2412, Rab 15, Velpa

Kennen craned his neck up at the ceiling of the Chief's office. The walls threatened to close in on him, and for some reason, he waited for them to. Facing his father after his outburst a few days ago was not how he imagined his morning would go.

"Does the ceiling need reinforcement for it to hold your interest?" the Chief's voice speared through Kennen's mind, scattering his thoughts in a thousand, unnamable directions.

Kennen tore his gaze from the ceiling and cleared his throat. "N-no, Your Majesty," he said, training his attention to his father's desk instead. No doubt the minutes of the meeting he walked out of in a tantrum lay somewhere in the huge stack of parchment resting in it.

The Chief hummed, scratching the dark beard coating his chin and upper lip. "Do you know why you're here?" he asked.

Despite the existential nature of the question, Kennen figured his father was talking about the summon he received earlier this morning before he went on his rounds. "I do," Kennen replied. "And I promise to never do it again."

"That's not necessarily the issue here, son," the Chief said.

Kennen frowned. "Let me guess," he said. "It's about the relocation."

He hit the spot, as evidenced by the sheet of satisfaction covering his father's passive stare. His dark eyes, which Kennen shared, bored into his innermost being, tearing him apart and putting him back up without respite. "The Grand Marshal and I are open to the idea of moving back into the surface and establishing our sovereignty, but as you know well, this is not the time to do that," the Chief explained. His elbows thunked against the desk, and he rested his chin on twined fingers. "We may be asking for more trouble if we do it at such a volatile time."

"And if we don't, we may as well bring down the ceiling on ourselves," Kennen blurted. The edge in his voice registered, and he clamped his mouth shut. He ducked his head at the Chief. "Sorry. I didn't mean for that to come out. I understand, Your Majesty. I won't speak of the relocation until the tensions in the surface evens out."

The Chief's eyes narrowed. "You're more compliant than what I counted on," he noted. "Do you have another sneaky plan you're not planning to tell me and your mother?"

Busted. Denying it meant incurring more suspicion on Kennen's part, and if he told the Chief about the details nagging at the back of his mind, he might encounter more resistance than the relocation thing.

In short, Kennen was screwed.

His saliva fought with the lump growing in his throat when he gulped. The back of his tongue oddly tasted like bile. "I...plan to uncover the Warseeker's secrets," he said. "Maybe we'll have more insight into the war, our people, and everything else. I just—I mean, I tried to let it go, but it kept on itching at the back of my mind and—"

"There's a tome handed down from Chief to Chief in the lowest archives in the Capital," the Chief said. "I was holding it back since I don't want you to think I'm passing on the crown and everything that comes with it this early, but it's what you need, right?"

Kennen blinked. Then blinked again. "What did you say?"

His father could have rolled his eyes at that. "There's a tome handed down from Chief to Chief—"

"No! I mean..." Kennen searched the Chief's face for any sign of the emotion that made more sense in this situation. "You're not angry?"

The Chief gave him a flat look. "Why would I be?" he said. "Compared to the previous years, you're not running off on your own to the surface. There are answers in the Capital, and you're not putting anyone, including yourself, in danger."

That's...

"You are welcome to drop by the Chief's archives any time you want," the Chief continued. "I'm sure Remryn won't mind. You can ask for her help."

Kennen could have leaped past the desk and thrown his arms around his father but refrained himself. It's not proper decorum, and with the guards flanking the doors to the office, he'd rather not risk it. Still, he didn't stop the victorious smile pulling at the corners of his lips on his way out of the Chief's office. He had come here thinking he'd be flayed with sermons about endangering their people, but he went out with a chance for progress with his research.

No wonder none of the tomes in the public library contained anything about war seekers and gods-knew what else. The answer awaited him in the archives only the Chief could access.

That's what prompted his heart to pound on his temples and toes when he made it to the end of the corridor and took the bend leading to where the guards pointed him to at the behest of the Chief. A simple door, not standing out from the rest of the doors Kennen had seen in his lifetime, guarded the cavern of secrets waiting for him. With a little force, he sent the doors swinging inside.

A wide cavern bled out before him. Panels of illuminated ice glared down at him at constant intervals. Arrays of shelves with rectangular niches littered the expanse. There's not even room for a stool or a table for reading. It's as if the Chief or the Grand Marshal visited this place only to check a few things before flitting off elsewhere.

His gaze landed on a corner where a small desk lantern glowed brighter than the ceiling. A woman hunkered behind it, absorbed in a tome laid open before her. He approached her and ducked his head. "Greetings, Master Remryn," he started. The woman looked up from her perch to regard him with such golden eyes it unnerved him. "I came on behalf of my father, the Chief, and he gave me permission to view...it."

Remryn, unlike Lydin, didn't find that amusing. "View what?"

Kennen scratched the back of his neck. "I...uh, my father didn't really specify what, but it's a tome passed down from Chief to Chief? And contains everything I need to know?"

"Do you know how little that narrows it down?" Remryn asked. For someone who didn't utter a squeak during the court meetings, she sure has a tongue now. "The whole archive may have been it."

He pursed his lips and stared at the mass of knowledge and history he had yet to uncover. His gut swirled at the sheer excitement visiting him. "Then, do you have something that can tell me about the Warseeker?" he asked.

Now that he thought about it, his father never asked him what the Warseeker was when he blurted it in the Chief's office. Did that mean the previous Chiefs knew something about it? Why couldn't his father tell Kennen directly?

At that, Remryn bobbed her head, making the curls of her dark red hair bounce against her shoulders. "I may have something like that here," she said, peeling off her perch and stalking to a specific shelf without consulting anything. DId this woman memorize everything in the archive? Whoa.

His attention shattered to a million pieces when a tone with a dusty, leather bound slapped against his chest, driving the air out of his lungs.

"Try that," Remryn said before trudging back to her desk. She picked up her tome and started reading once more. "Tell me if you need something else."

"Thanks," Kennen squeaked through the wheezing. He massaged the throbbing spot on his chest and opened the book over his hand. The spine's weight dug against his wrist, so he pressed his back into the nearest shelf to distribute it across his form. Then, he flipped to the first page.

The first few sections detailed the myths—how a mystical tree protected the island from outer sources of evil, acted as the agent of fate, and connected the entire Keiju-kind to what's referred to as the "heart" of their world, Fantasilia. It should have been utter dagrine crap, but as he got deeper and deeper into the lore, he realized it wasn't. Not by a long shot.

He turned to the next page, only to find out an interesting tidbit on how his world worked. The races' connection to the Arbotro Fentimanis is regulated by an array of symbols and souls the flow of magic deemed worthy. These symbols are referred to as auvarselis, and the souls, kalaedis.

The words nipped at the back of Kennen's mind. Auvarselis sounded like the Ancient word Avarelis which meant...

"Throne," he breathed, his voice carrying as far as three shelves further. It's not loud enough to reach Remryn's desk.

And if the symbols were called thrones, then the souls could only be the heirs.

He dove back to the tome and read through it. The Auvarselis and Kalaedis work together to maintain the race's existence by channeling the raw magic from the Arbotro Fentimanis to what the races can digest and utilize. Without the Kalaedi, the Auvarsel is free to choose another agent to tend to the connection, but without an Auvarsel, a race ceases to exist.

Now, for the types of Auvarselis documented to exist in Uma Siore...

Kennen skimmed the rest until his eyes found the word he had been looking for. The Warseeker, coined by the Regnant Houses of Jatoma, became prominent after the Jatoman War for the Nourahalme. It is believed to have been formed due to the fervent wish of the Humans to be safe from Keiju attacks. What is known about this elusive auvarsel is that its power involves influence over the—

The paragraph stopped. Kennen knitted his eyebrows, a frown snatching what little excitement he retained from being able to access the Chief's archives. He turned the page. Nothing at the back. Wait. That's it?

He rushed towards Remryn's desk. "Is that all?" he demanded. It didn't matter how much he sounded like a flower-child whose tea was snatched by a conniving adult. "The page couldn't have stopped at the most appropriate time!"

The Master looked up from her tome with a speed to rival a komodec, as if she found it hard to even acknowledge him. "What are you talking about, Little Chief?" she asked. "Context?"

Kennen slammed his tome on her desk, flipped it to the last page, and tapped a finger on the last line. "The information is incomplete," he said. "Are you aware of that?"

Recognition dawned in Remryn's face. "Oh, that," she leaned back on her stool, her back finding the cold walls of the archive. "Since that's not the original copy, you can't see the blood stains."

A stone of dread dropped in Kennen's gut. "Blood...?" he breathed. "Why would someone die in transcribing a tome?"

Remryn shrugged. Her dark blue robes blended well with the wall but not her hair. "Rumors have it that the original copy belonged to a well-known historian in Cardina, and as he was about to describe the Warseeker, he was mysteriously killed," she said. "Since then, every copy of that tome ended where he did."

"If you ask me," she groaned as she stretched her arms up, her face contorting into the characteristic wince that came with the motion. "It might be because whoever the Warseeker was connected to didn't want to publicize information about it. Keep it under the glaciers, if you catch my current."

Kennen stuck his lip out. It made sense, but why would anyone want to keep information about the thrones hidden? Weren't they already considered myths among most of the Keijuis? At this point, only the royal family and their heirs knew about their own race's thrones, and most often, knowledge wasn't passed down the generations as efficiently as before. That's what led to the mystification of these concepts, and why Kennen was only finding about it now.

"Yeah, I ride on it," he answered the Master's idiom with another one. "Thanks for your help, Master Remryn. I'll report back to my father."

"Close the door on your way out," Remryn shouted after Kennen. "Don't make me haunt you in your sleep if you cause me to stand up from my cozy hovel."

Kennen doubted she'd make good on that promise—she'd have to swear by Daexis' name first—but he wasn't taking chances. The doors clicked with a damning finality when he ducked out. He was about to head back to the Chief's office when his periphery caught his familiar figure.

"Father," Kennen turned and faced the Chief. "How long have you been standing there?"

The Chief rolled his shoulders. Dressed in similar robes as Kennen, they looked like brothers more than father and son. Sometimes, it's easy to forget the fact that fairies never age beyond a specific year and would carry that face for at least four centuries more.

"Remryn is known to have a sharp tongue and a...hostile personality," his father explained. "Have you had problems with her?"

Kennen glanced back at the clammed doors. Could the Master hear them badmouth her from behind? "She didn't cause me any problems," he said, just in case she was. "It's all good."

"Did you find what you came for?" came the Chief's next question.

A sigh flitted out of Kennen's lips. "I wish," he said. "The copy is corrupted, and the original work didn't get that far. Master Remryn told me someone might have been bent on erasing the Warseeker's truths."

"Part of that was my and my predecessors' faults," the Chief replied. Kennen watched his father from the corner of his vision as they talked. "The past chiefs and grand marshals neglected to tell their successors about that object in the Hall of Symbols until it simply lost its meaning. If they had been attentive, you wouldn't have to grapple for the answers now."

Kennen chewed on his lip. "It won't make a difference if we think of what could have been," he said. "All truths and secrets will eventually come out—it's what I hold onto in life. Just you wait. The Warseeker's secrets will be out in the open soon."

He peeled off the wall and was about to take a step away from his father when the Chief asked, "What is it with that thing that made you so fixated on it?"

At that, Kennen glanced over his shoulder. "It's the answer for the future of our people," he said. "It can either be our salvation or our ruin. I need to know which."

Before his father could respond, he stalked away, leaving the Chief pondering on the gravity of his statement and the circumstance they found themselves in. Kennen wanted to lean to the positive side, to believe that the Warseeker would bring forth prosperity and victory to the Ice Sprites, but it wasn't called that for no reason.

And with rumors of a war polluting the Grand Marshal's Court, there's no doubt war would be what they'd get if they wouldn't act now.