CHAPTER 39: AN UNEXPECTED AUDIENCE

Aerith had gone the whole week believing that he had been all alone studying in the library, unknown to him there was a second figure that had been there since the very first day.

It was a beautiful young woman who had slowly taken a liking to him, not at first but over time. Princess Shireen cradled a huge leather-bound book in a beautiful silver hammock somewhere in the higher levels of the library. She had taken refuge there in the books and had fallen in love with the experience.

From the first day she saw Aerith enter the library with bright enthusiasm, she ignored him, thinking... he was merely there for entertainment purposes. She didn’t care if he carried one of the Hexacore Chronicles, she already disliked him like she did everyone she ever met.

"You’re only fooling yourself", she told herself the first time he came. "You won’t be here tomorrow."

Yet, to her surprise, he came again. And again. Four days in a row, like a rabid dog drawn to something only he could sense.

And what surprised her even more was that he would read until his eyes burned, skipping meals, lost in the thrill of discovery. From her perch among the upper shelves, she could see him— not shouting or smiling, but glowing quietly. His silence filled the whole library with awe.

Whenever he flipped a page and learned something new she could tell from where she stood on the higher levels of the tower, he would not shout for joy or jump around.

No!

There was no sound from him whenever he entered the library, only silence. But the mood always shifted, she soon became entranced by his odd nature and why he did what he did fascinated her because she had no answer to that question.

The boy who had been possessed by the spirit of a hexacore chronicles would smile whenever he read a book he had never read before, that was how she could tell he had just learned something new.

Watching him quickly became a hobby, like watching a specimen mature before her very eyes. The boy would read books so fast she suspected he was just doing it for the fun of it. But then he would pause while reading a book, open up another and reference it. He would even remember the pages from memory.

It was like watching an avid reader live a dream of reading as much as he wanted in life. There was one facial expression the boy always fell to routinely, it happened so frequently that she came up with a name for his force of habit.

He would constantly frown and stare at something he found very hard to understand. "It takes time for your brain to soak up all that information." She whispered to the library. "It’s cute seeing him try to kill himself."

She could hear him some times curse not at the books or the tower but a himself for not knowing enough. And his ramblings were always more intriguing than the last. Sometimes he would say, "Knowledge is a free luxury and I’m just the bastard that’s an exemption." There was a time he said. "If you failed again, you will regret even trying."

One of her favourite lines was, "My head hurts. If I can remember half of this they’ll die, and I can’t die knowing I’ll leave them handicapped. I’m already a liability as it stands."

It gave her throwbacks to when she was still starting out in the tower, the need to keep her friends alive. But back then she was a well trained fighter and she also had her sister by her side. Still she cherished him for actually caring about people other than himself. But whether this was a mask remained to be seen.

Since she did not know his name she referred to him by the name she understood him as, "He reads like he is punishing himself, whispering curses between breaths, bleeding frustration onto every page. Sadistic Poet— it fit him perfectly." The shelves seemed to listen to her words, the dust in the air shifting as though the Tower itself approved of the name.

She could see what books he opened and why, he had no knowledge of the tower so of course he would begin there but what he branched off to took her by surprise. He would shift to more advanced subjects and suffer greatly for it.

She knew it was impossible to rush the comprehension of the tower, it could only be done in stages. And strangely enough he quickly understood this.

The princess of the tower had come to enjoy his company and watching him suffer and fail and persist. But this all came to and end when he broke the flow, that day he stopped reading when he was showing signs of breaking and started to think as he usually did.

He stopped reading and tried to conjure up an item but failed repeated. She should have lost interest in him this time but, she found a new source of entertainment. The words that came out of his mouth sometimes went from over the top to sadistic to vulgar. The more his desperation grew, the crazier he became.

After he had fallen asleep that day she did something strange, she watched him as she usually did. She did not know why she watched him sleep but it felt like watching a calm episode of her favourite TV drama.

Thoughts started to weave themselves in her mind.

"I know Varrick, he would never tell any of the crossers to come to the library. After all I was the one who leaked the library location out to see if anyone would take it serious." She paused and ran her soft fingers down the rough cover of a leather-bound book, she had nestled in her arms. "It’s too early to say I won the bet if he hasn’t quit yet. Still, I want to know what drives his hunger."

She licked her lips and smiled in a vile manner as she stared at him and said out loud. "I want him as my subordinate." Her voice reeked of raw enthusiasm, which dissipated almost as soon as it had happened then she bit her lower lip so hard that it broke the skin underneath, allowing bright red liquid to flow out of it.

She took in a deep breath and thought. "That damned imperfection again." She took one last look at the sleeping boy before turning away and disappearing into the library.