Chapter Fourteen: The Wheel of Fortune

She opened the door covered in flour and her hair knotted on top of her head, with a look of frustration that quickly gave way to surprise, even concern. "Orphen! My god, you look awful."

It was true he looked distinctly more frail than usual, a little drawn and pale swathed in his black clothes. The addition of dark circles under his eyes did nothing to lessen the intimidation factor he usually drug around behind him like a giant shadow, to say nothing of the impatient scowl carved on his face which only grew deeper at Stephanie's succinct statement that took the place of a greeting.

"I've heard that a lot lately," he groused, "Thanks for your concern."

"I was concerned! You left town before I could even come back to the Inn last week! What in the world were you thinking?" She wove them into the house with one hand, the other swinging the door open more fully.

Majic followed the men in, anxiety clear on his face while his Master replied irritably. "I was thinking it was better to get moving rather than lay around waiting for you to show up, I imagine."

She shut the door on the cold morning, brushing white powder off her apron with her hands fanned out. The house smelled like something baking, sweet and warm, like apples or maybe rhubarb. Majic wasn't sure what it was, but he did know it made him feel suddenly homesick and, inexplicably, a little bit lonely. He looked up to see Stephanie shaking Hartia's hand and mentioning it had been quite awhile since she'd seen him, following it up with a remark about getting flour on his black robes if she hugged him, then quite intentionally turned and threw her arms around Orphen, who patted her shoulder stiffly.

Majic couldn't help but be reminded of how Cleo would be bristling violently at such a display, paying no mind to Orphen's reaction which obviously indicated, as it always did, that he would prefer not to be touched. She released him, predictably leaving a vague pale ghost of her embrace in flour across his torso.

"And I see obviously you've made little progress since…unless you're not going after her?"

"Of course I am." he snapped, seemingly unaware that "we" may have been the more appropriate term.

Stephanie nodded at him, then gestured toward the kitchen. "If you don't mind, everyone, I need to keep an eye on the stove," she said pleasantly, herding them forward through the arched doorway into a terracotta tiled galley, surrounded by bright picture windows with open wooden shutters and a brick fireplace. The bright autumn morning shone in through the tilted slats, lighting up the room and the center-island covered in rolled out dough, flour, sliced fruits and an array of empty bowls and dirty spoons.

Majic pulled out a wooden chair to sit at the small round table beside the fire, watching how his Master hung back at the doorway uncomfortably, eyeing the homey mess on the countertops with obvious distaste.

"What are you doing?"

"Baking, stupid." Stephanie replied with a good natured grin, as she always did, elbowing past him through the door. Who knew how she'd ever put up with Orphen and his bleak pessimism for as long as she had as his partner. "What does it look like?"

He was still scowling at the mess. "A catastrophe."

"You will never make a good husband," she quipped lightly, reaching for a hand towel bunched on the countertop. "Though I'm sure that doesn't bother you."

"Not in the slightest."

"Stephanie, what are all the pies for?" Majic interjected with a fond sense of familiarity, feeling this as good a place as any to move the conversation elsewhere before Orphen became more irritable and impatient than he'd already been all morning. From the troubled expression on his face, he was ready to jump to business.

She smiled, adjusting her glasses on her nose and wiping her bangs out of her eyes with the back of her wrist. "Ah, Tim's family is coming in for the Harvest Festival. So, I thought, what better time to make use of all these apples?"

Majic eyed the pies already cooling on the counter, caramelized fruit and sugar bubbling up out of the vents neatly cut in the golden crusts. They looked incredible, which wasn't much of a shock. Vaguely he wondered if there was anything Stephanie wasn't good at. Cleo hadn't been completely unreasonable in being jealous of her, if not for that one glaring fact that would have stood between her and any man that knew about it. He'd decided long ago that she'd probably decided to keep it from Tim.

But of course, Cleo had been jealous of her for all the wrong reasons.

"Well then." Stephanie dusted off her hands with the towel and crossed her arms. "I suppose this is the part where I ask you what you're doing here instead of knocking down the doors at the Tower to help your partner."

Now Orphen's arms were crossed. "You just assume I'm doing nothing."

"Of course not…I'm merely disappointed is all. I had hoped you were doing what you do best by making trouble…"

"There's a barrier." He interrupted succinctly. "That's why I'm here."

"A barrier? Since when is that a problem?"

He was giving her a look. "One very similar to the Ailmanka Barrier."

Stephanie didn't answer right away, only seemed to cross her arms more tightly and shift her weight from one foot to the other. Finally, she blinked. "…Are you serious?"

"Do I look serious?"

"Yes."

"Then I must be serious."

Now her brow furrowed, her pies and apples and any other present company totally forgotten. "What do you mean?"

"A translucent barrier that cannot be penetrated either physically or by magical means. Too tightly woven to let anything through, except possibly oxygen…gasses that can penetrate the net. It cannot be broken with standard deconstruction magic. Could never have been cast by anyone who studied exclusively at the Tower." His arms were still folded, a print of her flour dusted embrace still clinging to his cloak and leather garments. He paused before going on. "A barrier like this is currently standing all around the perimeter of Taflem, walling off anyone from either entering or leaving the city. A similar one stands around the Monastery in Kimurak. I need you to tell me what you might know about something like that."

"A duplication of Tenjin magic? I don't know how it could be possible!"

Majic watched them. This was what had made Cleo jealous. The intensity of their information exchanges. They had a symbiotic relationship, she and Orphen. Stephanie coveted knowledge, and Orphen offered information and endless conundrums with missing pieces in exchange for the disclosure of everything else she knew on the subject. Though this exchange was of a different nature than usual: both of them were deadly serious, arms crossed defensively, both wearing identical expressions of anxiety.

"Even with all of the information available? What kind of power would be required for something like that?"

"Massive…if it's even possible, it would have to have been done by someone who had studied the Nornir extensively; a sorcerer, obviously. Someone who'd had to have had access to immense resources and knowledge, relics and materials that the scientific community doesn't know are available. And a frightening amount of energy."

"Like perhaps one of the Thirteen Angels?"

Stephanie blinked at this, her eyebrows going up. ""Well…I've never personally been able to access the Imperial library, but I have to imagine it's likely they have quite a collection of studies on the ruins and relics and texts left behind. It's not unreasonable to think they have materials that are kept closely guarded for whatever reason anything is ever kept away from the eyes of the public. But to be perfectly honest, Orphen, I can't tell you exactly what it would take…or who would be capable of creating such an impressive construct. I'm more interested in the fact, though, that if what you say is true; that not only is someone able to create such a barrier, but someone also has a way of passing through it at will."

Orphen's hand went to his forehead to push his hair back. "You're right. I hadn't even considered that…somehow…"

Stephanie backed up, expression deep in thought, and she turned towards the kitchen, catching sight of Majic and seemingly remembering her other guests. "Oh…can't I offer you all some pie? After all, I seem to have made more than I realized…Majic," she gestured to the boy fondly. "If you wouldn't mind helping me out a moment?"

While Majic agreed, and stood to help her gather plates, Orphen shot an annoyed glare at the sudden diversion, crossing over the floor to sit at the table with Hartia, whose gaze finally pulled away from the burning fire.

"So," he said in a low voice, watching Majic and Stephanie cutting into a pastry across the galley, nodding affirmation to whatever the boy had asked. "How long did you say you worked with her again?"

Orphen looked at him sidelong, not moving his head. "What?"

"Stephanie. How long did you work together?"

"I don't know. Guess it was about a year or so. What for?"

"And what were you working together on?"

"Baltanders. Stephanie is a scholar on Nornir History and Lore. I'd probably still be looking for that damned sword if she hadn't deciphered some texts documenting how that type of energy settles in sedentary materials…"

"Hmm." Harita leered at him furtively. "So you're telling me you worked with her that long and you never…"

With raised eyebrows, Orphen cut him off as sharply as was possible with his voice dropped low as it was. "Now I have told you before that when I was first working with Stephanie, before the accident, she was a he…"

Hartia looked at him blankly, the insinuative grin having dropped so quickly from his face it was a wonder it didn't clatter on the ground. "Oh. Yes."

"And you still have the sack to ask me, huh?"

He blinked vacantly then slowly, the redhead brought up his hands in a defensive gesture. "Let's just pretend I didn't say that."

"Yeah. How about that."

Hartia dropped his voice a little lower, leaning forward with his elbows on the tabletop. "I was just thinking how you've got a habit of getting rather friendly with your pretty female cohorts. Present company excluded, understand. After all, what was the name of that girl in Urban Lama, Const—huack!"

Orphen elbowed him sharply under the table, catching sight of Majic and Stephanie carrying plates toward them in his peripheral. Strangely, as had been the case for days, he just wasn't interested in eating anything. He figured it was just another symptom proving that he wasn't in great health at the moment; between the cough that attacked him at random times and the constant chest pain, eating had lost a lot of its allure when all it did usually was make him feel worse.

But he had to be thankful for their timing, arriving with slices of pie just in time to save him from having to squirm out of a conversation with Hartia about something he had always shied away from discussing with him. He would invaryingly start asking just why he'd spent so long in that hellhole of a city, seemingly just bumming around when he was supposedly on a quest to restore their "big sister".

Somehow, he'd so far avoided confiding the details of his former profession to his friend, and he intended on keeping it that way. Despite that Azalea had been returned to herself, and his unwavering allegiance to Childman had been completely explained and therefore forgiven, there was still part of him that didn't trust him entirely with certain personal information. The same part of him that remembered Hartia's eyes dropping away from his that day, in the cold rain, standing around an empty coffin as though it wasn't, refusing to acknowledge that he wasn't crazy, that Azalea was alive. That all of it was the Tower's fault, and they just wanted it covered up and hidden away.

Just for a moment, Tistiny Everlasting came to mind.

And in any case, he didn't want to talk about Coggie. Especially with Hartia, who, for as preoccupied with such subjects as he often was, understood little regarding the complications that arose between two people having that sort of relationship. Hartia read too many damned comic books, he glamorized everything as it was. It was just unfortunate Hartia had shown up in Urban Lama back then to poke around and see what he was up to. Not that they'd been particularly on friendly terms at the time, but he'd also been unable to be outright hostile to him right in front of everyone who'd been there without ruining everything he'd been working on at the time and giving himself away, when he'd been so close to completing the job. Hartia had approached him while he'd unfortunately been in the company of Constance Magee—Coggie— and her sister Bonnie, and even less fortunately, their so-called butler, that goddamned Keith Royal. If he ever saw that piece of shit again, it would be much too soon.

Luckily, they'd kept up a false friend in front in front of the others, and Hartia had snidely called him Orphen that day; saving him, probably unknowingly, from a total collapse of the shaky house of cards he'd built there in Urban Lama, almost entirely on false pretenses.

But that was over now. Only about a week later, his target fell, he vanished from Urban Lama under the cover of night, and two days later he arrived in Masmaturia a much richer man. In fact, it was that money he'd began to lend out, with interest; and his jobs from Carlen had become less of a necessity. By the time he reached Totokanta a few months later, he'd given up the business almost entirely.

Although he'd never set foot in that city since, for certainty that once the news was out, Coggie and Daian had most likely known immediately who had been responsible for the sudden death of the "Steam King".

Regardless, it became apparent that Stephanie was speaking to him again. "…any amount of speculations as to that. But when it comes to the literature on the barrier itself, which you haven't asked about, there is quite a bit. Not the least of which being, as you may find interesting, the purported method of passing through it."

He almost dropped his fork, with which he'd been absently stabbing at a piece of baked apple, and he looked up expectantly, eyebrows raised.

Stephanie smiled demurely, forking up a bit of crust. "Indeed. Without the use of sorcery, for that matter."

"What? How?"

"The Tenjin were notorious for imbuing objects with energy. Just think of the Baltanders relics. The sword itself contained a dormant magic strong enough to grossly transmogrify, the armlet could magnify sorcery exponentially. These objects indeed are more effective in the hands of a sorcerer, but even a common man could make use of them with instruction. The energy isn't reliant on the user so much as it is influenced by him."

"And you're saying an object meant to be used to break the Ailmanka barrier supposedly exists?"

"Well, not so much break it as pass through it. A stone that neutralizes the weave of restricting power within a limited radius. I imagine it could be used for any barrier. I guess you haven't been keeping up on that kind of news, though, have you?"

"What news?" Orphen frowned irritably. He didn't much care for guessing games, particularly at times like these when time was a significant factor in his mind. Although with the way everyone was sitting around eating apple pie and blathering inanely about worthless shit, one would think they had all the time in the world.

Well, he didn't.

"The worldstone," Stephanie said, pointing her fork at him. "You've really never heard of it?"

"…No."

She frowned a little, stabbing some type of berry off her plate and popping it in her mouth, her eyes seeming to linger on Orphen's untouched pie slice. "I guess being away from the Tower as long as you have by now is going to eventually start being a detriment in that area. The study wasn't published under my name, in any case…" She shrugged. "The Worldstone is one of the Tenjin relics found on the tabernacle in the Bazilkok Temple remains on the outskirts of the city last year, in the underground temple. A stone imbued with very specific, neutralizing energy. Not unlike the relics found at Baltander's Isle, I suppose…"

"But those ruins were safeguarded by the Tower."

"But the Tower was not the head rune scholar on the site of Bazilkok. According to scrolls uncovered over ten years ago, there were passages referring to just such an item. Those corresponding documents indicate that the power of the gem, translated from Nornir runes roughly to "Worldstone", is such that it can allow safe passage through the Ailmanka barrier once they had deemed it safe to pass it. By imbuing that power into a relic, one could safeguard it and ensure passage was extremely limited. I suppose we have that to thank for the mystery of what truly lies beyond the outlying islands off the coast…aside from endless ocean."

He tried not to sound impatient. "So this stone should also allow passage through this barrier that's been set up around Taflem. Just like that?"

"If it is of the same nature, as you postulate…"

"And how do you suppose I might lay my hands on something like that? I suppose it's at the University…" He covered his face with his hands for a moment, in that moment utterly exhausted. Going through learning a spell to break the barrier might have been preferable to relying on some goddamn relic he'd have to go through hell to steal or otherwise acquire.

Stephanie smiled. One might almost call it a smirk. "Ask and you shall receive."

His head jerked up. "You have access?"

"Having been the one to translate the texts relating to it, and with a background of…albeit useless…magical studies…let's just say I didn't feel safe letting it…quite out of my sight yet. Yes, it's at the University, locked up in my vault."

"Clever." Orphen watched her a moment, skeptical. "And I don't suppose you're planning on just popping over there and borrowing it, though, are you?"

"You're going to owe me something."

"As usual. What would that be?"

With a whimsical glance out the window, she made a gesture of dismissal. "Nothing in particular, I'll have to let you know when I decide. Although come to think of it, would you mind speaking to me in the library a moment?"

Blink.

Why did everyone want to speak with him in private lately? The last time someone had pulled this on him, it had not gone well. Granted, his comfort level with Stephanie was much different than it was with Cleo's mother. But he found himself inevitably reminded of the entire encounter.

Do you love her?

"Ah…alright…" He watched her stand and untie her apron, draping it across the back of her chair.

She patted Majic's blonde head. "Help yourself to another piece if you like."

Majic nodded up at her with bright eyes, his thank-you muffled by a mouth full of apple and crust. You'd think the kid hadn't eaten for a week.

Orphen followed her through the door to the book lined parlor, and she closed the door behind her, turning to him as he dropped into a leather chair that sighed under his weight.

"You don't want to talk about what you want in return in front of the others?" he inquired acidly. It was peculiar Stephanie of all people request to speak in private. "What could it possibly be…?"

"No, no. I want to know what's going on. I mean what's really going on."

He slowly raised an eyebrow at her, hands limp on the armrests. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Are you sick?"

"Huh? Not…not really. What are you talking about?" He figured the answer to that really depended on someone's definition of 'sick'.

"Orphen. I just cut you a slice of fresh apple pie and you haven't touched it at all. What's the matter with you? Don't think I don't know you enough that I don't notice when you're not well."

Christ. Was he really that much of a pig? Sure, it wasn't a big secret that he enjoyed eating. Like anything, there was a reason for that. He just hated being hungry. It reminded him of…bad things.

He shrugged petulantly. "Is that it? You wanted to grill me for that?"

"Yes. You're not giving me the whole story, are you?"

"Well, if you want to be overly literal about it, you've just assumed you knew the whole story since I walked in the door."

Stephanie leaned on the door with a sheepish nod. "I'm sorry. You know me. So there is something I'm missing?"

"Not especially. You know what happened. I've been doing what I can, but we've been hitting roadblocks everywhere we turn, which I guess isn't surprising. I've been all over this bloody continent in the last week trying to find something to go on. Since running up against that barrier, anyway. But I only realized what that thing reminded me of last night…"

"Laying awake all night, no doubt," she interrupted. "I wasn't kidding. You do look terrible."

"Oh good, I was worried you weren't being honest with me. Should I expect to?"

"In fact, I'm a little surprised. From what I remember of the last time you were all here, I would have almost expected you'd be glad to be rid of her. I seem to recall she ran off and you could've cared less. "

She didn't miss the guilty look that comment inspired, even as he looked away out the window. He remembered. He had cared, actually. More than he'd wanted to. But there was no reason to discuss it now.

"Orphen." She prompted him. Apparently she thought that warranted an answer somehow.

"Yeah, well. Things change. How could anybody just…? I don't even know what they want with her. It's unsettling…and no one we've asked has heard a thing about the Church detaining anyone. It gives me a bad feeling. I don't want to be responsible…"

"Hmm. I see. It is quite a potential fate to leave someone to. Even someone you can't get along with."

He kept looking out the window, at the gathering clouds and the morning sky. He didn't respond to that right away either.

"You don't really think I would do that, do you?" Not like he cared what she thought. He didn't know why he asked.

She shook her head. "No, I'm just giving you a hard time. I'm just concerned. You don't seem yourself. Call me crazy, but I get the feeling you're shouldering a lot of blame for this that you have no reason to…as usual, you arrogant—"

"You've got to be kidding. They didn't even come to Everlasting Manor looking for her. They came straight to me. If they hadn't found me, they would've passed over her entirely…"

Stephanie folded her arms. "Sorry, Orphen. I know you're not big on politics but the fact is that there's no way the Kimurak Church would have 'passed over' someone from the Everlasting house after that debacle a few years ago."

That got his attention. "What are you talking about?"

"Uh, the assassination of Margrave Everlasting," she said, as though he was a fool for not knowing. "You know, Cleo's father. I can't believe you don't remember that! What were you doing about four years ago?"

Orphen thought about it. He hadn't been doing anything that allowed him the leisure to have any idea what kind of political firestorm had been going on at the time. If it didn't affect him and it wasn't involving the Tower, it wasn't an issue. Although if it had been an assassination, he was just glad to be sure it hadn't been his work. All the jobs assigned to him were of a more…messy…nature, and he didn't recall ever offing any Parliament Lords. But of course, it would be just his luck…

Stephanie didn't wait for an answer and went on, taking a seat in the other seat across from him, turning up a low-burning table lamp with a stained glass shade, lighting the slowly darkening room with a vague amber glow. "There was a huge campaign to elect him to Parliament, big accusations flew about the Government being overrun with Kimurakists in the House of Lords and their supposed opposition to secular candidates. Everything, of course, was completely denied. Then he was elected, and things died down for awhile. It was barely a year later that Everlasting suddenly was deathly ill practically overnight, and then dead the next day. It was all over the papers. Allegations about murder and assassination, political conspiracies, you know. Whether it was supposed to be revenge for bringing bad press to the Church or the Parliament just weeding out undesirables…it just made it seem even more like the Church wasn't about to let its stranglehold on the Court and Parliament loosen any time soon. That was all denied too, obviously. But whether you buy it or not, you have to know the Church and whoever is holding the reins there knows everything about the Everlasting house. If they were making a list of aristocratic young women, I should think they'd make a little extra effort in obtaining someone of that name that had already caused so much trouble for them."

Just for the record, he agreed with that assessment wholeheartedly. He just felt a little too numb at all that new information to say anything just yet. He gave a distracted nod.

"Wow. What's going on with you?"

He looked up, a hand resting against his chest to press against a sudden thorn of pain there. "Uh?"

She looked genuinely concerned, leaning forward as though she were about to check his temperature, and he leaned back to counter that movement. "….do you need to lie down? I more than expected you to argue with me about it."

"Why?"

"Because you're you, that's why! It couldn't possibly be that you agree with me? That maybe they didn't come after her because of you."

"Maybe they didn't." No. No, if what Stephanie said was true (and why wouldn't it be), obviously they hadn't. But somehow, it didn't make him feel better at all. He looked at her vacantly. "But, knowing that…now I'm wondering about…why it seems like no one has heard a thing about the Church's detainments…"

A beat of silence followed before Stephanie gravely gave words to the uncomfortable but most probable conclusion.

"You don't think she's the only one…do you?"

Cold anxiety was gathering in him like a building thundercloud. "Why would Tish have made it sound…"

Stephanie shrugged. "To make it easier to let her go?"

He almost laughed at that, his hand pressing harder against the ache in his chest, the throbbing phantom of the gunshot wound that was a perfect illustration of just how easy it had been to let her go. "Yeah right. Try again."

"I don't know…it's just a guess. The Nobility hasn't made any noise about it, but then, you haven't been asking just anyone about it, if I know you. Though if the Church detained the daughters of their own members for safety reasons, I can't imagine why they would take exception to it or even discuss it."

"Then why only the daughters? I don't get it. And…why force…" Orphen turned his face to the window again, where the sky had started to blanch beneath a mass of dove gray cloud cover. His chest, mostly healed as it was, was killing him; the pressure and cold, almost liquid-like pain was beginning to affect his breathing, and the anxiety wasn't helping. He learned back in the chair, sliding down a little and inhaling slowly before turning his eyes back to his old partner.

"…Stephanie…when can you get me that stone?"

"Tonight. Too many explanations to make if I went now. And besides," she said, standing up from her chair. "If you don't lie down and rest until tonight, I'm not going to lend it to you at all."

He scoffed at that, making to stand up, but she shoved him back down into the chair by the shoulder; and his hands came up defensively. "What the hell?"

"What do you plan to do otherwise? Continue on bleeding yourself dry so that if something happens…when something happens and you have to fight…you'll be completely ineffectual? You want to see how it feels to get your friends killed because you were too caught up in punishing yourself? Or maybe you just want to run yourself so dry your energy never recovers?" Her voice rose at the end. She was serious now, her face creased with unexpected and rare anger.

After all. It was the same thing that had happened to her. More or less, save the life-altering accident that followed because of it.

"I know how you don't feel like anybody can take your strength from you, Orphen, but a loss it would be. How useless would you feel then? How helpless would you feel if you lost that? Would it be worth it to you?"

He couldn't look at her. Feeling like a child, he kept his eyes on the floor. "Do you feel useless?"

"No one can understand what it feels like to lose that kind of capability," she almost sounded like she might cry. "I put so much energy into studying…I didn't value my magic because it had always been there. And when it was gone…I lost myself. In so many ways. I was reckless. And you're worse than I was. It's a miracle you've gotten this far in life, the way you're always…throwing yourself into things like this. You think you feel responsible now? Just wait and see how it feels when you fail because you didn't value your own health enough for you to make it out the other side of this in one piece. Cleo would be furious at you."

At that name, his eyes involuntarily jumped up to hers a moment before dropping back down to the floor, and Stephanie's eyebrows rose over her glasses. "Ohhh…wait a minute. You're not…"

"No, no, not you too, don't even start," he said, raking a hand through his hair with a jerking motion of frustration and standing up, this time without being forced back. He walked to a book lined wall and leaned on the shelf with both hands, glowering angrily at the titles on the cracked canvas and leather spines of books that looked like someone was supposed to read them. Had read them. Would read them again. Not the decorative artpieces they were in the Everlasting house. None of that porcelain, no-touching perfection he just couldn't stand.

It seemed she may have smiled, though her face wore a vague pinch of distress. She followed him to the bookshelf and walked along it silently a moment, before extracting a black bound text.

"Why don't you sit and make yourself useful for a few hours, at least? Have some tea. My research report on the Worldstone is bound on the desk over there if you're so inclined. Or you can start at the beginning here." Here she thrust the dusty black tome into his hands.

"Either way, I'm not going to be able to get into the vault easily until at least nightfall so you're stuck here." She opened the library door with her brow still vaguely furrowed, and looked back over her shoulder, past him and out the window. "And it's probably all the better that you stay inside. The Kimurak Church may not be terribly popular here, but it's best you don't bring any attention to yourself by reminding everyone about the spectacle you created last week in the middle of town. Who knows what kind of trouble could arise. Besides. It looks like rain."

She turned and left, closing the double doors behind her and leaving him in the whirring mechanisms of his own mind. Only after a few moments did he look down at the volume in his hands. In flaking silver embossed letters, the cover read:

Sacred Gospel of the Kimurak Conclave in Five Books:

The Memory of Paradise.

The Book of Exile.

The Book of Solitude.

The Rosemead Divinity.

The Arcana.

It was three cups of tea, twice turning up the wick on the stained-glass oil lamp, and one impromptu face-down nap on the desk later that he awoke, disoriented, his breath condensing warm and wet on the table top, his neck cramped down like a yoked oxen, the sound of raindrops clicking on the library window glass.

He rose a hand to his face, pushing his palms against his eyes to clear out the vague images from sleep. If he'd dreamed, he didn't remember what about, which suited him fine.

Before resting his eyes for a minute that had turned into forty-five, he'd made it to the middle of the Book of Exile before all of it started getting jumbled up in his brain. He just didn't understand half of it. How people remembered enough Scripture to quote; how people kept it all straight in their head, he had no idea. All the names and dates and lineage and who begat who…it didn't seem they'd have enough room to remember their own name.

The old language used and the tiny print had given him a headache, a pinched feeling behind his eyes that made it more difficult to blink the sleep away and focus. The book was open on the table in front of him, the columns of tiny black print all looking like crawling black ants shivering on the yellowing pages.

He squeezed his eyes shut a moment. If he'd learned anything, he didn't know. At least he was killing time.

And where had he left off?

Squinting down at the pages, he drug his fingers down the paper, paging through randomly, still half immersed in a dream he couldn't remember.

"In the Kimurak Scriptures…I've read them of course; the final chapter, the Arcana, covers the circumstances and perils under which the true believers will one day return to the Giant's Continent to sit at the feet of the Gods. I wanted to ask, how could they do that with the barrier in tact?"

Komikron. He'd dreamed of it only last night. The suck up in his stupid ass braids. They were great friends. He wouldn't mind a little advice from him about now. Komikron would set him straight. Maybe he'd walk down into the lab, and see if he was still awake.

Krylancelo blinked rapidly. What time was it? Where…was he?

Wait. Waitwaitwait.

He pressed on his eye with the heel of his hand, feeling the pain in his head spike with every beat of his heart. No. None of that. None of that right now.

He didn't have time for that right now. Focus. Why was he reading this? He couldn't remember.

No, no. Komikron was dead. He hadn't seen Korgon for years. Childman was dead.

Hartia, who was still alive, was napping in the front room. Stephanie's front room. That's right. Majic was reading.

Majic? Who was that? He clutched his head.

Majic Lin. His apprentice. Focus. Focus on something. Pull yourself together.

Why was he reading this? He paged through it more quickly. What had Komikron said? The Final Chapter? The Arcana? He flipped to the end of the book with a growing sense of urgency.

It was starting to clear up a little. The Kimurak Church. The attack on Meverlenst. The death of the Emperor.

And Cleo. Cleo Everlasting. His…

His what? What was she? His…was she his lover?

Was that right? It didn't seem right. It seemed like she hated him, right? And he hated her.

Right?

…No, that was wrong. It was the other way around. She…

He reached over, snatched up his empty teacup, and crushed it in his hand; the china clinking duly against itself and biting into his palm. He squeezed the shards in his fist, focusing intently on that burning hot pinpoint of pain as the sharp edges sunk into his flesh.

This had worked before. It brought his brain out of that narcotic fog, where he couldn't quite remember where the line was that distinguished Krylancelo Finrandi from Orphen. The past from the present.

If there really was one.

He hadn't felt like that for awhile, and he knew how bad it could get. He'd had to bring himself out of it before he started to panic. He blinked hard, inhaled slowly, squeezing his eyes shut, the smoke in his mind clearing as though in a sharp gust of wind, and he slowly, shakingly dropped the bloody shards of teacup in the spotted saucer. Turning his hand in the lamplight to look at the seeping rents carved in his palm, he brought it closer to his face to inspect them as blood dripped over the edge of his thumb, a single garnet drop hitting the middle of the page of the open scripture, and he swiped it up quickly with the tip of his finger.

Under the small red circle left by the droplet, in tiny print on the thin paper was the word "daughter". This, under the circumstances, caught his interest.

The sentence was "She will be the prodigal daughter of a fallen lord, and thou wilst not know her from another until her designs against us are laden heavy with fruit."

Orphen closed his eyes, closing his bleeding hand into a fist, then opened them again, and read the entire, blood spotted passage.

"But hearken! A dissenter is upon us! She will be the prodigal daughter of a fallen lord, and thou wilst not know her from another until her designs against us are laden heavy with fruit. These are the times of darkness, of sacrifice! Will we not do as our fathers' fathers ordained we must? The land of harmony beckons from beyond the seal, and it thus is written that for the salvation of man, to conquer this undeniable menace, the kindred of all lords shall lend their daughters to the hands of the Gods of the Giant's Continent to tilt to their lips the chalice of hemlock to vouchsafe the safe passage of all."

For a long second, he forgot to breathe.

It…

It couldn't be the answer. He'd just fallen upon this passage by mistake. Out of context. It was…just unthinkable. No one would allow…their own daughters…for such a…no…this couldn't be what they had in mind.

He propped up his head in his left hand, leaning over the book, right hand fisted tight and oozing bright blood on the desktop. Another droplet hit the pages of the Arcana, this one clear instead of red. With his good hand, he reached up and wiped at the corner of his eye with a furious swipe.

Goddamnit, no. Just no. Fucking no.

It couldn't be that these people were so blinded by this insane belief that they would surrender their daughters into the hands of their Church, willingly, to allow them to be ritually poisoned. To vouchsafe the safe passage of all.

It couldn't be that they'd gone so far out of their way to ensure they hadn't missed a single one…in case she was the dissenter who would ruin everything.

Ruin their return to paradise. Their home at the feet of the Gods.

Of all the sick…twisted...

Could that be what the Church was doing? Preparing for their exodus past the Ailmanka barrier and into the unknown beyond?

And if they could cast such a barrier; surely they could tear one down.

Biting back a curse, he put his head down on the desk, dizzy, and pushed his face into the crook of his bent arm. His chest and hand throbbed, the twinge in his skull spiking with each quick heatbeat, fighting back a decidedly violent response to all the stress and the shock and the feeling of absolute helplessness.

Fighting back tears. Clenching his teeth. Quaking with rage. He wanted to scream.

And that was just how Majic found him.