The Wicked House of Caroline

“You can’t just steal the tablets.”

Laz’s firm voice carried a bit of disapproval, and Beks stopped pacing at the foot of the bed. She turned around and looked towards the man seated with his back against the headboard of the bed, wearing a knowing look on his face.

She let out a small scoff. “I’m not going to steal the tablets.”

“Your expression of suspicious interest is somewhat concerning,” Laz replied, raising a brow.

On the other side of the bed, Lucian was also seated with his back against the headboard, reading a book bought at the museum on the history of Aceria, as chronicled by the Mahin Family.

“She does have reason to be interested in what those tablets say,” Lucian said as he flipped a page with knit brows. “The Acerian royal family kept as detailed records as they could according to this book, but in the chaotic period of resettlement, and struggling to survive in a new land, some things were lost. Many items that were of everyday use from their ancestral homeland were put away because they were no longer of use in the new settlement.”

“Such as the tablets,” Beks told them. “Lady Rivah says that there is nothing like the niche readers here when I told her about them.”

“You told her about the island?” Laz drew his head back, a bit surprised.

“I told her that I read an obscure book once mentioning such a device that could read the tablets when inserted into a niche,” Beks said as she walked across the room. “Not that I’ve used one before.”

“Lady Rivah didn’t look convinced,” Lucian told his brother.

“She looked at me as if I were imagining things!” Beks threw her arms in the air.

“Isn’t that a good thing? She won’t ask questions,” Laz replied, following her as she paced in front of them.

“But if she’s not interested, then how am I going to read those tablets?” Beks asked.

“Hmmm....” Laz nodded. “So, that’s why you want to steal them.”

“I’m not going to steal them!”

“I’m curious about the language shift,” Lucian said as he looked at the two of them. “Have you noticed? They speak Jasper with a heavy accent, but the local language doesn’t sound like the neighboring coastal languages, which are based on Paraxier.”

Laz furrowed his brows. “Jasper is the language of Kadmus, which is the largest of the western kingdoms, so it’s the second or third language for many other kingdoms, especially in trading areas. I’m not surprised that the locals speak a little.”

Beks sighed and took a seat on the stool by the desks. “Paraxier has four distinct dialects, with the purest form being Paraxier from Paraxes, as it’s the largest economic, naval, and political power in the south and the southwest coast. The more north you go from Paraxes, the more diluted the language gets, mixing in with smaller regional languages. And at one point, the languages stop mixing with Paraxier and start mixing with Jasper, until you reach our border kingdoms and principalities, where Jasper has taken over because of its political and economic importance.

“That being said....” Beks narrowed her eyes. “Sometimes, when locals speak Jasper, they will use the grammatical structure of their local language...but it’s not the grammatical structure of Paraxier, either.”

“That reflects in this book,” Lucian said, tapping the page he was on with his finger. “It’s written in Jasper, but looks to have been translated from something and there are some mistakes in the translation.”

“See, isn’t it suspicious?” Beks waved towards Lucian’s book and turned around to fiddle with the two small boxes on the table. “I just think that they could be a lost tribe. They have technology we’ve never seen before; they had ancient master biha users, they fled because of a natural disaster that caused them to lose their land, and, of course, they have tablets.”

She opened the two boxes and stared at the content of one of them. She still hadn’t been able to split apart the tiger talisman.

“If that’s the case, why didn’t they mention anything about returning one day, like the Dranga people?” Laz asked. “Elder Arash always spoke about how her people have been waiting for return and were waiting for that light pearl to illuminate to call them back. Lucian, is there anything about a summoning light pearl in the book?”

“Not yet.”

“I’ll have plenty of time to engage with the Mahin Royal Family about this after we retake both Brother Laurence and Geel’s thrones,” Beks said as she moved the tiger talisman in her hand. She pressed on every individual decorative part to try to get it to split apart so she could put them in their individual boxes, and let Laz and Lucian ‘discover’ them before telling the Crown Prince.

Lucian chuckled. “I am happy that you call him Geel, as well.”

“That is how he told me to address him,” Beks replied. The tail of the tiger talisman was sturdier than she thought it should be considering it formed a little teacup-like handle on the end. The stripes became rings around the tail that had interlocked. If she weren’t so frustrated with trying to take it apart, she’d be impressed with its intricate craftsmanship. What if I twisted the rings?

“When do you think we can tell him you found the tiger talisman?” Laz asked. “We’ve ‘searched’ the vault for hours for several days now. If we hold off for too long, we’re either being negligent or the talisman isn’t hidden there as we suspected.”

“We’ve waited long enough and given plausible time, but I still want to try to return both pieces to their respective boxes to be believable-” A small click was heard, cutting Beks off. She paused her movements, staring at the little tiger talisman in her hands. One thought filled her head: I broke it. She swallowed hard, slowly moving the item around to inspect where she’d put too much pressure and snapped off a piece.

The tiger’s lower jaw opened and Beks frowned. She hadn’t been fiddling with the tiger’s head.

“I don’t think it matters if we present it to him whole or in half,” Laz said behind her. “As long as we have it.”

“But we still need to find clues on where Adah could’ve hidden the Red Iron Cavalry,” Lucian replied. “We checked the area where Beks found the tiger talisman, but there wasn’t anything in there.

Beks didn’t pay attention to the twins discussing where their father would have hidden the cavalry as she moved the tiger closer to the lantern on the desk to inspect it. She tilted it so it’s open mouth could be under the light and narrowed her eyes. She turned the tiger upside down, so it’s mouth was facing down, and shook it.

Four small, thin metal plates slid out of the tiger’s mouth, and Bek’s eyes widened as she paled.

She let out a quick hiss and glanced over her shoulder. The two brothers didn’t seem to notice her horrified reaction, and she quickly picked them up and tried to put them back into the tiger’s mouth. She hadn’t heard anything shaking inside, so did she dislodge a piece of the talisman when she broke it?

Better question: will it still work because it was broken? She shook her head, trying to convince herself that even if a small part of the inside were broken off, the outside was still in perfect condition and could be used for identification. Furthermore, the metal plates didn’t seem to be attached to anything inside from their smooth edges and lack of holes.

All they had were some raised lines.

“What are you looking at?”

She screamed. She jumped in her seat and scrambled to keep a hold of the tiger talisman before it slipped out of her hands. As she brought it against her chest, her heart pounding, Laz raised a brow from behind her.

She frowned and turned to look at him. “What are you doing?” One hand rose and rubbed the ear where his hot breath had spoken earlier.

“You were so fixated on the talisman and weren’t answering,” Laz replied. “Is everything all right?”

She met his dark eyes and drew her lips inward. Laz appeared both curious and concerned. His earnest eyes made it difficult to be dishonest, so Beks moved aside and revealed the four pieces of metal on the table. “Something came out of its mouth.”

Laz cocked his head to the side and behind him, Lucian kicked off the sheets and stood up. “Wasn’t its mouth closed?” Both twins had handled the talisman to try to find a way to split it back into two parts, and neither succeeded.

“I was twisting the rings around the tail and all of a sudden, its jaw dropped. When I moved it around, these metal pieces came out. I don’t think it was connected to anything important, though.” She added the last bit to assure them she didn’t break it.

Lucian stood on her other side and knelt down to get a better look at the metal pieces. He picked one up and ran his thumb along the side. His brows knit together and he moved the piece under the lantern.

“It has embossed characters.”

“What?”

Beks picked up another piece and flipped it over. One side was flat, but the other had raised characters. She squinted. “At first glance, they look like Langsher characters, but I don’t recognize any of them.”

Laz held one piece under the lantern, running his thumb over the raised characters. “It looks as if the characters are flipped.”

“Upside down?”

“More a mirror image.”

Lucian’s head perked up. “Stamp.”

“What?” Laz asked once more and looked at his brother. Lucian placed the metal piece back on the table before rushing to the wardrobe and throwing open the two doors. He rummaged through his bag and took out a piece of paper, a small ink container, and a pen with a metal nib.

“If we dip it in ink and then stamp it, the characters will be facing the correct way,” Lucian said. “I don’t have a stamp pad, so let’s just drop some ink on the corner of the paper, rub the metal across, then press the metal onto this other sheet.”

Laz nodded. “That’ll work.” The younger twin carefully poured two drops of ink from the container on to the corner of a sheet of paper, then used the pen to smear it so it was wide enough for the entirety of the metal plate to press into.

“Watch your fingers,” Beks said. “You’re going to get ink on them.”

“It’s fine, I get ink on my fingers all the time,” Lucian said. “Nothing a good soak won’t clean.”

The tips of his thumb and index finger smeared with some ink before he placed the first plate on to sheet to make an imprint. When he lifted the tiny sliver of metal, Langsher characters that were right-side up greeted them.

Laz let out a breathy laugh. “They’re lines of a poem!”

Lucian nodded, his eyes bright as he picked up another piece of metal and stamped the remaining three pieces. They were spaced further apart, four plates with four characters each. Beks wiped off the ink from the plates as the twins studied the four lines. They read each character, but no matter how they moved around the lines, the sentences didn’t make sense.

“These have to be directions, but ‘vibrant dogs’ and ‘still flowers’?” Laz shook his head as his eyes narrowed. “I know Adah focused more on military education than traditionally scholarly education, but this poem is terrible.”

“No matter how we move the lines, the rhythm doesn’t match any of the rhythm traditional Langsher poetry has,” Lucian said. His eyes crinkled up. “Was Adah always so terrible with words?”

If Uncle Timur heard his sons speaking ill of his poetic abilities, Beks wondered if he’d be upset or just berate them for having no taste. She wiped the last of the metal pieces with a discarded piece of cloth she had used as a rag to clean the room. She looked at the metal in her hand and let out a low, resigned breath.

“Perhaps it is time to show the tiger talisman to Geel.” The two brothers turned to look at her and she placed the last metal plate down. “Say you found the tiger talisman in two and put it together. Fiddle with it in front of him and let the plates fall out. Your knowledge of classical Langsher poetry is lacking, but Geel would have studied it much more formally because of his position, so he may be able to figure out what Uncle Timur was trying to say.”

The twins looked at each other and then nodded. “Then, tomorrow, we’ll show him the tiger talisman?”

Beks nodded. “Bring it out when you leave tomorrow. Return with it by around noon. I’ll have the maps I ordered by then, so I’ll be here.”

She gathered the four metal pieces together and carefully slipped them back into the open mouth of the tiger. She then placed the tiger into one of the boxes and handed them to the twins. Laz kept the whole tiger talisman box in his bag while Lucian placed the empty one in his.

They left early the next morning, though made sure to have breakfast with their cousin so he didn’t feel too bored being stuck at home. The Crown Prince didn’t have a problem with staying behind and hiding in the house, as they didn’t know if there were still assassins after him. He knew it was the safer choice, but he was bored and left to dwell on everything that was going wrong.

Wary of this, Sybil had told them to pay close attention to the Crown Prince and make sure he didn’t lose himself in depression and grief. They brought him books to read, he tried to make simple foods Laz taught him, and Thirnir and Wild Dogs would take turns playing chess or card games with him to pass the time.

Due to the situation with money, they could only bet with food.

Today, Beks would take their place as she pushed the sofas and the big wooden center table to the side of the living room so she could spread out the maps she’d purchased. She was now well versed in the terrain of Kadmus, but not of Langshe.

“Did you order this?” The Crown Prince’s eyes were wide with surprise as he saw her placing books on the corners to keep the map from rolling closed.

“Every big port city must have a mapmaker,” Beks said. “Unfortunately, I don’t know much about Langshe’s terrain. I know it spans half the continent and as a result, has nearly every type of environment somewhere within its borders, but I don’t know where.” She sat up straight, her legs bent beneath her on top of a cushion as she looked up. “Your assistance would be appreciated, Geel.”

A glint of excitement filled his face and he knelt down at once, ignoring the somewhat painful sounding thud that came when his knees hit the floor. Beks reached over to give him a cushion to kneel on.

He gave her a flustered laugh as he seemed to try to contain himself and figure out where to start. Beks assisted him, by asking to first mark where the palaces were and then begin to outline different terrain. It was clear that Beks was doing this to help him, so he was energetic when explaining things.

“It takes three weeks to travel from the Summer Palace here to the Equinox Palace on the eastern coast, then ships are taken for a two-week journey to the Winter Palace in the south,” he said as he watched Beks mark the locations of the imperial residences and then make little dashes with a pencil. “It is tedious, but it encourages joint collaboration, as well as keeps the base of power amongst nobles from settling in one area.”

Beks’ brows rose. “I never thought of it that way. With such a larger area, it is easy for more rural locations to be forgotten when those in power are so far away, but this increases the chance of visibility, as well as prevents local nobles from amassing too much power and influence in what would be a single capital.”

The Crown Prince’s face filled with joy. “Yes! That’s it!” He let out a satisfied laugh as his gaze at her softened. “You are as impressive as I thought, Amrei,” he told her. Beks sheepishly waved her hand. “Though my opinion weighs little in such things, I am both satisfied and elated that my cousins are marrying you.”

Beks was taken aback. He seemed to have accepted her marriage to his cousins when they met, but she was pleased to know that he didn’t just accept it, but was satisfied and happy with the arrangement. After all, the twins were two good-looking, wealthy princes; they could easily find better suited spouses.

She bowed her head. “Thank you for your kind words, Geel.”

“They are not kind, they are true,” he told her as he lifted his chin. “Having exchanged economic and political messages with you, as well as knowing about you from my late uncle, I have admired your hard work and support for Kadmus. Gan and Jargal are lucky to marry you, as you are not only a suitable spouse, but one they have deep feelings for.

“For people like us, who hold high positions and are depended on by so many people, it is important for the person we marry to be able to support us doing our duty. Many times, those who can properly support us aren’t who we fall in love with or those we fall in love with are not suitable for a position to support us in power. Something must be sacrificed, love or duty. I am relieved that they do not have to sacrifice either.”

Beks drew her lips inward. She bowed her head at the older man. “I am also relieved that I do not have to sacrifice either.” She sat up straight and gave him a wry smile. “I’ve tried that once, never considering love over duty, simply duty...and everything I’d done for duty was tossed to the side because Luther loved someone else. I had never felt so disappointed, angry, and exhausted as I had then.”

The Crown Prince gave her a sympathetic nod. “You would not be the first in that situation, Amrei. I have seen it play out amongst many nobles at court. However, you have Gan and Jargal now.” His eyes crinkled up with mirth. “And I would bet my empire that they will always be sincere to you.”

Beks lips pulled into a soft smile, but before she could answer, footsteps were heard racing up the stairs. A moment later, the Thirnir guarding the door held it open as the two brothers rushed in.

“Geel!” Laz shouted as both he and Lucian lifted a box. “We found it!”

The Crown Prince’s brows shot up. “The talisman?”

“Have a look! It was on a shelf, split in two!” Laz rushed to the table with his brother as both placed their boxes down and opened them. “We put them together and it seems to fit the description you told us, but we can’t split it apart.”

“We suspect it had been in two parts because Adah wanted us to inherit half each,” Lucian said. The two brothers went through the loosely outlined script they’d worked on the night before with Beks.

She remained to the side, craning her neck to see, but not getting involved in the tumultuous, rapid-fire, conversation between the three men. They were so excited and noisy, Beks almost lost track of what they were saying in Langsher, as their words began to slur together.

“Something is inside!” She silently applauded Laz. He sounded both surprised and excited, as if he really were seeing the metal plates for the first time.

“These characters are inverted....” the Crown Prince sounded concerned. “Why would Uncle have inverted characters?”

“It’s a stamp!” Lucian’s voice filled the room and Beks cringed a bit. His acting was surprisingly not as subdued as Laz’s. He raced up to their room to get some writing utensils and a paper.

Once the stamp imprints were created, to move them around better, Lucian cut them into strips. As expected, the Crown Prince began reviewing different types of Langsher poetry, from a more classic system to one that was popular when Uncle Timur was younger.

“These stamps are in lines going horizontally, but Langsher is meant to the read vertically. What if we rearrange the lines to be read vertically?” the Crown Prince suggested.

Beks sat down on her cushion on the floor two paces away as she watched the three men hover over the dinner table, trying to arrange tiny slivers of paper into something coherent.

She took a pencil and wrote out the characters in Langsher as they read each one individually. Sixteen characters total, but they didn’t flow well and their number of syllables didn’t form a typical pace of Langsher poetry according to the Crown Prince.

Beks furrowed her brows as she stared at the characters. Her handwriting wasn’t exactly elegant, but it did the job. She just had a habit of writing the character radicals larger than they should’ve been.

She sat up straight, momentarily forgetting about the terrible poetry attempting to be recited ahead of her. Langsher characters were created with different radicals that could be isolated as separate characters.

Vibrant green field. Moat of...that’s not ‘vibrant dog’, that’s ‘ferocious animals’; and that’s not ‘still flower’, that’s deadly plants! She slammed her pencil down and began shuffling through her maps.

Uncle Timur used to tell her bedtime stories and they’d often be about his youth in Langshe or his heroic feats on the battlefield. He exaggerated a bit here and there, of course, disguising his brutal childhood and bloody wars as fantasy tales to entertain her. One in particular was her favorite and he’d tell it to her often.

“There is a heavenly kingdom above the clouds, on a high plateau as green and lush as the valleys surrounding it, but it was protected by a barrier filled with deadly animals, plants that were poisonous to the touch, and water that could kill you in a single sip. Only the heavenly riders deserving could ascend to the kingdom to live in peace. They were ruled by a beautiful and kind little princess....”

The little princess was, of course, her. The heavenly kingdom he spoke about sounded unreal, just like the ferocious animals and the toxic plants and water, but it wasn’t as if such a place with such creatures and plants didn’t exist.

She moved aside some maps and rolled out one of the southern coasts of Kadmus that reached inland, until it almost got to the desert. The desert was created because of a tall mountain range that kept the moisture of the sea away. The area around the mountains was unmarked because it had never been mapped out; it was too dangerous.

Beks ran her fingers across the printed text above the otherwise blank area. “The Forbidden Valley.”

Not only was it well known for how dangerous it was, but well known that it was dangerous because of beasts and toxins that spread across its entirety. While it was a rather large swath of land, no country laid claim to it because it was too troublesome to defend. Plenty of kingdoms had tried.

But it wasn’t as if entering it was a death sentence. The late Queen had hidden there when she first fled Kadmus, before she revolted against her father and brothers. The twins had visited there before and used their knowledge to survive when they escaped to it. All three had been with one person both times: Uncle Timur.

“That does not make sense! What animal is a flower?” Laz shouted with disgust.

“I don’t see you trying to connect anything else. At least those characters match the rhythmic pattern of a tenth dynastic poem!” Lucian retorted in defense.

“It’s not a poem!” Beks shot up and grabbed her piece of paper and the map, bringing them to the table. She slapped the sheets on top of their slivers of lines and tapped at the way she’d broken down the characters by radicals, which matched with ancient pictographs. “They’re describing the location. This isn’t ‘vicious dog’, this is ‘ferocious animal’. You have to break apart the characters and there is more to work with. Uncle Timur is describing where the cavalry must be!”

“Then, it isn’t a sixteen-character poem....” the Crown Prince said as he rubbed his chin. “He’s describing the location...but not where?”

Beks shook her head. “He doesn’t need to tell you exactly where. There is only one location that would match the description. Look....” She moved her finger along each broken character. “Deadly animals, poisonous plants, death water source, but then in the next line, it’s green field, mountain, clouds, and land.” She moved the sheet aside to point to the map. “There is only one place on the continent that matches with his description and it’s here! Uncle Timur hid the Red Iron Cavalry on a plateau hidden by the clouds at the top of this mountain, surrounded by the Forbidden Valley.”

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Lucian had sighed and said that sometimes, it was as if his father loved her more than them, as he had given her so much knowledge. Enough that even though they had been the ones taken there to ‘train’, it was Beks who figured it out.

However, this posed an entirely new problem.

They would need to trek into the Forbidden Valley and climb up the mountain. There were several mountains, as it was a short ‘range’, but the twins knew which one. According to them, there was one specifically that their father had pointed out as never being able to see the top of because it was constantly hidden by clouds.

When they had escaped into the Forbidden Valley to evade assassins, that mountain still had clouds around it. They assumed it was natural, as it must’ve been the tallest mountain, however, now they had additional questions as to how it maintained cloud cover all year round. In other places, there would be a short period of time when mountain tops were visible.

They could mull over the ‘whys’ later, as now, they had to figure out how to cross the Forbidden Valley to get to the mountain, and then how they were going to climb up the mountain. The Forbidden Valley was dangerous, and due to the thick undergrowth and lack of fixed paths, it would be difficult to lead a large entourage through.

“All right, I’m going to start preparing for dinner.” Laz ran his good hand through his thick hair and then dug into his pocket for his hair clasp. Lucian took it from him, and while still looking at the map, collected his brother’s hair and secured the clasp to keep his long, dark hair out of his face so he could cook. “Beks, is your mother coming for dinner?”

“Yes,” Beks said. “If it’s late, I’m going to have her stay the night.”

Lucian walked back to the table. He took another piece of paper. “When Laz, Jonas, Gerard, and I fled into the valley, we made a point of staying along the outer edges. The deeper you go, the more dangerous it is. We were wounded and worried the blood would attract beasts.”

The Crown Prince paled at this. He looked towards the kitchen, where Laz was ripping apart some greens with one hand while holding it with his nubbed arm. A pained expression went across his dark eyes.

“We’ll have to go deeper since the mountain is well inside the valley,” Beks said.

Lucian picked up her pencil and drew across the table. “It isn’t a normal valley where we first go up some hills or mountains and then go down into it. If we were to cut it in half, it would look like this.”

He drew a line and then let it drop. The drop was rather steep before it sloped down. Lucian pointed out that there was a river at the very bottom, then the elevation began to rise until it got to the base of the mountain. The mountain itself was steep.

“Rather than a valley, this is a crater,” the Crown Prince said. “There are two within Langshe, though nothing this large.”

“What’s on the other side of the mountain? More jungle?” Beks asked.

“It’s a steep drop into a maze of canyons, but along the edges are fissures that release a very hot and very toxic fume,” Lucian said with a frown. “Adah said beyond that is the desert, but because of the fumes, this area remains unexplored.”

“Then, it forms a natural barrier,” the Crown Prince said with a nod. He let out a low breath. “Uncle, how did you hide your cavalry?”

“I know there is an entrance facing the Kadmus border,” Beks said. “But are there other ways in?”

Lucian nodded. “Adah said there are, but it’s easy to get lost. When he took us there, we went through the Kadmus border entrance.”

Beks wrinkled her nose. “That was where I was supposed to be exiled to.”

Lucian’s hand clenched her pencil, making it snap while in the kitchen, Laz froze.

A small sneer appeared on Laz’s face as he looked over his shoulder. “That little idiot really dares....”

She shook her head. “Forget about it. I’m more worried that that border entrance will have soldiers guarding it.”

Lucian sighed. “We can try to get in through the northeast. There are caves and a maze of narrow canyons there. That’s where we entered when assassins chased us.”

The Crown Prince’s face dropped once more. “It was your fourth brother who orchestrated all this?” he asked in a dry voice.

Lucian glanced up and gave him a helpless shrug. “I don’t think Luther is capable, but that is not to say that those around him are not.” The Crown Prince frowned.

“Any support you need from Langshe to regain Kadmus, I will give,” he told them in a firm voice.

“One step at a time,” Beks said. “First, we have to decide who is going to come with us into the Forbidden Valley. We can’t bring too many people. Once that’s decided, we’ll work out the logistics: what we need, how we’ll travel, and how best to navigate the valley.”

“How soon can we leave once we decide who we’ll bring with us?” the Crown Prince asked.

At this, Lucian and Laz both turned to look at him. “You will not be coming with us, Geel. It’s too dangerous,” Laz said at once, lowering the knife in his hand. “You are not suited for trekking through a jungle.”

“Gan, I cannot sit back and do nothing,” their cousin told them. “And where would I wait?”

“You can wait here,” Lucian replied. “The house is safe. We’ll leave some Wild Dogs to guard you. Once we find the cavalry, we will send for you.”

“Jargal, how can I let you two do all the work? If you are to suffer, I must suffer with you,” he said.

Beks glanced from one man to the next, unsure if she should interject. The twins were adamant that he remained while the Crown Prince felt helpless that he could do nothing more than wait.

“Can you pay for it?” Beks spoke up as their voices began to rise. The three men looked towards her. “Can you pay for the expedition? In that way, you are contributing. And while we are searching, can you prepare a strategy? I will arrange for information to be brought to you regarding Langshe; but you will need to prepare the strategy.”

The two brothers glanced at each other and then nodded, silently agreeing with Beks. They looked towards their cousin, who seemed torn. He clenched his jaw, hesitant to agree. The floor was quiet and tense.

It made the footsteps rushing up the stairs louder than expected. The Thirnir by the door to the stairs opened it part way to see who was coming up before stepping to the side and holding the door open. Gerard rushed in, clutching a box larger than his head under his left arm and a letter in his right hand.

“My lady!” His face was flushed as he skidded to a stop. Upon seeing that the Crown Prince was also there, he gave him an awkward, rushed bow before turning his attention back to Beks. “My lady, this letter came for you. A carriage appeared downstairs and they insisted I bring this to you immediately.”

Beks drew her head back. “I’m not expecting anything.” She extended her hand and accepted the letter in silence. Gerard held the box in front of him, but she opened the letter first. Her eyes skimmed across the elegantly written Jasper before flashing towards the box. She stepped forward, twisted the latch, and lifted the lid.

Her eyes dilated before she slammed the lid down.

“What is it?” Laz asked.

“Is something wrong?” Lucian asked as the two of them moved towards her.

Beks swallowed hard. She held up the letter. “It’s from the Grand Duke of Aceria. He wants to see me at once and has sent a carriage....” She looked towards the tall, bald soldier. “Gerard, is the carriage still there?”

Gerard nodded his head rapidly. “It hasn’t left, my lady. They said they will wait for your answer.”

“Why does he want to see you?” Lucian frowned as he narrowed his eyes with suspicion.

“Wait, I’ll go with you-”

“No, it’s fine,” Beks said, raising her hand to stop Laz as he prepared to remove his apron. “Gerard can escort me to the gates. I don’t believe the Grand Duke means any harm.”

“Does he know who you are?” Lucian asked carefully.

“No, he shouldn’t,” Beks said. “The letter was addressed to Miss Snowy; I introduced myself as that to Lady Rivah yesterday.”

Laz and Lucian remained on guard. “Then, perhaps it has something to do with Lady Rivah?”

Beks eyes drifted to the box in Gerard’s arms. “It should,” she said as she raised a hand and placed it on top of the lid. “They sent me a summoning pearl.”

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The palace, similar to the vaults on the opposite mountain, was also built into the mountain it was on. The road leading up to the main gates went through three tunnels as it coiled up the mountain. Upon arriving, the courtyard past the gatehouse wasn’t large, but it was well kept and there were stone pillars surrounding it, each with a light pearl in a sconce.

As Beks stepped down from the carriage, she let out a small chuckle. Stone pillars with light pearls on them as a light source was familiar architecture on Gurani Island.

Two guards in uniform stepped forward and bowed their heads to her.

“Welcome, Miss Snowy. Please follow us. The Grand Duke is expecting you,” one guard said. Gerard let out a small cough. The guard looked at him. “You may escort Miss Snowy up until the meeting room, but you will have to wait outside.”

Gerard opened his mouth to protest, but Beks stopped him. “That’ll be fine.”

Gerard huffed, but conceded. They followed the two guards up some steps and into a hall. There were little decorations, but the stone walls had a luster. The columns were carved and there were light pearls installed. Gerard couldn’t help but look around.

“Seems familiar....”

Beks chuckled. “The columns are open to the view and let in the air. Reminds you of anywhere?”

Gerard knit his brows together for a bit before gasping. “The throne room on the island!”

Beks nodded. They arrived at a door with a carved entryway. Gerard was forced to wait outside, and Beks took the box with the pearl from him.

“Don’t worry,” she told him. “They wouldn’t have sent this if they were dangerous.”

Gerard tilted his head to the side, a bit confused. From his angle, Beks knew he only saw the light coming from the box before she shut the lid closed. One of the guards opened the door for her and she carried the box in.

The room was similar to the check in parlor of the Wealth Vaults. The ceilings were high, there were windows at the top, and a glorious chandelier of light pearls. The entire room glowed a warm, pale yellow, making the atmosphere welcoming.

“Is this her?” A tall, slender man with hair more gray than black rose to his feet from the sofa he was seated on when she arrived. The guard behind her nodded. The man lifted a hand, curling it into a loose fist with his thumb over his index finger, and pressed it that side against his forehead before moving it down, as if bowing. “Welcome and thank you for coming, Miss Snowy. I am Cosimo Mahin, the Grand Duke of Aceria.”

Beks mirrored his greeting. “Good afternoon, Grand Duke. I am Beks Snowy.”

Grand Duke gave a nod to the guards to leave them before motioning for Beks to take a seat on the opposite sofa. “Please, Miss. Have some cakes. We season them with sea salt here. It is one of our local delicacies,” he said proudly as he motioned to the neat display of various small cakes and cookies.

Before Beks could stop him, he poured her a dark liquid. From the smell, she recognized it as coffee, which was popular in Paraxes. She took a seat and looked at the Grand Duke who sat across from her.

The man was past middle-aged, but she wouldn’t consider him elderly. He seemed very lively. He wore clothing common around the city, but the fabric was much finer with embroidery and a few pins.

“Thank you for the kind hospitality,” Beks replied. She put the box on the table. “You sent this to me.”

He didn’t hide how his eyes lit up. “You recognize it.”

“I wouldn’t have come otherwise,” Beks said. The letter said that if she knew what was in the box, to come to the palace. If she had thought it was a regular light pearl, then she could give it to the carriage driver to be returned. She sat across from him and gave him a somewhat admonishing look. “You dared to hand something so precious to a stranger?”

The Dranga people’s summoning pearl was treated as a priceless relic that needed to be protected. Even now, it was with Elder Arash, safe in the commercial tier of Eravah. Beks was familiar with it and after comparing it with other light pearls around the city, she had realized it really did have a specific purpose. The biha coming off of it when it glowed felt different. For one thing, Lucian couldn’t control the light coming from it. Whatever caused it to glow wasn’t simply light biha.

The man’s bright eyes didn’t dim and he only seemed to grow more earnest. “You are not a stranger if you know what it is.”

She gave him a small nod and lifted the lid of the box to reveal the glowing pearl. “I’ve seen many light pearls, but that particular glow emitted gives me a different sense of biha. I’ve only seen another like it. It belongs to a tribe I had traveled with.”

“A sister tribe?” The Grand Duke nearly jumped from his seat, but quickly calmed himself and sat back down. He looked at the pearl and trembled. “It started glowing months ago. We sent people out to try to find our ancestral homeland, but they came back empty handed, having found nothing in the coordinates my ancestors left.” His eyes reddened as he looked at Beks. “Do you know?”

Beks remained seated. She reached for a cup of coffee and put some sugar in it before stirring it. The Grand Duke didn’t seem to have any filter when speaking to her, as if he were sure whatever he said would not only be taken seriously, but completely understood. Beks wanted to be suspicious and remained on her guard, but for such an obscure, if not farfetched, topic, only those who knew would know.

“May I ask, what do you know?”

“My aunt must’ve told you who we are,” the Grand Duke said with a bittersweet smile. “Our family was a scholar clan in an ancient peninsular kingdom rich with bihar called Gah-rhun. Modern languages call it Gurani. There was a disaster...a tragedy that broke apart the land and sunk it into the ocean. We were forced to flee...we do not know how many different sister groups fled, or to where they fled to, but we sailed a short distance and settled here. This is the origin of Aceria and its people, but it has been so long that the story seems more of a founding myth than chronicled history.” His shoulders dropped a bit and his eyes lowered. “Our past has been reduced to a fairy tale, but for my family, especially heirs and heads of the house, it is a known fact that is engraved into our bones. We are not allowed to forget.”

Beks took a sip of her coffee and nodded. For the Dranga people, their history had also been reduced to oral retellings that had been watered down through thousands of years. Yet, the moment their pearl started to glow; they were ready to leave everything behind to go ‘home’.

“Why is it only your family that is not allowed to forget?” Beks asked.

“We were a scholar clan,” the Grand Duke told her with a thoughtful expression. “We vowed to keep the history of our people. Of Gah-rhun. If we do not, who will?” He lowered his eyes once more. “It is a shame that despite our efforts, things have been forgotten.”

“Such as?” Beks asked.

“Our strength in biha.” The Grand Duke shook his head. “You must’ve seen the Wealth Vaults. That was all done with biha and the engineering our ancestors brought from Gah-rhun when they fled. The strength and skill of those biha users is no longer present. We had settled in an area that could be defended well, but it lacks bihar.”

Beks nodded. The main reason there were so many strong biha users in Sagittate was because of the bihar-rich environment that fed her people.

“Then, such a feat as the Wealth Vaults can’t be replicated?”

The Grand Duke gave her a helpless, sad look. “Now, if a vault breaks, we can do little to even repair it. Even if we have the engineering, we simply lack the biha ability.” He shook his head once more. “We’ve lost the language. The written language can only be read, but now we don’t know if we’re speaking it correctly.”

Beks nodded. “Then, what do you want?” she asked. “Though your people started off as refugees, you’ve settled here, and Aceria is doing quite well for itself. It’s peaceful. Its economy is strong.”

“But it is not our homeland,” the Grand Duke said. She could hear a bit of pain and yearning in his voice. “For thousands of years, my family has yearned to return. No matter how long we are here, there is this feeling...as if we are mere guests despite having settled here for so long. For me, even if the rest of Aceria wishes to remain, I would like to return to our ancestral lands like every Grand Duke and Duchess before me.” He smiled through the longing. “That is why I dared to send you the summoning pearl.”

“You believe I know about your ancestral homeland?”

The Grand Duke stood up. He walked around the sofa and bent down to pick up something from behind it. When he stood up, Beks’ eyes dilated once more. He held three stone tablets in his hands.

“I can see it in your eyes,” he said, full of confidence. “You know what these are.”

“Anyone can make a guess,” she told him, though couldn’t take her eyes off the tablets.

“But it was only when my aunt showed you this side,” he said as he placed the tablets on the sofa beside him. “That you seemed to know that they weren’t just stone tiles, but tablets that contain information. Miss Snowy, you have seen them before.”

Beks lowered her cup and placed it on the table between them. “Think carefully about what you want, Grand Duke. The other tribe who has a summoning pearl has already selected a leader to govern them. I do not believe they will allow you to do so. You’d lose your status.”

The Grand Duke gave her a small shake of his head. “We were not a royal family in Gah-ruhn. We were just the most senior family in that fleeing group. We were the record keepers and helped maintain order. We took on a leadership role during the resettlement because we were best fit to do so amongst our group. That is why Aceria doesn’t have a king, an emperor, or even a prince. I am just a Grand Duke overseeing Aceria, which is a part of Gah-ruhn.”

Beks gave him a curious look. Few people would see their power and position so lightly. “Are you telling me that you see Aceria not as an independent kingdom that the rest of the world sees, but as a territory of Gah-ruhn?”

The Grand Duke nodded. “We of Aceria call it that - Aceria. It is just land. A territory. Not a kingdom. Not a principality. It is foreigners who label us as such. As a Grand Duke, there will naturally be someone who rules above me.”

“Who?”

The Grand Duke looked almost surprised that she’d ask. He drew his head back and blinked before giving her matter-of-fact expression. “The ah-shu-eh.”

“What does that translate to?”

The Grand Duke thought for a moment and then nodded. “The Inheritor of the Divine.”

If she wasn’t convinced that the Grand Duke was part of a missing Gurani diaspora before, she was now.

“Then...the Inheritor rules?”

“Only they are qualified to.”

“How does one know who the Inheritor is?” She already knew the answer, but wanted to make sure.

He sat up straight. “This is something we of a scholar clan know much of! The Inheritor, as you call them, has both a biha well and a spirit core. Their biha well is limitless, though they cannot use it like other biha well users.”

She almost grimaced, knowing that one of her largest sources of frustration, and utter embarrassment, was her inability to control her biha. All that power, but an inability to use it.

“What about their spirit core?” This is something she’d been trying to figure out from the moment she was told that she had both, as she could not understand how it was manifesting, if it was manifesting at all.

She contained her hope as she looked at the Grand Duke. He didn’t appear shaken by her question at all, and she held her breath, hoping for an answer.

“The spirit core of an Inheritor is unlike that of others who are born with spirit cores. The spirit core of an Inheritor is called, according to my ancestors, shu-et-la. In rough translation, it is ‘divine guidance’. It is the ability to absorb information, and not only in the traditional sense from books and lectures, as a student would, but to gather information from all their senses and through the movement of bihar around them to choose the best direction to lead.” The Grand Duke paused and furrowed his brows. “I would say...they can feel energy in the air to maneuver through seamlessly. However, this ability takes time to be refined.”

Her chest was tight. Beks sat in her spot, unmoving as a thousand thoughts ran chaotically in her head. They called her a genius when she was a child. They praised her for her ability to memorize and recall things in an instant. The late Queen and Laurence often acknowledged her assessment abilities, sometimes even surprised that she was so accurate.

“I’m not a genius at all....” she whispered under her breath as her eyes lowered.

“Pardon, Miss?”

She shook her head and snapped her attention back to the Grand Duke. “I...I mean, what does the Inheritor use their spirit core for again?”

“To my understanding, it is called divine guidance because it is said that when the gods move, an Inheritor will sense it and then guide their people to keep them safe and prosperous. All the information is used to make decisions to keep the people of Gah-ruhn flourishing and at peace, and every time new information is collected, the direction adjusts accordingly.” He let out a small, sharp, bitter laugh. “Have you heard of those oracles that the Temple is so proud of?”

The corner of her eye twitched. “Unfortunately.”

“They are nothing compared to an Inheritor,” the Grand Duke said, his voice full of resolve. “All they do is spout predictions, and it is up to others to decide what to do with it, but an Inheritor will act. They can change the future, preventing possible scenarios from happening by diverting fate with action. This is true divine guidance.”

Beks nodded her head. She just had one question. “But if the Inheritor had this gift, why didn’t they stop the natural disaster, or rather, better prepare their people for it so as to mitigate ensuing chaos? Groups wouldn’t have had to flee in all directions, lose touch with each other, and lose access to the surviving land.”

The Grand Duke’s face saddened. “Because the last Inheritor of Gah-rhun was killed when she was a three-year-old child.” His eyes reddened, as if the incident had just happened and not a loss from thousands of years prior. The man swallowed hard. “Do you know why there is only one Temple structure in Aceria? And why it is only used by visitors?”

Beks shook her head. “No.”

“Because we wouldn’t allow them to settle here,” the Grand Duke told her. “It was the Temple who killed our three-year-old Inheritor of the Divine.”