“Ruban!” A voice called, and Ruban was yanked out of his ruminations by the sight of his partner, Simani Vaz, waving at him frantically from across the lawn. Her husband Vikram was with her, carrying a pile of what appeared to be ancient scrolls and voluminous texts from some long-forgotten gothic era. Ruban suppressed a sigh. He loved the man like a brother, but Vikram’s obsession with archaeology and historical artefacts could try the sweetest of tempers. And nobody had ever accused Ruban of having a sweet temper.

He jogged over to the pair, offering Simani an apologetic smile as he closed the distance between them. “Sorry guys. I just...got caught up with something.” He spared a glance at the gathering of reporters who appeared to still be squabbling over who got first dibs on the foreigner and his juicy scoop.

“Yes, we noticed,” Vikram said, a mischievous smirk lighting up his scholarly face. Over the past year, Ruban’s nerd of a friend had somehow gotten it into his head that he and Casia would make a good match, and it seemed he wasn’t planning to let go of his newfound matchmaking hobby anytime soon. Well, two could play at that game.

“Wonder what your students are gonna say when they see that expression on your face, professor,” Ruban shot back with a snigger. Before Vikram could begin to react, he whipped his phone out to click a snapshot of the smirking man. Hunter training did have its advantages, after all. “I swear, you look like a cat that’s just ingested a whole tub of cream. There’s nothing going on between Casia and me, Vik. Stop building castles in the air.”

“Hey! Give that back to me!” Vikram lunged at Ruban, who ducked smoothly out of the way, extending a foot to trip his adversary, only for it to be stomped on rather aggressively by an infuriated Simani.

“Ouch!”

“That’s m’ wife! Atta girl!” Vikram gave her an encouraging thump on the back, only to be pinned with a glare potent enough to curdle milk.

“What in the world is wrong with the two of you? We’re inside the headquarters of the IAW. For the love of God, behave yourselves!” She spun around and marched into the building, leaving the two men to rush in after her.

“Hey! Hey! Come on, Sim. We were just kidding around, you know that!” Vikram jogged after his wife as she strode up the stairs to the third floor, which housed most of the offices of the Department of Defence. Simani foreswore elevators with the passion of a saint against sin.

“What’re you two doing here this early anyway?” Ruban asked, catching up with the pair easily after registering their arrival at the front desk. “The official ceremonies won’t start until late afternoon.”

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“What do you mean?” asked his partner, confused. “I received a call saying the Senior Secretary wanted to see us. Didn’t you? I assumed that’s why you’re here.”

“Well yes,” agreed Ruban, slightly embarrassed. “I just...didn’t realise it was something official. I thought he just wanted to chat. You know how he is. But if you’re here too...”

“I guess it must be important.”

The Senior Secretary did have an unfortunate penchant for inappropriate chumminess at the oddest of times, giving rise to some rumours about bias in Ruban’s selection into the elite Bracken Academy, due to him being Subhas’s nephew. Of course, those had been laid to rest the day Ruban had first held a sifblade in his hand, his natural talent for Hunting apparent to even the most reluctant of observers.

But beneath that facade of overt exuberance, they both knew that Subhas Kinoh was an extraordinarily competent man, the reason why he currently occupied one of the highest positions in the Vandram Government. And if he had summoned two of his best Hunters to the IAW headquarters on Emancipation Day, of all times, something serious was about to happen, or already had.

“Well, I’ll be off to the library then,” Vikram said, as they finally reached the third floor landing. “Gotta return these books to the archives.” He held up his monstrous tomes, displaying them proudly for his companions to see. But if he’d expected them to recognize the volumes, he’d expected too much.

“What is that? Some sort of ancient gothic romance?” asked Ruban, squinting at a particularly large leather-bound volume with gold trimmings. “Looks eerie.”

“It’s a treatise on pre-Revolt architecture, you ass!” Fuming, Vikram tapped him atop the head with the aforementioned treatise. “Like this building for example,” he began, looking around with zeal in his eyes. “It’s been heavily restructured and modernized over the years, but the basics of the original design are still apparent in–”

“Was there ever a statue somewhere in here?” Ruban asked, curbing the flow of incomprehensible geekiness before it could begin. “Somebody told me today they remembered a statue on the grounds. A big one, I think it was. Big enough to climb onto.”

“Climb onto? Are you talking about the Statue of Zeifaa? Honestly Ruban! You do have the strangest ideas.”

“So there was a statue here?”

“Of course. The famous three-hundred foot Statue of Zeifaa, the tallest structure on the planet at the time of its construction. You know, Zeifaa as in the first Aeriel Queen of Vandram?” Vikram explained slowly, at his companions’ baffled expressions.

“The statue of an Aeriel? On IAW premises?!” Ruban growled, hackles rising almost unconsciously at the sacrilegious thought. “That’s impossible!”

“Well, it was destroyed over six hundred years ago. During the storming of the palace, most accounts suggest. So unless you saw a ghost, Ruban, I don’t know who could remember such a thing,” Vikram squinted at him. “Are you sure you’re not hearing things?”

“Oh, I probably misheard,” Ruban muttered as he spied Subhas’s assistant, a smartly dressed woman in her mid-fifties, approaching them from across the floor. “We should go now.”

“Yeah, see you Vik.” Simani gave her husband a quick peck on the cheek before making her way towards the Senior Secretary’s office, Ruban in tow.