“I assume you can read?” she asked, coming to a halt beside a large door framed by lintels carved in the shape of massive bears.

I nodded, and then she opened the door.

My father had kept a small library in our town house. Three shelves: one for the histories, one for his records, and one that contained everything from epics to old sea charts.

This room was different.

Shelves lined every wall, and in the center stood a round hearth with a copper chimney. The grate around the fire was carved with more hunting scenes, but it was what the light of the fire revealed that held my gaze.

Books. More books than I could count, and scrolls and maps and even a table with a life-size model of the mountains. I stepped toward it, trailing my hand along the sharp peaks as my eyes devoured the room. I forgot about my father, and the Locklands, and the story behind the Huntress’s name.

I had seen one other library like this, and that had only been a glimpse, on the solitary occasion my father had brought me with him to court. Books were expensive, and their contents hoarded. The wealth of knowledge in this room was staggering, and unlike the library at court this one did not have guards standing at attention to make sure the books remained untouched.

Well, unless I counted the wolves.

“There . . .” I trailed off and tried again. “There are so many of them.”

“The winters are long here.”

Out of the corner of my eye I saw her run a hand through her hair. It hung loosely around her shoulders, absorbing the torchlight, and it framed lips twisted in a smile that slashed her face in a cruel stroke.

I approached a shelf, my hand stretched out in preparation to touch the hide-bound spines. Some had titles marked in gold leaf; others were blank, their contents concealed by their bindings.

So many words.

A hunger that had lain dormant since we left the city woke. I chose a book at random, pulling it off the shelf and cradling it between my hands.

I’d taught myself to read. Sitting on my father’s knee, watching him pore over lists and missives, I’d given him the surprise of his life when I corrected him. “Sheep, papa, not ship,” I’d said, or so he told the story.

Not that it had done me much good. Women in the mountain villages did not need to read, and few enough men bothered with the skill.

But a library this size . . .  Only royalty could command such a collection. Royalty, or a sorcerer.

I turned back to the Huntress, the book unopened.

“Who are you, really?” I asked. “You said this was a room for questions.”