Kaden held on tighter, using Willpower alone. He had every right to return to Vichor, and damnit, it was his expectation that she did, too. The token struggled to transport him and not Sara, and the struggle went on forever. The extra point in willpower made it easier to assert that his expectation was reality. The longer he held on, the strong her became.

Then the sense of being watched grew so strong he could feel the weight of stares.

OVERRIDE ENTERED: ENTITY [SARA SCYLLA] ACCEPTED.

The storm of colors surrounding him faded away.

Kaden stood in a ruined stone house. The furniture was destroyed, the walls melted. But it was his. Sara looked around. “You said it was nice.”

“This is my house.”

“Oh, that makes sense, then. Where do we take the book?” She peeked out into the streets of Vichor.

Kaden dispatched the Falcrow with a message. “That I don’t know the answer to, but it’s back in Vichor, where it belongs. I haven’t even gotten to see what kind of spells it contains.”

A Cycle of Fate. Fate Weave. Fate Bind. Fate Bend. Fate Twist.

Kaden knew exactly what kind of spells these were. A portal opened with a whisper, and Ashi stepped through. Her wraps were glowing silk, every mana bead glowed with intense power, but for once, Ashi was happy. “Come with me, Kaden Birch. And do not fear, for Mother is well pleased with you.”

Ashi looked to Sara. “And you, as well, are welcomed. It is not proper that you should be in this house without permission, but come and rest in luxury.”

Kaden took the spellbook and handed it to her. “How do you explain it being gone?”

“That I know. You will see.” Ashi opened another portal—so easy in the rich mana of Vichor—and motioned for them. “I will be with you soon. Watch.”

The portal led to a crowd of Vichorean mages, who stood in silence, watching the grand library ahead. Forget temples, Vichoreans worshiped no gods, but they waited for the head librarian to appear.

The doors on the second level opened, and Najur, Ashi’s less psychopathic brother stepped out. He carried the Vichorean staff in his hand, and wore the armor Kaden had recovered from Gigantorrod’s nest, armor that covered so little it clearly explained why Najur’s brother died.

Najur looked deeply uncomfortable, but cleared his throat, and when he spoke, his voice carried. “Citizens of Vichor. Honored scholars. Great Librarians and seekers of magic. The missing tome is in its place. Even now, our [Fate Weavers] are studying it. Even now, they work to delay the next Cataclysm. You were worried, that one of our treasures was missing. You were afraid, that this was a sign.”

The murmur in the crowds fell silent.

“You were right to do so,” Najur said. “Even the King must respect the knowledge of Vichor. Even the King must ensure that knowledge is available to all. I swear before the System, I will never try to keep knowledge for myself.”

Oath acknowledge - Najur must share knowledge of spells.

Slow cheers spread among the crowd, but Najur held up both hands. “My father spoke and his word was reality. Let me be known by what I do not say. If there must be guidance, let it be from the wise. If there must be debate, may it be from many. When I must speak, let it be known as time when Vichor failed. Let us learn from it and do better each time.”

Without waiting for the crowd, he went back into the library.

A collective sigh ran through the crowd—and cheers, as mages assured each other that they, personally, had never been worried. That they, personally, were confident that everything would be fine. It was everyone else who had worried.

Sara wondered at everything, staring at the buildings. The mages. The sky. “Do you understand what he said?”

Shit. Kaden recapped. “The book is back, Najur wants to be a quiet king, you can go about your business, move along.”

“Still can’t believe you speak Vichorean. The mana is so thick here, it’s like a blanket. Even I could work spells here.” Sara stopped to pick at the cobblestones. “There are mana stones in the street. In the street!”

Kaden wasn’t surprised. He took her to the street markets. “You don’t pay. You ask, you get it. If something isn’t in the market, I can show you who to ask.”

“Sara!” That was Eve.

A crackle of lightning distracted Kaden as Vip dashed toward him. *Love. Fast! Love!*

[Beast Soul] translated it for Kaden, but so did the way the small dog wiggled to get closer and lay her head on Kaden’s shoulder, tail still thumping.

As for Eve? Kaden looked to her—and didn’t understand what he saw. This Eve was smiling and not because someone was hurt. She embraced Sara in a hug, then stepped back and offered Kaden a pat on the back. An awkward pat on the back. “You’re here so quickly! And your levels! What happened? No, wait. If you tell me now, you’ll simply have to repeat it. Let’s go to the North Garden. It’s so beautiful.”

Sara’s suspicious look confirmed what Kaden felt. “You’re looking good, Eve.”

Eve’s normally long blond hair was even longer and braided into a single braid that fell to the small of her back, and she’d traded her alpha wolf robes for rich red Mage’s robes. “You don’t have to stare. Don’t worry, I’m not going to bite. Or hug. That hasn’t changed. Physical affection is…unattractive. But Ashi’s mother was able to give me back a piece of my soul that was lost to my many resurrections.”

“You’ve actually got a personality?” Kaden asked.

*Slow*, Vip said.

“Sorry.” Kaden accepted Vip’s reprimand.

“There’s the Kaden I know.” Eve led them through the city, greeting various mages by name and getting stopped four different times to exchange greetings. “They’re working on replicating my skills with spells!”

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The North Garden was where Kaden had gone once to meet Ashi’s mother. He stopped at the gate. “She’s not here, is she?”

“Not right now, but I can’t make promises. And I grasp why you’d dread meeting her. I grew up around entities with unspeakable power,” Eve said. “Stay behind me, if something must be said, I’ll handle her to keep you safe.”

The plants in the garden began to re-arrange themselves, uprooting and moving stones to form a straight way through the gardens to the royal pavillion. There, Ashi spoke in hushed terms with King Najur.

Kaden bowed.

“None of that,” Najur said. “I am king by your hand, it is not disrespect to stand before me. Ashi chose well, when I begged her for help. And this one is a Queen among [Trap Snakes.] Underestimate her at your peril.”

Eve blushed. “I like [Trap Snakes]. They’re so cute with their little nooses! And clever! All I did was verify every individual’s standing to approach the royal family. There’s nothing you have I want, no bribe worth looking aside, no threat I fear. It was a pleasure to help.”

Ashi spoke to the servants, who rushed to arrange couches in the shade of palm trees that leaned to shade the area. “This is Corvanus, Royal Archivist. Sara, I ask that you tell us of all that was done. The Line of Rahm does not forget, and the mistakes of history serve to guide us.”

“I could tell you,” Kaden said, as he set down Vip for the first time since arriving. She circled him and lay up against his feet.

Ashi fixed him with a baleful stare. “How often have you left out dangers you faced? She will not leave them out. Before we begin, do you thirst? Do you hunger? Should we let you bathe?”

“I could actually use a Healer,” Kaden said. “I feel like there’s still a bone spear in my gut.”

Ashi swore under her breath. “And you did not ask immediately.”

A few minutes later, Kaden waited as a Healer worked his magic again and again. Then finally stopped. “There’s something wrong here. We’ll need to cut it out.”

Kaden drew the Levicon Blade. “Ready.”

“I’ll do the cutting.” The healer invoked one spell after another. “[Blade of Healing] doesn’t hurt.”

[Fortress of Stone] would handle if it did. Except it didn’t need to. Kaden barely bled at all as the healer sliced into his gut. Something moved inside him, and and a shard of bone slipped out.

“Skully!” Kaden snatched it. The bone was stained red and had curious dark brown veins through it, but he’d recognize that single piece of skull bone anywhere. Also because of the way it responded to the binding Sevin had given Kaden. “I need bones. Chicken bones. Doesn’t matter what. This is Skully. I thought he was destroyed.”

Perhaps the explosion had thrown shrapnel at Kaden.

No.

The more Kaden thought about it, the more likely Duggarn had put the shard there so Kaden could smuggle Skully out safely.

“I’m not done here!” The Healer insisted, closing up the incision.

For some reason, Sara, Ashi and Eve were all squeemish when Kaden offered chicken bones to the fragment of Skully. And in truth, it was sort of disgusting. The moment he touched the fragment to a chicken bone, the bone lost color and stuck on. Veins began to spread up and down the bone, and slowly, the chip got larger while the bone melted away.

Kaden sent to the market and received a mound of cow bones, which he dumped in a box with Skully. Then he unleashed Trinity to sit beside him and listen, and summoned the Falcrow, with a mental prod that no one’s figure was worth commenting on.

Sara’s tale took hours. And hours. And hours.

He swore she’d secretly taken [Relive the Moment].

Trinity especially enjoyed the parts with Suridev, of course. And the parts with meat and murder. She was an easy to please beast. Vip moved from lap to lap and always came back to Kaden. The Lightning Chevalier’s happiest moments were when others poured affection on her, and Kaden was happy to pour.

When they were finally done, the scribe excused himself.

Kaden could finally relax. “I’m ready to go to my Holding. You’re welcome to stay—all of you. I’ll rest better there.”

“My older sister is a [FateWeaver] intiate. She wishes to speak with us,” Ashi said. “All of us. This is not a command, nor does she hold power, but it would be a kindness to listen to her.”

What has Ashi’s mother said once? It was an easy thing to say? “I will listen.”

Eve sat next to him. “Don’t believe everything [Prophets] say. Oberix could be telling you the absolute truth and lying to their advantage at the same time. Or Oberix might be imperfect. It’s absolutely possible they believe their prophetic visions and aren’t as good as they claim.”

“I’m not giving up.”

“I would expect no less,” Eve said as Vip crawled into her lap. “My experiences with [Fate] have been unkind and I don’t want you doing the same thing I did. After the Rat God corrupted me, my family consulted with many Fate Weavers. They may even have gone to this Oberix, it’s possible. I was young, but I recall every time their prophecies failed.”

Kaden had to believe in this. “I’ll put my faith in the people I know over any prophecies. I like the new you.”

“It’s technically the old me. Both are me. I am proper because that’s the proper way to be. I am the daughter of royalty. Whether the first born or the fifty ninth, I am. But I’d like to be more. I love cooking. I love Vip. It feels good to enjoy something. I just need a balance.”

“So, are you ready to date?”

Eve almost choked. “Please, no. Cuddling Vip is as close as I ever want to get to physical affection. I wouldn’t be averse to falling in love, but you can keep your sweaty trists.”

Kaden didn’t mind the sweaty trists.

It was near evening when Ashi’s sister Prateshi arrived. The garden reacted to her, bending and swaying as the plants bowed. Dressed from head to foot in heavy robes that revelead only her eyes, she bowed to Ashi and spoke in whispers, then turned to them. “Good evening, friends. Ashavan speaks highly of you. I come to you not as royalty of Vichor but as a keeper of Fate. You come from the city-in-darkness, Omnor?”

Kaden nodded. “We did.”

“And I see upon your status, [Twist of Fate]. This is a dark skill. Not evil, but not without consequence. We have woven Fate for thousands of years, and now, this fate is disrupted. There are two Necromancers born for power, fated to become great weapons against the Blight.” Pratesh looked to each of them. “We cannot see them in the loom of Fate. They are not dead, or their thread would change and be woven again. Find them. Free them. [Fate] will do the rest.”

“I’ll go,” Eve said.

“And I as well,” Ashi added. “Sara and Kaden, you have endured your time in Omnor. I would not ask you to deal with the [Fate Changer] again.”

Home felt like a need. “The Necromancers were at war with Diggus Bikus. His Emporium people took them. If the Necromancers can’t find them, how are we supposed to?”

“I will give to Ashavan a fiber from the Loom of Fate. As twins, their [Fate] was spun from the same thread in the womb. It will find them or anyone associated with them.”

Kaden drew the intelligence booster from Inventory and grasp it, then looked to Sara, wondering if she had the same questions. “Before we do that, we need to make sure this isn’t some long game for Oberix. If she can see into the future, what’s to say helping us wasn’t just to get her hands on this ‘fiber?’ What could a [Fate Changer] do with that?”

“Oberix was always ten steps ahead, maybe fifty.” Sara said. “It would be like her to drive us to this point and this moment to get something else.”

Pratesh grew quiet. “In the hands of a [Fate Changer], the Thread could do immense damage. This particular [Fate Changer] has meddled for eons. With every cataclysm, their Prophecy has grown stronger. It may be more powerful than any weaver’s ability. I will consult with Mother.” She opened a portal and stepped through.

“Anything we do, Oberix may have forseen,” Sara said. “But they’re not perfect. They expected Kaden to offer her scrolls and weapons. They foresaw that, and he didn’t.”

“I didn’t have the scrolls. But the truth is, I almost tried to. It was what I wanted to do. What I told myself I was going to do.” The more Kaden thought about it, the less he could explain it. “I just didn’t.”

Then it hit him.

He activated [Relive the Moment], watching and hearing how Oberix spoke. “Everything changed when they said the Professor would never succeed. Everything up to that, I believed. Something was off about that statement.” Kaden checked the box of bones and drew out a skull the size of his fist, with tiny baby-bone-hands. He could only hope—and be delighted. Skully’s Inventory remained attached.

He took out the first level Inventory Cube, and began to sort them, throwing scrolls out in piles as he searched. “There’s no spell for [Lie Detection.] Thousands of scrolls and not one single [Lie Detection].”

“That’s a book, not a scroll,” Sara said. “You could buy a skill book. What is [Radioactive Explosion]?”

Ashi batted the scroll from her hand. “Something that should not be taught. This is a most Kaden Birch thing to do.”

Kaden wasn’t done yet. He droppped the pedastals still holding their shielded scrolls and drew the Tier up ones. “Then you should look at these.”