Books

The banquet carried on for far longer than was advertised to Sophia. Part of her wondered if the Prince was being mean again to play with her. But it did also appear to continue until everyone saw her. And there were a lot of individuals that she never knew that were hungrily trying to speak with her. They had warned her before about the concerns from those in power and she took them seriously. She understood well enough how dangerous it could be for her. But she didn’t appreciate the overwhelming feeling that it brought.

She had never been this important or desired by anyone else. Academy life kept her invisible or infamous for her research. The attention that gave her was very different from what she saw now. Each of them was like the Priest she had to meet. Each an encounter where words shifted expectations and opinions. Plots moved secretly behind words that filled time.

It was exhausting. She just wanted that book now.

And thankfully, the Prince hadn’t forgotten. Or rather she wouldn’t have let him forget if he tried. She stuck to him closely as the event came to a close. Though Miss Ophelia did insist on her changing out of her dress. Something that she forgot bothered her with the reward in sight. It was greatly uncomfortable to be in. They already dressed her things that she normally never did. Comfort and ease were her priority, but appearance mattered more now.

They let up on it during training, but for the public events, she had to dress the part. And more of her time practicing for them was only with the etiquette lessons that she received. Being in it for hours was exhausting. But once she was out of it and had the library in sights, that all faded away. Sophia was at least happier to be in something with more freedom and breath to enjoy the new sights.

Exiting her room with a bounce in her step, Tolen and Noan stood at her door. The eager young knight came to attention. She gave him a brief smile before running into the Prince. “Can I see the library now?” Once more she was almost inside his personal space as the knights panicked to come to his aid. Even having spent two weeks with her, it still wasn’t something they adjusted to yet. ‘Which book should be the best one? They have to have some Sulish ones, though reading would be nearly impossible. But to see original Sulish books!’

“It was impressive you managed to hold a conversation before.”

“I can prioritize.”

“Right. But yes, I’ll take you to the library now.” He didn’t have any room to step back with the wall against him, but tried to direct her away. She took to the hallway with him adjusting his coat before coming up at her side. The knights remained two steps behind as their quiet escorts.

Through the halls of the castle, Sophia tried very hard to understand the layout. It was important to remember, but it was still difficult. ‘I still can’t make sense of this place. It’s like they hate guests! Do visitors complain or because they have escorts it’s not an issue? They need labels!’ She looked over to the Prince. “I’ve wondered since the first day, how do you know where anything is? It all looks similar.”

“You memorize the layout.”

“Memorize? You have a map of the whole castle in your head?”

“Yes. Some also just remember the turns needed.” The thought of having to remember it by turns felt awful to Sophia. She had tried that a little, but the plainness of the whole castle made her eyes start to lose track of everything. And then she forgot her count. With time she knew that it would make sense. Everyone else did, she just dreaded how long it would take. “The castle was designed like this intentionally as a defensive measure. Eulire had a history of wars and invasions before the time of the Saints. If the enemy had trouble coordinating in the castle it put them at a disadvantage granting our knights the time to push them back.”

“But it doesn’t serve a purpose like that anymore.”

“True, but rebuilding the castle would be a waste of resources that could be spent on the kingdom and its people.” The history lessons were wonderful for her to hear. It still was a pain to navigate.

“You could have repainted it or put paintings or statues to mark unique places.”

“Perhaps, but the historical importance was what has been deemed important to preserve.” The weight they put on history and tradition started to become more clear. Even the Saint was something that continued to exist. The Kingdom was stuck in a pattern.

Sophia nodded with resignation to her fate. “So you just like being cruel to your guests.”

“Our guests are escorted and not required to remember the layout of the castle.”

“No, I guess not. And how far is the library?”

“Close.”

“I heard it has books from before the kingdom was founded. That it stretches for whole rooms filled with books from all the history of the kingdom. Gathered from near and far.”

“It’s a little exaggerated, but close to accurate. There’s enough that you couldn’t read them all.”

“Are you certain? There’s that many?” She hopped over to look at Prince Henri. ‘The Academy already had so many to read. And I never finished that. That and the librarian stopped me. Never saw why it was a problem to borrow twenty books. I promised to return them. I wouldn’t have had to make so many visits. Not that I minded. Oh the royal library! How big is it? Books to the ceiling? An ocean of paper?’

“I never have. Though many are not in our language, so unless you can speak foreign languages they couldn’t be read anyway.”

“Foreign books! I can’t wait! Let’s hurry!” Sophia bounced on ahead of the Prince as though she was guiding them. Unfortunately, the eagerness stopped her at the next intersection when she didn’t know which way to turn. She looked back disheartened by the failure. “Which way is it?”

He kept his pace, arriving to meet her still pouting over not having her book yet. The multitude of emotions he saw from her continued to surprise him. It was almost like they were different people. That she could swing from being terrified to excited so easily seemed rather impressive. “This way. The door is just over there.” Pointing over to the far left side, it looked the same as any other door in the castle. Just like everything else, it kept to the same routine.

Anyone else would have waited for the Prince or knights to open it. But all etiquette flew away for Sophia. ‘Books! Books! Books!’ It might have been the royal family’s library, but that wasn’t even a thought in her head. She quickly opened the door far ahead of any of them arriving at her side. After everything else through the hall, they couldn’t act surprised that she did it.

Inside, she was greeted with a warm wood smell unlike any other library she had been in, which was more stale. It wasn’t quite like going into a forest or garden, but more of a natural smell than she expected. And unlike much of the stone found in the castle, it was completely built and decorated in dark rich woods. The servants that cleaned kept it well attended with no hint of dust and polished surfaces that she could nearly see her face in.

And to her further excitement, rows upon rows of books going to a second floor. ‘Books!’ Ladders lined several of the walls to reach the high points. ‘Books!’ The Academy’s library was deeply impressive for scale and it still was larger than the castle. ‘Books!’ But for a far more personal private collection it had to be half the size. ‘Books!’ The room bent around hiding even more of the room.

‘Books!’ Tables sat in the far back completely out of sight from the entrance or window for privacy. ‘They even have chairs! I can just read in a corner with a comfy chair! I could fall asleep in one of those! I need a book! So many different spots to read in!’

Finally, the Prince with her knight escorts arrived at the threshold. Prince Henri watched her dart around for a few moments before interjecting with some reality. “You are only allowed one book.”

“I know! Though it’s going to be hard to pick. Do you have any recommendations?” She wasn’t even looking at him as she bounced around.

He slowly approached to not have to carry his voice across the library. It came in much softer now. “I know your interests before were in Sulish, is that what you’d want to read?”

“Do you have many in Sulish?”

“I believe there is a small collection. I don’t know what the topics are since no one in the castle can read it in the original text.”

Her finger tugged on the spine of a book to retrieve it. There was a fine binding to it and the surface well maintained. Drawing her hand over it, it nearly felt new. She didn’t know the book or its age, but each looked well preserved. “That is exciting, but it is also a problem.”

“Problem? This is your area of expertise.”

“How familiar are you with how Sulish is read and translated?”

“I know there is no direct or perfect translation. Those that work on Sulish writing have to use others' research as a basis for their translations, which if the research used is in question can change the meaning. Leaving the accuracy of someone’s reading on an original Sulish text highly debated.”

She nodded. Common understanding was less understood than the Prince’s explanation. There were translation versions and people knew the ancient texts by the researcher. The most well known was the Balstar Oracles, writings of the first Saint, the origins that the Church used for the foundation of all their teachings. The Thistel Edition was the one that everyone knew, though because there was only one version it was rarely referred to as such and rather just the Balstar Oracles.

“That is a fair explanation, but still lacking. Do you know why Sulish is such a debated language?”

“Just that it is difficult without a reliable primer for translation.”

“The difficulty doesn’t come in the words themself, but the context, the sentence structure. We know all of the words, but the challenge with Sulish is the words themselves don’t keep the same meaning when used in a sentence. Sulish is a messy and very flexible language in writing. Meaning comes from the context of the whole sentence through metaphor and relationships. Researchers have to look at the whole body of an author’s work and understand their unique tendencies for how they phrased things, what life they led that might make them say things in a specific way. You have to intimately know the author before you can understand their writing.

“This is why any translation is highly debated because everyone has different perspectives and values which color how they’ll interpret someone’s life. The best we can do is come to a consensus that we think that is fairly close to the intent of the author. It is an ever changing and challenged area of research with new evidence and view points being added.”

“Hence your work on the Balstar Oracles being unchallenged for centuries.”

“Yes! For any other Sulish work it would be unthinkable to just accept and stop researching. But it’s become so important to the belief and teachings of the Church that they’ve refused to allow new interpretations to be entertained.”

“If a new interpretation did come to light, how much could the meaning change?”

“It can vary from being only minor changes that the spirit of the intent remains to having the complete opposite meaning or utterly different meaning. There’s no way to know without putting in the work. And it would be a life’s work.”

“Well you can only pick one book still. And we also don’t have the Balstar Oracles anyway.”

“No, the Church keeps that tightly locked down. I’ve tried for months to get permission.” Sophia knew it was a fruitless effort. The Oracles was considered a divine and sacred text by the Church and everyone that followed it. Even if for her it was just a book written by a man, that didn’t change what it meant to those of faith. It was important and touching it would be sacrilege let alone wanting to translate it.

Any of her work had been based on Balstar’s other writing and Thistel’s own research. It wasn’t the same as seeing the Oracles, but if the research didn’t work on his other works then it would cast doubt on the accuracy of the Oracles. But she needed more than what the Academy had available. They only had two other works by Balstar and they weren’t originals. It was hardly a good sample size. Balstar wrote over forty books in his life according to records. But only once about the Saint. Much of the rest of his work was far more mundane topics like biographies, historical events and social commentary from the time that he lived in.

Sophia looked over the numerous shelves. ‘Wish he would let me stay all night. But he wouldn’t. Would he? No, I’ll have to be quick. Somewhat quick. He’s not going to rush me, right? Please! Let me take in the smells longer.’ The Prince was granting her a reward, but she couldn’t keep him the whole night. “Where is the Sulish collection? Are they well preserved to handle?”

“Nothing we keep here is too fragile to be handled. Though I believe not all of them are originals. Some are copies.”

“A copy would be safer and a less expensive loss.”

“Any would still be a costly one.” She nodded knowing that the number of copies of ancient Sulish texts were rare themselves. Due to the difficulty of translation, Sulish wasn’t a popular source for historical information. There were other more reliable languages. But the magic kingdom had knowledge and prestige unmatched by any of its contemporaries. Sometimes they were the only source.

The Saint of Eulire was unique in that it was tied not to the Magic Kingdom of Solis and therefore being in Sulish was an unusual choice by a common thinking. And yet the Sulish language survived into the modern day, though not as a spoken language, but as a written one. Spoken Sulish was different from written Sulish and being able to write in it was considered a mark of sophistication and status. And due to its difficulty in reading, it made for excellent means of hiding secrets.

“I’ll be treating them with care.”

“I have no doubt that you will.” He picked up the book from her and returned it to the shelf. Directing her back to the end of the library where she would find her goal. She hardly needed much more help spotting the Sulish books immediately once in sight. “What will be your choice?”

“They all seem so appealing.” For a grace, the titles were all straightforward for Sulish, unless an author was feeling very cruel or playful. She hadn’t seen any where the author made the title a puzzle, but they did exist and they were argued about endlessly.

A couple of the books were histories of the Solis itself, which would have been fun reads if she had the necessary reference. There were another few about rulers or military commanders from more recent eras. More were less interesting, talking about architecture and another on environmental theories. One did look useful, even if she wouldn’t be able to do anything with it now. It was about magic theory and spellcraft.

Pulling the book out, it wasn’t as old as Solis. That would have made it especially valuable, but it dated to before the founding of Eulire. Magic wasn’t something Sophia studied from a historical standpoint. So she didn’t know how much it changed to modern magic, but if it was written in Sulish it likely had less known ideas. It could help her be able to fulfill her duty as a Saint, which still left her with doubts. Barriers and healing felt so limited that it barely seemed like it would be a sign that she was a Saint.

She didn’t want to be Euthemia’s chosen, books and research were definitely where she wished she could have been right now. But escape and rejection wasn’t an option, unwanted as it might be. The Saint was too important to the people for her to fail at it. She needed to do the best, for everyone that looked to her for help.

Sophia showed it to the Prince. “I’ll take this one.”

“Even though you won’t be able to understand it.”

“It’s not going to be the only book I can get from the library, right?”

“Already counting on me rewarding you with more books?”

“Wasn’t that your plan?”

“We understand each other well enough then. If you’re content with your choice. I’ll escort you back to your room.”

“Thank you, Prince Henri!” She smiled wide, hugging the book. “You can be a wonderful guy sometimes.”