“Are you sure about this?” Vex asked as Kellen settled into a seated position to attempt the meditation once more.

“I guess we’ll find out,” Kellen said, sounding more confident than he felt. Something would happen, he just hoped it wasn’t like sticking a fork into an electric outlet.

“I promise to do my best to take care of you in here if your brain turns to mush,” Vex said. “But I refuse to change your dirty underwear, so you’re gonna have to deal with that on your own.”

“On that note, can you try to focus again?” Kellen closed his eyes and took in a deep breath, feeling his mana flare like a lamp turned to a brighter setting or the sun coming out from behind the clouds. He exhaled and felt the warmth of mana spreading throughout him again.

Slipping back into that semi-aware state was somewhat harder this time, maybe because he knew what to expect. After a series of long inhales and exhales, he felt the barriers between his sun mana and the surrounding storm mana recede.

It caught him totally unaware, like a bolt of lightning out of a clear sky.

Kellen gasped in pain and fell backward. Beside him, Vex flinched and his fur stood on end. Then the memory pulled them in.

The weathered mummy and the young man standing in front of Kellen’s vision bore a scant resemblance, yet somehow Kellen knew it was his friend hundreds of years before. Though he watched him from a short distance away, Kellen had the jarring sensation that he moved when Kiypu moved and spoke when Kiypu spoke. He could feel the emotions of the younger boy, a mixture of sadness, fear and nervousness as he bid farewell to a man and woman that Kellen instinctively knew were Kiypu’s parents.

“Why do I have to leave?” Kiypu asked them. Both the boy and the adults had the dull bronze-gold skin of Earth Badger folk yet Shakraa perched on Kiypu’s head of thick, tousled dark hair. She was covered in dull bronze feathers rather than skeleton. Strangely, Kellen felt storm mana drifting around her. When he focused on Kiypu, the boy’s mana was the resolute, unyielding aura of earth mana that he’d learned to sense in Kiypu during their training.

“Because you are special,” the boy’s father said. Kneeling, he placed his hands on Kiypu’s cheeks. Though he stood across from the exchange, Kellen lifted a hand to his face as the feeling of callused fingers brushed his cheeks.

“We are so proud of who you are and who you will become,” his mother said, tears glistening on her face as she hugged her son and kissed his forehead. Shakraa let out a long caw and fluttered her wings. “Serve the Wild Mother well, Kiypu.”

Feeling someone behind him, Kellen turned away from the small family and saw a group of several men and women standing on the side of a well-worn road. Each was clad in leggings, a hood and half robes of cream color in a style Kellen would have described as Egyptian. Both the ends of the robes and hood were trimmed in shining cloth of silver or gold. Kellen sensed at once that they were Beastcallers, though he could not see their Mana Beasts or determine what strength they might be.

“This is crazy!”

For the first time, Kellen noticed Vex at his side. He flinched at Vex’s loud observation, but none of the people seemed to hear or see them and carried on as if they weren’t there. Kellen held a finger to his lips, then turned back to see what happened next.

The young Kiypu hugged his mother and father once more, then hefted a large pack onto his back. Shakraa let out an irritated squawk, then found a new place to sit atop the pack. “We’ll miss you!” she said in hoarse girl’s voice.

“It is time to go,” one of the robed people, a tall woman, said. Kiypu nodded, wiping his tears from his eyes. He looked back again at his mother and father, who stood with their arms wrapped around one another, smiling through the tears.

“You will only be gone a few years, son,” his father said. “And when you return, you will be a mighty Scion of the Wild Mother!”

Kiypu nodded, though he looked much less certain than everyone else. Blowing his parents a kiss, he followed after the robed people. Together, the group started down a winding mountain path. Kellen and Vex were pulled along, floating effortlessly over the cobblestone road behind Kiypu. Looking around, Kellen saw a brief glimpse of mountain peaks that might have been peaks of the Wakar. Before he could study them further, his vision went dark.

Like changing the channel, his consciousness flickered to another memory. He and Vex found themselves standing in an unknown forest clearing, surrounded by trees at the brilliant height of gold and blood red autumn color. Kiypu was standing there, wearing robes similar to the people from the previous memory, except his were all gray. A Mana Beast he guessed was Shakraa stood beside him, except now she was a gold and white eagle and came all the way up to his waist.

This Kiypu looked a few years older, closer to Kellen’s age. His face was clean shaven and his hair was pulled back into a bun behind his head. Kellen recognized the prominent cheekbones he still bore as a mummy, though this Kiypu had broad shoulders and muscle that had withered away on the mummy.

“You have come far in your training as Scions, Kiypu and Shakraa,” a wizened old man with a ponytail of white hair stretching to the middle of his back said. His skin was the dark purple of a people Kellen had never encountered in Oras. A pair of curved black horns—possibly his Chieftain’s mark, Kellen guessed—twisted up from his white hair from the back of his head. At his side sat a black and gray-spotted jaguar with a purple flame flickering at the end of its ever-twitching tail.

Kiypu and Shakraa both bowed at the waist, lowering their eyes to the ground. “We are honored to be among the Wild Mother’s chosen, great Sanyu,” Kiypu said.

“It is time now to put your long years of study and training to the test as you search for your path to Chieftain,” the old man—Kellen didn’t know if “Sanyu” was a name or title—said.

“We are ready,” Shakraa said, her voice now elegant and measured and no longer croaking and girlish.

“It is to my own nation I send you,” the old man said. “Deep into the jungles of the Shadow Owl Alliance. Their armies are preparing to march to war against the Otter, alongside the Sun Hawk Kingdom. You will go there to watch and hear what you can, but also to learn the ways of shadow mana. Chunami leads a band of Snake people in hiding there. They will find you when the time is right.”

Kellen’s heart jumped. The Snake Cult? Kellen knew little of Oras’s history, except that during Kiypu’s lifetime, the Kingdom of the Sun Hawk and the Shadow Owl Alliance had conquered many other nations. That seemed to be what was happening or about to happen during this memory. In his rambling history recounts, Kiypu had never mentioned the Snake Cult, or acted as if he’d ever heard of them before being reawakened in the current time.

“It will be our honor,” Kiypu said.

The memory began to fade. “No, no, no! Wait!” Kellen yelled as if he could command the scene to continue. “Stop, don’t—” He cursed as their awareness came to in yet a third setting. This one was familiar.

A much older, time-worn Kiypu knelt in the middle of the tomb Kellen and Shani had found him in. Shakraa stood on the ground in front of him, back in what Kellen guessed was her Ward form, similar to how she looked now, minus the skeleton look. Several people stood over Kiypu, all clothed in the familiar tan-colored robes. Kiypu was in the poncho and woolen cap Kellen recognized from when they’d found him as a mummy.

“Are we sure it has come to this?” one of the old men in robes asked.

A woman of similar age nodded. Once more, none of them had Mana Beasts with them. “They will hunt us until the last of our knowledge is extinguished. This is the only way. Kiypu, are you ready?”

“As ready as any can be,” Kiypu said. His older, cracked voiced sounded much similar to Kellen than the younger versions, a clue of the husk he would become.

“Then let us begin.”

Each of the five robed figures raised their hands, a milky white light streaming from their fingers in waving lines, snaking out and wrapping around Kiypu. The color of the working reminded Kellen of Shakraa’s attack when she’d been in Ubira’s control. The moment they touched Kiypu, he stiffened, back arching in his seated position.

A faint groan escaped him. On the ground beside her Beastcaller, Shakraa let out an alarmed caw. The white lines continued to wrap around the seated man until they swathed him from head to toe, similar to the wrappings worn by the Snake Cult. Once Kiypu was completely covered in the waving mana workings, the five robed figures lowered their hands.

The woman walked forward and knelt down in front of Kiypi, briefly running a caring hand on Shakraa’s limp form. Straightening, she held out a hand, muttering an incomprehensible chant under her breath. She raised a hand, placing her open palm on Kiypu’s swathed forehead. Around her, the others began to chant in a similar cadence that Kellen didn’t understand. The chanting grew louder and louder until the woman slowly pulled her hand back. From beneath the wrapping-like mana working, a pink, oval-shaped hovered in front of Kiypu’s head. It floated after the woman’s hand until she turned her hand palm up and it dropped into her grasp with a glimmer of silver and gold. Kellen knew exactly what the object was: the mana stone he and Vex had accidentally destroyed, resulting in Kiypu’s awakening.

“Did it work?” one of the old men asked.

The woman nodded and struggled to her feet, showing her advanced age. “I believe so. None of us will live to know for certain, however.”

She handed the stone to the old man who’d first spoken at the beginning of the memory. “Store this in a place of safety. It must remain close to his body or the mana will fade and the knowledge will be lost, as well as our best hope.”

The man disappeared from sight, though Kellen knew exactly where he’d gone to place the stone. When he returned, the old woman nodded. “We have done all we can. It is time to seal the chamber before we are discovered.”

Kellen felt the world spinning beneath him and a strange, pulling sensation at his bellybutton. His vision dimmed. When he opened his eyes, he was sitting in the belly of the Thunder Beast once more.

He turned to meet Vex’s surprised stare. “That… was unexpected,” Vex said.

Kellen raised his hands. Both were shaking out of control. For months, they’d been under the impression whatever memories had been stolen in the stone were lost. Now, Kellen wondered how many of them were hidden within him. It was an unsettling notion. Instead of answers, he had hundreds more questions.

He took several slow breaths, trying to calm his racing heart. While his physical one pounded, his beast heart felt unnaturally still and calm given.

Unbidden, bits and pieces of Kiypu’s teachings began to fall into place in his mind. Not memories, but instructions, the missing pieces to the riddles and vague notions he’d share regarding the intricacies of being a Beastcaller. It came in an overwhelming rush, followed by a long stupor of thought in which Kellen and Vex could only stare across the stomach of the Thunder Beast, focused on nothing.

“That was a trip,” Vex said in a stunned voice.

A few things made sense now, but it was as if they’d only brushed against the first branch jutting out from a deep, fathomless forest. Kellen felt emptied, physically and emotionally. Within his beast heart, his mana felt flat, like a can of pop left open for days.

“I think,” Kellen began. He had to stop and focus, his thoughts still a turbulent mess of two different people. His head felt like somehow had shaken a snow globe of his thoughts and they fluttered all around inside his skull. “I think I know how we can get out of here. But first, we’ve got to be stronger.”