She dreamt the four of them sat together for hours, watching over the world of the dead and looking out on the world of the living. She remembered the feeling of laughter, of love, of longing, even though she couldn't remember the words.
They'd felt like siblings. Like long forgotten family and she couldn't quite push them aside now that she was awake.
It didn't make sense, how familiar they felt, how convinced Eirian was that they were her siblings when she was famously siblingless. Her mother had wanted a large family according to her father but struggled to get pregnant and then she'd died giving birth to Eirian.
Eirian didn't believe anything her father said anymore, but she did believe that more children would have given him a better chance at the throne. Especially if they'd been as healthy as Eirian was during her childhood. A contrast to her uncle's children.
Although their illness was more than they were set to inherit the throne rather than any plague.
Who were they? The thought plagued Eirian as she sank back into her pillows.
They didn't resemble any figures she'd read about. At least not significantly. There were a few mentions of individuals who'd had glowing eyes like Eirian. It had been a far more common trait at the beginning of human existence, but Eirian didn't know if that a tradition carried down from the first stories or for a while there it had been associated with wizards, but then there'd been a whole bunch of wizards who didn't have them.
There'd even been a short period a thousand years ago when they were associated with demons and Eirian was rather glad that hadn't been her lifetime. Getting burned at the stake or nailed to a circle were not pleasant ways to die.
But something, some buried instinct she couldn't quite pinpoint, said she could find them in the histories somewhere.
That they'd been important to more than just her.
Add it to the never-ending list of things she needed to do.
***
Finn had a long list of important things to find.
Alright, so it wasn't terrible long. Twenty-four items could probably be done in a day. If he was just searching a marketplace or shop.
The vault was supposed to be logged and organized by type. There was a record that included a map of the sections and a few significant items, which naturally, were none of the ones Finn was looking for.
Yuze had handed off the list in silence, wandering off almost in a daze and barely saying a word to Finn.
The older man, not that either of them had enough years to be considered old, had seemed off. Lost in his thoughts in a way Finn had never seen before. Despite their relatively short acquaintance, certain aspects of Yuze's personality had already come through clearly.
Serious, somber, straightforward. Always alert and on target.
To see him distracted was actually concerning, but he'd ignored Finn's questions. Which was fair, the younger man considered. They'd just met, they weren't close, and he certainly didn't trust Finn enough to confide his troubles.
Why should he? Finn was too young to understand the world. Too unknown to be trustworthy. Too stupid to be able to understand.
Wait, stop. He shook his head, forced those thoughts from his mind. It was so easy to let them gather and grow until they were overwhelming and then he ended up in a terrible, terrible place that made him feel horrible and useless.
His sisters used to drag him outside into the sun and drill compliments into him until his mood lifted but they weren't here and god forbid any of his instructors or peers had ever sensed that kind of weakness.
Finn had gotten rather food at hiding his self-doubt if he said so himself.
"What's so good?"
He jumped, head snapping up. The two soldiers assigned to help him were leaning against the wall staring at him.
"What?"
"What's so good?" The man, Finn's age and sporting a head of dark curls, repeated.
Finn sputtered. "What? Nothing? Why would something be good?"
The woman, sharing the same curls and on second glance, enough of the same bone structure to suggest they were siblings, raised an eyebrow. "You're grinning at that list like it's going to make you king."
The response was automatic. "I am not!"
The two shared a wide-eyed look before the woman spoke again. "Right. How about you tell us what we're looking for so we can go back to training, and you can go back to smiling at nothing."
"Not smiling at nothing," Finn muttered, face stuck in the Inventories volume Yuze had given him. He found the first item on the list. A sword that had belonged to Ye Tirion, a half foreign bastard of one of the branch lines of Chenzhou's family from a hundred years ago who'd been a celebrated warrior. "First item we need to find is the Sword of Tirion."
"The guy from the Battle of the Dawn?" The man perked up. "He was badass. Held off an entire infantry company by himself with just his sword. Do we really have it in the vault?" He bounded over to peer over Finn's shoulder and since he was a head taller and wider, he shoved Finn to the side. "Is his armor in there too? It's supposed to be made of dragonscales!"
The woman rolled her eyes. "No one has armor made of dragonscales, Patrick."
Patrick, offended. "Not anymore. But back then there were a lot more dragons."
"It was only a hundred years ago, I'm pretty sure there weren't many dragons then either." Finn commented and then reeled back at the betrayed look Patrick gave him.
"He could have inherited it from an ancestor!" Patrick tried, unwilling to give up.
The woman shook her head, sending her curls flying, and turned to the door. Lifting the heavy beam and pushing it inwards. Yuze had undone the locks before Finn had arrived and they hung off the belt around her waist. Ten feet behind them, the permanent guard was ignoring them and twenty feet beyond them was the door that led back up to the main castle. It had its own permanent guard to.
The Vault was one of the most protected parts of the Camelia and they had three more doors to get through before they even reached the artifacts.
~ tbc