If there was one skill executioners needed to perform their duty, it was the recognition and manipulation of deception. As a result of their familiarity with the field, they’re also very good at it. Fyren knew that, right about now, Livia Sol Sasna and her ragtag crew were bound for the eastern edge of the world. While he intended to be there to meet them in short order, he was not about to leave himself open to a fight while still at a disadvantage.

He went over the odds in his head again, feeling a vein rise to the surface in his forehead. Phyrn, Ponima, and now Brightbrand. Apart, they were easy pickings; reunited, they were a problem. I have to even things up, he knew. He’d arrived in Dalamas— specifically, the royal library. When she wasn’t being an asocial recluse in cold Mirimgard, his sister enjoyed sunning her silvery flesh here in the crowning jewel of the deserts. This library, specifically, was also a favourite hiding place for her personal diaries and journals magicking them among the normal books, as far from her normally preferred environment as possible. How did he know this? Because Mirim had been foolish enough to trust someone with this information, and that someone had been him. You may still be of use, dear sister, he mused. Perhaps you’ll redeem yourself yet— maybe even us all. The answer would be found in her writings.

They weren’t going to be in the main chamber; he ported himself into one of the side study rooms. Mirim could hardly ever open her notes without being compelled to make an amendment, adjustment, or addition of some kind, such work necessitating a desk and pen within immediate reach. Most creatures of the same power and ability as gods such as her would’ve made keeping track of such work much easier through the use of intuitive magic, especially use of ethereal spiritbond storage, akin to the mortal-invented soul space spell (though said spell was merely an imitation, and a limited one at that). Mirim considered Berodyl to be her realm of spiritbond, her personal enclave. She never thought anything or anyone already on the inside would become a threat. She had thought wrong.

That was when he thought back to the young, blonde human girl who travelled in Phyrn’s light. Pippy, he recalled, that’s her name. Many worlds had their own respective inventors and discoverers of magics; Pippy was one such pioneer, and had invented that very junction spell - soul space - for both Aubade and, technically, Berodyl as well. She’s impressive, for a mortal; a diamond in the rough, that one. Furthermore, she didn’t even know quite how much that was true. But Fyren knew. He knew had recognised her potential the moment he’d laid eyes on her. Now, sister, I’m hoping you’ll tell me how to put that diamond on my finger.

He ran his finger along the tops of some books, walking alongside the case, and without even thinking he pulled an impossible article from the shelf, one that hadn’t even been there. It was Mirim’s most recent diary. Perfect, he smirked. He’d entered the room discretely, between the bookcases that lined the room and the side of them facing the wall. He walked all the way through that narrow behind-space to the corner and stepped around to get into the main area of the room, where the window let light in, and then realised he had somehow not noticed another’s presence. When she saw him, she audibly gasped and dropped the tome she was perusing, dropping it on her own little foot. She darted backward and up against the bookcase behind her, dashing away and landing on one foot, the one she hadn’t injured with the heavy hardback. The other she held up with a bent knee, steadying herself with her hands outstretched and flat against the bookcase, knocking some books down to the floor in the process. She was a svelte thing, a five-foot tall half-elf— the other half undoubtedly human. She looks about… sixteen, seventeen? No… she’s older. Twenty or twenty one, perhaps; her elven heritage will have bestowed upon her a more long-lasting youthfulness. With his eyes that saw much that mortal eyes would not, he could see that her elf half was of the platinum tribe. A platinum elf and a human, hmm? That’s not a common parentage. His next words, he mumbled aloud without realising. “You might even be entirely unique in this world…”

“I-I’m sorry?” her voice trembled just as much as the rest of her… all except for her eyes, which were sharper and clearer than she likely realised. Fyren could also tell that she recognised him. After all, who in Berodyl wouldn’t? He was one of their ten gods.

“Tell me,” Fyren began whimsically, clapping the diary shut in his one hand. “What do you know of phantasmal fugues?”

“I… I’m sorry?” her voice had shrunk into the meekest of peeps.

“Fuita?” a voice from out in the hall called. It was close— too close. “Fuita? Have you found it yet? Serenity’s getting antsy, and I don’t like her hanging around my personal study when she’s—” the woman who owned the voice turned into the doorway, and stopped like a deer in the light of a lumomantic torch. “Antsy…” she finished, in a voice far reduced in volume and confidence. She was having a similar reaction to the first girl, and with just as little composure, despite her outward stillness.

“Come in,” Fyren said calmly. “And close the door behind you.”