I walked south for about an hour and a half, making breaks only to talk to merchants and people who seemed like they moved around the city a lot. I would soon need to start making my way back to meet with the rest of the group, not really having found any information about the whereabouts of Myriam and Kai.

Two of the people I spoke with had actually seen the person they knew as Brie walking the streets with books in her arms but none had witnessed a boy with her. Just as I was about to turn around and return, I noticed that I had walked all the way to the beginning of the river, at the giant stone temple hidden by a massive complex of vines and trees.

I moved closer to the temple and with every step I took, I heard the sound of the rushing river grow louder. I couldn’t really tell how tall the temple was since large tree trunks alternated places with its thick stone pillars and couldn’t see the top through their leaves, but it was safe to say the temple was at least as big as any temple of The Divine I had seen.

The middle of the temple was shaped as an ape-like face, where the entrance was formed by its open mouth while the stone walls were filled with vibrant green moss, vines and tree roots. The whole building looked like a festival of nature with the river originating from within it.

I briefly thought of moving toward the open mouth and entering until I saw some of the shamans Man had mentioned. They didn’t dress any differently than the people I had met on my way here, but their companions were not the same small monkeys clinging to their heads and shoulders. In their stead, I saw giant gorillas next to them—some black, some gray, and a few completely white.

The procession of shamans walked toward me, their gorillas sniffing the air as they moved closer. I wasn’t sure how to react to their presence and thought of taking a few steps backward before turning my back, but it was too late. The shamans had already seen me, so I decided it might be more respectful to stay put and wait for them to pass.

To my surprise, their reaction was not much different to that of the rest of the jungle citizens. They walked by me with a smile on their face and simply waved hello. I returned their wave and, pretty soon, I was left alone once more. I did not feel mana around them, but I could still tell there was a certain power as if the air was cooler and the scent of the jungle was stronger when they walked by me.

Ultimately, I decided against entering the temple in case my curiosity could be considered an insult, and I didn’t want to offend anyone with a giant gorilla as a companion. And so I made my way back, again stopping every so often to query the occasional merchant about Brie, but with no luck whatsoever.

***

I guessed I had probably reached our rendezvous point a little late, since I was the last one to arrive. I always tried to be punctual when meeting other people, going as far as purposefully arriving ten minutes earlier sometimes, but there was such wild beauty in this city that I was unable to bring myself to order.

“There he is!” Kard said, as soon as he saw me. “You didn’t need to worry about him abandoning us for a simple life in the jungle after all.”

“Literally nobody said that, Kard,” Krysha replied, and I could almost hear her eyes rolling. “Also, if we were worried, we would have simply contacted him using our earrings.”

“Did you find anything?” I asked as I reached them, and patted Kard on the shoulder with my left hand.

“Well, I discovered that the city is amazing and so are its people,” Krysha jumped to answer my question. “Did you see how they fish with a bow and arrow? I bet I could do that too. Such a fascinating way to get food.”

“I think he meant anything about Brie…” my sister said, though she smiled at Krysha’s enthusiasm.

“Right,” Krysha began anew. “I didn’t find anyone who had seen them both together, but I met a lot of people who sold books to the woman called Brie.”

“That’s exactly what Seika and I heard as well,” Kard said.

“Same here,” I added. “It seems lots of people have seen her buying books.”

“Then you’re lucky to have someone with my investigation skills,” Man said, wearing his usual smile. “Lots of people spoke highly of her but never saw her with Kai. So I decided to dig a little deeper.”

“You found out more?” I asked, my previous disappointment subsiding momentarily.

“I did indeed,” he replied and took a step forward so we could form a tighter circle around him.

“As you said, many people sold her books over the past year, mainly on the arcane arts of The Divine as well as mythology,” he began explaining. “I recognized a pattern in her looking for such books, so I asked around and found the oldest bookstore in the city—”

“Yes!” an excited Krysha interjected. “Great thinking, Man.”

“Thank you, Krysha,” he said, a bit unnerved by her sudden enthusiasm, before continuing. “I visited this particularly old bookstore called Ebon’s books and made some queries regarding books about The Divine. My royal lineage made things a lot easier and pretty soon the elderly store owner was telling me how a polite and bright young woman by the name of Brie had bought most of the books on that subject, as well as having many books delivered from all over the world. I pretended to know her and asked if she was ever there with a younger boy. He was happy to hear that I knew Brie’s little brother as well. Though he had only seen him once, he knew he was the one devouring all those mythology tales.”

“It really is them!” I said, my excitement seeping through the serious exterior we were trying to keep.

“I said I would be very interested in meeting with them since I hadn’t seen them for a while,” Man continued, “but he didn’t know where they were living. Even though he had many books delivered to his store for Brie from across the Endless Sea and the monasteries of The Divine on this side, she always picked them up herself.”

“So we’re back to where we started?” I asked, my enthusiasm short-lived.

“No, we’re not,” Seika interjected. “We’re now sure it is them. We just need to wait for them to resurface or search even harder for more clues.”

“That’s not all,” Man said, with his usual theatrics, which were becoming nerve-racking at this point. “The morning of the day that Brie visited the bookstore keeper for the last time, she was with her brother, and she was asking whether he could order in a specific book on the origins of mana and The Divine. The storekeeper had provided her a catalog listing the locations of many books on The Divine. That’s how she had been able to locate that specific book, but he told her that he was sure she needed to go after this book herself if she really wanted to read it, since the monks who have it in their possession would never let it leave their monastery.”

“That means we have a new lead,” Kard noted, ready to call for his magical steed and be on the road again.

“The man said that, on the same day,” Man went on, “Brie came in with her little brother and purchased a lot of books. Many more books than their usual weekly purchase and he hasn’t seen her since. This was more than 3 weeks ago.”

“Do we know which monastery he was talking about?” Seika asked.

“He said that it is called the monastery at the End of the World, and it is the land of Fjalh—” Man replied but was cut off by Seika.

“I know where it is,” she said, determined. “Its name is not an exaggeration. We should start traveling south now. I’ll tell you all about it once we’re on the road.”

A newfound hope fueled us as we hastily moved to the jungle city’s south gate and summoned our horses once again. Soon after, we were moving away from the thick jungle surrounding the city and we started to see more light shine through the trees.

We were getting closer. We had a disadvantage since we were following old tracks, but at least we were now definitely following Myriam’s tracks.

We would soon find them.

I will soon find her.