Chapter 7: Trust

-A few hours later-

Affra checked all the books in the room without moving away from the bookshelf, she was very careful when she got to the empty books.

She checked the covers and each page individually, I don't think I was that careful when I looked through them either.

Apparently she wasn't kidding when she said she could do it.

"Did you manage to discover anything Affra?"

Affra gets up from the floor with her head bowed down and a face so sad that I don't recognize her anymore.

She takes small steps to get closer to the sofa, when she reaches it she turns her back and lets herself fall limp on it.

From the look on her face and the way she sat on the sofa, I can tell for sure, she hasn't managed to discover anything new.

"So..."

"Ahhh, it's so annoying.

I understand books that have unknown language but blank ones make no sense, the covers are identical, the sheets are blank so why would they be put there?

I'm sorry Teo, I couldn't figure it out."

"The empty books don't matter that much, it's more important to translate the language."

"The book that has to do with the sword seems the most important, so I'm thinking of taking it with me, and I'll copy certain parts from the others."

"You want to take the book with you..."

Can I really trust Affra? What if she's lying to me?

Hmm, I have to rely on her if I don't want to waste years translating the books.

"Alright Affra, you'll take the book with you."

"Thank you."

Affra goes to the bookshelf and starts bringing all the books containing the language and an empty one next to the couch.

She sits on the couch, pulls the small table in front of her and places the blank book and the first book written in that language that comes to hand.

"Do you have a feather and ink around here?"

"Yes."

I reach under the couch and pull out the box where I keep the quill and the ink.

I open the box, Affra takes the quill and the ink and starts to copying certain areas from the book what has the unknown language in the blank one.

I'm amazed, she's able to copy almost identical the writing.

I watch at her write little by little until my eyelids fall over my eyes and fall asleep.

"Ahh ." How well I slept. I wake up stretching my hands out as much as I can, the first thing I see is Affra sitting next to me on the couch still writing.

I get up on the sofa and watch how a coat that was on me falls between me and Affra.

"Hey Affra, did you put the coat on me?"

"Yeah, I thought you'd be cold while you slept."

"Thank you. Do you have more to write?" I glance down at the small table and see more than half a book written.

But, how long did I sleep?

"I have four more books to look at."

"Have I slept much?"

"I honestly don't know, I didn't realize how time had passed."

"I understand . I'll go outside and check how much time has passed."

I get up from the couch and go to the stairs.

"Ahh!" I forgot it's still my birthday, if too much time has passed most likely my parents will worry.

I climb the ladder as fast as I can, enter the room and all I see out the window is the full moon that has reached the middle of the sky.

I quickly go to Affra to get her out of the room.

"What's wrong Teo? I thought you fell off the ladder at the noise you made coming down."

"It's dark outside!

We have to go, most likely our parents are looking for us."

"But I'm not finished."

"We ran out of time.

We have to go or they'll discover the room."

I go to the small table, take the quill from her hand, with my left hand I take the 2 books, with my right hand I take Affra's hand and pull her to the stairs.

"You first, we'll need to go into the living room.

If they ask us what we did, we'll say I showed you around the castle."

"Okay."

We arrive in the room, close the door and walk to the living room.

"What do you think about the language?

When I looked over it, I noticed that many characters resemble each other, but especially they repeat a lot."

"I've noticed that too, but that's an advantage, if I manage to translate the characters that repeat very often, it will become easy to translate the rest of the language."

"Where are you going to start?

How will you manage to translate those characters?"

"Well, I'll tell you another secret, this one has to do with my kingdom, so you can't tell to anyone, even your parents don't know about it."

"I swear by our god Ordirin, that the secret will remain between us."

"Good, come closer."

I move closer to her and she starts whispering to me.

"In our palace there is a room where we keep the relics, I spent some time looking through them and I think I've seen this writing, but I don't remember exactry where so I'll go there when I get home.

"What are relics?"

"Are ancient objects that belonged to ancient civilizations.

For example books or unknown objects that we don't know the use of."

"I wish I could see them."

"If you visit our palace, I promise I'll take you there."

"Really!? Promise on the pinky?"

"Yes."

I grab her little finger with my little finger as I look her straight in the eye.

"Looking forward to it."

"Ah, ah, you'll be welcome."

Affra starts stuttering and avoids to looking at me.

"Are you all right, Affra?"

"Yes, I'm fine. How long until we reach the living room?"

"The front door leads to the living room."

I open the door and the first person I see is my mother, who comes running towards us.