As the older tomes tended to be, the volume was overly large, but it was unlike anything she’d found before. The binding was exquisite in its simple complexity—a contradiction of ideas that formed an unexpected harmony. The method of sewing a series of folded pages was so basic, so obvious, as to be genius; yet the needlework remained exacting, intricate, and extensive enough to profess a labor of love. The pages were made from vellum, but not the exquisite uterine variant that Farilane chose for her own writing. These were simple materials, each page varying in color, the edges ragged.

The lettering didn’t follow any modern style. In place of the constrained, interlocking Monastic Script or even the cramped penmanship of Falkirk de Roche, this writer worked in a luxury of space. The letters were wide, and ample space was left between words, even more so between lines. And paragraphs stood out as veritable islands on the creamy sheets, making reading an airy joy rather than a struggle against eye fatigue. No two pages were alike. The ink and handwriting varied—often on a single page, even within one sentence. Farilane was certain the author remained the same, but she could see where the writer was tired, low on ink, or had switched to a fresh quill. This was not a workshopped manuscript created in an ideally conditioned scriptorium by a well-trained but indifferent monk. This was a document alive with evidence of journeys, turmoil, boredom, and on some pages, spilled meals. Moreover, many pages were dog-eared, some had notes or even underlined passages, and a few showed evidence of having been wet. Whatever doubts the princess had harbored about this being a fake were long buried. And if she could trust history in those instances where it held hands with myth and legend to span remote gaps in time, this bound set of calfskins in her arms was the world’s first book, created by the inventor of written language. This was square one, the foundation, and because it was written in-era by an eyewitness to contemporary events, it was the most reliable and authoritative account possible. In her hands, Farilane held the truth.

While the princess was a fast reader, she’d only had enough time to read a small percentage of the book. Even so, she had already stumbled on a remarkable discovery. The treasure literally fell out of the book: a folded bit of parchment that had been trapped between the pages. From the clean trim of the note, Farilane knew it to be newer than the whole of the book. The lettering was also different. The folded parchment was a letter addressed to Nolyn and Sephryn and signed by Bran.

“Does that thing say where the horn is?” Sheldon asked, his mouth full of jam-laden biscuit.