Alpha Redmoon stepped into the library. His study was adjacent, and he'd been hearing rumblings. He saw Rex, then Nova.
"Queen Shadowclaw, I'm glad you're awake. How are you feeling?"
Nova's eyes were still silver. She didn't answer. The silence surprised him. He glanced at Rex, then realized his son also wore a perplexed look.
Instead, Nova's gaze drifted to the level above—toward the right. The railing was maybe fifteen feet from where she was perched atop the ladder.
"Nova, let's use the stairs this time," Rex said with a half‑smile, trying to guide her gently.
But she didn't hear him. Again.
She sprang upward, crossing the distance in one impossible bound, landing on the marble railing. A jump far for even an alpha.
She ran in a blur to the shelf and stopped beneath it, looking up.
Alpha Redmoon and Rex followed, each moving as fast as a shadow, already beside her.
Master Thalen panted his way up the stairs, ladder in hand. "Here you are," he said, breathless.
In a blur, she ascended the ladder and pulled a lever. A low, mechanical groan echoed beneath the library.
Nova zipped down the ladder, darting to the opposite side of the level. She stopped in front of a marble pillar—one carved with a magnificent dragon in flight. It looked identical to the others lining the hall, but her eyes were locked on this one.
She whispered something in an ancient tongue and the dragon carving shimmered. It circled once in place as if were alive and a golden latch revealed itself beneath the base.
She pulled the latch. The entire floor beneath them rumbled.
Upon hearing her speak that ancient tongue, every mage‑librarian rose from their reading alcoves and looked toward her.
Her eyes lifted toward the next floor.
"Stairs this time," Rex said, scooping her up before she could move. Her gaze remained fixed upward. Alpha Redmoon followed close behind, and Master Thalen and the mages-librarians watched them intently. The whole floor seemed to hold its breath—everyone wanted to see what she was uncovering.
When Rex reached the top of the stairs, he set her down gently. In a blur, she sprinted across the landing to an ancient grandfather clock standing against the wall.
Rex and Redmoon appeared behind her as though they had teleported—alpha speed once again.
At that moment Marra, Cael, and Elle burst into the library, startled by the silent crowd of librarian‑mages all looking upward. Their eyes followed the line of sight to where Nova stood motionless.
"Fuck," Cael muttered, charging up the stairs, Elle and Marra just behind him.
"Don't let her touch anything!" Cael called.
Twenty robed mage-librarians turned as one. A violent chorus of shushing erupted. One clutched his chest as if Cael had committed sacrilege.
Nova began speaking in the same ancient tongue. The grandfather clock's face split open with a silent mechanical hiss. A dragon figure emerged, wings unfurling in gilded metal to reveal a golden lever.
She pulled it without hesitation.
Cael skidded to a halt.
"Aren't you supposed to be furious at her?" Elle whispered, a reluctant smile tugging at her lips.
Cael didn't answer. He strode toward Nova, exasperation edging his voice. "Fin is going to—Gods, Nova. Let's go."
His tone was full of authority, like she was a pack warrior caught sneaking out past curfew. He lunged toward her, intent on hauling her back himself.
But she vanished in a blur. What happened next made his jaw drop—along with everyone else's.
Nova lept gracefully onto a table without disturbing a single page of parchment. With barely a pause, she launched off the high stone mantel of a fireplace on that level, soaring higher still. Gasps rippled through the library.
She caught a long-extinguished wall torch, twenty feet up—one that hadn't held a flame in centuries. Dangling by one arm, she pulled it down like a lever.
A deep clang echoed beneath the marble floor. Gears shifted. Somewhere below, something ancient continued to move.
She let go.
Rex was already there, arms open. He caught her mid-fall, like they'd practiced it a hundred times.
He set her down gently.
But as soon as she looked up to the top floor, Rex immediately scooped her up again.
"Stairs," he said, already moving toward them—completely unfazed by the dozen pairs of eyes watching him carry her like she belonged there, touching her so freely. Elle, Cael, and Marra watched with the same expression.
Honestly, if he hadn't been the one doing it, he would've stared too.
One of the librarians, overhearing Cael, leaned close to a colleague and whispered, "I wonder if this happens with her often."
Elle and Marra burst out laughing.
Every mage-librarian in the vicinity immediately shushed them like a flock of offended geese.
Alpha Redmoon turned and gave Marra a pointed look.
"It does," Elle said dryly, answering for her and keeping her voice low.
Marra shot Elle a mock glare as they climbed the stairs together behind Rex and Nova.
When they reached the top, Rex set Nova down gently. Without missing a beat, she blurred across the room to a massive rug in front of the grand fireplace—a thick, ornate piece woven in deep crimson and gold with an intricate dragon pattern.
And she attempted to move it. Like she lived there. Like this wasn't a centuries-old relic in a royal library belonging to an entirely different kingdom.
But the rug was massive—and very heavy.
"Hang on, let me help you," Rex said with a laugh, hurrying over to assist. It took both of them a full minute of dragging and folding before they managed to wrestle the thing aside.
Beneath the rug, gold-carved runes spiraled across the marble in an ancient tongue.
As Nova spoke the language aloud, the runes blazed awake, each word she uttered sharpening their glow.
By the time Redmoon, Elle, Marra, and Cael joined them at the top, Nova was nearly done.
With a soft click, a circular altar rose from the marble, lifting as if answering a summons. A golden lever crowned its surface. Nova reached for it without a second thought and pulled.
The floor again rumbled and the shelves rattled. All the mage-librarians looked like they'd just discovered treasure. Some even clapped excitedly.
Nova looked toward the lowest floor again, clearly preparing to jump.
Rex grabbed her waist with both arms. "Nope. Stairs, Nova."
As they descended the stairs, Alpha Redmoon glanced at Cael. "Is it always really like this?" he asked.
Cael laughed, keeping his voice low. "This morning she touched a book that somehow opened a portal—which led to her jumping off a waterfall cliff. Jax followed her. Once they landed, he had to dive seventy feet down to get her because she had to touch something at the bottom of the lake and grab a token. Just like she is now. They went under a waterfall to retrieve a medallion. There was a glowing cave too."
Redmoon stopped mid‑step. He looked at Cael, then toward Rex who was a few stairs in front of them carrying Nova. At that moment Cael realized he'd said something he shouldn't have. The librarians around them froze.
Rex heard but continued walking, his pace steady. He could feel her urgency through the matebond.
When they reached the bottom, he put her down and she ran at alpha speed back towards the restricted section. But the locked iron gate barred the restricted aisle like a prison door.
Master Thalen hurried forward, nearly tripping over his own robes as he fumbled through his keys.
"I'll open this for you at once, Queen Shadowclaw."
The moment the lock clicked, Nova slipped through the gate before it had even finished swinging open. She ran between the shelves with relentless purpose, straight toward the far wall.
Rex followed—just a breath behind her—until he caught up and stopped dead.
"Well. That is new," he said, brow furrowing as he stared at the massive dragon statue now exposed on the wall. He had wandered this library his entire life. He had never seen anything like it.
Nova stepped towards it and whispered something.
In that moment, ancient runes flared to life across every wall in the library, etching themselves in glowing gold and silver across the five towering levels. Even the grand marble staircase beneath Elle, Cael, Marra, and Redmoon was not spared. Along each step, intricate, spiraling script lit up—lettering so old and refined it looked etched by magic itself.
The torches roared to life in a synchronized blaze, casting the library in a golden, flickering glow.
Nova spoke again. Louder, in the same language as before, as old as the stones beneath their feet.
A mage-librarian with thick glasses emerged from behind a bookcase, eyes wide with wonder. "That is the tongue of the Draken-Vorah," he breathed—the name itself sounding ancient. Before he could say more, another mage swiftly elbowed him and shushed him.
"These inscriptions on the stairs too!" another mage called out, pointing at the glowing script. "That's the Draken-Vorah, Old Blood Script. From the founding tribes—"
"Shh!" hissed another.
Elle's head snapped up. "You know this language?" she asked, her voice edged with something deeper. The implication was clear—Nova had spoken this tongue before, and no one had been able to place it.
The first librarian adjusted his spectacles nervously. "Yes, Beta Luna Valehart. But it is forbidden to be taught to outsiders."
And still, Nova continued—fluent, composed, as if the language had lived inside her all along.
Rex and Redmoon glanced at one another, neither saying a word. Marra looked forward pretending to not see either side of the interaction.
"Do you know the medallion we're referring to? You can have it. She might need it in eleven days to save our lives, but after that, it's yours," Cael said, his tone casual as though talking about a spare goblet. His mind still hovered over the medallion, oblivious to the sudden shift in the room.
Elle and Marra exchanged wordless glances.
Alpha Redmoon turned toward Cael, voice measured. "If it's what it sounds like, that medallion is part of Redmoon's history. Said to be hidden somewhere in the Falls of Elaran's Veil. It belonged to the first queen of Redmoon…and she would return one day to retrieve it. It has been lost for at least ten thousand years. A myth."
Cael's mouth fell open. Elle mentioned the waterfall Rex had spoken of, the one he'd taken Nova to.
"Is that waterfall only reachable by dragon?" he asked, rubbing the back of his neck.
"Yes," Redmoon answered, his tone calm.
The color drained from Cael's face as his mouth closed. In that moment, he realized he was the last one to piece it together.
Several of the mage-librarians exchanged glances.
They clearly knew more. They were thinking the same thing. But none of them said it.