Free The Eternal Flame by T. A. Barron

sad, spread over Grikkolo’s wrinkled face. He hefted the pair of books in his hand, then tapped one cover as gently as a parent would tap the forehead of a baby. Slowly, he drew a deep breath of the air of this room—air that smelled richly of leather bindings, handmade paper, and centuries of dust.
    “As a youth, I was always hungry, deeply hungry—though not for food. For information! I was so curious to learn, I loved no place more than this library. So I studied diligently, worked very hard, and finally won the position of Apprentice Librarian, Linguistics Collection. Yet I realized that even that was not enough.” His enormous eyes sparkled. “I yearned to live here all the time, doing nothing but reading these books for the rest of my days.”
    “And then,” finished Nuic, “the war came—and you got your wish.”
    “Yes,” answered the elf gravely, his grin vanishing. “That is true. Now I have lived here, in hiding, for many years. Too many: over one hundred, by my count. Thanks to my elvish sight, I can see in the darkness—well enough to read, and plant my own little garden for food. But I dare not go far from this building, in case any warriors are still lurking in the city.”
    Elli cocked her head sympathetically. “You must be very lonely.”
    For the first time, he glanced right at her. Though he quickly turned away again, Elli could see that his expression was one of shock. “Lonely? How could anyone be lonely amidst so many stories, so many languages?” He shook his wild head of hair. “Lonely is the very last thing I am!”
    Grikkolo waved both his hands at the library. “I have friends, thousands and thousands of them, in every part of this building. Those ignorant warriors may have destroyed the shelves, the murals, and the display cases. But they left the only thing that really matters.” He waved the volumes that he was holding. “The books themselves.”
    Nuic’s color shifted to a thoughtful shade of blue. “Not the only thing. They left something else that matters.”
    The old elf tilted his head, clearly puzzled.
    “A librarian.”
    Grikkolo’s sad grin returned. “They left me plenty of work, organizing and repairing volumes, that is certain. More work than I could accomplish in several lifetimes! Yet perhaps one librarian, even a doddering and forgetful one, is better than none.” Then the light of curiosity returned to his eyes. “Would you tell me now why you came here?”
    “Yes,” Elli answered. “But first, would you tell us something briefly? Just why was your city destroyed?”
    Wrinkles seemed to multiply on the old fellow’s face. Looking suddenly more frail than ever, he set down his books and leaned back against a pair of shelves that had collapsed together. His weight knocked several more books to the floor, sending up a spiral of dust. He hesitated a long moment before finally starting to speak.
    “First you must imagine the city as it was. A center of learning, of art and music and story—that was Dianarra, the City of Light. It was built here by people from the stars, people with bodies of fire, whose very wings were aflame.”
    Elli lifted her eyebrows in surprise.
    “Ayanowyn was their name,” the elf explained. “Or, in our Common Tongue, fire angels. They gave us many gifts—more, I fear, than we deserved. They not only built much of this city, they covered its buildings and streets with dazzling tiles of every color, made from the heat of their own flames.”
    He pushed some stray white hairs off his brow. “And they also gave us the gift of light. Torches flamed everywhere in Dianarra—which, to those people, meant City of Fallen Stars. Their goal, you see, was to bring the brightest of light to the darkest of realms.”
    The librarian paused, casting his gaze around the room that held uncounted volumes. “That was why they gave to Lastrael the brightest light of all. Stories. Tales from every land, even some from beyond the Seven