2412, Rab 01, Reshpe

The illuminated ice dousing Kennen overhead did little to alleviate the tightening knot at the back of his head. With a groan, he tore his eyes off the parchment he had been forcing into his mind and rolled his head this way and that. The motion relieved some of the pressure, but it returned when he went back to the tome.

What's the use of reading the same paragraphs over and over while retaining none of the information they tried to tell him? He has been in the library for quite some time. Did the morning bell ring already?

Kennen blew a breath, the air turning into brittle crystals by his lips. The cold was welcome—it's not like he could survive without it—but there were points in his day where he thought it to be too much. But everyone reacts to the temperature in the Ice Capital differently, and there have been tribunals about the ideal notch they needed to maintain it to make the largest chunk of the population happy.

That reminded him—he needed to get his rear out of this place and start doing actual work. Learning and searching for ways to remove the Ice Capital from the war forming on the surface would have to wait.

He peeled off the wooden table, ignoring the colony of lozett turning the surface a deep shade of blue. Let the pest people handle that. His staff made a sharp thunk against the bench as he slid off his place and snatched it up. One couldn't traverse the Ice Capital safely without a rod, of course.

His boots thumped against the one hundredth floor's thick panels of ice, noting the almost opaque blue bleeding from their hearts. He tapped the butt of his staff against the walls, some spots on the floor, and did his best to reach the ceiling. No hollow sounds to signal the thinning of the layers. Not a threat of cracks spreading through the weakening surfaces. All good.

A sigh escaped his lips as he continued doing the same thing on his way out of the current floor. With him going to the lower niches, it looked like he's bound for more tapping.

He didn't mind it. Far from it. At this point, it has turned into some sort of a habit or an unconscious response. He could tap and listen to the condition of ice walls in his sleep.

The one hundredth floor was busy, with ice sprites bustling about in their own tasks and personal businesses. Foragers, dressed in various garbs reflecting the fashion of the territory they're going, passed Kennen by. They ducked their heads at the sight of him, and he ensured he smiled at them and gave them a small wave.

Others lumbered about, carrying spiky icicles, buckets of unfrozen ice, or bunches of cloth to be used in other floors. Did someone spill wine on their sheets and requested the housekeeping department's assistance again? That's the fifth incident this season. Those heathens were becoming cheeky. Perhaps, Kennen would have a word with those people. Ice sprites should know how to clean after their messes. That's how they were able to stay hidden for so long.

Within a few hours of tackling stairs and skirting around his people lost in their typical days, he made it to the two-hundredth floor where one thing waited for him.

The door to the Hall of Symbols flew open against the force he threw to their icy panels, giving way to the small but furnished cavern in one of the deepest parts of the Ice Capital. With the installation of illuminated ice panels a month ago, the once-pitch black room now sparkled with such shine it confused Kennen for a while.

He aimed for a spot in the hall, one he had memorized without looking at the displays next to it. His steps screeched into a halt at the sight of a familiar yet mysterious object hidden in the midst of symbols that told the history of his people. It was a peculiar thing—one he had discovered on the first day he was given the task of caring for the entire hall. He tried not to freak out about it, or even tell other people, but he swore whatever that thing was spoke directly to him, and...introduced itself to him.

I am the Warseeker, and it is time I go home.

The words still rang inside Kennen's head years later, and no matter how much he pressed his cheek against the biting cold of the ice walls, he couldn't hear anything else. Rather, it didn't say anything else. It stayed dormant deep within the ice, flaunting its mysteries in his face. And the bad news was that Kennen couldn't stay away from things he couldn't grasp, especially when told he wouldn't ever reach it.

But the same questions swirled in his mind. What was the Warseeker, and why did it have to go home? Which home would it go to? How? If it's not from the Ice Capital, then where did it come from?

As usual, through the haze of the ice wall separating it from him, no immediate answer leaped out to him. And, dear Torgem, it was frustrating.

He inched away from the wall, hands settling by his sides once more. No use ogling at arcane objects now, was there? The answer wouldn't come to him through a nap or a lecture. No. He had to comb through the records scattered around the Ice Capital like a desperate scavenger hunt. Because he didn't, then whatever happened to Alkara could happen to them too.

Within seconds, he was out of the Hall of Symbols, trudging instead towards the meeting halls customary to his day and at this hour. His thoughts raged and curled around the facade of his mind.

Whoever owned the Warseeker couldn't have misplaced it—that much Kennen gathered over the past few years. And if the object was making an effort to be heard, its owner couldn't be far behind. Would they be an ally or an enemy? That's what Kennen was pressed to find out, because if they proved to be detrimental to the Ice Capital's survival, then they had to be ready. They had to be prepared to face a war, if it came to that.

He couldn't trace back to anything without knowing what the Warseeker was first. Hence his mad rush for information and the frustration knocking at the back of his head when he found nothing of use.

This council meeting was just another obstacle he had to go through before he could have the day to himself. Besides, it's not like he came here without an agenda of his own, something he had been holding back since he got poached, poisoned, and saved by his healer friend, Dalan. Everyone had since moved on from that, so it made sense for him to bring it back up again.

He strode past the huge arch punched through the walls, ducking inside the meeting hall with the Chief's council. Unlike the Grand Marshal's council, these nobles were more concerned with the cultivation of jobarba than anything else.

A round table greeted him, and by the looks of it, they were only waiting for him. His father was held back at one of the trials involving theft and endangerment of their race, as he had been for the past three days, so Kennen took it upon himself to lead these meetings. With not a word, he settled into his father's chair and nodded at the eldest member to his left to start.

The middle-aged sprite cleared his throat and pushed his spectacles up his long nose. Sheets of parchment shuffled and crinkled as he gathered them into one bunch. It's a good thing Kennen came in late, giving the nobles time to study their material to avoid wasting more time. "Today's agenda: the western stocks, the foraging team assignments and schedules, and the capital-wide maintenance of the walls and ceilings."

Boring. Kennen could mobilize a task force to mind all of that by afternoon. He waved a hand in the air. "Erase all of that and put 'surface relocation' in the minutes," he said. It's high time they think about that, anyway. Hiding and cowering away from the war could only do them this much good. "We need to start the dialogue somewhere, after all."

The council blinked as one.

"Little Chief," the female noble opposite Kennen's chair propped a finger up. She looked to be about his age, but who was he to judge? "What's your basis for such a dialogue? Won't the Chief or the Grand Marshal shoot it down at first glance?"

"Not if we build our argument enough," Kennen answered. He tapped a finger on the table's dark wood surface. The bright sheen told him this one was maintained on a regular basis to avoid lozett colonies from showing up. "That's why I need your help. If the Chief and the Grand Marshal see that the Chiefly Court supports the idea, it'd have an easier time in the other courts."

Another noble piped up. "What kind of dust did the Little Chief inhale in the archives for him to start spouting nonsense?" he said, glancing at his seatmates who chuckled in return. He turned to the other council members to gather support, and it irked Kennen to see a few chuckles, no matter how hidden.

Kennen's eyes landed on Lydin Beldove, his previous tutor and mentor in the ways of governance and all things under the sunless cavern. He dared her to voice out her opposition, but all she gave him was a passive stare.

"Think about it," he continued, undeterred by the lukewarm reception. "The temperature aboveground has improved. And if we are to find out what went on in Alkara as the reason for their silence in terms of correspondence, we may be able to help them as they have helped us for ages. If only we prioritize going to the surface and dealing with the chaos before it gets to us."

"Crovalis," Olare Viris, the oldest council member seated on Kennen's left, interjected. His spectacles slid away from his eyes, and Kennen fought the urge to push it back up. With his fist. Addressing him by the Ancient version of his title sounded like mockery. "The upper world has not changed since our ancestors built the Ice Capital. Keijuis are still rabid creatures who will kill off anything they deemed different just because they can."

Master Viris leveled his gaze at Kennen. "Don't go chasing things that simply can't be. Take it as the advice of an old man who's been here longer than you," he said. "Because if you don't, people will get hurt—people that you value and love."

"What can I do to prove to you that we're more than ready to go back to the surface?" Kennen challenged. He didn't know what he's saying, or why he's saying it, but he couldn't shake the feeling that if he let this moment go, he wouldn't be able to get a word in about this ever again.

That's when Lydin leaned forward and threw the tail of her green hair behind one shoulder. "Little Chief, it's not because we disagree with your point," she said. "Just that we do not have the political power to make it happen the way you want it to. Even if we all believe your cause, the Chief still holds the greater power, and above him, the Grand Marshal. We all know what can happen if we incur their wrath by even suggesting anything close to what you're pushing for. We're..."

"Too much of a vulkraine to fight for our people," Kennen finished for them. He pushed himself off the table and slid off his chair. "You can continue the meeting without me. Just forward the minutes to my or my father's office for final approval. I have somewhere to be."

Before any of the council members could stop him, he strode out of the room and the entire floor, for that matter. He's not pushing for surface relocation because he wanted to frolic around and smell flowers for a living. With the structure of the Ice Capital, if war was to find them here, their enemies could just topple the upper floors and end their civilization as they knew it. Maybe the Grand Marshal had plans for such a scenario, but that didn't mean Kennen would sit back on his haunches.

The Chiefly Court was right about one thing, though. They didn't have the political might to pull it off, and neither did Kennen. The decision to move an entire race to a new world wasn't to be made lightly, and everyone, including the youngest flower-child, must be informed about it. Just one refusal could send the relocation back to obscurity. It would take the Grand Marshal and the Chief's influence to start it off, but even Kennen couldn't change their minds that easily.

When he looked up, his gaze landed on the familiar wall of the Hall of Symbols. It seemed that his form's way of calming itself was to bring him to places where he felt at home the most. Did it bother him that one of those was the Hall of Symbols, with its creepy historical objects and the memories of their people lingering in the ice and the cold air? No. If anything, it energized him.

He watched his faint silhouette on the wall's miry depths, small and unenduring against the monstrosity that was the Ice Capital. Even smaller was the Warseeker sitting undisturbed on its perch. Without thinking too much, his magic swirled to the surface and locked on the wall's trails. Familiar energy flitted back to his system as the ice shards melted into indiscernible tinkling, leaving a hole as big as the Warseeker in their wake.

His fingers shook as he fished the object and held it so close to his face. As expected, it betrayed nothing of its secrets, but he didn't need to be a scholar to know it had some. Like everything in the Hall of Symbols, it has a story. Would it tell him of how it came to the care of his people? Or would it recount a history forgotten?

How would it connect to the impending doom hanging over their heads? At the war brewing in the corners, taking hold of the territories above the ground? And would Kennen like what he found?

It's fear, that much Kennen was sure of. Fear made fairies act in strange ways, going as far as fighting to keep things the way they were, to preserve the false sense of peace in a time of confusion and havoc. And if he could prove that the surface was in need of their help as much as it's scary, if he could provide his people a chance to claim what's rightfully theirs, something that's taken from them all those centuries ago, then they wouldn't need to hide and creep about in the shadows.

Because the shadows in this island were hostile, going about in broad daylight and devouring everything in their paths. And if they reach the Ice Capital, who could say he and his people would be able to survive?

The Warseeker, just like its name, was a beacon for something greater, and Kennen would have to go to Umazure's ends to figure that out.

That was, if the sun didn't fall over them first.