SOLVED. YA Fantasy. Scribe finds map quest magic castle with blue people. [s]

[hrimcealde]

This was an ebook I read on kindle between 2013 and 2017. It was on Kindle unlimited, but I cannot locate it through the thousands I have read. The main character was perhaps an older teen or at the most in his early 20s. I want to say he was a poor orphan with no memory of his parents or knowledge of them and had happily become an apprentice at this huge library with lots of scrolls. There may have been a rule about who could access the scrolls? And there was a lot of running scrolls around to different scholars. He was quietly working on something on the side, and found maybe a map or a description of how to get to some long lost place, maybe an abandoned city where a kingdom had disappeared. He gets sent on an expedition to find this city. There’s something they can get from the city that might help with a war or something like that. I think there’s a dessert crossing.

Spoilers





They find the. City and it’s not quite abandoned. There’s magic in the city and maybe the children of the dead king and queen are still there and they are blue. Like head to toe blue skin. There’s some mind-bending quality to the place and the book ends with someone (maybe the young man) staying behind to teach the feral royals or to stay with them. He may have discovered powers of his own and I think he had some sort of connection to the city. It may be in two POV, with the scribe or librarian one and the blue princess may have been another, so the timelines eventually merge. I think the boy is crazy somehow and there’s something about a wall they try to get through. Maybe they can’t die? But they keep trying to kill themselves and/or escape. I’m not sure about the dying part, but I feel like they are trapped there and they’ve had to learn to survive- but the castle may magically provide them with food? The king was crazy and I think there was a nursery filled with little blue children but someone slaughtered most of the children and only these two survived because a nursemaid hid them.

[Emilie]

Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor

[hrimcealde]

That’s it! Thank you!

[Kris]

Glad you found your book, Lauren. Here's the link for Emilie's find - Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor.