When Vayra found Captain Pels and Elder Gheita again, she was expecting to be sent back to her quarters for the night. She wasn’t expecting to be led back to a carriage outside the temple’s plaza and led back to a distant apartment.
According to Gheita, the Order had been recruiting many, many disciples lately, and there were no available rooms at the temple for Vayra. Which meant that now, she would be granted an apartment in the administration district with a dedicated chamber to meditate in.
The apartment tower was at the edge of the administration district, usually reserved for Members of Parliament who didn’t have a local residence—at least, as long as parliament was in session. Since it was summer on Thronehome, it wasn’t the parliament season, and all of the representatives were on their homeworlds. It left plenty of room for Vayra to occupy an apartment.
The building itself was one of the taller ones. It was shaped like a wedge, with walls made of stone and glass, and a few decorative wooden panels. Its roof was curved gently. For her safety, a pair of Order of Balance guards were posted on the main floor of the apartment, to watch for intruders.
She received a room near the top of a tower, with floor-to-ceiling windows and plain, wallpapered rooms. It had a view of the now-distant Order temple, but otherwise, it was incredibly plain and…empty. There was a small kitchen and a separate bedroom with a proper bed, and a single ventilation duct that let in outside air when a gust of wind buffeted the tower.
She walked over to the windows and sighed. As she watched the horizon, the sun dipped below the buildings and disappeared, leaving a pale twilight haze in the sky.
It was too late to worry about how empty her apartment felt. The sun set late in the summer, and she needed to sleep to be ready for tomorrow morning.
She bid farewell to Gheita, Pels, and Glade, then a few minutes later, she slipped into the bed and fell asleep.
[https://static.wixstatic.com/media/f3a882_2bcdeab6626a49c1bc2fa21d230a67c6~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_560,h_281,al_c,lg_1,q_85,enc_auto/ship%20better.png]
The next day, she returned to the Order of Balance temple as fast as she could. When she arrived at the library, she met Elder Yaryn, who passed her a stack of books. He said, “Here you go, Miss. These should serve you well. I will find you more, and I will search through your Godscourge book for anything I can find.”
“Thanks.” She took the stack from his hands, and immediately, the weight of them almost toppled her over.
‘Oh, if you have to be this weak for the rest of your life…’ Phasoné complained.
“I’m working on it…”
She hauled the books over to a distant corner of the library and set them all down on the table. “Alright…we’ve gotta start somewhere.”
‘Put two books down and open them up,’ Phasoné said. ‘I’ll read one, and you read the other. We’ll make this go twice as fast.’
All throughout the morning, they read through the two books. Glade arrived about halfway through the day, reminding Vayra that she hadn’t yet eaten. She took a break (about a quarter of the way through the first text—’Regarding Arcara Foundations in God-heirs’) and joined him in the mess hall.
The Order disciples ate a simple meal of steamed groats and salt pork, as well as a few limes and boiled carrots.
“Vegetables like this are quite rare on a city-planet,” Glade told her. “You need food that keeps for a while. But the Order is afforded the best.”
Vayra was just glad that they hadn’t put on a fancy meal just for her—though, considering she was the only one not in an Order uniform, they had to know who she was.
“According to Elder Miin, the Order would have provided you with a near endless supply of spirit grains and rum for rations, but we haven’t stocked those in ages. But they are dusting off the elixir cellar for you as we speak, and they are preparing a supply of pills to aid your spirit.”
Vayra nodded. For the time being, she didn’t need any help adding more Arcara to her body—that could come once she had a solution to this inability to prepare her body.
After they ate, they parted. She returned to the library and spent the rest of the day reading. By the time the sun set, she and Phasoné had both finished their books. Two down. Ten more to—
Yaryn heaped another pile onto the desk with a smile.
If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
Twenty more to go.
Vayra forced a smile, then said, “Thanks.” She injected as much gratitude as she could into her voice.
She returned to her apartment. On the way, she met with Elder Gheita and told the woman that, for now, she would study under Yaryn. At least, until she found a clue, or tried speaking to someone else.
She kept the name Nathariel in the back of her mind.
The ordeal continued over the next day, and the day after. Vayra and Phasoné churned through another seven books, but she didn’t read anything that would be helpful to her case. Cycling techniques, sure. Techniques for battle, for purifying mana, for gathering mana from Stream water faster.
For specifically overcoming some sort of strategic roadblock at the Quartermaster stage? Nothing.
On the third day, a disciple arrived, bearing a tray with a single cup of shimmering, turquoise liquid. When she drank it, she tried to imagine it diffusing through the walls of her stomach and filtering into her Arcara channels—supposedly, it would give her a temporary boost in focus, like she had just woken up from a long night’s rest.
By the time she felt it flowing up to her mind, it was already starting to work. Her reading pace doubled for a few hours.
On the fourth day, she read a book which discussed the consumption of the flesh of sacred beasts. There were some meats that had a strengthening effect on the body, similar to the enhanced body received between Quartermaster and Master’s Mate. For it to take effect, a similar technique would have to be applied to push it around the body and strengthen the muscles.
Vayra was supposed to imagine little filaments reaching out from her Arcara channels; rather than just large veins, they were entire networks of magic streams.
That night, she returned to her apartment feeling slightly less nervous about the future. She opened her apartment’s door and stepped inside, but the remains of the adrenaline and excitement of finding something useful still aggravated her mind, and she doubted she’d be able to sleep.
The apartment’s closet was stocked with the light, summer attire, and it was better than wearing her dirty, day-to-day clothes. She changed into a light, sleeveless gown, and took her bracers off.
Once she was feeling a little more clean, she walked to the windows and stared out at the city again. It was late in the evening, and the sun had already set an hour ago. Lights glimmered all across the city, and in the distance, then Stream glowed faintly. Just barely, she could see ships sailing down it.
After a few minutes of staring at the city, Phasoné asked, ‘Vayra, do you ever plan to ask them about this…Nathariel person?’
“If the books don’t solve our problem, then…I’ll talk to Gheita.” She spoke aloud; there was nobody around to overhear her conversation. “Or Glade. But the King was being awfully cagey about it, and I’d rather not step on anyone’s toes.”
‘Not step on anyone’s toes?’ Phasoné asked. ‘You need to learn how to be polite, properly. Velaydian style.’
“Velaydian style?”
‘Don’t say what you mean. Say what you need to get what you want. The Order might try to serve you, but they’re a traditional bunch, and if you aren’t careful, they’ll stifle you with their old ways.’
“Well,” Vayra said, sighing. “The good news is that we’re making progress.”
‘And so does a snail when it climbs a mountain. It will die before it reaches the first summit.’
“You have my word, Phas. If this doesn’t work, we aren’t giving up.”
‘Phas? That’s a new one.’
“Felt right, today.”
The Goddess let out a snort, which sounded like a faint wind rattling around Vayra’s head. Vayra took one last look out the window, then craned her neck and glanced down at the endless traffic of wagons and carriages on a road far below. The sight was somewhat hypnotizing.
She shut the curtains, then walked to the kitchen. A jug of fresh water waited for her. She splashed some of it in her face, then drank a few sips. She realized she had been holding her breath while drinking for such a long while, and she began to pant afterwards. It made her Arcara cycle a little, and she winced. Never before had she thought cycling would be a bad thing, or that she would regret turning some of the breathing techniques into second nature. But here she was.
She held her breath, restricting the pushing factor of her mana. The Arcara calmed down along with it. As soon as her spirit settled, she said, “I’m going to head off to sleep, now. You’re welcome to do the same…”
‘I’ll just…pass out, in my little white inside-void.’
Vayra walked to the bedroom and closed the door, then shut the curtains here as well. The orange glow of the city lights still seeped through the cracks, but it wasn’t as bad as it would be without them.
She settled down on the end of the bed, then flopped back on top of the sheets.
For a few minutes, she laid still, but sleep didn’t come as quickly as she had hoped. As soon as her eyelids closed, another noise or gust of wind outside the apartment roused her. A faint breeze seeped through the ventilation system, carrying with it the stench of the city.
At first, it felt like a premonition. Something felt wrong, and she knew it, but she couldn’t explain it. A sickness in her gut, then a weight dragging her back into the covers.
A few minutes later, she felt a tingle in the back of her neck. It was the same kind of tingle she had felt around Myrrir—and certainly not a good kind. A God-heir was nearby.
She bolted upright in her bed and clenched her fists.
‘You feel it too?’ Phasoné asked.
“Something’s coming,” Vayra whispered. She slipped off the bed, then crept out of the bedroom. First, she slipped her starsteel bracers on, then pulled a pair of short breeches. She tucked her gown into them—if she had to fight, she didn’t need the fabric flapping around.
She slipped her feet back into her boots, keeping her head high. A cold breeze whistled through the ventilation system, sprouting goosebumps on her shoulders and thighs.
Before Phasoné could utter a warning, the windows shattered.