"Have you found anything?" Kaden, only wearing his urk, and having left Hernah to sleep off their latest round of lovemaking, hovered over Sahl's shoulder.

His friend and slave sat at a small desk packed with parchments, scrolls, and books while rubbing his weary eyes. "Yes," he said. Then added, "And no."

"All right, since you know I'm going to ask you what you mean by that, don't make me." Kaden's tone had the sharp crack of a master's whip behind it. One that had been growing more and more prominent.

"Of course I do." Sahl replaced his current book with a loosely bound stack of parchments tied along its one edge with various colored strings. "So, I've been researching Imeron history, like you asked. And you know how it is. Normally we work with oral accounts. Simply because most people don't know how to read. Usually we'll go back pretty detailed three, four, maybe five kings from the present. But, after that, things start to get glossed over and become a little more hazy."

"Good thing then, as alchemists, we were taught to read."

"Yes. Now that I have access to the Royal Library, I have access to the source material behind those verbal traditions. What I'm seeing are things that don't make a lot of sense. Especially when I go back further than the most recent rulers and to about a thousand years ago."

"Here's the point where you tell me this has something to do with Ieron and the Rohs Fang?"

"Maybe." Sahl thumbed through the brittle pages of his current book. He was careful not to break the paper around the chipped holes through which the string ran. "Hard to tell. There are no references to either. And definitely nothing about mysterious princesses ruling the desert between the modern day principalities. Or these Sava Warrioresses. Look here." Sahl displayed an open page for Kaden. "Everything back to this point here is very detailed. Page after page after page of droning specificity. Detailed lineages. Flowery records of deeds. Witness testimonials to events of all sorts." He flipped the pages back further in time. "Then, things start to get a little more murky. Pages obviously missing. Some that are there are torn in half. Others were replaced entirely."

"Well, it was a thousand years ago. And it wouldn't be odd for scribes to replace damaged pages in order to preserve what was there if they caught the damage in time."

"I get that. Different times. But it's not consistent. Sometimes a king's reign is very well chronicled. On par with today's standards. But more than half the time what's within the pages, mostly where newer pages have obviously replaced old ones, they are at best, and most politely described as anomalies."

"What kind of anomalies?" Kaden was intrigued by the findings. Even if they weren't discovering what he wanted.

Sahl showed off about three pages that showed little wear, but were a record from a long time ago. They were obviously much newer than the ones both before and after. "What's really the problem is the types of records on these replaced pages just aren't the same."

"What do you think?"

"If I had to place a wager? Not only were these pages replaced, but so was the history itself."

"Interesting." Kaden could see what concerned Sahl as he browsed the words on the pages for himself.

"Yeah. It is. Plus, some of the names just don't make sense. Like you can see how names transition over the records. Some across multiple reigns. But some of these names are more like just random combinations of letters meant to sound like names. Almost as if they were just made up to fill space."

Pondering what he was seeing, Kaden sought an explanation. "Are you saying someone has rewritten history? Perhaps a successor trying to make his predecessor seem less great?"

Sahl closed the bound parchments. "I'm saying someone has been at least meddling with it. What made it obvious was when I began seeing the same events, just with slightly different names attached to them, occurring time and again. The same battles in the same places with maybe minor differences. The same time frames of kings ruling repeating themselves, like a pattern and as though someone was desperate to create several thousand years of history very quickly."

Kaden tapped on his lower lip. "But why?"

"Because," Princess Lyla's voice interrupted the two men as they pondered what was before them. "The truth is dangerous, Karo Shar."

She was not in her warrior armor, only her royal silks. As was customary when she presented herself in public. The princess stood there, looking very much less the sort of woman who could take one's head off in combat. Or fuck a man senseless afterwards. Even though her eyes sparkled with a fire that hinted at her ability to do both, Lyla fought well to hide it.

In her arms before her, as though on a platter, the princess held two mammoth bound volumes tied with spiraling blue string along their spines. On top of them were four smaller scrolls with chipped and jagged ends.

She seemed oblivious to the obvious weight of them.

Sahl, once frozen at the sudden appearance of the princess, recovered, dropped out of his chair, and bowed all the way to the floor.

The princess ignored him, leaving him in his precarious position and not acknowledging him to release the slave from his groveling.

Kaden, entranced by how easily she seemed to carry the obviously weighty tomes, immediately found his mind wandering. He imagined touching what laid under those silks again. Despite having recently had sex with another woman, those thoughts of Princess Lyla gave him a bit of a problem between his legs that threatened a need to be solved.

"These are some of the materials I have managed to accumulate for my own studies," the princess said when both men remained silent. "They came from my mother. Consider them an early wedding gift, Karo Shar."

After a second, Kaden snapped his fingers twice in quick succession to call Sahl to his feet and take what she had brought. He jumped, and the princess handed the tomes over to the man who was Kaden's slave.

He fumbled to hold them all, telling their true weight.

"Thank you, my princess." Kaden bowed at the waist, then rose. "But why not just tell me? Surely it would be easier?"

"There would be too much to tell." His future wife waved a dismissive hand. "And I am a firm believer that one should see the truth with their own eyes. It makes it more believable."

"I would trust you to be honest with me," Kaden said.

"Oh, Karo Shar, such trust. But, be warned, it may be misplaced."

The words shook Kaden to his core. "Are you saying you would lie to me?"

The princess shrugged. "Everyone lies to everyone else to get what they want. Sometimes the lie is small. Other times it is large. Sometimes they are involuntary. While other times they are intended to be as deadly as a knife to the heart. Our entire lives are nothing more than masks. And each one of us is playing a game. Sometimes we are the pieces being moved by others. And when we are not, we are moving the pieces played by others for our own ends."

"That doesn't give me a deep warm feeling about our relationship, your highness."

"Well, you'll just have to get over that then." The shocking rebuttal was delivered like arid desert air.

"So these are historical texts?" Kaden changed the subject.

"The one is. The most complete that I have going back to the founding of Imeron. But it was not without its attempt at alteration either. It was a crude attempt at first. Mostly ripping out passages that were offensive to some and blotting out other texts. But they didn't get everything. My ancestors rescued it before it could be totally destroyed. There's enough there that, by reading it, you will understand the truth."

"Ok. And the others?" Kaden asked.

"The scrolls are Sava Warrioress training scrolls. They have a lot of information about how to use the Rohs Fang effectively. Techniques. Strategy."

"And the other book?" Kaden noticed she hadn't mentioned what that one was.

"Oh, yes. That one is not for your slave's eyes." The princess bore a glare into Sahl so menacing that its warning could not be mistaken. "It is for yours only. Something I want you to study intently before our wedding night. It is called the Ton Kaul Scrolls."

Kaden's eyes widened.

As did Sahl's.

There was obvious glee in Princess Lyla's own expression as Kaden reacted to the mention of the book that supposedly held knowledge related to sexual pleasure. "You need additional instruction," she said. "Things that Hernah cannot teach you. And things that I will expect from you. Now, if you'll excuse me, I am going to retire to my chambers and leave you both to your assigned tasks. You both have a lot of reading to do."

Sahl put his head to the floor once more, along with the books he'd been granted possession of, as the princess took her leave while Kaden bowed again at his waist. Both held their postures until the woman had left their presence. When Kaden rose from his bow, so did his friend and slave.

Sahl recovered the documents and cleared a space among the others he'd been studying. The new books were so heavy, the table shook as he released them. Dusting off his clothes upon completing the task, Sahl spoke his mind. "I don't trust her."

"Mind your tongue," Kaden warned, knowing that ears other than their own could be listening.

"Tell me that you do, and I'll cut it out myself."

Kaden paused, watching the door through which the princess had left them. "She's our best hope of coming out of this on the other end alive, Sahl."

"That's a masterful avoidance of the question."

"You heard her. And I agree. We must all play the game, Sahl. And sometimes that means being played as well."

"I don't know that either of us are playing this game well." Sahl sat back down at the desk, separating the book he was ordered not to read from the other materials and putting it off to the side. "Best you get working on that," he said to Kaden. "I've heard the Ton Kaul Scrolls are quite explicit. I don't want you upsetting the princess by not tending to her desires. Seeing as how I'll be the one likely to be punished if you do."

Kaden fetched the volume. It was heavy, but easy for him to lift. Although, not long ago, he would have struggled to do so. "I won't let anything happen to you, Sahl."

"Then get to reading."