The script that was written to mark the titles of the books along the spines was familiar.
He continued walking through the shelves, glancing left and right at the books and had been through three of the shelves, thinking deeply, when the recognition came:
'It is not precisely the same however,' He began as his brows furrowed, 'it must be a derivative language from the one my memoria uses.'
That recognition did not bring him comfort.
'I am wasting my time with these.' He shook his head to himself.
Yanis began walking himself out of the path between two shelves at that thought. He would look through other places of the study, perhaps Quintin's table.
Thus, his steps gained an urgency to them.
'Wait...'
Suddenly, right as he was just about to cross the end of the shelves, he stopped.
His brows furrowed deeply and his nose faintly itched.
However, more than that, Yanis felt something deep within himself conflicting with the idea of leaving the books.
He abruptly turned his head one direction, brows furrowed, while holding his breath.
Across the aisle, on the opposite row of shelves, is where his attention had been caught. It was the area Jhela had been.
Yanis's feet moved quickly, and as soon as he stopped, he stood before another wall of books.
His eyes were trained on a black one that was in binding far older than the rest of them. Its cover was made from hide stretched over wood, and the sensation of merely being in the presence of the book was... enrapturing.
'What kind of strange-' the thought began and it was cut off by anticipation. If the book felt like this, then it certainly had mystical secrets within it, 'You must have information i can use.'
He reached for it, and when his fingers closed around the spine, he felt an electric sensation run up his whole arm and through his body. And he pulled it from the shelf anyway.
There was no title or any sort of script on any part of the cover. He opened the book over the cradle of one hand, and the thickness of the pages was odd.
Looking at the book closed, it should have had many pages however with the thickness he felt in a single page, there was no way it could be so modest and give that impression. It should have felt like it had a lot less pages between the covers. And yet it didn't.
The strangeness was instantly overtaken by a striking impression, and his eyes faintly widened.
The first page that the book opened to greeted him with an image sprawled across both pages. The art depicted on it was illustrated in such deep strokes of black and white that the parchment seemed...full?
Yanis's fingers and forearm began to strain, unaware to his attention.
However, what he was aware of was the strangest of things. The page... it felt as if it were almost struggling to contain something.
A figure was portrayed massively, one giant form with chains binding it. They cut into flesh at the shoulders, wrists, its throat, ankles, and torso, and its figure had been sketched with ink so dense that the bindings, rather than chains, almost looked embedded into the bleeding flesh. It made the giant looks as if a being pieced together by the art of mending broken pottery using a mixture of lacquer to highlight the fractures rather than conceal them.
What had given it away to Yanis was the intense strain in the giants muscles; the fibres of its anatomy, despite being compressed into page, were so thoroughly detailed that he felt the tensity in them, like cables groaning to support a bridge.
Before this giant figure, stood one smaller form — though still enormous.
It stood with one hand pressed to its chest, where the tightness of chains had caused the giant to bleed, and from that wound spilled a liquid that the artist had depicted in violent streaks of white against black.
The smaller figure's head was tilted back, mouth open, and drinking what poured forth. The expression on its face was rapturous.
Beneath them both, the ground was a mass of other bodies, half-buried and turned toward thee viewer with their mouths caught mid-anguish, and their eyes rendered as swirling, swirling, swirling, spinning, drifting and swirling so madly, deep in their hadal depths.
The sound of chains rang through Yanis's body. And the sensation of blood water falling cascaded through him.
Suddenly, Yanis slammed the book shut, his eyes wide. His chest began heaving and he dropped the book, hesitating a step back. As it thudded over the ground.
'It was hypnotising me?' He wondered, looking down a the thing.
Despite being dropped, it had not opened itself. The book remained shut with its front glaring back at him.
"What foul thing is this book?" The curse spilled, and he regretted his audacity.
For a few seconds, thereafter, he caught his breath, collecting himself.
Yanis eventually dared to lean himself back down, and although he hesitated the brief moment before he did it, he picked the book up again.
He turned its pages away from himself and tried to open it so that it would have, that image face nothing instead of himself.
"…"
'Huh?'
The book would no longer open.
Yanis brought it before himself with his brows creased and for a moment he didn't do anything.
He then shook his head faintly. Yanis lifted his gaze and pushed the book forward, and it sank into a rippling distortion in space.
The book was far too mysterious to leave alone. And currently, he did not have the time to sit and ponder on it.
So, he committed to borrowing it.
Yanis turned on his heel and his attention was immediately focused towards the desk.
He approached, and saw that Quintin had left papers scattered across the surface.
There were strange diagrams drawn in ink, blocks of the script that he had seen on the books, a pile of papers to one side that had just been signed.
Then there were illustrations of plants? It was a collage of strange, foreign specimens—dozens of them—and yet, for a handful, something within him stirred a distant recognition of them.
It was because of that recognition that when he saw numbers, he believed the numbers were measurements for quantity and weight to be used toward whatever purpose they served.
'These are... ritual ingredients.' His brow furrowed faintly, 'They have him learning such specifics as well?'
Yanis released a faint breath through his nose, shaking his head, and then he turned.
His attention fell down the path of the study, ahead to where Jhela's wide canvas had been draped over with the wide, black cloth.
'I have already been ungracious...'
~~~~ ✧✧ ~~~~~ ⚜ ~~~~~ ✧✧ ~~~~ ⚜ ~~~~~ ✧✧ ~~~~ ⚜ ~~~~~ ✧✧ ~~~~
A short while later, Yanis was on his way back to his patrol route, where the servant had picked him up from earlier.
And on his way there, he coincidentally ran into Jhela.
She was in an alcove off the corridor connecting the central wing to the eastern wing, seated on a stone ledge beneath a window, her legs drawn up and her back against the wall.
The torchlight from the nearest sconce barely reached her, and the evening light from the window did the rest to help her in the slight enjoyment.
She had a book open across her knees, and now, her expression seemed much more relieved than earlier.
It was small and worn book, with a cover coloured black, and she held a page down with her thumb, with the other hand holding a piece of dried fruit she was eating slowly.
She noticed him before he could decide whether to pass in silence.
"Why did you leave so long after us?" Jhela asked without looking up from her book.
Yanis's brow raised faintly, and almost felt like perhaps he might have been wrong about something. 'Was she waiting for me to leave?'
"I was thinking." He said as he stopped adjacent to her.
"In the Emperor's private study..." She spoke with emphasis as if speaking to someone negligent, "Without the Emperor or his personal maid present to watch over you."
Yanis only shrugged faintly, "He did not ask me to leave."
"Unfortunately," She turned a page with her thumb, maintaining her gaze on the book, "He wouldn't."
Yanis paused there, without saying anything.
By now, he should have continued walking; there were greater urgencies to attend to. Not to mention, he was borrowing another thing that must have been quite important, so there was some repentance to him.
Besides, lingering beside the emperor's personal maid in a dim corridor wasn't the kind of thing that would be easily explained to a passing, sour faced captain.
"What are you reading?" he asked without leaving.
"Something very interesting, and no, it is not about the ceremony."
He almost laughed, "You know, you are a lot less formal when he is not around."
That brought her eyes up.