2412, Strilaxis 29, Velpa

Malin sniffed, feeling the oncoming cold settle at the base of his throat. All the dust didn't sit well with him over the past few weeks. It didn't help that he's trudging across the main hall on his way to the library.

Around him, priests and priestesses bustled around, bearing wooden basins filled with either water, cloth, or dusters brimming with bland vulkraine feathers. How many of those mimicking fowls had to die to fund the entire army of cleaners in the Temple of Magic? Ymbril wasn't inclined to answer when asked. He tried.

The Temple's halls towered over him even though he swore he had grown taller since his first day. Ymbril told him to be patient or something like that, but he was tired of having to stand on his tiptoes or ask other adults to get a tome for him from the top shelves. He would like to have a bit of privacy regarding his reading preferences. He didn't need the perplexed looks most would throw at him.

It's understandable, though. Malin started on the tomes on his second day in the Temple. It hasn't been a month yet, and he's already smoothed at least four shelves. And they're huge shelves, mind.

He also learned to grip a graphite stick and write the Ylanen koset, just for fun. Having pestered Ymbril to get him someone to teach him how, the High Priestess gave in and assigned an hour of practice with an ancient priest in the heart of the Temple. Going there spooked the living lights out of Malin, but with perseverance, he managed to get used to it.

Now, he never went anywhere without a notepad tucked somewhere in his pockets. The pages were filled with random facts he found interesting in his quest for knowledge. Most of those were words used in maxia and escuira spells. Maybe he'd try rysteme next, for the sake of.

The High Priestess had cautioned him about his mad craving for learning, especially in the magic department. There were roads she didn't want him to end up in, and he acknowledged the sentiment. As the chief presider over the citizens' well-being, she was only doing her duty.

But Malin, after being passed around in the Cardina Coup—as most of the gossiping temple workers called it—he realized how weak he was. If he was a little stronger, if his head was filled with more spells than names of friends and allies, maybe he wouldn't have to be such a burden to Xanthy and the scary varichria. Maybe he wouldn't be left behind while his sister, Marin, went off to take on the world, and Xanthy, his next option for an older sibling, has to save the world.

At his age, he had witnessed how brutal the battlefield was. After Reeca got him out of the rancid dungeon, strange soldiers astride dagrinis and bearing pointy weapons found him. They brought him out of the Royalty region and told him to stay put. Then, they rode off. Ymbril found him later after he wandered off the thick forest and came across the rest of the Nobility region. Only then did he realize he was in the Temple of Magic and that the rest of the Royalty region was slowly succumbing to some overnight civil war.

It was over as quickly as it started too.

When Xanthy and the rest of her friends trickled in one after the other, all beaten up in all manners and forms, Malin had been shuffled to the side once more. Being told a hundred times in a day something was beyond he could handle had the tendency to instill another thought in his head. He had to be older, to advance further in what his mind was capable of processing so he would never be told off again. In that very moment, Malin vowed to not let his age determine what he could and couldn't do.

Hearing about his father's death helped with that. The day had been a blur, and he still hasn't pieced everything that happened on that day. He remembered receiving the news, shedding a tear or two about it, and nothing else. Maybe there has been a funeral, with pyres of fire burning bright against the unfiltered blue sky in the Nobility region. Maybe his father's grave existed and they scattered his ashes over it. None of it mattered anyway.

It felt like it happened years ago too, which, in retrospect, wasn't a good idea to treat such a tragedy. The next slide of memory in his mind was standing near the cornerstone of the Temple, overhearing the fight breakout between Marin and Xanthy. Then, Marin was off to her own adventure, and Xanthy, while she tried to be nicer and kinder about it, had to eventually break it down to him about the truth of their differing paths.

He remembered crying harder about being left behind more than anything else which deserved a bigger part of tears. Where did that leave him? Without his father, no one would tell him what to do in this time where he had not a shred of an idea where to go. Without his sister, he was just one half of the Draswist sphere.

His mood dampened with how twisted his thoughts became. The trip to the library, accompanied by flickering flames inside lamps nailed to the walls, seemed dimmer than ever. The Temple had been a good place to stay in, but it wasn't home. Even if he was dressed in tunics and trousers that didn't scratch against his skin and leave red lashes in it at the end of the day, even if he had tasted every bit of unusual pastries and enjoyed a seemingly unlimited supply of lemper milk, he still missed the dingy hut they lived in for the longest time in the Commons as well as the white goop of mystery meat in the textile factory.

It's annoying—he shouldn't be feeling this way—but he had learned to live with it. Because all they were were just memories. He couldn't go back to those times in person, and believe it or not, they had been the times when he was at peace the most. Even though the question of where to get their next meal was written all over his father's face, they got through that because they had each other.

He always believed they'd always be together, but look at them now. How the winds of Calaris pulled them apart.

His boots slogged against the worn carpets lining the halls. The temple workers had finished dusting this hall, so he's relatively safe. The doors to the library snapped open when he leaned all of his weight against it. Over time, it had become easier on his shoulders and arms. The first time, his eyes almost burst out of his head after trying to push these thick slabs of wood open.

Inside the library were Pilqen along with a frowning priest Malin knew to be Yarin. The older man stared down at the boy hunched over a sheet of parchment, tapping the tip of a graphite pen on the surface. A test? Leneris, Malin's teacher, wasn't keen on giving them, not when Malin finished his foundation course in a matter of days.

To his credit, Pilqen worked all his life in the postal industry. He had no reason to start learning how to write, to count versallis with his mind, and to know the names of which moons in the night sky, at least according to him. Knowing how to read Ylanenla was enough to be good enough on the job. Also according to him.

But the cost of staying in the Temple and affording its protection was service. Every orphan and family taken inside these walls had to contribute something in some way. There could only be this many areas to work in, and Pilqen, whether by his impeccable confidence or obvious ignorance, chose to work in the brewing department.

The young half-blood had shrugged in one of the idle talks they shared in the mess hall. "It is just scooping water into vials and boiling leaves," Pilqen said. "Cannot be that hard."

Malin could have laughed in his face then and discouraged his friend from pursuing that path. It would have been a greater mercy. Because not long after, Pilqen was crying about the unfairness in the healer area and about being called an idiot.

Now, he had to step back and receive lessons in basic arithmetic in order to be able to calculate percentages and measurements. His tutor, Master Yarin, couldn't have been more frustrated, especially this morning. Malin's not the only one not having a good start.

"Heaven's blessings, Master," Malin greeted the older and more established priest. "You too, Pil."

His friend scowled at him on his way towards the next shelf he had been picking on since yesterday. The book that held his attention now was one about the known ancient principles of magic. "Do not tell me you came here to rub it into my face how you are learning cool stuff now," Pilqen said.

Malin knitted his eyebrows. "What do you mean?" he said. "I came here to read."

Pilqen opened his mouth to answer when a sheaf of rolled parchment slapped his hair from above. A pained gasp flitted off his lips. Master Yarin's dark eyes gleamed with either pleasure or annoyance—Malin couldn't be sure with old people—and clicked his tongue. "Focus on the task at hand, boy."

When the priest turned to Malin, though, nothing but a bright smile colored his features. He's practically shining. "If it is not Malin Draswist," he greeted. "Those folks at the research department must be wringing their trousers in wait for you to join them. When will you start service?"

It's like being asked why he didn't have a lover yet, but he returned the priest's gesture just to be nice. "I have not yet finished learning all of the principles of magic," he replied. "Maybe after that."

The conversation died down as Malin plucked his tome from the lowest niche and settled on the long bench in the adjacent table. The library took up considerable space in the temple, with the High Priestess' emphasis on learning and freedom to its access. Chandeliers bedecked with lit wax candles provided the amber light in the whole room, casting twisted shadows over the floor-to-ceiling shelves lining the walls and flanking the spaces between long, rectangular tables.

He flipped to the last page he stopped yesterday and resumed reading. Time and space blurred in his perception until he flinched at the sound of a knuckle tapping against the splintering surface of the table. He whirled to the source to find the High Priestess herself leaning towards him.

"May I interrupt?" she asked, even though her rank and the circlet resting against her forehead demanded her need to never ask that question. "You seem lost in your own world. Again."

Malin sighed and shut the tome with a thud. The dust it stirred up tickled his nose, urging a sneeze out. He held it in. Didn't want to sneeze in front of a priestess. "This is interesting," he rolled his shoulders as if those three words explained everything. "I did not know about the thrones until now."

A pensive look passed across Ymbril's face. The tome told him the thrones weren't the chairs royals sat on inside their grand palaces. They're simply objects connecting the race's souls to the heart of the world. There's also a bit about a mythical tree, but Malin wasn't too sure about that. It's more like a tale drunkards tell during moonless evenings.

Every race in Umazure have one, and they must protect it with everything. Destroying a throne meant cutting a race off the world's well of magic, and without magic, the entire race would die. He was in the paragraph that would detail the known information about each of the thrones when Ymbril arrived. The Soulcleanser had just started to be awesome.

"Why are you looking for me?" Malin asked, tuning in to the unsaid need the High Priestess seemed to be exhibiting. "Am I needed somewhere?"

Ymbril shook her head. "I was hoping you would want to take your dinner somewhere that is not the library," she said. "It does not go past my notice how you are skipping meals."

He averted his gaze and pointed it to the peeling splinters on the table. The dark, mud-like shade was not to his liking, but he could tolerate it as he had been doing all this time. "I am not hungry," he said. He hasn't even realized it's already time for dinner. "Is that all?"

"How about a question?" the High Priestess prompted, sensing the conversation come to a dead end. "Master Yarin informed me you have been spending more and more time here. I am sure you have some with your level of inquisitiveness."

More like he just wanted a job inside the Temple and he didn't mind reading a ton of tomes without cost. He didn't dare voice the sentiment out, and instead ran a hand over the tome's leather cover. Time cracked it to peeling webs, and he did his best to start picking on them. "I guess I have one," he turned to Ymbril who straightened up and held her head at such height, knowing she'd be able to answer anything he threw her way. "If thrones can get destroyed, does that mean we can make one?"

Ymbril's chin ducked in surprise, her eyebrows creasing in confusion. For a moment, panic danced in her features before morphing into a placid look. "If one succeeds at creating one," she met Malin's gaze. "Then they will be second only to the Virtakios."

Silence. Both to the air in the library and the thoughts bouncing inside Malin's head. The Virtakios. The tome told him something about it, about Xanthy's supposed power, but he found it lacking. It's like the author was collating hearsay more than speaking from an actual academic point of view. And if someone could touch a fraction of that power, it's through the creation of a throne?

Which begged another more uncomfortable question—how should one create a throne?

He was about to open his mouth when the doors to the library burst open, bearing a temple messenger. He only recognized the boy's job because of the feather sticking out of his narrow-brimmed hat.

"High Priestess, there you are," the messenger said, chest heaving. He had to brace his knees in an attempt to catch his breath. "I have been looking all over for you."

All traces of their conversation left no memory when Ymbril turned to the newcomer, her face grim. "What is it?" she asked.

The messenger straightened and removed his hat. A mop of dark brown hair spilled forth. "Do you know of the new king?" he said. Upon Ymbril's short nod, he pursed his lips in preparation for the news he's going to drop. "Well..."

"Spit it out, boy," Ymbril snapped. The High Priestess was many things, but a time-waster wasn't one of them. "What about the King?"

The messenger played with the brim of his hat. "He signed away Cardina's freedom just this morning."

Malin swung his legs over the other side of the bench and leaned forward.

"To who?" Ymbril's tone didn't betray shock. It's as if she's expecting this to happen ever since the new dynasty started.

But the messenger's answer couldn't prepare her for anything. Not anymore. "To Synketros," he answered.

Malin's gut soured. He wasn't privy to the technicalities of the development, but one thing was for sure—Synketros has Cardina under its thumb now. And it's clear it wasn't going to be a good thing.