Lyra's POV
My heart hit my stomach, just as Draziel hit the ground with a powerful thud that almost rattled the whole castle. The balustrade shook slightly as I started from it.
I shuffled a foot back from the balustrade, refusing to believe what had just happened. Zarek swung his sword for Draziel's neck on the ground. "I'd won, I'd won!" he screamed, jumping in excitement.
My eyes tightened at Zarek's big figure looming over Draziel, and I glared at him. I should have known that was his plan. Using me to distract Draziel so he could win. The bastard—cheater.
My eyes jumped back to Draziel at his gentle grunt of pain. His lips were twisted in pain. He was hurt. Hurt because of me. Quickly, I dashed down the hallway, climbing down the stairs for the training ground. But when I pushed through the guards to get to him, he had disappeared.
"Lyra, I won," Zarek chanted, striding fast to me.
My lips parted, wanting to scream at him that he hadn't won but cheated. But it was no use wasting my time on him. I had to find Draziel. I hissed softly, turning away from the training ground.
I climbed up the stone stairs—hard and rough against my bare feet. I felt the mustiness of the stairway clinging to me as I raced up to Draziel's room.
I knocked on his door five minutes later. He didn't answer, and I pushed it slowly. The wooden structure opened gently with a squealing cry. I peered into the room, throwing my eyes over the expanse of hard stone floor, a large bed, and sparse furniture, but he wasn't there. I knew where else he would be—the library.
I spun around in that direction, walking down the long hallway, my heart beating gently against my chest. I shouldn't be worried. As a demon, he heals quickly, and whatever injury he'd suffered from that fall wouldn't be serious. Yet, I just couldn't shake off that need to make sure he was okay.
The library was just as large as I remembered it. It was a whole building of its own, separated from the main castle and yet connected to it by a narrow stretch of stone pavement. I strolled to the open double doors. Each door was over four times my height and over ten times my width.
I knew that because Draziel and I had jokingly measured it sometime in one of my previous lifetimes. I looked into the room, which was nearly three times the size of the castle field. The rows of shelves spread back, heavy with books.
Draziel's father had built the library, even though the castle had been in existence from the days of their ancestors. Draziel had never talked much about his father, Valentine Asheron. The most I had gotten from him was that Valentine Asheron was a power-hungry, self-obsessed king who had a penchant not particularly for reading but for coveting knowledge. Hence why he'd built the library.
The library contained books gathered from various points in time: past, future, and present. No one knew how far into the future Valentine Asheron had gone, but with the hundreds of thousands of books in the library, one could conclude it was very far.
I walked carefully between two rows of shelves, peering between the shelves for Draziel. But it wasn't quite easy, since each shelf was wide and stretched high to touch the over a hundred feet tall ceiling.
A loud thud rattled the floor, making the stone floor vibrate under my feet. I ran fast in the direction of the thud, spilling between two heavily stacked rows of shelves. Draziel jumped just then to the top of a shelf, fitting a book into the shelf just to snatch another from the same shelf.
He landed with another thud that shook the floor again, sending a jarring vibration through me.
I glimpsed the strains of his muscles beneath his robe when he turned away from me the instant he landed. "What are you doing here?" he demanded, over his shoulder. He unfolded the scroll, letting it flow to the floor while he strolled down the alley between the shelves.
The tone of his voice was cold, but I was already getting used to this version of him to be bothered. "Are you okay?" You seemed to hit your back on the floor hard earlier," I asked cautiously, following after him.
"I don't know how it works for the future me, but this version of me heals pretty fast." He said, cold as before. Then he paused, both on his feet and in speech. His fingers froze around the scroll. "That was just a regular fall. It hurts less than a slap on the wrist."
As if to prove his words, he flexed his muscles, letting his back cave outward a bit so that the muscles in his back strained against his robe. Then he resumed strolling down the alley.
Even if he was hurt. I knew he wouldn't admit to it. I decided to change the topic. "What are you reading?" I asked, knowing the future Draziel wasn't quite the lover of books, which must make the past the same as well.
"I am searching for the time-traveling scroll so I can master time travel fast and send you back to the future," he said over his shoulder again. There was no hint of emotion in his voice.
That froze me on my feet for a moment. My brows furrowed and narrowed on his broad back. "So you haven't found the scroll yet, not to talk of mastering the techniques," I demanded.
The urgency in my voice had him spinning back to me. His eyes jumped from me again to the scroll in his hands. "Yeah." He answered crisply.
"But the scroll isn't so hard to find. I remember the future Draziel finding it in the—"
He teleported to me then. His thumb pressed down on my lips with gentle force and warmth. "Don't, Lyra. You should never tell me where it is. It will disrupt the timeline in ways we can't imagine."
I shrugged off his thumb, retreating a foot back. "How about I give you a hint?" I stared straight into the depths of his crimson eyes, begging him to at least take my proposal.
But he shook his head. "That is no different than telling me outright. Events in the timeline need to happen accordingly. I have to find it only when I have to find it."
"But that is probably over fifty years from now." I screamed at him. How could he be so stubborn?
"I will find it myself," he answered. "And I will find it soon." Then he turned, continuing down the alley.
I had thought the future Draziel was inflexible and stubborn. This version of him—I'd realize now—was worse.
"What makes you think you will find it soon?"
"My gut feeling. I just know I will," he answered over his shoulders again, unfolding the scroll further, so that it began to sweep the floor before him.
Gut feeling. I scoffed in my head as I stared at his broad, powerful back, following his movement as he strode down the alley. He was just being prideful, just being stubborn. There was possibly no way he could find the scroll fast without help.
I resumed after him. I had to make him see how foolish this is. Why wait years searching for it when I could tell him where the scroll is right now? "But you will die in the future if we don't act fast," I cried, my voice strained with urgency.
"I have told you, I can't die. No one is powerful enough to kill me, not even Zarek, and I don't fall sick like you humans do." He answered, casual and cold again.
I stopped following after him. My fingers folded into fists around me, and I grunted, clenching my jaw very hard. A sharp pain jarred through the lower half of my face. I wouldn't let him kill his future self because of his stubbornness.
I inhaled, then I readied my lungs for a scream. If he heard it, perhaps he would be forced to follow it. "The time scroll is at the shelf on the extreme right of the library, shelf number—." I screamed. But he'd disappeared before I could even finish the sentence.