose? And why was someone willing to kill for it?

  "We have to figure out what this means," I said, my voice determined. "We have to find out why they're after me and my village."

  Thalia nodded, her dark eyes fierce with determination. "We will. But we have to be careful. We don't know who we can trust."

  I knew she was right. The only thing we could do was continue searching for answers and hope we could find them before it was too late.

  As we closed the book and placed it back on the shelf, I couldn't shake the feeling that we were just getting started. Something big was coming, and I didn't know if we were ready for it.

  We trawled through more books, but there were no more answers. We spent the rest of the day combing through book after book, trying to find more information about who was after us and what their plan might be. Unfortunately, most of the books were too old and outdated to provide any useful information. In the end, we decided that it would be safer to just continue searching through our current materials for now and hope that something useful showed up.

  Thalia grabbed the old book that had my name in it and tucked it into her bag.

  "We should leave this place," she said. "Before night time, preferably."

  "We must eat first," I said. "And pack. Then we'll go."

  "Where can we go?"

  "I need to speak with my father," I said. "We're going to court."

  Thalia nodded in agreement and we made our way to the kitchen. We quickly prepared a simple meal of bread and soup, filling our stomachs before packing up our belongings and making our way out into the garden.

  We packed up our supplies, our clothes, enough rations for the journey, the ancient spellbook that declared me a chosen one, and got ready to leave on horseback.

  As we rode through the forest, the silence was deafening. Every rustle of leaves, every snap of a twig made me jump, my hand instinctively going for the hilt of my sword.

  Thalia rode by my side, her eyes scanning the surroundings. "I don't like this," she said, her voice low.

  "Me neither," I replied, my grip tightening on the reins. "But we'll be okay. We just have to keep moving."

  As we rode deeper into the forest, the trees grew thicker and the sunlight dimmed. Something about the place felt eerie, unsettling. But we pushed on, determined to reach our destination.

  A low growl, followed by the sound of snapping branches. I turned my head, scanning the trees for any sign of danger. A pair of glowing eyes stared back at me from the darkness.

  "Thalia, look," I said, pointing at the eyes. "We're not alone."

  Thalia didn't need telling twice. She pulled her horse to a stop and drew her own sword. I followed suit, gripping my weapon tightly as the creature emerged from the shadows.