Chapter 6 Six

The lockdown lifted on the fourth day, but the academy didn't feel like it had before.

Guards still walked the paths in pairs. Instructors still counted heads before and after every class. And on the morning the gates finally opened again, a carriage came through them instead of leaving.

Kaien heard about it before he saw it. Word moved through the courtyard fast, disciples stopping mid-step to watch the carriage roll past, painted plain black with a single silver seal on the door. Whispers followed it the whole way to the main hall.

"That's the Grand Archivist's seal."

"Here? Now?"

"The Council must think this is serious."

Kaien watched the carriage come to a stop outside the administration building, and felt something settle low in his chest that he couldn't name yet. He knew the name, he'd known it for five years, or would in five years, depending on how he counted anymore.

The man who stepped out of the carriage looked exactly like Kaien remembered him. Older, unhurried, a plain grey robe with none of the ornamentation most Council-ranked officials wore. He carried a walking staff he didn't seem to actually need, and he paused on the steps to look out over the courtyard full of watching students, and smiled at them like he was genuinely glad to see so many faces still standing there.

"Grand Archivist." Master Vaelor met him at the base of the steps, hand extended.

"Vaelor." The Archivist took his hand in both of his own. "It's been too long. You're looking well, for a man who trains children for a living."

Vaelor huffed out something close to a laugh, the first Kaien had heard from him in days. "You'd know. You taught half of them their history."

"Badly, I'm told." The Archivist's eyes moved past Vaelor, over the courtyard, and landed on Kaien without any particular hurry. "Is that him?"

Kaien went still.

Vaelor followed his gaze. "That's Kaien. He's the one who found the body. Along with the Vesperis girl."

"I'd like to speak with him." The Archivist was already walking, staff tapping lightly against the stone with each step, and Kaien had no good reason to walk away before he arrived.

"Grand Archivist." Kaien inclined his head, the proper greeting, the one every disciple learned before they turned ten.

"None of that." The Archivist waved a hand. "Lucien is fine. I stopped expecting bows from anyone under thirty a long time ago." He studied Kaien's face for a moment, unhurried, the way you'd look at a page you were trying to read in poor light. "You're the one who sealed a fracturing spirit core with a technique that shouldn't exist yet. I read the report."

"I improvised."

"So I heard." Something flickered behind his eyes, there and gone too fast for Kaien to read it. "Remarkable, either way. I don't think I've seen a Seven-Tail do anything like that in a very long time."

Kaien said nothing.

Lucien tilted his head slightly, studying him a moment longer, then let it go with an easy smile that reached all the way to his eyes. "Walk with me. I want to see where you found him."

"The tunnel's sealed off again."

"I have clearance." He was already moving, staff tapping ahead of him, and Kaien fell into step beside him because there wasn't a reason to refuse that wouldn't look strange.

They walked in silence for a while, past the training grounds, past disciples who bowed low as Lucien passed and got a small nod in return for each one.

"You know," Lucien said, "I've spent most of my life in the Archives, reading about men who almost became something extraordinary, fascinating things, the Ninth Tail. Every generation produces someone who comes close but sadly almost none of them makes it."

"Why not?."

"Different reasons, depending on the century." Lucien glanced at him sideways. "Sabotage, sometimes. Bad luck, other times. And once or twice, if the old records are honest, something the person themselves wasn't ready to survive."

"What does that mean? Something was killing them?."

"I don't fully know." Lucien smiled again, mild, unbothered, the smile of a man discussing something that interested him rather than something that frightened him. "That's rather the trouble with history. Half of it burns before anyone thinks to write it down properly."

They reached the sealed entrance to the maintenance tunnels. Two guards straightened at the sight of him, bowed and stepped aside without being asked.

Lucien crouched at the burn mark on the seal, the same one Lyra had studied days earlier, and ran two fingers along the char without quite touching it.

"This wasn't done by anyone at this academy," he said, almost to himself.

"That's what Lyra said too."

"Is it?." Lucien looked up at him, and for one second something in his expression sat very still, watching. Then it passed, and he was smiling again, easy as before. "Sharp girl, quite handy. You're in good company."

He stood, brushing off his knees, and looked back down the tunnel toward the dark.

"I'll take it from here," he said. "You've done more than your share already. Go rest, disciple Ashwyn. I imagine the Council will want to speak with you again soon enough, and you'll want your wits about you when they do."

He walked into the tunnel without waiting for a response, and Kaien stood there a moment longer, watching the light from Lucien's staff shrink into the dark, before he turned and made his way back toward the academy alone.

"So this isn't new, anyone who came close to being a nine tailed was wiped out" Kaien murmured to himself.

Who or what was behind it?