For the next week, Vayra spent her days in the library. She pretended to be reading the ever-growing stack of books that Elder Yaryn had given her, but in reality, she hunted the library for any mentions of Nathariel Hayden Layre.
First, she snuck down to a dark corner, tucked into a winding maze of bookshelves where the records of the God-heir kinships were. She found books documenting the Great Kinships, those descended from the High Pantheon, with the most powerful magic. Then, as she ducked out of the sight of another librarian, she stumbled across a shelf filled with records on the known pirate clans.
Nothing about a Layre clan or kinship.
When she’d exhausted her leads in the records of kinships, she turned to the family records—a sprawling set of shelves. Rickety wooden walkways ran along them, and an Order disciple cleaned the dust off the books.
Keeping to the shadows, Vayra kept out of sight from the disciple. She wound around the backs of the shelves, then climbed up without a walkway.
The books were organized alphabetically, but it still took her nearly a half hour to climb (without the help of a walkway) to the ‘H’ section.
It took her two days of hunting to sift through all the books. Finally, with Phasoné’s help, she located a simple record kept on the Hayden family.
Bound in a decaying leather cover, the text was written in messy handwriting that Vayra had to squint to make out. The parchment pages crinkled beneath her fingers, and it reeked faintly of rotting fruit.
She snuck the book back to the desk Elder Yaryn had given her, then cracked it open all the way and read through it. Every time someone walked behind her, she hid it in her lap, her heart pounding. Thankfully, they hadn’t assigned a protection detail to her while she was in the Temple.
Glade often stopped by, inquiring why she was so on-edge, and she told him that it was just jitters from the encounter with the bounty hunter. When the time came, she could tell him what she was planning—but not without a good lead, first.
The family record explained the Hayden family. They were a family that branched off of the Lyze, the God of Fire’s main line, and faded into relative obscurity. Most of their God-heirs didn’t ascend their spirits very high at all, and few of them ever reached the Flag Officer realm.
Vayra began to flip through the book quickly. As it progressed, the family’s strength fell dimmer and dimmer, until finally, it didn’t seem like many of them were different from a regular, non-spirited individual.
Then, near the end, she found a passage about a child, Nathariel, who showed great aptitude for spiritual ascension. An anomaly. The records ended before it could elaborate.
‘Wait, wait,’ Phasoné instructed. ‘Flip that page over and look. A page has been torn out.’
A line of rough, shredded parchment remained just against the spine. They had done their best to make it look inconspicuous, but short of destroying the entire book, it was impossible to hide the removed page.
Vayra closed the book and set it back on the table, then tapped her fingers against its cover and sighed. But without Nathariel, she had no other leads. She would be stuck here, weak, forever. Giving up wasn’t an option.
The next few days, she wandered the library, trying to figure out the hall’s general organization structure. Elder Yaryn caught her snooping around one time, and he immediately passed her a few more books—as if she had already finished her assigned reading and needed more.
She figured the library was arranged into a grid. Family and kinship records in one corner, and general, unsorted books opposite to it. A few sections to the left, she found one section devoted to ships’ logs—at least, what the Order had been able to recover from the Mascant Archives before Karmion took over.
According to the family record, Nathariel would have been born some five-hundred years ago, which made it easy to find ship’s logs that would have existed after he was born. Most logs were simple and unhelpful, but soon, she located the Harmony’s old logbook, which she and Glade had recovered from the Mascant Archives a few months ago. There would have to be something in there. Hopefully, it hadn’t been in this library long enough to tamper with.
She flipped through the book, sifting through pages until she arrived at the rough time period she was looking for. Once she had it, she placed her finger in the book so she didn’t lose the page, then closed it.
‘His abilities would not have put him into the public eye until he was a hundred, maybe a hundred and fifty years old,’ Phasoné said.
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“Not noticeable?” Vayra asked, bringing the logbook back to her desk. She ducked into an alcove to avoid the gaze of an Adept, who wandered the logbook section the same as she did.
‘If the Layre kinship was truly as fallen as they say, it would have taken a God-heir a long time to climb to a point where he could truly make a footprint in the larger galaxy,’ Phasoné explained. ‘A God-heir’s climb requires a large number of elixirs and pure dedication to cycling techniques, building up Arcara in silence and waiting for skills to blossom. Myrrir was over three centuries old when you first met him.’
“He didn’t act like it,” Vayra grumbled. She slipped out of cover and walked as fast as she could back to her desk. “I thought someone that old would have been wise and mature. His mortal, human first mate seemed more responsible than he did.”
‘You will find that with many God-heirs, I’m afraid,’ Phasoné said.
“And you, I suppose.”
‘But I’ve already explained that to you. Unless you need a reminder?’ Phasoné paused. ‘Another reason why you, the Mediator, are a necessary counterbalance. Sometimes, the seclusion of the climb, the constant rise…it can drive God-heirs insane and make them unstable.’
“Hammontor,” Vayra whispered.
‘Exactly.’
She began to flip through the logbook, where she had left her finger, hunting for any sign or mention of Nathariel.
‘If you flip so fast, you’re going to miss something,’ Phasoné warned.
The logbook’s script was small, flourishing, and written in golden ink. It was hard to skim through it and still see what it said.
She slowed down, and for the rest of the day, she began to read through the pages slowly. When the sun set and the library began to dim, she found it.
About two hundred and fifty years ago, the Mediator had been summoned to respond to a threat. A God-heir on a fire Path had developed deadly techniques, which seemed powerful enough to even kill Gods of the High Pantheon, should he develop them further. He was using them against God-heirs who were abusing their power, for now, but it seemed like everyone figured he’d set his sights higher. He could set their mana on fire, burning it away and shrivelling them into a husk. Their Arcara would catch aflame soon after. He was nearly unbeatable.
Fire Path? It could have been Nathariel.
‘It could be. Keep reading.’
The Mediator had pursued him with a squadron of Order of Balance Elders at her back, and they attacked immediately—if this fire-path God-heir’s techniques were capable of killing Gods, then surely, it would hurt the Mediator.
Threatened, this God-heir—who they estimated was at the Captain of Commodore stage—fought them. He killed a few of the Elders and seriously injured the Mediator, from which she never recovered.
According to the log, they had dealt a severe blow to the Fire Path God-heir as well, though. A note in the margin informed Vayra that nobody had seen a Fire Path God-heir for centuries afterwards. The Order deemed it dangerous to learn from them or work with them, even if they might have been willing to help keep the peace.
“Is that accurate?” she asked Phasoné.
‘God-heirs using a fire Path were rare before Karmion took over. Now? He’s sent hunters and pirates after them, probably for this reason. They can potentially harm him.’
“Then this is our best lead.” Vayra closed the book and leaned back in her chair. “I hate to say it, but I don’t think we’re going to find much else in this library.”
‘Where was this God-heir last seen?’
“Muspellar,” Vayra said, tapping the logbook. A fiery, magma planet? What better place? “At least, that was where his residence was before the Order attacked him.”
‘If they left after he injured their Mediator, then he would have no reason to abandon the world,’ Phasoné hypothesized.
“Either way, we’ll learn more there than we will here.” Vayra crossed her arms. “Besides,” she whispered, “if we keep moving, it will be much harder for that bounty hunter to follow us. We’ll be safer that way.”
She got up and snuck the logbook back onto the shelf, then thanked Elder Yaryn for his work.
“You are welcome, miss.”
“Did you find anything…interesting in the Godscourge book?” she asked him.
“Of interest—or help—to you?” Yaryn shook his head. “Tips. Ways to modify techniques. More uses for those starsteel bracers of yours. I jotted down a list of pages you may find helpful on the inside cover, if you would like it back.”
“Thank you very much,” Vayra said, then took the book back from him. He had very clean, almost perfect writing, like the list had been printed in a press. Sure enough, he’d marked off a few page numbers and written short summaries—she wouldn’t have to sift through the whole book. “Since, in the coming days, I’ll probably be appointed to a new teacher” (which wasn’t wrong) “this’ll be the last I see of you for a bit.”
“Take care, miss,” Yaryn said, bowing his head.
Vayra placed the book back in her haversack, then stepped out of the library and ran up through the Temple to the disciple’s quarters. They bunked in dormitories along a long hallway. Glade had told her which room he slept in, but she hadn’t remembered—besides, he bunked with a few other disciples, and trying to share secrets with him while the others were there wouldn’t be wise.
She waited in the hallway until she saw him walking past, then intercepted him, grabbed his wrist, and dragged him into a dark corner just beside the stairwell.
He raised his eyebrows.
“Not like that,” she hissed. “We need to talk.”
“Is something wrong?”
She told him what she’d discovered about Nathariel, then said, “I’m going. The Order is good, but I need the advice of someone stronger. Are you coming?”