Claudia
After the night I had last night, I went in search of anything that would keep those wild images of Marcellus in my mind. I hadn't meant to find the library.
Then I found the narrow door tucked behind a dusty tapestry. It creaked open with the sound of a short time, revealing a room blanketed in silence and shadows. The scent hit me first: old parchment, leather, dust, and something beneath it all, something wild, something ancient.
Curiosity ate at me like a thread caught in a thorn bush. I stepped inside, the wooden floor groaning beneath my weight. Shelves reached toward the ceiling, crammed with books that hadn't been touched in years. The light filtering through the high windows was dappled, catching motes of dust that swirled like restless spirits.
I ran my fingers along the spines of old books, many written in languages I didn't understand. Latin, perhaps. Old Norse. Symbols that hummed against my skin, though I couldn't decipher them. But one book was different.
