Fire Emblem Fan Fiction ❯ Fire Emblem Tellius Saga: Book 1 ❯ CHAPTER 27: BEGNION ( Chapter 27 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

The mercenaries were escorted by carriage inland to the capital city. The distance was long, but the journey was made quicker by the wide, paved roads and imperial carts. Their drivers hardly seemed to sleep, and when their horses tired, they could exchange them for fresh ones at any stable. The mercenaries slept inside the carriages, which only stopped a handful of times each day. At this pace, they reached Sienne in just five days.

When they finally arrived, Soren’s carriage-mates (Oscar, Boyd, and Rolf) stared out the windows in awe, and although he didn’t crane to see, he was admittedly impressed. They’d passed through several towns on their way here, but none compared to Sienne. This was the ancient city of temples. No building was plain or small, but each grander and more magnificent than the last. Many of these cathedrals were the homes of the ‘Sainted’: the richest families of Begnion. The skyline was jagged with ornamental tiers and spires of varying designs, the tallest of which was the Tower of Guidance. The golden monolith had stood at the center of this city since time immemorial, and its peak was only ever seen on cloudless days.

The tower was supposedly the seat of Ashera’s power in the mortal world. Thousands made pilgrimages to it each year, although none but the Apostle was allowed to enter. But Soren was not a religious person, and the only awe the tower inspired in him was respect for the engineers who must have built it eons ago. He turned his attention to the second largest edifice in Sienne: the Temple Mainal, home of the empress and hall of the senate.

However, Soren wasn’t interested in Sanki’s family home nor the rule of Begnion; he was more concerned with the Mainal Cathedral, which was a more modest-looking wing (by Siennese standards) extending from the side of Temple Mainal like an awkward growth. Beneath the cathedral were the catacombs: the ancient archives of Begnion and the largest collection of knowledge in all of Tellius. Surely there Soren would find his answer, whatever it may be.

 

Ike, Elincia, Titania, and Nasir rode in the lead carriage, so they were the first to disembark. Soren and the moss-headed brothers were in the second carriage, and he tried to see what was happening through the window. The person greeting them was not the empress but some bejeweled older fellow. He bowed stiffly to Elincia, who curtsied. Then they were shown into the mansion

Servants carried their things from the carriage, and then it moved on. Soren’s carriage jostled forward, and finally he and the others could disembark as well. Ike, Elincia, Titania, and Nasir were nowhere to be seen, and Soren was a little miffed at being left out. No servants were present to help them, so Soren, Oscar, Boyd, and Rolf had to carry their own bags. No one complained.

“Wait here,” ordered a man in red armor. They waited until one carriage after the next dumped mercenaries onto the mansion’s front steps. Finally, the two merchant wagons trundled up, pulling four horses, one pegasus, and one wyvern by lead ropes. Oscar and Kieran jogged over to croon over their steeds (with Oscar doing double duty for Titania’s). Marcia pranced in circles with her pegasus, Jill scratched her beast’s scaly neck, and finally the new girl—Astrid Baum—walked over to lay her cheek against her sorrel mare’s.

Soren had nearly forgotten about the recruit. She was a noblewoman who’d fought beside them on the Begnion ship. When the battle had ended, Gatrie had crossed the gangplank over to Nasir’s ship as Soren had predicted he would. Unexpectedly however, Astrid had walked behind him, leading her nervous horse over the plank and sea below.

Soren had asked Ike about it, and he’d merely laughed and said Gatrie and Astrid came as a package deal. Both wanted to join (or in Gatrie’s case, rejoin) the Greil Mercenaries, so Ike had welcomed them. “Of course you did,” Soren had replied with a shake of his head. Gatrie’s previous lack of loyalty had apparently slipped Ike’s mind, and the possibility that Astrid was a Begnion spy had probably not entered his mind at all. But Soren hadn’t pointed these things out; he knew Ike would just ignore him.

He shook away the memory when the soldier finally showed them inside. “Follow me!” he barked, pivoting and marching up the stairs like a stiff-limbed toy. Other soldiers took the ropes from Oscar, Kieran, Astrid, and Marcia (and a long chain from Jill, which the guard grasped uneasily). Then another two began directing the wagons into the mansion’s enormous carriage house. Soren followed the toy soldier as ordered, and the mercenaries entered the grand entrance hall.

Everything sparkled so much Soren had to squint. “Welcome to the house of Lord Herring,” the soldier announced. “I have been told to inform you that rooms are being prepared in Temple Mainal, but you will be lodged here until such a time as these preparations are complete.”

“And where is this ‘Lord Herring’? Are we not going to meet our host?” Soren asked in annoyance.

“The Lord is escorting the alleged Crimean princess to meet with the Apostle,” the soldier answered. “You will remain in the mansion until such a time as they return. Then you will be free to move about the city, with a sunset curfew, as you’ll understand.”

There were some murmurs of disappointment, but without Ike or Titania to guide and inspire them, the mercenaries were meek. No one spoke up. Soren was the most senior officer here, but he knew no one looked to him for direction. So he didn’t argue either.

The soldier then showed them to their quarters. They were boarded four to a room just as with the carriages. Soren longed for privacy again. 

 

Two days passed, and Ike, Elincia, Titania, and Nasir spent the majority of each day meeting with Sanaki and her court. From Ike’s nightly rants, Soren knew these sessions were a frustrating exercise in etiquette and interrogation. Ike wasn’t patient enough for either.

Although he was exempt from these meetings, Soren had his own difficulty adjusting to Siennese society. For one, the people were insufferable. Begnion’s elite were simply rich; there was nothing sacred or blessed about these ‘Sainted’. Even the city’s legions of priests were nothing but corrupt gluttons and hedonists. As for the poor and oppressed—the servants who made such a city possible—the Sainted had had centuries to perfect the art of hiding them. What they couldn’t hide, they spattered with glitter and silk.

Soren attuned his eye to these things, looking for the cracks, the details that revealed the ancient city’s seedy underbelly. He was satisfied with what he found and content to hate these pompous doll-men and their frivolous games of wealth and politics. It felt good to spite their riches and their beautiful things, their large empty halls and fair-weather friends, the bottomless pits in their hearts and their ever-expanding appetites.

But even hate could turn to boredom, and that was what Soren came to feel most of all. So he tried to distract himself by perfecting his plan to gain entrance to the catacombs. The archives were not exactly open to poor mercenaries serving questionable princesses from lesser nations, and although he might have asked Ike to request special permission, Soren didn’t want anyone to know what he was researching. Of course he could fashion a lie—claim to be looking for useful information on Daein—but then an imperial librarian would likely be assigned to him. He couldn’t guarantee his true research would remain secret. No, it was better to cover his tracks, move in darkness, alert no witnesses, and accrue no suspicion.

His advantage was that the Sainted didn’t safeguard their hoard of knowledge with the same fervor they guarded their jewels; the Mainal Cathedral was minimally guarded. His disadvantage was that the mercenaries were currently being watched more closely than the catacombs’ entrance. They were spied on constantly and forbidden from leaving after sunset.

Soren had reason to believe both Volke and Sothe were slipping away regularly. But he didn’t have their skills and was not about to ask for their help. If anything, they posed another threat—four more watchful eyes to avoid.

 

Their move to Temple Mainal was imminent, and once it happened, surveillance would only become stricter. Unable to wait and plan any longer, Soren had to set his plan in motion. He began in the early evening, when the servants were starting dinner. As soon as they’d begun prepping the kitchen, Soren tiptoed through a narrow service corridor, at the end of which he waited and watched. The servants dumped fresh coals between the grates, opened the chimney flues, and began chopping onions and garlic while gossiping and trading jokes. Around this time each day, Kieran and Oscar came to talk with them. Kieran flirted with the girls and entranced the boys with stories, while Oscar traded recipes with the older folk.

Soren could tell the servants were waiting for them, and he waited too. After a few minutes, they finally arrived, knocking on the double doors to announce themselves. A young woman giggled and ran to open them. Everyone crowded around a table by the small woodstove, and an older woman offered to start tea as if the thought had just occurred to her (but the leaves were already on the counter).

Now that they were distracted, Soren scurried out of his hiding place as quietly as he could. He slowly turned each of the levers controlling the flues, and he was glad the axles were well-greased so they didn’t squeak. With the chimneys closed, smoke would fill the kitchen, but Soren would help it along a bit. He extracted the three burlap sacks loosely filled with pine twigs he’d collected earlier today. Flattening these, he slid one in each oven, between the coals and the air intake.

He scurried back to his hiding place just as the eldest servant began her nightly ritual of shooing Kieran and Oscar away so they could work. This would take several minutes, so Soren knew he had time. The mercenaries would insist they stay a little while longer, and the younger servants would whine and beg they be allowed to.

Soren grabbed a red apple off of a pyramid of them and slipped away. If he’d been seen, or were to be seen during the next step in his plan, the apple core would be his alibi. He’d slipped in to steal a snack; no harm done.

Hidden behind a crate in the corridor, Soren waited for the cooks to begin laying strips of meat, stuffed vegetables, and whole chickens on the grates. Now was time for the second part of his plan. With a simple spell, he turned up the heat one oven at a time: “*Spirits of flame, alight. Spirits of flame, alight. Spirits of flame, alight!*”         

The fires flared, and the servants began shouting and leaping into action. At first, they beat at the fire with their aprons, but soon they were forced to retreat. Their lord’s nightly feast may have been burning, but it was also making an undue among of smoke. The servants choked, coughed, and ran out of the kitchen.

Now it was time for a wind spell. “*Fly, spirits of wind!*” he whispered, despite his stinging eyes and throat. The gust pushed the smoke through the doors and into the hall. He then uttered the spell a second time for good measure.

By now smoke was billowing into the halls, and Soren could only assume the servants’ screams had drawn the attention of the whole manse. He slipped through the service corridor into a main hallway, joining the curious mercenaries and panicked soldiers.

Everyone was coughing, and the guards were calling for an evacuation, telling people to wait outside until they found the source of the smoke and dealt with it. The mercenaries poured into the cool night air, obviously gleeful to be allowed out in the forbidden night. The city was dazzling, cast in a multicolored glow.

“Let’s go!” Aimee laughed, pulling Ilyana’s arm. “The city at night! I nearly forgot its beauty. What splendors will it hold?” Ilyana looked hesitant but with a nervous glance at the front gate, she obeyed the merchant’s tugging.

“Gosh, it’ll take ages to clear out all that smoke,” Mia complained.

“Let’s hope the fire is no danger,” Titania said, her arms folded. “I wonder what could have happened?”

“I guess that means no dinner tonight?” Boyd grumbled.

“You know, I thought I saw a nice-looking restaurant just a couple blocks from here,” Brom said, rubbing his chin. “I’ve always wanted to try big city cuisine.”

Gatrie threw an arm around each man’s shoulders. “Then what are we waiting around here for? The fates have spoken. Tonight, we treat ourselves!” He laughed with his mouth exaggeratedly wide.

Soren didn’t stick around to hear any more. As he’d hoped, the trifles of his comrades would be his cover. With just a little chaos, Soren had diverted eyes and created opportunity. Now he could disappear.

He ran down streets and forgotten alleys. He even crossed underground into the waste-filled tunnel system. The poor folk used it to navigate between the homes and business they served, as well as enter and exit the city each day. Such were they able to return to their hovels on the outskirts without marring the sparkling streets with their presence.

The tunnels were warm and damp, but aboveground, the air was cool. The night sky was clear, and yet the stars seemed muted and fewer compared to the lights of the city. Narrow streets with high stone walls cast him in shadow, while overhead shone the eerie colors of candlelight filtered through stained glass windows.

The silence of the night was broken by the tinkle of distant fountains and the sound of people guffawing in restaurants and gambling houses. Music played from the occasional mansion—either a single nobleman’s daughter practicing her flute, or an entire orchestra someone had hired to show off their wealth. Soren even passed a theater from which arose applause so loud, it seemed the circular building had somehow harnessed a waterfall.

Soren, however, flitted noiselessly down the paths he’d memorized. Finally, he reached the Mainal Cathedral. Two guards slouched near the entrance to the catacombs, each standing in front of a torch bracketed to the wall. These cast spheres of warm light and made the guards’ shadows long.

One was muttering groggily to his companion, who yawned loudly in reply. He had his helmet tipped over his eyes and his arms folded. Soren had concocted several strategies with which he might approach the puzzle before him, so he began by testing the waters. Picking up a rock, he tossed it into a nearby alley. It clattered, echoing strangely before landing in a puddle.

“Someone there?” the mutterer asked in a raised voice, but he didn’t move from his post to investigate. The sleeper didn’t even lift his helmet.

Soren tried a different tactic. He withdrew his tome and whispered the same fire spell he’d used in the kitchens. The torch behind the sleeper suddenly flared. This got the mutterer’s attention, and he leapt away in fright. “Behind you!” he called, and the sleeper lurched awkwardly from the wall.

“Is it a bug?” he warbled, waving his arms.

Soren had released the spell almost immediately, so the fire had returned to normal. The mutterer approached the torch and tapped its handle a couple times, causing a cascade of sparks. “Not a bug. The torch got real bright.”

The sleeper yawned. “You imagining things again?”

Satisfied that playing with the torches would be the right approach, Soren proceeded with his plan to break the lock. Focusing his mind, Soren recalled the time when casting small wind spells with pin-point accuracy had been the staple of his survival. So much had changed in the past four years, but he’d never neglected practicing this skill. Bringing his fingers together and focusing his mind, Soren whispered the incantation slowly and carefully, feeling as if he were pushing the magic through a narrow hole. Then he delivered the spell with as much force as he could muster.

The lance of wind sliced through the air from him to the double doors, hitting the center where they touched, and cutting through the lock’s internal mechanism. Soren thought he heard a small clunk as the metal holdings fell to the floor inside. The wooden doors gave only the slightest shake from the infiltration.

It was no more than if a slight breeze had pushed them, but that didn’t mean the guards hadn’t noticed. “Did you see that!” the mutterer yelped.

“See what?” the sleeper groaned.

“I think it was a ghost! It rushed right at me! You know what they say about the catacombs, right?”

The sleeper sighed. “You’re letting your imagination get the better of you. Nothing down there but dusty old books.”

Soren went back to the torches. Uttering the fire spell twice in rapid succession, he made both torches flare and held the flames high for several seconds.

The mutterer moaned as if resigned to death by an unruly spirit and edged closer to his companion. The sleeper, meanwhile, righted his helmet and stared in confusion. After holding the spells for a few seconds, Soren released them. The flames returned to normal.

“Now you had to see that, didn’t you!” the mutterer cried.

“Must be something wonky with the oil they use,” the sleeper shrugged.

Soren flipped to the section of his tome that still contained a few dousing spells. He uttered one and managed to make both torches flicker out.

The mutterer yelped, and Soren ran as swiftly and silently as he could. In black clothes and padded shoes, he darted past the guards. Until their eyes adjusted, the night would be totally dark to all of them, and although Soren as was nearly as blinded, he had fairly good instincts and had marked the door in his mind. He ran to it and slipped in, even being careful to step over the broken metal on the other side so as not to make a sound. He closed the door as carefully as possible, just in time to hear the mutterer whisper in fear: “Did you- Did you feel that? The ghost flew right by me again!”

“Oh shut up and get your flint out,” the sleeper replied.

Soren released a small breath of relief. He was in. Turning to the room at his back, he allowed his eyes to adjust. This was the main atrium, off which branched libraries, exhibits, and rooms for worship. He approached the main desk, which was lit by starlight streaming through a high window. Here he found a lantern, a map, and on a hook under the desk, a ring of keys.

Lighting the lantern with fire magic, he made for the stairs. After the first flight downward, the way branch in two directions: Archives and Tombs. Naturally, he pursued the archives. After another long flight of worn stone steps, Soren could tell he was deep underground. The stairs continued, but he turned down the hall here and entered a labyrinth of shelves and rooms.

His footsteps echoed softly despite his attempts to quiet them, and his own shadow flickering in the lanternlight was enough to make the tiny hairs on his neck and arms stand on end. But he gritted his teeth and reminded himself that he wasn’t one to be spooked so easily.

Little brass plaques marked the chambers he passed. Most were open archways or branching tunnels, but some were locked doors. If the label interested him, Soren would cycle through his ring of keys until he found the right one. In the rooms he traversed, he found innumerable scrolls and books. They lined shelves and tables, filled chests and glass display cases. Ancient weaponry and armor, faded works of art, fractured stone tablets, and framed documents with illegible writing adorned the walls.

Soren ran his eyes over these things with a passing interest. Perhaps if he’d had all the time in the world, he could spend it here, unravelling the secrets of the Tellius, and be content. But he had only tonight, and he had only one question: Who am I?

  

He wandered for hours, trying to understand the organizational system and tracking down the texts he needed in the rooms and on the shelves that were relevant to his search. He crouched in corners beside stacks of books or sat at tables with scrolls laid open all around him. He read as fast as he could, forcing his eyes over the lines of text. He was frustrated whenever he met a dead end or a book he needed was written in the ancient language—or worse, written the common tongue and yet so faded by time that he couldn’t read a word of it.

At first, he tried to clean up after himself, replacing every book. But as the hours wore on fruitlessly, he didn’t care for secrecy anymore. His throat was parched, his stomach grumbled, and he was thoroughly exhausted, but he didn’t take a single break. This was his only chance.

Established scholarship on the Branded was scarce, and what little he found, he already knew. He also sought to learn everything he could about laguz, beorc, Spirit Charmers, tattoos, birthmarks, and all sorts of physical abnormalities. He even strayed into myths and folklore. However, his search only began bearing fruits when he began reading the diaries, journals, and legal testimonies of doctors and slaveholders concerning their subhuman slaves—or more specifically, their slaves’ offspring, which on occasion, would be born without the proper subhuman features. Still other documents revealed the scandal of daughters bearing strange children out of wedlock, or worse, into a safe family but appearing different than their siblings. These infants were marked.

These were the tales of the Branded, even if they were rarely given that name. Soren read even more ravenously, horrified and disgusted by the scenes painted in his mind.

Not long ago, when slavery had thrived in Begnion, beorc and laguz had existed closely together for almost four hundred years. In these journals, scholars and slavers ashamedly acknowledged that scandals such as these were becoming more common: humans high on power and violence raping subhuman slaves, and subhumans escaping their chains to rape their lovely human owners. Sometimes the curse skipped a generation or two, and it wasn’t until decades later than the sins of the parent or grandparent were realized.

When a Branded child was born, a secret investigation was conducted—the only evidence of which were the fragments Soren had collected in these archives. If discovered, the human (whether culprit or victim) became a social outcast, disowned by their family. Or, if the family truly loved them, arrangements were made to cover the whole thing up. As for the subhumans, they were always slaughtered. According to the texts, the females were useless after bearing a cursed child, either unwilling or unable to ever transform again.

As for the unholy offspring, the half-breeds, the Branded—they were usually slaughtered too. Many were killed within a few hours or days of their birth, as soon as the mark was discovered. Others were killed even earlier, when it became known by what disgusting crime the woman had been impregnated. Rare few were allowed to live a few years, usually because a midwife or nurse took pains to hide the child’s mark. But in the end, these too would be discovered and killed.

If allowed to survive, the Branded were thought to bring bad luck, death, and ruin to the estates where they were born. Sometimes killing the infant would not be enough to absolve the sin in Ashera’s eyes. One text told of priests coming to cleanse the land with fire and prayer and to redeem the family with payments of animal sacrifices and human bloodletting.

Soren shivered and opened another journal. This one described how the slaves dealt with such a child when it was born into their community. In some ways, it was worse. As soon as the umbilical cord was cut, the child was left on the ground. The subhumans pretended not to see it, not to hear its mewling cries. Without milk to sustain it, the abomination would die, but the subhumans would never remove the body, letting it decompose in the open. They would never acknowledge that it had existed. The mothers of such children became lethargic and depressed. They wasted away or took their own lives, if they were not killed by their human masters first.

Soren set down the journal—the last he’d pulled from the shelf. He didn’t know how many hours had passed, but his lantern was nearly out of oil, which meant if it was not already morning, it would be soon. He knew he should leave but could hardly move. He tried to collect his thoughts. What did he know?

For one, birthmarks never looked like the one on his forehead. There was no record of any defect appearing on the skin with such distinct red lines (unless he counted the Branded). Neither was there record of a spirit ever making a pact with a newborn and therefore a beorc being born a Spirit Charmer. Such things were only theorized. Additionally, there was no known clan in all of Tellius that tattooed its members with the design of Soren’s mark.

As for the Branded, the laguz called them ‘Parentless’ and ignored their existence entirely, just as Soren had been ignored in Gallia all those years ago. And as he’d learned in Temple Asic, Branded children were thought to age slowly. But few had grown to maturity, so this was unconfirmed. The Branded were also believed to possess heighted senses and instincts, but not to the degree of laguz. And there were myths of the Branded developing special skills early in life, such as a predisposition for certain type of elemental, light, or dark magic, a talent for manipulating others’ emotions, or the ability to heal miraculously. Others were physically-minded: learning manual tasks quickly, such as throwing knives with perfect accuracy after brief tutelage or mastering the sword at a young age. These were more fairytales than fact, but Soren couldn’t help but recall Sileas’s bitter pride at his aptitude for wind magic.

Bile rose in this throat. It seemed undeniable. There was no excuse he could make; there was no other explanation he could find. Of all the grotesque things Soren had read tonight, nothing compared to the revulsion he felt at his own body in this moment.

His mouth was dry. His legs were limp. His arms dangled. His palms were clammy. He smelled of sweat and lantern smoke. He was paralyzed by the realization that Greil and Sileas had been right. He was a Branded. The townsfolk in Nevassa who’d been cruel to him, they had been right. He was a monster. Galina, who’d housed him even while she despised him, had been right. He was cursed.

Soren didn’t know what to do, but part of him considered the possibility of never emerging from these dark catacombs again. How could I? he wondered, How can I face the other mercenaries now? How can I face Ike?

The thought of his friend made his heart ache as if it were being crushed. He imagined Ike looking at him while pity and disgust played on his face. He imagined Ike averting his eyes, unable to keep looking. Tears welled at the corners of Soren’s own eyes. He touched them in surprise—he hadn’t cried since joining the Greil Mercenaries.

His lantern was starting to flicker out. He wouldn’t have enough oil to guide him out of the archives. Did he even want to leave? Soren imagined Ike and the others finding him gone in the morning. Days would pass without him returning. Ike would be sad.

He gasped, the pain in his chest and in his mind and in his throat becoming too much to bear. He had to go back, because Ike would miss him if he suddenly disappeared. He would worry. He wouldn’t know the reason. He would think it was somehow connected to his failing as a commander, his failing as a friend.

Ike’s words at Castle Gebal came flooding back to him as if he were standing in the dusty room with him now: “You’re not going to leave me, are you, Soren?”

He smiled and grimaced at the same time, his mouth aching in confusion. He dropped his head in his hands. He had to go back. He had a job to do. He was loyal to Ike. He wouldn’t abandon him now.

Time passed, and his tears dried. His pain faded, and his breathing quieted. He became conscious of his surroundings again, and standing from his chair, he began closing scrolls and stacking books. That was when he heard footsteps. There was just one set, and they were slow. Soren’s heart raced. His mind conjured lies to excuse his presence here. He pulled his tome close, ready to defend himself if need be, and stepped away from his sputtering light.

An old man entered the room holding aloft a large, brighter lantern. Soren winced at the light. The man bent down to pick up a book Soren must have dropped. “Are you in here? Sir? Ma’am? My inquisitive visitor?”

Soren didn’t answer.

“Do you still have my keys, by any chance?” His crackling voice didn’t sound accusatory. He coughed. “I must admit, this is not how I intended to start the day.” He took a couple steps toward Soren, and rather than be caught cowering like a rat, Soren stepped forward.

The old man smiled, pushing the many wrinkles on this thin face backs toward his dangling ears. “Hah, there you are.”

Soren took the ring of keys from his pocket and held them out. “I apologize for borrowing these,” he said flatly.

“No harm done.” The man accepted them with long, gnarled fingers, which brushed Soren’s own fingers lightly. Soren jerked his hand back in surprise. People were careful not to touch him, and he was always careful not to touch them in return. This was especially true with strangers, but this old librarian showed no discomfort at all.

“It is just past dawn if you’re wondering, lad,” the man said, shuffling around Soren toward the table. “The guard changes in an hour. If you help me clean up in the meantime, the new guards will have no idea you are not a patron who came in this morning.”

Soren didn’t know how to respond.

The librarian poured some oil from his lamp into Soren’s, and the glow steadied. “Did you read all of this in dim light? You’ll ruin your eyes, lad! Sure, it’s fine now, but give it ten years and you’ll regret it.”

“I…” Soren began, but he still didn’t know what to say.

The man edged around the table, cocking his head. “Now, let’s see what fascinates my inquisitive visitor, hm?”

“It’s nothing!” Filled with panic, Soren lunged to close one of the journals (not that the front label—or any of the texts open or closed on the table—were any less damning).

The man didn’t seem alarmed or threatened by Soren’s quick movement. “I see…” His eyes scanned the texts, and there was nothing Soren could do to stop him short of knocking him out. (He did consider this course of action but was too ashamed to go through with it.) Instead, he let the man continue: “Interesting reading material you’ve selected. Hm, I am familiar with some of these journals myself. Terrible, terrible things if I recall.” He began stacking the books. “But I have always been interested in first-hand accounts. Those bits of secret knowledge no one intended to be read.” He looked up with a smile and a wink. “They are treats for the truly curious, no?”

“I suppose,” Soren conceded. He decided to take the man up on his offer and began helping organize the volumes by the shelves they would have to return to.

“But I think that’s not what motivates you, lad, is that correct?”

Soren didn’t answer, but he froze. The man was looking at his forehead now. His gaze was steady; he wasn’t even pretending not to stare. It was all Soren could do not to turn away. He’d lived with such gazes his entire life, but now the pain felt fresh, the scrutiny unbearable.

“I find it’s a common ambition for many young men and women…finding out where they came from.” He removed his gaze and returned to the task of shuffling books and binding scrolls. “However, perhaps not the most practical.”

Soren was confused. “What do you mean?” he finally asked.

The librarian seemed happy that he’d answered. He smiled as he started putting books on their proper shelves. Soren followed with an armful, wanting to hear his answer. “Does knowing the truth help you, in any way, to be yourself any easier or to do your job any better?” When Soren didn’t answer, the man continued as if he found the topic quite scholarly: “After you leave here, will knowing the truth put your worries to rest? …Ah, I think not.” He bobbed his hunched shoulders. “Perhaps staying home and getting a good night’s sleep would have been the practical choice.” He took the book from the top of the stack Soren carried. “Truly boy, were you here all night? You’ll make yourself sick!”

Soren shook his head, oddly charmed by the librarian’s intellectual musings and bursts of parental concern. “I had to know,” he finally whispered.

The man smiled comfortingly. “I suppose you did. Well, after all your diligent research. Have you any questions? I am a learned librarian, after all. I spend more time down here than probably practical myself!” He released a crackling chuckle.

Soren shook his head. He couldn’t bring himself to converse about the Branded, not yet, and maybe never. They continued to work in silence, until Soren had another idea. “What do you know about Daein?” he asked.

The old man seemed delighted that he had asked a question. “Quite a bit, if I do say so myself. What would you like to know?”

“History, geography, politics,” Soren answered. “I know the basics, but…you never know what detail might be the key to winning the war.”

“Winning the war?” the old man repeated, suddenly worried. “There’s a war? Oh, Mother Ashera, how long have I been down here?”

Soren’s mouth twitched into a smile. He didn’t say anything else, not wanted to spill any of Elincia’s secrets, but the old man appeared to be exaggerating. His expression normalized and he closed his eyes for a moment. “Hm, Daein…Ah, how about the suspicious circumstances of King Ashnard’s ascension to the throne?”

“I’ve heard the rumors,” Soren replied.

“Oh, but rumors are just that—” he winked “—incomplete!” With that, he launched into a lecture on the demise of the Gerent branch of the Daein monarchy. This naturally led to a discussion of Daein’s plague history and quarantine efforts, which then led to one topic after another. Soren listened attentively, asked occasional questions, and helped clean up the scar he’d torn through the archives.

When the task was done, the old man shared his breakfast: water, milk, and cold flat cakes. To Soren, it was a feast. Then he left through the door by which he’d entered last night. Two new guards were on duty. One waved as Soren passed through. “Wow, you’re an early starter,” he said. “A student? Hey, stay in school, kid—or you’ll end up like me, just another grunt with a stick.” He held his spear straight and struck an exaggerated posture with his chin tucked into his neck and his tongue between his teeth. He was obviously fishing for a laugh, but Soren didn’t give him one. He kept walking without a word.

 

Arriving back at the mansion, Soren was able to enter without any guards stopping him or anyone asking where he’d been. He breathed a sigh of relief; his plan seemed to have worked. Walking the mansion’s halls, he discovered half the mercenaries were still asleep—having developed the habit of sleeping late after just a few days in the luxurious city.

Such a thing sounded perfect right now, so Soren returned to his room, where Gatrie, Brom, and Kieran were still snoring loudly in their cots. Soren slipped under his soft, cool blankets, and was soon asleep as well.

However it was an uneasy sleep, and he was plagued by nightmares: scenes from the books and diaries he’d read. He was chased through the dark catacombs by the shadows of dead infants. He was whipped in a burning wheat field. He was ignored by a woman in the Gallian forest, while he desperately tried to speak. She stared through him, and he couldn’t utter word.

Part of his mind knew these were dreams. Some were memories perhaps, and others half-collected truths of lives long past. But now they were only dreams. So he let them play out, and was glad to be resting his eyes at least.