13th October, 1137

  Acryl

  Under the webbed metal roof, Acryl fiddled with the pencil in his hand, waiting for the train to arrive as Neon came to her with two cups of coffee. He looked around. At this time of the day, the train station was less full than before, though not crowded; it still felt overwhelming. The noon sun shone through the roof, brighter than the runes carved into it. Acryl felt like he was in an abandoned observatory. As his eyes wandered, he saw the timetable with his destination written.

  Havel. The capital of Auderheim, where the most complicated runic system lay, where Realm-art related professions and technology were as mundane and common as churches in Grand Dome. Acryl hoped to take his mind off his situation with this trip, perhaps even finding a symptomatic solution.

  “How are you feeling today?” she asked as she handed Acryl the cup.

  “…Not bad…” Acryl answered, putting the cup close to his chin, feeling the layered aroma. He looked at Neon, carrying her backpack, her Realm-art’s implant’s extended nodes slightly visible from the neckline. Lines that curved similarly to the curves of moon pancakes, reminding Acryl of the day they left Siyue.

  “Did I tell you what Lily told me?” Acryl said.

  “Was she the girl hosting the meetings? What about it?” Neon asked, her eyes glaring at the timetable.

  “…She said that I am Starseeker’s pawn now,” Acryl said, switching to Siyuese as he looked around for any suspicious figures, especially that man with the dash of purple in his hair and those pair of brown eyes. The crowd moved in their own rhythm, careless of Acryl’s fear.

  Neon looked back from the timetable. Her eyes widened as she muttered something to herself. Something in Siyuenese with an accent that Acryl didn’t quite understand. She grabbed Acryl’s shoulders, almost pinching his already strained muscles.

  “You better be joking,” she said in Siyuenese.

  “Do you know what this means? You can never go back to Siyue again, never, the Codex might spare others, but it wouldn’t spare you,” Neon announced, right as she finished talking, Acryl noticed a stare from behind. A chill ran up his neck; the stare wasn’t threatening, but unpleasant.

  “Acryl?” the master of the stare said as she stepped to Acryl. She stopped right next to Acryl, her white hair contrasting with her dandelion yellow coat.

  “Nameless? Are you… going to Havel as well?” Acryl asked. Nameless’s amber eyes glanced at Neon and Acryl. A glance that Acryl thought was similar to a cat familiarizing themself with the surrounding. She nodded.

  …

  Havel

  Nameless

  She remembered this city as Spree. The city Nameless knew that she needed to get used to this world, a world that she had missed out on, a world that was walking down the same crooked path of Yel. Spree was a place she hadn’t visited often, since it was burned shortly after her battle with the Starseeker, the city was absolutely strange to her. Nameless walked behind Acryl and Neon. Streets here were embellished with runes that were carved into the bricks.

  This world is a river…nothing is the same, every time you look at the river bed, it takes a new facade.

  We only see the river for a while, so we believe it is a crystal, but you can see the whole of it.

  Promise me, to never stop at one facade, and walk along the river. Here’s the windcoat I made for you…I hope you’ll remember me when you look into the waters…

  Havel was filled with buildings of old and new, some stretching high, almost scraping the dome of the sky, and the mushroom-shaped tower was, in particular, interesting to her as the runes written there used a different principle of Yellian runes. The runes she was familiar with used neutral, emotionless language rather than the abstract, prose-like engravings she found in runes these days. According to what she heard from Suiming, these runes were only discovered around two centuries ago.

  She followed Acryl and Neon; they were both interesting casters, two drops of paint in an ocean that refused to be dissolved in the merciless wave. Nameless didn’t tell them why she was there, but from what Neon said to Acryl, Nameless thought that there was no need to explain why. After all, their destination, their goal, was the same. Though there was one more thing she needed to accomplish in Havel- meet up with Yarrow in person. She wished to know what the situation was in Treisaules if the Tree of Sunrise had grown its branches and roots back, and so many more things she was eager to learn.

  As Nameless strode down the road, passing the buildings occupied by bustling businesses and luring restaurants, she made sure that the dagger she bought was with her. The sun was setting at the end of the avenue, and its warmth bounced off the windows of the buildings. She slowed down her steps to look at the sunset. A scene she had seen uncountable times, but the first time in this strange, yet familiar city.

  “So, Nameless…May I ask why you went missing? Suiming told us about you,” Neon asked. Turning around as her arm interlocked with Acryl’s. Their hands sought warmth in their pockets, just like how Nameless and Fosfor used to when they walked the streets in Yel’s capital district.

  “I attempted to kill the Starseeker, but I overestimated myself,” she replied casually. They stopped at a crosswalk, waiting for the tram to pass. The tram slithered down its track like a snake, its windows reflecting light as if it were its scales. And in the veil of glasses, she spotted a man. A man in a yellow coat, face covered in a Siyuenese theatrical play’s face. As Nameless wondered why someone would wear those thin silk masks on the street, the face shifted, morphing colors from yellow to deep green. The green seemed almost unnatural, the type of green that would emerge from her creations. Then, almost like running through a curtain, the man walked through the tram’s wall. Nameless looked away from the tram, and her eyes met with Neon’s bright, pure turquoise irises. While Nameless tried to form a question about the man, Acryl grabbed her hand and ran toward the other side. Right as Nameless staggered, almost falling and dragging Acryl with her, she sensed the waves of casting and using an arcane item weaving through.

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  “The troupe,” Acryl muttered.

  “Are they related to the Stage of Thousand Dreams?” Nameless asked as she caught up with their pace. She looked back, expecting to see something chasing them. In her field of vision, gloomy green and blue light lined up in sentences in runes, pulsating toward the source of that casting. She quickly realized that the tower was the center of the complex runes, like a mushroom and its rhizoids. Is this an attempt to recreate the Tree of Sunrise? Nameless thought.

  “What?” Acryl and Neon asked in unison while gasping for breath, though one exclaimed in Euthian and the other in Siyuenese.

  “…I made a mistake…I shouldn’t have mentioned that title.”

  Nameless stopped running while she faced the direction from which the shine of the runes flowed. She breathed in, feeling the wave of casting. From the corner of her eye, she saw the worried faces of Neon and Acryl. It seemed to her that both of them were ready to cast, despite being noticed by the system of runes.

  His range is not great…meaning I don’t have to use the power, now, without my sword…better not for Fosfor to be involved

  The silent wave pushed her as she felt the caster arriving. She turned back, the caster stood only a few feet away

  “The script has no place for you,” the caster said, a yarn of blue and red twitched in his hand as strings of golden dust emerged around him, as if a cocoon was forming, “Name yourself.”

  “There is no need to name a desert’s sand grain,” Nameless said as she unsheathed the dagger. Its waves of forging and refining looked like the tides and white foams of the sea itself. She lined up her dagger with her target.

  The yarn exploded in red and blue threads, intertwining as they struck Nameless. They struck with the wind. Nameless could feel the scorching heat and heartless cold of the threads, and the golden dust shrouded them. She did not flinch, observing the threads and dust. Nameless felt a sudden wave of casting. The type with a strange wave, like a lake’s surface on a stormy day. Right as she cut the blue threads, the sickening violet and bright yellow crashed into the threads. Nameless glared at Acryl, then back at the man in yellow.

  “Leave this to me,” she said.

  Runes on the ground flared toward Acryl. With the opening Acryl created for her, Nameless dashed toward the caster. The dust whiplashed her as they became denser, almost blocking her view. She stabbed her dagger into the curtain of dust, trying to pierce through it. The sensation felt like trying to knead bread.

  Then, a light. The light of a fading sun filtered through. Dust broke apart as the threads came crashing down on her. Nameless observed the caster, letting the threads fall on her as both heat and cold were biting her. She noticed something, though uninjured, the caster held onto his legs, back hunched and curled in a manner that looked like a drunk man. Noticing that, Nameless pinched the dagger’s blade, channeling strength from her hips and using the power of her whole body, throwing it at the caster’s leg.

  Before the dust could regroup and the threads could stop the dagger, it stabbed into his leg. The caster collapsed on the ground, unable to pull himself up, before the dust emerged back to him. Nameless sprinted toward him and grabbed the caster by his neck, pressing him to the ground further. Her other hand wanted to reach for the dagger, but she needed the man to be conscious. Warm blood stained her white dress. The stream of runes ceased as she heard the sound of vehicles approaching, then halted. It sounded similar to those makeshift runic carriages the survivors of Yel built, only this time the vehicle didn’t climb rubble, but glided over the flat ground. Long shadows overcast them, sound of chains clanged as footsteps surrounded them. Nameless raised her head, looking at the people in uniforms, vests full of pockets. She could feel the wave of casting coming for a few of the officers. They were similar to the messengers, though she couldn’t see any religious symbolism. Two of the officers started questioning Neon and Acryl.

  …

  “Name?” the officer asked Nameless. She wore a white shirt, her hair curled at the ends. Her eyes looked exhausted as she shuffled through the documents. The room was brightly lit by the single lamp above the table, and there was no noticeable smell, but the subtle perfume of the lawyer.

  “Must I be absolutely honest, right?” Nameless asked, looking at her handcuffs, thinking if she could break free from them without using the power within her.

  “…It’d be much easier for us if you were one-hundred-percent honest, do you have a state-issued casting license?” the lawyer said, putting the document on the side.

  “I don’t have one,” Nameless responded.

  “It seems that you also don’t possess any documentation…there also isn’t any record of you in our archive…where were you from again?” the lawyer continued, rubbing her eyes.

  “I cannot disclose this information,” she answered.

  “Why couldn’t you disclose that information? What are you hiding?” the officer persuaded, her hands on the table.

  “Because my motherland exists no more,” Nameless answered, her voice did not rise, nor did she emphasize any word.

  “Could you elaborate? Last time there was a suspect who claimed to be from Treisaules? Is she your companion?” the officer said. Treisaules, Nameless thought, might be Yarrow…

  “Are you an abnormality?” the officer continued, asking, still standing with her hands supporting her.

  “I am not an abnormality…if you oppose my statement, then I demand a blood analysis.”

  The officer swallowed. Nameless saw her eyes, tired, yet something was behind those eyes, perhaps fear, perhaps curiosity.

  “How did you fight that caster…the mushroom showed three sources of casting, and from my colleagues, I understand you are not one of them.” The officer shifted the topic as she sat back in her chair.

  “Correct, I took advantage of his Realm-art’s nature, during our quarrel, his structure was weak and the side-effect was noticeably showing, if he used a cane to support his weight, it would take much longer to immobilize him,” Nameless answered, looking at her hands, inspecting the calluces that built up over the years. Time didn’t seem to pass in that place. She didn’t look at what the officer was doing, only hearing her writing something down with a pen that was almost running dry, like a finger trying to leave a mark on a wooden surface.

  As Nameless felt she was bored to the core, a knock came from the door, and then it creaked.

  “May I come in?” said a woman who sounded like she hadn’t slept for a day.

  “Miss Kodekse? Are you her lawyer?”

  “Officer Adole, if only being what I am on the clock can let me in, then yes, I am her lawyer, and I demand to speak to my client in private.”

  The officer frowned. Nameless couldn’t see the lawyer’s face, but without a word, the officer stepped outside.

  As the officer went away, Nameless saw the lawyer. She put a jacket over her waistcoat and shirt, similar to a cape, rather than wearing it usually, and what was most noticeable was her hat, which had a red cloth bookmark sewn on it. Her eyes were wine-red, though she looked exhausted, she still kept her confident stance.

  “Is this how Auderheim treats its officers and lawyers? By working them till the sun rises?” Nameless asked while Kodekse sat down.

  “Very observant of you, Miss Rosemary. Laima wanted me to give you this,” Kodekse said, sliding a folder across the table.