Compendium by Alia Luria Page B

were cells, she realized, her breath catching in her throat once more. Before she could protest, he tossed her into a cell and bolted the door. It was a small, dank cube with a danker, lumpier version of the bean mattresses the acolytes had in the barracks, situated against the back wall. There was also a chamber pot on the floor and not much else. It was a tiny stone cave that made her cubby in the barracks look spacious and comfortable.
    “You can believe Dominus Nikola will hear about this,” SainClair said coldly. “If the Gathering wasn’t taking place tonight, I’d take you there straightaway, but maybe you could do with a good think.” He turned and stalked off.
    “Wait!” she called after his retreating footsteps.
    His long strides didn’t pause or even miss a beat. And like that, his footsteps were gone, and Mia was utterly alone in a mostly dark cell with just the light of the gourd in the corridor. The Gathering. She was supposed to be enjoying a night out with the others. For the first time since she’d left home some weeks ago, she began to cry.
    She held it together for a while, but finally the sobs poured out of Mia with an intensity that surprised her. Father, home, Hackberry, her freedom. Attending the Gathering with Taryn and Cedar was just the last in a long list of what was no longer hers, and she found herself mourning them all simultaneously. She finally allowed her heart to experience the abject pain she’d denied for so long. She collapsed to a kneeling position, gasped from the sobs, and swallowed hard. Her throat was sore from SainClair’s bruising touch. She hugged her arms to her body as she let the tears roll freely and her chest quake. She stayed like that, crumpled on the ground, for a good long while. It was hard to say how long, but when she finally rolled onto her back on the dirty floor, she was exhausted from crying. Her eyes were almost puffed closed, and everything felt thick. She wiped her nose on her sleeve. A subtle warmth pulsed softly against her stomach.
    It was the small, brown leather book. She had taken it from the Archives more than two weeks ago and carried it with her in her sash. She couldn’t say why it was with her now, except she felt compelled to carry it. She pulled it free from her robes, clambered up onto the dirty mattress, and leaned against the cold stone wall at the back of the cell.
    “How is this even less comfortable than my barracks bunk?” she said to no one.
    Mia held the book in her hands, savoring the warmth it emitted. Although she’d been carrying this book around, she’d never even cracked it open. She breathed in deeply, held it, and breathed out, repeating this process to calm her nerves. She squinted at the volume in her lap and opened it to the index.
    Blast that bloody SainClair for leaving her with no light. Numerous family names graced the first page of the index, none of which she recognized. She flipped to the letter J . There was a Jaynor but no Jayne. Maybe the Jaynor family was a distant relation. This seemed to be an ancient tome after all. She flipped back to the beginning and noticed Draca. Dominus Nikola’s family name was Draca. She turned to the entry for it. The page contained a complex listing of the descendants of the Draca family; it even had a Nikola. That can’t be the Dominus. This book is ancient. Maybe he’s named after that ancestor.
    “We Jaynes don’t have any such storied history,” she murmured. “No seal, no family estate.”
    Clearly she was alone, and at this point, she wasn’t above speaking to herself. The ability to talk openly was actually rather liberating. She flipped again to the index and found another name she recognized: SainClair.
    “Figures,” she muttered. “I should have guessed that blockhead has a family entry.” She opened the book to SainClair. The family crest was an owl sitting on a lotus flower. “That crest looks very familiar.” She turned the book over in her hands.