During the nights following his escape from the dangers of the city tavern, Heron burned the bulk of his late hours away in the grand library of the royal domain. If he allowed sleep to percolate, heinous rebels would be there in his dreams, clad in white robes flapping in nightly darkness, with blades hungry for royal blood.

He kept sleep at bay. Any sign of the sharpness of his senses dwindling over time erupted a grip of despair in his chest. Eventually, his apathy was strong enough to immunize him against potential disapproval from his father or master. He missed their dinners in the main room if he pleased, and didn't open the door of his chambers when knocks sounded, unless he had personally called for a servant.

"I am well, but occupied now," he said to repell the intrusions, then fell silent, even if the knocks persisted.

Heron devoted the will he had left to the essential: avoiding another confrontation with the rebels in his dreams. But all proved useless at the end: at the second dawn post the city escape, limb-stiffening fatigue pulled him into a heavy sleep. Amyra was there, in her usual green robes of the nurses in the royal domain, dark brown hair braided neatly, sticking out of her headscarf. In her hands, countless daggers, dazzlingly white as if carved from pure chunks of Baalkan mineral.

"You cannot escape us." Her words sounded like a serpent hiss. Then she charged with a will to kill.

Heron sprang awake before the nurse could harm him, rolling sideways on a crumple of sheets past the edge of the bed before he could assign aim to his fumbling. His back hit the cold tiled floor. He was covered in cold sweat and the chill from the tiles caused him full-body shivers.

He stood with a grimace of effort. He smelled terribly, and —by causing him to sweat—the memories of his nightmare didn't help. He crossed past the doors of his bedchamber and strode along the floor's corridors to reach the bathing rooms at its extremity, sealed with heavy stainless metal double doors.

"Leave," he announced to the servants as soon as he stepped inside, deepening his head into a fine coat of steam clinging in the air.

The servants working in the room appeared frozen at their tasks. Scalding water dripped in the far end of the room, breaking the ensuing silence.

Heron was already ridding himself from his tunic. "I won't repeat myself," he pressed, carelessly placing the crumple of his tunic on the drawers.

The maidens scrambled. Soon, were out of sight.

He dipped a hand into a tub already filled with hot water properly cut with cold one. The white light from sparse lanterns burning crystal dust against the walls allowed for a neat reflection of his face onto the water— the bitterness in his face made him appear like a stranger to himself. It stirred something inside him. And he cried. And all the while a thought lingered, even as he lay bare beneath the water inside the tab: behind the doors of the bathing rooms, one of the maidens could be waiting for him, dagger at ready, prepared to stab him.

Heron's misshape hadn't escaped tutor Arai's senses during his study sessions in the grand library. The tutor conveyed his worry through unusually frequent tours to the bookshelves near Heron's working desk. Knowing the old man, the librarian had all his words ready. They weighed on his tongue, desirous to spill as soon as Heron bit the bate.

Aware of the strategy, Heron avoided any eye-contact with the librarian.

All assignments aside, he read only biographies of his mother. In search of something to contradict the version of her death he'd been handed in the city tavern. And he found what he searched in them : lung disease after The Chill had taken her. Still, he wasn't convinced.

Each line he read about his mother stretched his rage toward the rebellions tenfold. He ached for the pain to cause a bleeding somewhere. So he could see it and properly treat it. It hurt everywhere, still nowhere tangible. Perhaps this is what his father had been protecting him from by hiding the truth about Servyna's death. Facing the truth meant facing the pain, the sick impulse to get one life for another. And faced with the size of the task, it meant the inevitable recognition of his impotence.

"She used to come here once a week," Arai's voice cut through Heron's thoughts.

Heron raised his eyes to the man, rooting himself to the backrest of his chair for balance. At the full sight of Heron's face, Arai's forehead creased deeper with shock, as though he recognized a monster where Heron sat. There was a distinct instant of silence before the librarian seemed to get a hold onto his words again. "She brought you here with her sometimes, remember?"

Heron broke eye-contact. "I do," he said. With a sigh, he recognized it was too late to stop this conversation now.

"Very cultivated woman." To further establish his intrusion, Arai sat beside Heron. "Very well-read and thoughtful." Upon the words, they both seemed to get lost in the same memories of Servyna. "In vain, I hoped you would speak up before I felt obligated to force your troubles out of you."

Heron flipped through an unread page. "I noticed."

"Terrible what age does to you. I once was more patient than this. But you leave me with no other choice," Arai grumbled, snatching the scripts out of Heron's hand. "I'm not particularly cut out to having rocks as pupils. Especially one that's falling apart from erosion because of his stubbornness."

"You haven't a clue."

"Well, I am all ears then," the tutor said.

Strangely, the words flew out: "I went to the city," Heron said, "two days ago. In a tavern in the second borough." He had sought isolation fir the past days. Deep down had he been waiting to let out his sorrow with someone? "Rebels almost killed me. I discovered that—," he swallowed. "I discovered Mother didn't die from a disease. She was murdered by rebels."

"Ancients forbid," Arai muttered. "I would have thought you were aware now."

"You knew?"

Arai reached for Heron's hand, lowering his voice further. "At the time I had been solicited by the Wisemen to investigate a potential antidote for poisoning from blue flower's sap."

"Blue flower sap," Heron echoed, confused. "Mother was poisoned?" All this time, Heron had imagined her being cut down with blades. "Poisoned within the ramparts?"

"All the servants to had worked in the kitchen the day of her poisoning were imprisoned," said the tutor. "Lord, I am beyond sorry you have to learn this from me. I am certain your father has done what he had judged was best to protect you."

"I haven't slept properly for three days," Heron said, "I want to kill all the rebels," he admitted. "I'm at the brink of madness —" his voiced cracked. He turned away from Arai. "I know what you think of it. But this is all I have now."

"I don't approve of it, Lord, indeed. Although I understand. You have just learned of it. Time will help you in the process."

"I don't believe I need time, Tutor," Heron said. "I have wasted enough of it: being kept away from the truth, and from the hardships of the Ceri Monarchy, missing military school because—"

"You were grieving, Lord."

Heron shook his head. "I can barely defend myself."

"Against who?" Arai insisted. "You'd kill me twice in a whitecircle. What's your frame of comparison?"

"I'm taking charge of myself," Heron said. "Damn what Master Salmior and Father think." Reminded of the brutal way Davir had subdued the rebels in the tavern, he said, "I might have one ally. But it's difficult to trust anyone."

"If Lord's positive that's the best route to take, remains me to accept it," Arai said. "I see quite a lot of Lady Servyna in you, Lord. And it would pain me to —," he sighed. "Doesn't matter. I might have something that could be of help."

The man stood, walked towards the entrance of the library, and returned to Heron with a map in hand. "I have been praying for the Ancients and reading the Great Onus since I was a child in Anuteh. But I have never believed that the reason why we experience the Cycle of the Souls — from the Origin to our brief moment here in the realm of Physicals, then our passage to the Order of the Shadows for Purification before the next Incarnation— I don't believe any of this happens for the glory of the Great Ancients.

It seems arrogant to me for men to dare say that small as we are, we are capable to make the Great Ancients glorious in any way. The will of the Ancients materializes in all existence. And I believe that the reason why we are here for a brief moment is that the Ancients blessed us with the same gift they enjoy: to manifest our will in the world.

To live a life where you don't live as you want is to waste a life, Lord. Our wants are part of our internal compass, they point towards where our hearts desire. Said compass can be skewed, alas. By doubt, sudden losses. But our wants never cease to exist. Deep down, we always know what we want. It's not for me to counter that on a fellow human. You do know what you want, whether you want a life as self-sufficient as possible, or to give some the benefit of the doubt."

Noting Heron's quizzical expression, Arai asked, "I am rambling, right? Well, I am probably the last person you would ever think you'd hear this from. But I once had a soothsayer help me sort things out because I had convinced myself that people around me were not bothered enough to listen to me."

He unpocketed a small flask of dark ink and a pencil. On the map, he scribbled a trail from the royal domain to a westerly location inside forest Scura.

"I was pleasantly surprised with her work. She knew my thoughts and my fears. Please, don't ask me about the wisdom behind it. I searched for a long time. Never found anything explaining what happened that day when I encountered her." He handed Heron the map. "Do prepare enough money if you decide to go, however. Fifteen silver Ceric at least."

"I suppose I'll never know why you consulted the soothsayer," Heron asked.

"I've always appreciated your capacity to reach such accurate conclusions so fast," Arai muttered. "Don't trick yourself into believing you are alone. Us old ones have made that mistake enough times for you not to need to repeat it. If you cannot think of anyone, talk to The Ancients. They always listen. Always."

Heron nodded. For the first time in his life doubtful The Ancients actually listened.

"I must get back to tidying up." He looked around the library. "There's an awful number of chores to finish in this old lady. You must return to your books, too, by which I mean assigned books. I need to report your progress on the Owyni Expedition and Treaties of Peace to your Master. How much of it have you read?"

"Less than half of it," Heron said.

"Would you talk in pages?"

"Eighty-three." Heron couldn't look at Arai when he said it.

"Only, nine hundred-twenty-seven pages to tackle, marvelous," he sighed. "I'll report a quarter of the book read to Sir Salmior. Make an honest try, if you cannot finish, we will find a solution, so you'll be knowledgeable enough when the Owyni Regents and their daughter come to the domain."

"The Ancients pay you."

"What for?" the librarian asked. "I am here to teach you. That's the only way I know to make myself useful. The crown pays me a few silver Ceric at the end of each season for it," he said, "granted, they also take a substantial fraction of it with all the taxes required just to be allowed to breathe under Ceri skies. But still." He shrugged.

• • •

The sons and daughters of the noblemen were raised through reason, with the knowledge that the supernatural belonged to the Order of the Great Ancients. Heron wasn't an exception. The sin of touching the supernatural was punished by adding years to one's Purification by hundreds.

Reason betrayed Davir as the potential killer of the woman they found on the forest trail. It ruled out the possibility of an ill-looking man defeating a prestigious soldier. Sheer reason would jail Davir in the dungeons until any ill-intensions he held secret were obviated.

Heron's lack of firm action was first a lack of will. Because Davir defied reason. He could be one of the two: either his best ally, or his worst enemy. Even if he wielded the supernatural, Heron would remain clean of any sin of such nature. With one necessary exception. . .

He sat at his desk, intently scanning the scribbled trail to the soothsayer in the heart of the forest Scura.

The knowledge of the Onus of Wisdom in which he had been raised had failed him. Faced with the urgency of surviving the rebels, and the slightest peace of mind, what choice did he have? Either the Ancients relieved his pain or forgave him. He'd prayed. The pain persisted. He stood and left his chambers.

In the corridors, he adressed the first soldier he could lay eyes on— a blueman standing guard two doors down his chambers. The guard bowed. "Bring inferior guard Davir to me, please. You will find him in the third row of chambers fifteen in the barracks, or otherwise standing guard at the eastern entrance of the barricade."

"Understood, Lord."

Heron waited, pacing back and forth until his clock marked an hour past midday.

Davir came in, all wrapped in the blue of uniform of the guard, but his boots, black like the leather vambraces whose darkness drew a stark contrast with his skin. At chest height, the gilded coat of arms of Ceres shone. Behind him stood the men Heron had sent to fetch Davir.

Heron walked past Davir. "Order the stable boys to prepare me too stallions and hunting tools. Add in a few weapons, please. We will be out for a horse ride into Scura," Heron said, prompting a bow from the soldier before he deserted.

"I am all ears, Lord." Davir said.

Heron didn't speak right away, instead he gathered the set of maps he had been examining. "Take this."

Brows pinched, Davir stared back at Heron after a brisk scan of the maps.

"And what is this?"

Heron stared at Davir for a long moment. There it was. That disconcerting sensation of facing a void of death.

"You drink?" Heron asked, already fetching two liquor skins from his drawers.

"I prefer to abstain while working," Davir said.

"Oh, you won't be working during the next hours." Heron swallowed his first swig, his arm outstretched towards Davir to offer him the second skin.

"Working under your orders doesn't exempt me from my fonctions as a guard integrated to the blue bigrade."

"Fair enough." Heron shrugged. "How aware are you of your peculiarities?"

"What do you call peculiarities, Lord?"

"Knowing exactly where to locate a bloody dead body in the forest," Heron delivered dryly. But succeded to contain his voice. Davir feigned disinterest well, but Heron was sure he knew exactly what he was talking about. Heron pulled a chair and sat down, took a long swill, and proceeded nonetheless. "Vomiting blood and a week later defeating a prestigious soldier. Your eyes had turned black in the tavern when you attacked the rebels— and killed them. And I still haven't a faint clue how you ended up inside the domain. I need to go on?"

"I sense things, do them simply out of instinct. That's all I know."

"If there was a possibility to find the solution to your memory loss," Heron said, "even if it revealed you as a criminal, you'd align?"

"If that were indeed the case," Davir said, "would you, Lord, be ready to take the risk?"

Heron drank a long swill, erupting a comforting burn stretching from his throat to his chest. "I'll know where I stand," he answered, "and where you do. It's all the luxury I can afford now. Cheap, right? I couldn't count my allies in one finger. Alas, I think the Ancients made me that unlikable, even to my own family."

"I must disclose now that your Master had me examined by a mind specialist, days before my trial. He's been aware I have never been a soldier in the Red Guard even before I was trialed."

Heron admitted he would have been a fool to believe his lies hadn't been questioned by his superiors, but it surprised him Master Salmior hadn't banned Davir from the domain.

"What came of the examination?"

"Nothing I am aware of," Davir said. "But I wouldn't be standing in your chambers if something incriminated me, obviously."

"It's also certain we shouldn't count on my master to share useful information on the matter."

"I won't contradict you," Davir said.

"There's a soothsayer in the domain of Scura who's apparently skilled to get information in people's mind, among other things."

After a long scan on the maps, Davir asked, "You plan on taking us there?"

"Correct."

"That's sinful."

"You're one to tell, of course." Heron placed his liquorskin above his drawers. He stood. He had swallowed just enough of the content of his skin to feel energized without breaking the point of nausea and dizziness. "Our horses in the stables will be ready in no time. The journey will take us half the span of a solar-arc to get to the soothsayer. If we are quick enough, we'll get back to the domain before the bell of the main palace rings for sundown tonight. That is if you agree."

"I agree. But what will your superiors think of it?"

"I cannot afford to care right now," Heron said. "We have a history of telling lies to each other. If they think my horse ride is taking too long, they can come look for me."

"Seems fair."