The secretary looked up from his notes and smiled at the returning faces. “Come back for more scouting?”
Himitsu raised an eyebrow. “Is that the term you use?”
“Yes, it makes sense,” he replied.
As the Jestivan fought back a gag, Horos dropped his purse on the counter. Technically, they were definitely scouting, but not with the purpose of adoption.
“We would like a personal session with a young woman by the name of Kaylee,” Horos said.
The man’s eyes fell to the bag, his smile growing larger. He grabbed and untied it before spilling its contents. He spent a couple minutes dragging coins across the surface and separating them into piles. After he finished, he grabbed a quill and began scribbling across some parchment.
“I will get in touch with the proper individuals. They will set everything up. This is a big day,” the secretary said, rising from his chair and stepping through an open doorway behind the desk.
“We’ve seen some crap in our day, Horos,” Fane said. “But this place just has that feeling.”
“Something is definitely amiss.” Horos looked down both halls to the right and left before gazing down at his son. “This girl was a reliable lead?”
Himitsu crossed his arms and groaned. “Yes, Dad.”
A gentleman in a suit retrieved them a few moments later and brought them down the hallway to the right. Unlike yesterday, this route was long and winding. When they finally wound up in a room, the man walked them across the lounge and opened one of many doors that circled it.
“You have one hour,” he said.
The first thing that caught Himitsu’s gaze when they entered the room was Kaylee. She sat in an armchair underneath a rack of candles. They were unlit, for plenty of light splashed into the room from the open window. Her glistening hair was once again tied back in the same bun as the day before. Horos gave his son a shifty look.
“Hey, Kaylee,” Himitsu said, his voice sounding weaker than intended.
Horos chuckled. The girl looked up, the strands of hair behind her ear falling in front of her face. “Hello. You’ve brought your ‘dads,’” she said, using air quotes again.
As Horos and Fane took a seat on a sofa, Himitsu paused, noticing something he hadn’t the day prior. Her right eye wasn’t hazel like her left—but silver like her hair.
She smirked, shaking her head as he finally took a seat. “Taken by surprise by my eyes?”
“I meant nothing by it,” Himitsu said. “I’m sorry.”
She waved her hand. “No worries. I didn’t sense disgust in your aura. You are unlike others.” She turned to face the two older men on the couch. “You two are Passion Assassins, like this one.”
They both stared at her, eyes widening. “What makes you guess that?”
“I sense it in your aura,” she said.
Horos leaned back and placed his ankle on the knee of his other leg. “You are unique.”
She brushed her stray bangs behind her ear. “Usually, I get ‘weird.’”
“So what is it you have to tell us?” Horos asked.
“I’ll tell you under one condition.”
“A bit of bartering,” Fane said, leaning forward. “I like it.”
“You have to get me out of here.”
The three assassins exchanged glances. This mission in the Archaic Kingdom was supposed to be a three-person deal.
“What for?” Himitsu asked.
“We aren’t treated well here, and it’s only grown worse over the years.” Himitsu’s jaw became rigid as he imagined the abuse Kaylee might have endured throughout her life. “I receive a lot more punishment than most, for I was one of few who used to fight back. But once they found my stash of blades, I was defenseless.”
As she spoke, Kaylee became particularly interested in Himitsu. “You understand,” she said. “You’re enraged—I see that clearly.”
“So what is that they do to you and the rest of the orphans?” Horos asked.
“Besides the verbal abuse and psychological warfare? Well, the whippings and beatings for those who prove to be unruly. And unruly, in their eyes, covers a wide spectrum—intelligence falls under such a category. This orphanage isn’t fond of it. There used to be one man who protected such children, but he disappeared a year ago.”
“Okay, we can get you out,” Horos said. “But after that, you’re on your own. You do have a plan for when you’re reacquainted with the public, correct?”
Pulling a trailing string between the pages she had open, she shut her book. “No, you’re taking me with you. I want to get as far away from this kingdom as possible. I assume the three of you aren’t here to hang around for too long.”
Horos sighed. “We cannot drag you around.”
“We don’t have to drag her around,” Himitsu said. “I believe she can carry her own weight.” He looked at her. “You said you’re good with blades, right?”
“I’m decent.”
Himitsu extended his arm toward her and glared at his dad. “See. Let’s get her out of here.”
Horos held Himitsu’s gaze during a long pause. He looked annoyed at first, but a grin spread across his face. “Alright, son. For the sake of young love.”
“Dad!” he screamed.
“You are gushing with lust, much like yesterday,” Kaylee said.
Himitsu gawked at her blunt nature, but she was right. He knew his face was beet red, even through the caramel color of his skin.
“So what information can you give us?” Horos asked.
“The man I mentioned earlier—the one who used to protect the orphans before he disappeared—was the head librarian here. His name was Neeko, and he knew everything about every book on the shelves, including several hundred that existed elsewhere.”
Fane’s eyes narrowed. “That name sounds familiar.”
Horos nodded. “Yes, it does.”
“I doubt that,” Kaylee said. “He wasn’t a man who sought the attention of others, nor did he get out much. He was old. If I said in his eighties, it would be a generous estimate. He was more than a head librarian, though. I don’t know who raised him, but that man was a scholar of scholars.
“There are thousands of books in the library, but Neeko had a few hundred in his office—more like tomes than your normal books. Any of the orphans were allowed access as long as he was there to supervise. I couldn’t even tell you how many weeks I must have accumulated in that place. I read every book, and each one was more interesting than the last. Eventually, I reached an end. When I confronted Neeko about this, he scoured his collection of titles for anything he thought I might have missed, for there were many books hidden in special nooks. But with each one he handed to me, I’d hand it back and nod my head.”
Kaylee gazed down at the book in her hand. “I’ll never forget what he said after that—once he realized I had touched all of the reading material. His voice was unnaturally soft whenever he spoke. He could read an instructional manual on how to properly saddle a horse and it’d sound like a lullaby. Anyway, he said to me, ‘Very good. Now read it all again.’”
She placed her elbow on the arm of her chair, resting her chin in her palm. “Do you know how frustrated I was? I was mad at him for days. I knew he had to have a secret stash somewhere. But it was like ramming my head against a brick wall. He wouldn’t budge on his stance.
“So I went with it. I reread every book in both the library and his office. It took me over two years to read north of three thousand books. Sometimes, he’d watch me read with a twinkle in his eye, which was a bit unnerving. I felt like I was being evaluated.
“Once I completed the second circuit, he asked me questions about every single book I had read. And believe me, he didn’t miss anything. Topics ranged from zoology to sociology, from weaving to astronomy. Out of roughly one thousand questions, I got two wrong. He said there had been only three people prior to me who had made it this far. One boy got one wrong, the other missed three, and the girl
missed three also. Naturally, I asked what he meant by ‘this far.’ He told me that a handful of orphans had read every book since he arrived at the orphanage, but only three had read them twice through—me making four. That put me in select company. He said I’d be rewarded if I passed the oral exam, which I did.”
Kaylee refocused on the present, her eyes gliding over the three assassins. “Now he didn’t explicitly tell me who the three individuals before me were, but after pestering him, he eventually admitted to teaching one of them. He knew I knew, so he gave in. Over the past three years, as this man they call the ‘Rogue Demon’ began to wreak havoc across the world, I picked up on a connection that couldn’t have been coincidence. Toono was chasing elite individuals to rebirth Dev King Rehn. During this time, Neeko became ...” Kaylee went quiet, her lips twisting as she searched for the proper word. Finally, she said, “Distraught.”
“A lot of things can make someone feel that way,” Fane said. “It’s an awfully extreme hunch to act on.”
“Let me finish,” she said calmly. “There were certain perks to being one of Neeko’s chosen orphans. He treated us like his children, but also his students of the world. After I had read the books twice and passed the exam, he sat me in his office. He walked to the center of his room, pulled out a key, and pulled back a floorboard to reveal a safe. After unlocking it, he retrieved something from within and tucked it into his cloak before returning to his desk.
“I sat there impatiently, eager to discover what it was that he was hiding. When all he revealed from his cloak was a stack of parchment, I was disappointed at first. He placed it in front of me, instructing me to read through it that night and then return the next day with my thoughts. He told me that it was the translated account of a story about a cave on the seafloor. The original documents were in the form of a book, but he said he didn’t have it anymore.
“I brought it to my bunk that night and consumed it—no, I devoured it. It didn’t exactly tell a story, but shed light on one, giving as much information as it could. It spoke of a woman who lived before our timeline.”
“Before the Known History timeline?” Himitsu asked, his butt on the edge of his chair.
“Yes,” Kaylee said. “And she was powerful. My goodness, was she powerful. They called her the Thunder Queen. Back then, rulers weren’t like the royal heads of today—they were perceived as divine beings. Commoners didn’t have energy—only the leaders of each kingdom.
“And these leaders didn’t coexist. They kept their distance from each other, going decades without speaking. But the Thunder Queen became close to a rival leader known as the Mind King. They fell in love, and soon it felt as if two gods were combining forces—a scary thought, but not something other leaders felt needed to be addressed. It wasn’t until the Mind King told her about a weapon, one that could destroy an entire realm. He claimed that this weapon needed to be used, for it was their destiny in life. He believed that the people before the Known History timeline were only supposed to exist for a few hundred years—no more.
“The Thunder Queen believed him, and the two of them embarked on a daring mission—one that lacks detail from what I’ve read. When the other leaders somehow caught wind, they set out on a mission of their own: kill the duo. This was the start of the greatest war of either timeline. The two of them were chased across the seas of both realms and through whirlpools. Of course, they were eventually caught in an undisclosed location of what is now the Sea of Light, and the lovers’ ship was sunk. It is believed that the other leaders weren’t only chasing the Thunder Queen and Mind King to kill them, but to destroy whatever evidence they had of this mystery weapon and stop them before they reached it. Thus, they sat in the sea for a week, waiting to see if anyone resurfaced. But after that week, they left, believing they had killed the two threats to their world.”
“Did they?” Himitsu asked.
Kaylee nodded. “They did, but they didn’t realize that they caught the Thunder Queen where they did for a reason. She led them there. If she was going to die, she wanted it to happen in that location, for there was a cave that sat far below the surface. According to the story, she found the cave, but, if we’re being honest, how are we to know? Following years of starvation, she died in there. All that mattered, however, was that she had kept one item safe—her chronicle. That chronicle is an account of the Thunder Queen’s most important moments of her life, including whatever weapon it was that the Mind King had spoken of.”
Himitsu had slid off the chair by now and was seated on the carpet, his elbows folded on a coffee table. It took a few seconds for him to finally reenter reality. He grimaced while stretching his neck. “That’s what Agnos is chasing,” he said. “He always speaks of it.”
“Agnos?” said Kaylee. “I don’t recall that name.”
“He was best friends with Toono when they were younger. I think they were the two boys you spoke of earlier who took Neeko’s exam.”
“I don’t know about this Agnos guy, but Toono, yes. I returned to Neeko the next day. I had so many questions, and he allowed me to fire away. He didn’t have an answer for any of them, but he did have an interesting story to tell me about a man named Rehn, the Oracle. Apparently forty-four years ago, in 1457, he addressed a large gathering in the Cosmos Meadows to reveal any truths of our world he’d gathered in the past year. Now this wasn’t odd, for this was an annual event of his. However, that specific year was unlike others.
“Something came over him during the event. He keeled over, screamed in agony, and squeezed his head. It looked as if he had lost his mind. People began to run, but it wasn’t all screaming—he was making some sort of sense. Only a few heard him, but he said, ‘The realms cannot coexist. What looms in the sky will make sure of this.’ Nobody knew what it meant, but a few began contriving theories. They questioned everything in the sky—the sun, clouds, stars, moons, and even the mystery marble of blue seen only from the Dark Realm.
“Eventually certain phenomena were eliminated—the ones that served a purpose. The sun gave light during the day, the moon controlled tides, stars gave light at night, and clouds provided liquid nourishment for nature. But that blue circle had never been understood. There had been Devish in the Cosmos Meadows during King Rehn’s breakdown, recording or broadcasting the events. Experts went back and replayed it repeatedly, and after much repetition, they discovered something they hadn’t before. They had misinterpreted a word as grunting. He had kept shouting ‘Earth.’”
Kaylee readjusted herself in her armchair. “When Neeko told me about this, I immediately understood the connection between the story of the Thunder Queen and Dev King Rehn. I think they all spoke of the same weapon, and somehow that weapon is a circle in the sky called ‘Earth.’ Each of them knows its purpose and functionality, but none of them are alive to tell the tale.
“And this is why I think Toono is trying to bring the Dev King back to life. When I told Neeko that I knew Toono was once his student, he told me that Toono had once craved the opportunity to find the Thunder Queen’s chronicle. He wanted to dive into the sea, find the cave, and read about this mystery in the sky—not for a destructive purpose, but as enlightenment. And Neeko would always tell him it was impossible, for there was no way down. Despite the discouragement, he did give him a relic as a birthday gift one year—a pair of glasses that could decipher any language. He said he’d need it for the Thunder Queen’s chronicle, for it’d be written in a language that existed before Known History.
“Perhaps Toono eventually came to his senses and realized he couldn’t dive to the seafloor and then decided on an alternative method: King Rehn. Now from what Neeko told me, I’m shocked that Toono would do something like this. Neeko was convinced that the boy was the purest of hearts. He said it all changed when a woman entered the picture.”
“A woman?” Horos asked.
Kaylee nodded. “That’s all he said, though.” As her eyes fell to the floor, the three Passion Assassins stared into space,
mulling over what they had learned.
“I’ll tell you ...” Horos mused. “You hear the stories about the Of Five you think you’ve heard it all ... but then you hear something like this.”
“You may not believe me, but I assure you it’s not a fairy tale.”
Fane sighed. “So when was the last time you saw Neeko?”
“It was the day after Passion King Damian’s body had been found—or at least after the news had been made public. I had left his office that morning. When I returned that afternoon, he was gone, along with all of his belongings. I haven’t seen him since.”
Himitsu slapped his hands against the table and pushed himself to a stand. “Well, I guess that settles it. She gave us more than enough information. There’s a weapon in the sky meant to annihilate a realm, and Toono wants to give life to the one man who can tell him how to make use of it.”
Kaylee placed her book on the table and leaned forward. “I don’t think it’s a weapon. I think there’s some kind of misinterpretation.”
“Regardless, it’s more than what we had,” Himitsu said.
Horos and Fane stared at each other, as if they were communicating with their eyes. They both began laughing hysterically. Eventually, Horos regained his composure and said, “We’re adopting a daughter. Fane and I are daddies!”
15
Movement
“AHHHHH!”
A terrified shriek woke Lilu. It took a moment for her vision to stop spinning and her brain to realize she was awake, but once she heard heavy thuds outside her room, she rolled out of bed and stumbled her way toward the door. She yanked it open to find Gracie ducking behind the sofa, panic animating her face as she gasped for air. Leather-bound books were scattered around her, and, one by one, she was chucking them at the glass door across the study area.
Lilu’s bafflement subdued after spotting a falcon perched on the banister, gazing inside with a tilt to its head. It seemed more amused than scared of Gracie’s reaction.
“Gracie, get a grip,” Lilu said as she approached the glass door and slid it open. She stepped outside, untied a small note from the bird’s leg, and rubbed her head with a finger. The falcon then spread her gigantic wings and took flight into the sky.
The Chronicle Page 17
