The scribe

Enkō before dawn.

Seen from high above, the city looked like a lone ember nestled in the darkness. At its very center stood the Imperial Cathedral, glowing with a faint gold radiance from the ten thousand lamps that burned inside its walls without ceasing. From that central glow, the city spread outward in neat, concentric rings, dividing the landscape into the inner sanctum, the ministry district, the merchant quarters, and finally, the outer wards. Two million people slept peacefully within those walls, protected by a perimeter that had never once been breached in three hundred years.

The Cathedral spire climbed high above everything else. At its peak, carved from pale stone, rested the Flame of the Seika-Ō. It was the symbol of the god-emperor whose light, as the empire's priests always said, had kept the darkness beyond the walls at bay since before living memory.

The spire was the last thing the light left at dusk.

It was the first thing it found at dawn.

Beautiful. Certain. Untouchable.

The streets of the Archive District at the city's inner ring were narrow, cool, and trapped perpetually in the shadow of the giant Cathedral wall. A few early vendors were already out on the stone-paved roads setting up their stalls. Among them was a cart filled with lamp oil, and nearby, a woman swept her doorstep, creating the ordinary texture of an early morning.

From the outside, the Archive building itself was not grand. It stood five stories tall, built of old dark stone with arched windows and a door wide enough to easily move large document cases through.

Beside the entrance, a brass plate read:

IMPERIAL ARCHIVE TEIKOKU BUNKO DIVISION OF HISTORICAL RECORD AND CHRONICLE ESTABLISHED 2nd YEAR, REIGN OF SEIKA-Ō RYŌKEN

The door was already open. Inside, lamplight flickered, revealing that someone had arrived before dawn.

Close, very close.

Hands.

The left hand held a page perfectly flat against a copying board. The right hand moved a brush across the paper in small, precise strokes, showing the notation hand of someone who had done this ten thousand times. The fingers were stained with ink at the tips, and the knuckle of the right index finger bore a permanent callus from the brush grip. They were the hands of a scribe.

The desk itself was covered, but organized, not chaotic. Three document cases were stacked precisely. A small clay cup held brushes sorted carefully by width. An open reference ledger lay nearby, cross-checked against the page currently being copied. In the upper right corner of the desk, barely visible, a small personal journal with its cover worn smooth was tucked under the edge of the reference ledger.

The perspective pulled back further, revealing the Archive's main floor at dawn. It was a space filled with long tables, tall shelves reaching all the way to the ceiling, and rolling ladders resting on brass tracks. It was entirely empty at this hour except for a single desk near the eastern windows where the first light came in. And at that desk sat Kael Toya.

He was 22 years old, of medium height and a lean build. His dark hair was tied back with a cord that had been used so long it had frayed at both ends. He was not handsome in any remarkable way, and unremarkable was the word people who did not know him used to describe him. He was focused. Whenever he looked at something, he was always slightly more focused than the situation seemed to require.

He was currently copying a border incident summary from 14 years ago into a standardized registry format. The work was routine. His attention was not.

A close-up on Kael's face revealed that he was not actually reading the summary he was copying. He had stopped reading these summaries two years ago. He could copy them with perfect accuracy without processing the words, which freed the part of his mind that did process words to do something else entirely.

"Border Incident Registry," Kael's internal thoughts noted. "Northern Reaches, Year 301 through 310 of the current reign. Fourteen years of patrols, weather events, and animal attacks formatted into the same six-column structure the Archive has used since before I was born."

His brush moved across the paper, but his eyes did not move with it.

"I have copied 847 of these summaries in three years," his thoughts continued. "I have read all of them."

The focus shifted to the page he was copying, which was set in the standard imperial format. It featured six distinct columns: Date, Location, Classification, Personnel, Outcome, and Notes.

The Notes column on this particular entry read: SEE RESTRICTED FILE 301-NR-14.

"847 summaries," his internal narration went on. "Sixty-three of them reference restricted files I am not cleared to read. I have written all sixty-three reference numbers in my personal journal. I have not told anyone I have done this.”

The Archive filled slowly as the morning progressed. Other scribes arrived alongside three junior staff members who nodded at Kael before taking their respective stations. An older archivist with a permanent ink stain on his left sleeve stopped at Kael's desk, glanced down at his progress, made an approving sound, and moved on without a word. This was their standard interaction.

Soon after, a younger scribe named Hatto stopped by Kael's desk holding a cup of morning tea. At 19 years old, he possessed an eagerness that had not yet been discouraged by the routine of the Archive.

"You're here before the lamps again," Hatto noted.

"The morning copies are quieter," Kael replied, not looking up.

"Senior Archivist Oryn was asking about you yesterday."

Kael's brush remained in motion. "What did he want to know?"

"Just… if you'd been keeping regular hours. I said yes."

"That was kind of you," Kael said.

Hatto glanced at the stacked document cases on Kael's desk, taking in the organized precision of everything. "You're copying the Northern Reaches registry?"

"Mm."

"Nobody's asked for that," Hatto remarked. "I don't think anyone's touched those cases in six years."

There was a pause before Kael answered, one that lasted half a second longer than natural. "I requested them for cross-referencing. Patrol route standardization project."

"Oh. Right."

Hatto set the tea down and left the desk. Kael watched him go, then looked back down at his work.

A final thought crossed his mind: "There is no patrol route standardization project.”

The Archive reached its full mid-morning bustle. Kael had moved from his copy desk to the reference stacks, where the tall shelves required the use of a rolling ladder. Standing three rungs up, he pulled a case from an upper middle shelf, its surface labeled in standard archive notation.

Below him, two shelves down, a different section began. The shelves here were made of the same dark wood, and the cases shared the same standard shape, but each one featured a brass lock at its clasp instead of a simple tie-cord.

Beside those locked shelves stood a door. It was an unremarkable door of dark wood with no window. A brass plate mounted beside it read:

RESTRICTED ACCESS RANK 1-S CLEARANCE AND ABOVE UNAUTHORIZED ENTRY: IMMEDIATE REVIEW BOARD REFERRAL

Kael climbed down the ladder and walked past the door to the restricted wing. He slowed his pace not stopping, just slowing and glanced at the roster board mounted beside it. The board listed every file pulled from the restricted wing over the past thirty days, organized by date, alongside the clearance number of the officer who had requested it. There were no names on the roster, only numbers.

A close-up on Kael's eyes showed him reading the roster while keeping up his stride. He did not stop walking. To anyone watching, it would look like nothing more than an idle glance.

His eyes shifted to one entry in particular.

There was a filing date, a clearance number he did not recognize, and a reference code that began with the letters NR-Northern Reaches.

His brush hand twitches.

Kael was back at his desk, a reference case open in front of him. However, he was not looking at the reference case.

Instead, he looked down at his personal journal. It was open to a page filled with small, precise handwriting, organized into columns that formed a list of dates and reference codes.

"My father's patrol number was NR-7-TOYA-R," Kael's internal narration noted. "Border Scout, Third Rank, Northern Reaches perimeter. Assigned to the Poisoned Reach corridor seven years ago."

A close-up on the journal page revealed that among the listed reference codes, one entry had been circled. Beside it, written in even smaller script, was the note: "Father's last patrol date. No public record. Restricted filing: NR-7-RESTR-14."

Just below that circle, added in fresher ink, was a new entry: "Today's roster. NR file pulled. Fort Sekka border post. Current incident classification."

"Fort Sekka is four days north of the city," Kael thought. "Six days from the corridor where my father disappeared."

Kael closed the journal slowly, sliding it back under the edge of the reference ledger. He picked up his brush once more.

His expression remained completely unchanged. His brush began to move.

"I have been waiting three years for a reason to go north," his final thoughts ran. "I did not expect the reason to find me.”

The Archive in the afternoon. Most of the staff had gone for the midday meal, leaving the building remarkably quiet. The only sounds were the scratching of Kael's brush and the distant bells of the Cathedral marking the hour.

Senior Archivist Brother Oryn entered through the main door.

He was a small, round man with silver-white hair who moved through the Archive the way water moves, following the path of least resistance and arriving where he intended without appearing to have gone anywhere at all. He had worked in this building for thirty years, and every shelf knew his step.

Oryn stopped at Kael's desk. He looked down at the work, taking in the completed copy pages stacked precisely and the reference case open to exactly the right section. He observed this for a moment without comment.

"You finish quickly," Oryn said.

"The notation format for this registry is consistent," Kael replied. "Once you know the structure, the copying is mechanical."

"Most people find mechanical work slow."

"Most people think while they copy," Kael said. "I copy while I think."

Oryn looked at him. It was a warm look, but layered, holding something behind the warmth that Kael did not have a word for yet.

"May I sit?" Oryn asked.

Kael gestured to the adjacent stool. Oryn sat down, settled himself comfortably, and folded his hands on his knee.

Oryn placed a document case onto the desk. It was in the standard imperial format, sealed with a Ministry stamp.

"I have an assignment for you," Oryn said.

"The Northern Reaches registry is unfinished," Kael replied, his brush still moving.

"This takes precedence. Priority classification, Ministry of Defense co-signatured."

Kael set his brush down. He looked at the case without opening it.

"What happened?" Kael asked.

"Fort Sekka. Northern border garrison. Communication loss, four days ago. A courier regiment sent to investigate has not reported back."

A close-up on Kael's face showed him perfectly still. The effort it took to maintain that composure was visible.

"What do you need from the Archive Division?" Kael asked.

"The Ministry wants a Knight-Scribe on the investigation team," Oryn explained. "An official chronicle of findings."

"There are four senior Knight-Scribes with Northern Reaches field experience," Kael noted. "I've only done western border work."

"Yes," Oryn said.

There was a pause.

"I requested you specifically.”

Kael looked at Oryn. Oryn met his gaze steadily.

"Why?" Kael asked.

"Your file notes a Meimoku classification," Oryn said. "Certified active."

"It's not a combat ability. It's never been relevant to field work."

"I think it may be relevant to this field work."

Silence settled between them, filled only by the sound of the Cathedral bells. Kael's brush rested quietly in its cup beside Oryn's folded hands.

"The senior Knight-Scribes would produce a more technically complete chronicle," Kael stated.

"Probably," Oryn admitted.

"I should ask why you want me specifically and expect a complete answer."

Oryn paused, the deliberate pause of a man choosing his words carefully. "Yes. You should. I don't have one to give you yet."

Kael looked down at the document case and opened it. Inside lay the mission brief, travel authorization, and a military escort assignment. He read through the materials quickly, his eyes moving down the page.

"The escort captain is a Border Knight," Kael noted. "Ashvane."

"Mira Ashvane," Oryn said. "Fifteen years of Northern Reaches service. She knows the terrain better than anyone in the capital. She will handle the tactical components. You handle the documentation."

Kael nodded slowly, his eyes still reading.

Kael turned to the second page of the brief, which detailed the location and included a rough, functional map. The Northern Road was clearly marked, and Fort Sekka was indicated at the very upper edge of the map with a standard border marker.

His finger stopped on the paper.

"This is near the Poisoned Reach," Kael noted.

"The southeastern edge of the Reach corridor, yes," Oryn replied. "Fort Sekka is the last garrisoned post before the mist border."

A long pause followed. Kael kept his eyes on the map while Oryn simply watched him.

"The assignment departs tomorrow morning?" Kael finally asked.

"Northern gate, second bell."

Kael closed the brief. He folded his hands on top of it in an exact mirror of Oryn's posture, and both of them sat quietly for a moment with something major left unsaid between them.

"I'll pack tonight," Kael said.

"Kael," Oryn said quietly.

Kael looked up at him.

"Be careful with what you find," Oryn told him. "Not in the field I mean with what you do with it after."

A close-up on Oryn's face showed that the warmth was still there. But underneath it now, clearly visible, was worry. It was an old worry, the kind that had lived in a person long enough to become a permanent part of their expression.

"I mean write everything down," Oryn added. "All of it. Your official chronicle and your personal one. Both."

He stood up. He picked up nothing, having brought only himself and the assignment brief.

"Goodnight, Kael.”

Oryn walked away through the Archive, his small, round form moving at an unhurried pace. Kael watched him until he finally disappeared through the door.

"In fifteen years of working for Brother Oryn, I have never once heard him tell me to write things down," Kael's internal voice noted. "He knows that I always write things down. The instruction was not for me."

Kael was left alone in the Archive. The light from the eastern windows had shifted to the warm gold of late afternoon. He sat silently for a moment, the mission brief resting in front of him, his hands completely still.

Then he stood and went to the copy desk. He began organizing his completed work, taking the Northern Reaches registry summaries and stacking them with his usual precision. He labeled the stack and set it aside for the morning archivist.

His personal journal was still tucked under the edge of the reference ledger.

He reached down and took it.

The restricted wing door stood silent in the late afternoon. The Archive was mostly empty now as Kael stood directly in front of it. He did not touch it; he just stood there, reading the roster board mounted beside the frame. His finger moved down the list without making contact with the wood, tracing the entries through the air.

"I have never opened this door," Kael's internal thoughts ran. "My clearance is Third Rank, Archive Division. The door requires First Rank, Ministry Security. I cannot open this door."

A close-up on the roster board showed his finger stopping on the entry he had noticed earlier, the NR file pulled today under a clearance number he did not recognize.

But then, further down the list, his eyes caught another entry. The thirty-day roster went back one full month. Near the bottom, nearly aged off the board entirely, were a date, a clearance number, and a reference code: NR-7-RESTR-14.

Kael's finger froze.

A close-up on Kael's face captured the realization. It was the exact reference code from his journal, his father's patrol number, the restricted filing. It had been pulled from this very archive thirty days ago.

Someone had been reading his father's file.

"Someone read it a month ago," his internal voice noted. "And today a file about Fort Sekka was pulled from the same restricted section. And today I was assigned to Fort Sekka."

Kael stepped back from the door. His face did not change. His breathing did not change.

Holding his journal, he wrote something down on the page without even looking at it.

Kael stepped out of the Archive into the early evening light. Behind him, the building rose five stories in old dark stone, its arched windows reflecting the dimming sky beside the polished brass plate. He had walked out of this door every day for three years and had never once looked back at it.

He looked back tonight.

The streets of Enkō were alive with the evening routine. Lamplighters made their rounds with long poles, the small flames at the tips causing the street lamps to bloom one after another as Kael walked past. The Cathedral's own light intensified as the natural daylight faded, radiating a beautiful glow. At this hour, it always looked beautiful.

"I was born in this city," Kael's thoughts drifted back. "My father was born here too. He joined the border scouts because the Archive Division wouldn't take him because his handwriting was poor. He used to say: 'You got my eyes and your mother's hands. That's a better deal than I made.'"

Kael continued walking. The Cathedral spire remained visible above the rooflines, the carved stone Flame of the Seika-Ō catching the very last of the sunlight at its peak.

"He disappeared seven years ago," his internal narration concluded. "The empire's ruling: desertion. He was the most dutiful man I have ever known.”

Kael's apartment was small, situated on the third floor of a building in the Archive District. It consisted of a single room that served as a bedroom, office, and library all at once. Shelves filled with books, personal copies, not archive property lined the space. A desk sat beneath the window, and a bedroll lay nearby, neat because it was rarely used for sleeping.

He entered the room, setting his document case down on the desk. He placed the mission brief beside it, then set his personal journal on top of both.

He opened the lid of a storage chest beneath the bed and reached inside. He pulled out a travel pack that was already partially assembled, as though it were kept constantly ready.

Beside the spot where the pack had rested sat a wooden box. He lifted the box out and set it on the desk.

A close-up on the box showed plain wood without any decoration. The empire's seal was stamped onto the lid, displaying the double-ring of the military records bureau. Beside the seal, standard bureaucratic notation read: EFFECTS-TOYA R. -BORDER SCOUT 3RD RANK- STATUS: DESERTION RULING 294.

It was the box the empire had sent him seven years ago. The lid was worn at the edges, showing he had opened it many times.

Kael opened the box.

Inside lay the personal effects of a border scout. A compass. A folded patrol map of this specific region, marked with handwritten annotations in a hand different from Kael's. A scout's field ration tin, empty. A small portrait scroll, tightly folded.

At the very bottom lay the official letter the desertion ruling, stamped with the empire's seal.

Kael picked up the portrait scroll and unfolded it carefully. It was not an expensive painting, just the work of a common market artist, probably captured in ten minutes. It showed a man in his mid-thirties with the same build as Kael, the same dark hair, and the same quality of deep attention in the eyes. He was smiling in the portrait, the way people smile when they are simply humoring a painter.

A close-up on Kael showed him looking at the portrait. His expression remained the same one he had worn all day long composed, precise, and difficult to read.

One beat passed. Two beats.

"Fort Sekka," his internal voice murmured. "Four days north. Six days from where you were last reported. I don't know if this is anything. I have not known if anything was anything for three years. But someone pulled your restricted file a month before my assignment to the region where you disappeared. And Brother Oryn, who has never once in my memory told me to be careful, told me to be careful."

Kael refolded the portrait, placed it carefully back in the box, and closed the lid.

He then picked up the official desertion ruling letter, taking in the empire's seal and the cold, bureaucratic language of closure.

He did not put it back in the box.

Kael sat at his desk, his travel pack open beside him as he methodically filled it. He packed a field writing kit, which was a compact version of his archive tools, along with extra brush tips carefully wrapped in cloth. He included his two official chronicle cases and a third, unofficial one, placing them over a layer of clean field clothes.

His personal journal lay open on the desk.

His hand held the brush, writing firmly. The text on the page was clearly visible:

"Assignment: Fort Sekka Border Garrison, Northern Reaches perimeter. Official purpose: investigation of communications failure, chronicle of findings for Ministry of Defense record."

"Escort: Captain Mira Ashvane, 3rd Border Knights. Fifteen years of northern field service. Reputation: one of three officers in living memory to file an officially unaccepted incident report and retain their posting."

There was a brief pause in his writing.

Then, the brush continued:

"She was transferred north after filing that report. She never asked to transfer back. I don't know what that means about her yet. I will know more in four days.”

More writing filled the page:

"Assignment context: Fort Sekka is located at the southeastern edge of the Poisoned Reach mist border. Four hundred meters from its eastern wall is the last recorded position of my father's patrol, seven years ago."

"Today's restricted roster: NR-7-RESTR-14, his patrol's restricted filing, was pulled thirty days ago. Today, a Fort Sekka incident file was pulled from the same restricted section. Today, I was assigned to Fort Sekka."

"I do not believe in coincidence as a category. I believe in information I haven't yet organized."

A new line began. A pause was visible in the slight difference between the last word and the next, indicating where the brush had been lifted, held, and set back down.

"Brother Oryn told me to write everything down. He knows I always write everything down. He was not telling me to write."

"He was telling me that what I will find is the kind of thing that gets removed from official records."

"He wanted me to understand that before I go."

Kael set the brush down and closed the journal. He looked out the window at the Cathedral spire rising high above the roofline, the Flame of the Seika-Ō standing steady in the still night air.

"There is a version of this assignment where I find the garrison unsupplied and undermanned, the communication failure a result of equipment failure, and I write a thorough chronicle of inadequate border maintenance that nobody will act on," his final thoughts concluded.

"There is a version of this assignment where I find something else.”

The room was perfectly still in the quiet of the night. On the corner of the desk, the lamp cast a steady glow over the packed travel case resting beside the chair, the closed wooden box, and the personal journal that lay flat on top of the mission brief. Kael sat unmoving at the desk, no longer writing. He simply sat with it all the gathered information, the lingering questions, and the three years of patience that might finally be coming to an end.

"I am a Knight-Scribe," his internal thoughts recorded. "Third Rank. My job is to travel to incidents, document them accurately, and return. I am good at this job. I have always been good at it."

He reached down and picked up the official desertion ruling letter, which was still out and resting in his hand from earlier.

He read the document once more. He had read the words enough times over the years that his eyes no longer needed to trace across them; he was reading through the paper, not merely looking at it.

Kael folded the letter.

He slid it down into his left boot, tucking it right beside his personal journal.

Kael stood at the window in the quiet of the night. Below him, the city had grown still, its lamp-lit streets casting a quiet glow alongside the distant sound of the Cathedral's night bells, forming the ordinary texture of a city settling into sleep. Two million people would wake tomorrow inside walls that had not been breached in three hundred years.

His hand rested on the window frame as he looked north. In this city, looking north meant looking at a massive wall, and then past it, into the deep dark that lay entirely beyond the lights.

"My father used to sit at the window when he was working something out," Kael's internal thoughts drifted back. "He would sit for a long time and then get up and cook dinner as though the sitting had resolved it. I asked him once what he thought about the window. He said: 'The parts of the map nobody's drawn yet.'"

A close-up on Kael's face showed him still looking toward the north.

His expression was not one of hope. It was something far more careful than hope, the face of someone who had maintained a profound discipline for a very long time and was not yet ready to let that discipline down.

But it was not nothing.

Kael stood in the Archive one last time in the quiet of the early morning, well before the scheduled departure of his assignment. The entire building was completely empty except for him. He was not at his desk.

Instead, he stood directly in front of the restricted wing door.

"I cannot open this door," his internal voice noted. "I have never opened it."

He looked at the roster board, studying it in a way that differed completely from his usual passing glances. It was a thorough, deliberate study committing every line and detail entirely to memory.

Still standing, he began to write in his journal without once looking down at the page.

A close-up on the paper revealed exactly what his brush was tracing: the specific clearance number from the recent *NR-7-RESTR-14* entry. Just the number. Nothing else.

"But someone with this clearance number has been reading your file, Father," Kael's thoughts concluded. "And then reading about the place I'm being sent to. When I come back, I will know enough to understand why.”

Kael walked toward the exit, his travel case slung firmly over his shoulder. The early morning light filtered softly through the massive Archive, illuminating the endless shelves on either side of him, shelves packed with decades of official histories, carefully curated and approved.

He didn't look at them.

Outside, the street of the Archive District was quiet but waking. Kael's breath puffed out, visible in the sharp morning cold, as the city slowly stirred to life around him. The first market vendors were setting up their stalls, lamplighters were methodically pulling in their long poles, and the Cathedral bells began their rhythmic morning sequence, echoing across the rooftops.

He turned north.

The northern gate of Enkō was already bustling with the day's first traffic supply wagons, merchant carts, and a regiment of soldiers rotating their postings.

Near the gate's inner arch stood a small group: six soldiers in field-worn border knight armor checking their equipment with the practiced efficiency of veterans. A horse and a supply cart stood nearby. Standing apart from the rest, reading her own mission brief with the speed of someone who had already memorized it, was Captain Mira Ashvane.

She looked exactly like her reputation: compact, practical, with a physical presence that demanded a second, more cautious look the longer you stood near her. The distinct scar along her jaw caught the sharp morning light. Even before Kael was close enough to speak, she was already aware of his approach.

Kael stopped at an appropriate professional distance. He introduced himself by name, rank, and division, using the standard military protocol.

"Toya Kael," he said. "Knight-Scribe, Third Rank, Archive Division. I have a chronicle assignment."

Mira looked him over. It was the look of a professional rapidly cataloging data, assessing his build, his gear, the three document cases, and the ink stains on his hands.

"You've done field work before?" Mira asked.

"Western border," Kael replied. "Four postings in three years."

"The north is different from the west."

"I've been told."

A brief beat passed. She held his gaze for a moment longer than strictly necessary.

"Your Meimoku classification," Mira noted. "Oryn put it in the assignment notes."

"It's accurate."

"What does it do, practically?”

Kael considered the question. He wasn't hesitating; he was simply selecting the most precise explanation.

"When I touch something, I get impressions of what happened near it," Kael explained. "Emotional residue. Strong events leave strong impressions."

"You read feelings off rocks," Mira summarized.

"Essentially."

Mira looked at him for one more moment, then looked away. It wasn't a dismissive glance, but rather the look of someone adding a fresh piece of data to a calculation they were constantly running.

"We leave on the bell," Mira commanded. "Stay close to the formation on the road, ride at the back if you need to write, and if I tell you to stop and get behind cover, you stop and get behind cover before you ask why."

"Understood."

Mira walked back toward her soldiers, already issuing quiet, efficient instructions. Kael watched her go.

"She looked at the document cases before she looked at the sword," Kael's internal voice noted. "She was assessing whether I'd slow her down. She hasn't decided yet.”

The northern gate of Enkō framed the horizon as the team prepared to depart. The massive stone arch loomed above them, anchoring the grand city behind while the road ahead stretched out into the pale, cold morning.

Kael mounted his horse, carefully settling the heavy document cases against the saddle and adjusting his travel pack. His gloved hand rested for a fleeting moment on the case containing his personal journal.

His eyes tracked north, looking past the threshold of the gate and down the open road. He looked past where the path disappeared into its first sharp curve, past the distant tree line, and toward the invisible, creeping mist at the edge of the Poisoned Reach, all of it heavy with implication.

"Fort Sekka," Kael's inner voice resonated. "Border post, Northern Reach perimeter. Established 300 years ago. In the restricted roster, a filing from today, and below it, my father's patrol number pulled by someone I don't know a month ago. Both in the same restricted section. I have been looking for this for three years. Tomorrow I will be standing in the place where he was last seen."

A final, close-up view captured Kael's face. The composure was intact; the precision remained undisturbed. Yet, underneath it all lived a quiet force that was not yet allowed to be named.

"Brother Oryn did not say this assignment was connected to my father," the final thoughts gathered. "He said only: 'Be careful with what you find.' He knows me well enough to know that I will find everything. He looked worried when he said it. I am trying to decide if that is good or bad."

The final, full-width view saw the detachment move steadily through the northern gate. The towering city wall fell away behind them as the open road unrolled ahead. Captain Mira led the front of the line, while Kael maintained his position at the very back, his gaze locked forward.

"I copy while I think. Today I will think about Fort Sekka. And about what is buried near it.”