Luna read. For days on end she was up before the sun, rushing through her chores. And while the light was good she was buried in the journals. It took five days to read them all.
Prince - now Magnus has been the easiest. But her mother's journals spoke of other family, other friends. A whole part of her Father seemed to have forgotten. Luna often found herself wondering just how much of what she knew about her mother was true.
Like telling her about her mother's family connection to the Fae. Her mother had written of a visit by a Fae cousin. A lithe smoky haired woman called Helia. Luna's breath stopped, she turned towards the deepest shadows of the woods. There she could just barely pick out a phantom shape, as grey as smoke.
"Helia." A flash of eyes reflecting sunlight and the shape was gone. Luna went back to reading, her lips a taut line.
There were no other guesses in the first of her mother's journals. Nor the second. But Luna gleaned more about her family line.
Her mother spoke only three times more of seeing "outside of time". Each instance was carefully recorded.
The first was of herself, walking a stone hall hung with tapestries when she ought to have been walking across the main bridge to the castle village.
I was nearly run down by a carriage! Luckily my brother set me right. I'd be lost without him. The carriage was the King's! And when he alighted I thought he would berate me. But he wanted to be certain I was unharmed.
He insisted on taking us to where old Amos was stabled. Magnus clearly wanted to leap from the seat but I was bold and asked the king what he thought of Dementh's assertions on the power of the common man.
It was a delightful conversation. He said in the end he would reread the tome more carefully. My darling brother looked as though he might die. All in all it was quite satisfying.
The next concerned Magnus and Luna found herself frowning over it, unable to put her finger on why.
It happened again in the middle of the fair today. I was watching Magnus in the dances and his partner was Gretchen. She's a lovely girl, very sweet, her hair much lightened by the sun. It was her gold streaked hair that triggered the dread. I can't say why but I was nearly sick with worry. Luna rested her fingers on the page puzzling over the strange feeling that this should mean something, that it was telling. But she didn't know why. So she kept reading.
The last of the incidents her mother had recorded was enough to make Luna put the book down and seek out her uncle.
Last night I dreamed I stood before my brother, but he became a beast and he did not know me. Snow fell around us and the moon hung full over our heads. My heart fears the day this will come to pass.
Luna found Magnus sitting on a rock out cropping behind the cottage that nearly rose above the trees. He was watching the birds flying south across the sky. Luna hauled herself up the rock, lichen and pebbles sticking to her hands. She leaned into his warm side brushing her hands clean.
"I finished my mother's journals." She said softly. He sighed softly, laying his head atop hers. She buried a hand in the fur at his neck.
"I wish she was here too."
It wasn't until the next day began to read her father's journals. The first line had her laughing and heartsore.
My dear bride gifted me this journal upon our wedding to better organize my thoughts. Little does she know my thoughts are organized - they're simply foolish.
"Oh Father." Luna rested her fingers against the words before moving on. The time frame and subject matter of her father's journals was different from her mother's. He often wrote of affairs of state - worries about trade, or lack thereof. He wrote notes of conversations with her mother on these subjects. He often seemed to find her insights a great help. His abiding affection was palpable.
Though Luna knew much had changed as she grew up she still learned from her father's notes. She'd have given anything to have access to the castle's library and even amused herself with idle plans of how to break into the library. The histories would have made things so much clearer.
One day, she promised herself. One day soon those books would be in her hands.
The last few entries in the second journal nearly made her throw the book. They were about her Uncle Magnus' upcoming nuptials - to Serena.
She reread the name twice and the description three times before she was certain. There was no mention of Serena in her mother's journals…
I am a bit taken aback by Magnus' sudden declaration of love for this Serena - a woman from the City by the Sea. I'll own she is beautiful though nothing to my elegant Astrid. She is cold too, though she seems to melt a bit for him.
Something about this woman sets my teeth on edge. I will counsel him to caution.
Several pages or days later her father must have spoken to Magnus.
I am rueful, and Astrid unhappy. Magnus has left the castle for he and Astrid's home village and Serena with him though she was loath to leave. I suggested Magnus delay the wedding a year. So the two could get to know each other better.
My brother in law accused me of wanting to use him as a knight in waiting rather than allowing him to live his life. I tried to make my case but Magnus would have none of it.
There was no more of Magnus' romance in the book. And some of the third passed with no further revelations. Merely the mention of letters passing between Magnus and his sister.
Until a matter of fact reporting nearly a year later.
We received word today that a pack of winter wolves - vicious starving beasts - attacked Astrid's village. Magnus' body has yet to be found. Serena told the soldiers they had dragged him off. Astrid has withdrawn into herself and seems to be in shock. She keeps saying the wolves could never harm him.