I reincarnated as an elf .......and married the yandere villainess.-Chapter 76:Library.

The corridors they were walking through were totally unfamiliar to Atheline. Servants hurried by each bowing before them and scrambling away as usual.

"This isn’t the way to the library is it?" He asked.

They were going further down than usual. The library he had visited was large but it was almost on the top floor of the palace.

Lilith who was holding his hand shook her head.

"It’s the way to the inner library, " she answered, " the one you’ve been going to is just the surface library where we keep excess books."

Atheline nodded. This place was just getting more and more complicated.

Building a castle in a mountain while maintaining the structure and the architecture seems like a hard job.

But they had done it so effortlessly and managed to make it more confusing.

"About the palace map I ask you about," she looked at him," can I get one, you’ve been avoiding the question but I can’t move around blindly. "

"I’ll give it to you, but if you want to go anywhere you can ask my shadows. "

’So that’s another no. Just what I’m supposed to do to get her to loosen her hold’

Atheline nodded. Eventually, a huge open door came into view. Atheline recognised the library immediately from the smell of the books coming from there.

"This is larger than I had expected, " he said the moment they entered the library.

The library was surprisingly normal despite how large it was. It made the high elven library feel a tab bit dramatic.

Rows of shelves lined the rooms arranged by category. Ladders leaned against the higher sections with one or two dark elves sitting on them.

Desks were arranged around the rows but most were organised next to the windows facing the other mountains.

A few dark elves were sitting on them barely glancing up despite the sound of Lilith’s heels on the floor.

Atheline blinked.

"I was expecting something more... intense."

Lilith gave him a flat look.

"This is not a battlefield. It is a place of study."

Atheline shrugged.

’With how dramatically you’re all portrayed you can’t blame me for assuming the worst’

An older man stepped forward a few moments later.

"Welcome your majesty... your highness. "

He bowed just a little bit to show his respect. The man was tall, gaunt and his skin was a deeper shade of grey than the normal elves.

The tattoos on his body seemed to take up every part of his skin, even the side of his face unlike Lilith, who had some around her neck and hands.

His hair was long silver grey, tied loosely at his back. His blue eyes carried age and wisdom that Atheline always saw in his grandfather.

"You seem to grow older every day, Klaith," Lilith said in amusement then turned to Atheline, " as I told you before he is the librarian and keeper of the records here."

Atheline nodded.

"I see you’ve brought our next king for a visit," the man said.

Atheline was a little surprised. He had not expected the words to come out so easily.

Lilith smiled.

"Yes, I want him to learn and you’re the best teacher."

Klaith nodded and turned. He started to walk towards the massive shelf with both of them following behind him.

"This is the central royal archive," he explained almost proudly, "not everything is public, but what you see here is what every noble is expected to learn and understand."

He stopped by one of the shelves and pulled out an old black-covered book.

"Start here."

He handed it to Atheline. Atheline took it feeling its heavy weight in his hands. If he could estimate, it was probably more than a thousand pages.

"Pre-Fall histories: The dark accords"

Atheline opened it casually and flipped through a few pages. His eyes moved over as he hurriedly read through the few pages he had flipped.

He paused and turned to Lilith.

"This isn’t what we were taught."

Klaith crossed his arms.

"Of course it isn’t. "

Atheline hurriedly walked to one of the tables and leaned onto it as he started to read carefully now.

Lilith followed him and took the seat next to where he was standing and leaned against him. Her hand absentmindedly started to play with the buttons on his robes.

"The high elves’ records say the dark elves were exiled because you were practicing forbidden spells and overusing the Aether past the normal threshold..."

He looked up at Klaith.

"This says you left voluntarily."

"Yes."

Lilith answered pulling his attention back to her.

Atheline frowned as he continued reading.

"You negotiated something called the Dark Accords...."

Klaith nodded." An agreement between high elven councillors and our own council at that time."

"What kind of agreement?"

Lilith touched the edge of the book pulling it down to her level. Atheline adjusted the book so that she could see properly.

"Here," she said while pointing at the page he was reading.

Klaith continued.

"Mutual separation. We leave the main forest and they stop interfering with our development."

Atheline nodded, he understood their point of view.

"High elves can be a bit too much to live amicably with."

’Even the wood elves must have left to establish themselves’

Lilith leaned closer to him.

"They wanted to mainly contain us," Lilith said a small mocking laugh escaping her," we saw it as freedom."

Atheline flipped through the book more.

"The reason listed here isn’t just our different Aether."

"No," Klaith answered, "it never was. The whole world depends on the world tree and each of us has a different Aether that has been set since the beginning." 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

Atheline read aloud almost to himself. Their histories were so jumbled up. Learning something new both excited and confused him.

"Philosophical divergence regarding emotional expressions, power acquisition and social hierarchy..."

Atheline looked up as understanding flashed behind his eyes.

".... you left because your values are too different."

"Yes."

Klaith didn’t sugarcoat. Atheline nodded. In the elven records, it only said they had different aethers and couldn’t understand or align with each other.

All the blame was placed on the dark elves.

At that moment, Lilith chimed in.

"They believed in restraint, we did not."

Atheline acquainted.

’That makes sense, I’m the best prime example of training in control’

The room fell silent, and only the sounds of books opening in the background from the other elves came.

Atheline closed the book halfway, thinking.

"So the whole, dark elves are corrupted narrative is...?"

"Convenient for them," Klaith finished.

"That sounds exactly like high elves, " Atheline said.

’How am I even supposed to defend my own race when they’re exactly like that, most of them at least.’