30th September 1137

  Suiming

  “So…Nameless…Namenlos…Bezvarda….Wu Ming…Mu Mei, you are catching up real quick with modern languages…unbelievable, unbelievable, how are you learning this fast?” Suiming asked, sitting next to the long table of Lily’s brotherhood. The wind brushed his hair as the flower petals kissed him. Acryl was lying on the flower field, his white hair blending into the blooming flowers. If not for his blood and bandages, Suiming would have accidentally stepped on him.

  “I was present in Senhashi when Abe no Anko was alive,” Nameless responded, peeling a tangerine. The orange peels were stacked onto one another. Suiming took one of them and started to peel it into even smaller pieces. He played them between his fingers as he put them into a pattern. Nameless didn’t pay attention; in her eyes, Suiming hadn’t changed his carefree facade for millennia. The things hid deeper behind those purple eyes, only for a key to unlock them.

  “Ah, it all makes sense now, you…smart fella, what linguist trick do you also have up your sleeves?”

  “Intuition,” Nameless said, chewing on the tangerine. She gave one to Suiming, but he didn’t take it.

  “What has happened to your eye?” Nameless asked as she put the single tangerine slice on the unoccupied peel.

  “The monocle looked cool, bought it off a costume shop,” he answered, putting the peels into the pattern Nameless recognized. It was a tree, an abstraction of it. The main branch of it stretched vertically, as the smaller ones curled into or turned. She missed that tree after knowing the aftermath of the war made it inaccessible to the world outside Treisaules. That tree holds a special place in her heart, among many things people worshiped, the Tree of Sunrise was the one she saw as reasonable. Years after the collapse of Yel, the Tree of Sunrise was the place she stayed the longest, its shining and warm roots and branches felt comforting in solitude. Even if that tree was the last of its kind, it still gleaned gently and equally on everything.

  “The Tree of Sunrise.”

  “I am planning to go to Treisaules after paying a visit to Auderheim,” Suiming said, taking the tangerine slice off the peel and using his other hand to gather the peels into a small pile.

  “…For the crown?” Nameless asked as she unpeeled another tangerine.

  “For the crown, and a student’s thesis. Sage’s thesis.”

  “Since when are you so caring?”

  “Since forever, what kind of question is that, Nameless? You don’t know the pain of writing that paper.”

  “Fine, if it is for a member of the brotherhood, I might come as well…”

  They both stayed in silence for a while, then Nameless broke it:

  “Tell me, Suiming, if you were to live a thousand years, not knowing who you are, and return to where you belonged, how would you feel?”

  “If somebody was born in the front row of a theater, the plays and curtain calls are their whole world, but even if it were all fake, a slight truth will be scattered in every lie,” Suiming responded, turning the mandarine peel in his fingers, inspecting it like an exotic bird’s feather.

  “What if they stand up?” Nameless interrupted.

  7th October, 1137

  Seren

  She wore her favorite clothes when the council called her. It was a dress that showed her back and the imprint of the throne of Letter-Writer. The dress’s edge was shaped like the tip of her fountain pen. To add to the fine clothing, she put on a pair of dark blue silk gloves. Seren understood the reason for her being here and accepted it.

  Despite that, she decided to pull off something big before she left. Seren listened to the whispers as she walked into the smaller dome within the grand courtyard of the Messenger’s headquarters.

  The council’s building had another name- tiny night sky. On the tiny dome roof was carved and decorated with gold the image of constellations. After hundreds of years, the gold still looked the same, dazzling and illuminating. As if they were the will of the sun under this roof. The councilmen sat around Seren in their old, prettier-than-comfortable wooden chairs.

  She stood in the center of the council as they eyed her with sharp, angered looks. Seren was expected to be here, after all, it wasn’t her first time, and it would not be the last. The first time she was amazed by the dome within the courtyard of the headquarters of the messengers, the second time she got lost in the hallways, the third time she was charged with treason, the fourth time she was pardoned by the man she hated the most- Cancri of the blue mist, the fifth time she was declared the Letter-Writer, the sixth time she pardoned Suiming for trespassing the archive, the seventh time, this time she was tired. If there were an award for being in the council’s building without being a part of the council, she has no doubt that she would win.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “Letter-Writer Seren. During your serving time, you have broken multiple regulations. The council has done you good, hiding your identity from your messengers and the public, giving you the throne of sorrow, yet what you did is unacceptable, letting an outlander into the sacred manor? Letting him break the seal and then let another suspicious individual use the power of an Unknown Existence, contaminating the seal?” the councilman sitting at the highest chair declared. Seren looked at him. She could feel it. Feel that they feared her, fear that she might reshape the messengers like she did before, but the council had a point.

  “Did our belief stay pure? Ninety-two-seventh years after descent, why didn’t we mark that year as the beginning of a new era?” Seren questioned back. Her hands were behind her back.

  “We do not know what you are talking about, Seren. Stay on topic.”

  “What is the topic? That the messenger was rotten to the end, that we once used belief for the reason of killing, and still do? That we trapped a part of our god, using a seal made by a sinner?”

  “I know why you called me here, to retract the throne of sorrow from me, you can, you always could, and I would like to step off, but where would the council find a better vessel for the throne? One who carries more sorrow and who believes in the Starseeker?”

  “We are never short of sorrow, Letter-Writer,” one of the councilmen said, wiping his glasses with a fine cloth.

  “Would you dare to say those words to the daughters of men who fell in the war, mothers whose children died in the Plague of Ignorance, the townsfolk on the border of Euth and Treisaules?” Seren said as she walked to the councilman, taking the cloth away from his hand. Throwing it on the ground, she strode in the direction of the door. The messengers stopped her from going forward as she felt the waves of casting coming from them.

  Whispers that spoke of the future echoed in her. They told her every possibility, how to exit, how to fight the council if they ordered her death.

  “If you step out of that door, the throne and the title of Letter-Writer will be revoked from you.”

  “Give me your knife.”

  The messenger hesitated.

  “What, you dared to cast in front of me, yet fear to unsheathe a mundane metal?”

  “This is an order,” Seren said. The messenger handed her the knife. Standardized, polished, and sharpened knife that had never seen blood. And now it will see the blood of a Letter-Writer.

  Seren pierced her back, from her shoulder blade, as pain came with the blood oozing down her dress. She could feel the power fleeing her; the tears that formed the implant escaped and danced. From the side, it looked like Seren had wings, the wings of a glass butterfly flying from the dark blue cocoon.

  Seren dropped the knife on the ground and turned to the council.

  “Can I go now?”

  “Seren! What you did was extremely irresponsible! Euth has now no Letter-Writer due to your caprice, just as you stated, where would the council find a better Letter-Writer?”

  “Josh. He is a better one. Thirty years of serving the messenger, devoted to his country and honor, thirty years have accumulated more sorrow and pain than you could ever imagine,” Seren said, walking away.

  “I got everything ready for my leave, the candidate list, the tears, the reason for the council to fire me.”

  …

  A while later, Cambric Street, “Blue Box”

  As soon as she entered the tavern, the bell chimed lovely. The smell of bread and fermentation made Seren feel the pain a little bit less. She dragged her legs to the table Suiming had reserved. Feeling that she might collapse at any moment, she sat down and sank into the soft, padded couch.

  “You stole the pen again?” Suiming said, sitting by the table. There were four more people around him: Nameless, Acryl, Neon, and Canvas. Suiming was drinking while Canvas napped by the wall. A week had passed since the incident, and Acryl recovered well from the incident, but Seren could still see how the madness of that thing impacted Acryl’s psyche. Seren didn’t know how to compensate Acryl; if she had arrived earlier, then everything might not have happened. It even hurt more as she knew exactly how it felt- every blink of an eye was a gateway to horrors lurking beyond the skies, in every shadow hid the sky that one could fall into forever.

  “Pens…I got you one as well,” Seren answered as she put the Outsider on the table.

  “…Suiming, do you want me to turn back the clock?” Seren whispered. She didn’t know why she’d ask that question, there is a limitation to her four-times-sharpened Realm-art. A limitation that made her not use it for decades.

  “You must be joking, it involves Existence, your Realm-art, it can’t bend the will of your boss,” Suiming said as he put down his drink.

  “Fine, fine, we’ve come here for Canvas, right?”

  Canvas, hearing that, raised his head. His scabbard was unshaven, and his face scarred. The clothes he was wearing had stitches and edges torn. It wasn’t the man Seren remembered, his eyes lost that sharp light of confidence, but instead, it hid away behind the eye bags and tired look.

  “That is true, and more relevant to Acryl,” Canvas said as he turned his face to Acryl, who was scribbling on his sketchpad.

  “Now, Acryl, I can answer your questions.”

  Acryl, closing his sketchpad, eyes swaying as Neon held his hand, asked:

  “Why did you go?” Acryl asked while his unfocused eyes looked into Canvas.

  “…To find the three crowns, to find a way to make my friend face the truth, the fate,” Canvas said as he moved his eyes away and looked in Suiming’s direction. He was by the counter, ordering snacks- chips, crackers, cookies, and other sweet and salty foods.

  “Why the three crowns?” Nameless interrupted as she reached for the basket, all relaxed and carefree, as half of her body was slowly sliding down the couch.

  “…That…Nameless, I’m afraid, can’t tell.”

  “Hm hm, keep as many secrets as you want, until your back bends from them.”

  “Can I go with you?”

  “I’m sorry, but no, Acryl, I know the yearning for home, but I sometimes believe I am your cage.”

  “Where will you be next?”

  “…I will be in Auderheim, and then I will tell you the truth.”

  “That’s convenient,” Suiming interrupted as he returned from the counter with a basket of snacks. He sat down as he offered them the basket.

  “Well, I just wanted to ask you, Acryl, do you fancy going to Auderheim with me?”