Kael walked into a ballroom.
It resembled the Claymore one to a significant degree, but it was clear Valthorne placed considerably more emphasis on it. Not surprising. For noble families, events held in rooms like this were among their primary means of building connections and conducting business.
Dozens of circular tables were scattered across the floor, chairs resting upside down on them. He made his way to the royal dais and sat down on the silk throne, resting his chin in his palm.
'What's the best approach here?'
He had worked through more than half the rooms on the lower floor and found nothing of value. He had tried to use the Claymore estate as a reference point for the layout, but the two were on entirely different scales. The comparison wasn't worth much.
Syleena hadn't met up with him either, which put any insider knowledge out of reach.
He tapped his finger against the armrest.
The fact that he didn't know where she was sat uneasily with him. Recently he had put extra effort into keeping track of her mentally, not purely for his own safety but because her soul-bound motes were genuinely terrifying. Terrifying enough that he wanted them.
"Thinking won't get me anywhere."
He pushed himself up and walked out.
Kael stopped in front of a staircase, red carpet laid across the steps. He considered it for a moment, then started descending.
If the ingredients were anywhere they were on the lowest floor.
Mote based lights ran evenly along the ceiling, casting a warm orange hue across everything below. The red carpet continued here too, and while the contrast with the upper floor was stark the noble quality of it was unmistakable.
There was one noticeable difference from the floors above though.
This one was full of Luminaires.
Dead ones.
He counted to twenty before giving up, then crouched beside the nearest and leaned in slightly. The man looked untouched, no signs of struggle, just a clean puncture wound to the neck. He moved to the next. The same.
'Must be Syleena's work.'
The rooms down here were even emptier than above, as though they were waiting to be assigned a purpose.
A door with two Luminaires lying close to it caught his attention. He walked over, kicked one of the bodies aside, and entered.
"Finally."
The ingredients here differed significantly from anything he had seen elsewhere. He started at the closest shelf and worked his way through the names.
'Not this one. Not that either. This one? No…'
It took over twenty minutes before he eventually got through all the ingredients
'Almost everything I need.'
He took a few steps back and summoned the Stone Coffin.
Whatever else was happening outside, there was one thing he would not allow. He was not leaving the Valthorne mansion without taking everything.
It rose slowly from the ground, pushing up through the marble floor without resistance, continuing upward through the ceiling, sending arm-length splinters raining down around him.
Kael had never fully understood its capabilities. He knew it could comfortably overpower a strength pathway Luminaire, and he knew he couldn't put a scratch on it himself. The only way he had ever loosely accounted for its extraordinary nature was by attributing it to the soul pathway, a category that seemed to operate by rules everything else had agreed not to follow.
Even now, Syleena's greatest blunder remained the same.
Giving Kael that recipe.
Indifferent to the wall beside it, the Stone Coffin tore cleanly through it, exposing the hall beyond.
He tossed the ingredients in one by one, then dismissed it and moved on without bothering to check the remaining rooms.
Forty-five steps brought him to the highest floor.
Of the three floors he had been through this was the most decorated, yet also the smallest, with only two doors on each wall and a set of double doors at the far end.
"This must be where the offices are."
Kael stepped onto the white carpet and made his way to the most heavily decorated door he could find, stepping inside.
It was lit by the same warm light as the lowest floor. A dark wooden desk sat at the far end, two large windows behind it painted with the Valthorne crest. Books lined the walls in neat rows but lay scattered across the desk itself, in the same way a student's might look after a long study session.
Kael pulled the chair toward him and sat down. Reaching inside his coat, he pulled out his own notebook, and placed it open among the others. The feather quill appeared, filled with purified Will, and began moving freely across the page.
He turned toward the window and pinched the bridge of his nose.
There for sure existed a mote out there that could replenish energy to its users, but that was something he didn't have.
Months. That was how long his sleep had been poor, and these last weeks he had gotten close to none at all.
The fatigue he felt now was different from anything he had experienced in a long time. It wasn't a shortage of Thoughts or soul damage. It was something more human than either of those. He was tired. Not tired in the sense of a depleted mind, but tired in the oldest sense of the word. The way he had been as a child. The way he had been as a mortal. His body hadn't changed in that regard. Every movement felt like dragging a hand through something thick, something that pushed back without malice, simply because that was its nature.
This kind of fatigue couldn't be fixed by mindstones. Only rest could touch it. Long, genuine, uninterrupted rest.
When the sound of the pen hitting the paper reached him, Kael exhaled slowly and dismissed it, slipping the notebook back into his coat.
He had found roughly half of what he came for, only left with one thing remaining. He worked through the last few rooms and stopped at the final set of double doors.
The doors required genuine force to open, but he finally managed, and stepped inside.
Not long after a soft voice reached him.
"Who's there?"
He turned toward the sound and started navigating the shelves. Each one reached the ceiling, a dedicated ladder rail running along its face. At the far wall a giant stained glass window, similar to the one in the office, cast fragments of coloured light across a table beneath.
A woman with golden hair sat comfortably in a chair, going over something.
Kael closed the distance in an instant and took her by the throat.
Her body offered no resistance, whipping violently to the side.
'A mortal?'
He went still.
A strained groan escaped her as she grabbed his wrist with both hands.
"No. Please." Tears began forming in her eyes.
He couldn't make sense of it.
Why was a mortal in the library? How was a mortal in the library? These rooms were supposed to be sacred. Information gathered across generations, meant only for blood relatives. No mortal should be here.
"What's your name?" he asked, grip unchanged.
"A— Aveline." she rasped.
Kael scoffed and let go.
She collapsed to her knees, clutching her throat, coughing for air.
'So that's it.'
She was blood related to Valthorne, and not just distantly. This was Aveline Valthorne, Vael's second born. She hadn't awakened as a Luminaire yet, but her connection alone was enough to give Kael pause.
Aveline herself posed no real threat. Her father was a different matter. In the worst case Vael could have placed a mote on her that notified him the moment something was wrong. And while he was currently occupied with Taric, it wasn't unreasonable to assume he would abandon that fight entirely to come for her.
Kael looked down at her coldly as she grasped for air.
This was a problem…
Or was it?
He hadn't been subtle entering Valthorne, and deliberately so. If they had countermeasures for intruders there was nothing he could have done to avoid detection anyway. So he had gone in expecting a fight. But this was different.
Kael walked over and grabbed her by the hair.
"Release me!" She screamed, throwing everything she had into the protest.
"I'LL NOTIFY FATHER!"
Kael stopped.
"You'll what?"
"I'll notify my father right now if you don't release me this instant." She said through gritted teeth, still clutching her hair.
'Is she bluffing?'
Under normal circumstances no mortal could threaten a rank three and expect it to land. But common sense carried no weight when noble families were involved. She was also clever.
When Kael had first grabbed her it must have happened too fast for her to react. But she had collected herself quickly and hadn't used the mote in a panicked state. She had understood that not activating it was her only real chance of surviving this encounter. The moment she used it Kael would have no reason left to keep her alive. So instead she held it over him. A lifeline disguised as a threat.
Kael released her hair.
If he couldn't kill Aveline she might end up as a witness for the Stone Coffin. And if it ever came out that he had used soul pathway motes, there wasn't a corner of the continent he could disappear into. He might hold for a while given his rank, but it would mark his name permanently, complicating future plans and dealings he couldn't even anticipate yet.
"Get out of the library." Kael said, moving to a shelf.
If he couldn't kill her he at least needed her out of here.
"No."
Kael went still.
Was she actually talking back to him.
"What do you mean, no?" He turned toward her.
"I know who you are. I know what you've done." Whatever fear had remained was gone entirely.
"I despise you. I hate you." She continued through clenched teeth. "I will watch every single thing you do in my home."
Kael studied her for a moment, then turned back to the shelf.
"Do as you please."
He summoned the Stone Coffin without a second thought.
Revealing a soul pathway mote was close to a death sentence in itself, but the knowledge hidden in this library was worth more than every ingredient he had gathered in his entire life combined. That made the calculation simple enough.
Kael grabbed books in armfuls and tossed them into the Stone Coffin, ignoring her completely.
Aveline's teeth nearly shattered at the sight.
"STOP. You have no right to take those." She hissed.
"Our civilization rests on the fact that we all benefit from knowledge we do not ourselves possess."
Kael responded calmly
"Our civilization?" A broken laugh escaped her. "You don't care about mortals. You don't care about other Luminaires. And you certainly didn't care about my brother's son."
She stood abruptly.
"You, Kael Sinclaire, are nothing but a pathetic excuse for a human being. You slaughter and scheme and treat lives like pieces on a board. Tell me. Did you feel anything when you destroyed Aven's family? When you destroyed everyone else?"
Kael picked up more books.
"Answer me!" She grabbed his coat sleeve.
"They were weak. That's why they died."
She laughed again, the disbelief sharper this time.
"They were mortals. You never gave them the chance to become strong enough to defend themselves."
"People kill and people die. That is how the Heavens have always operated throughout the endless eons. It was true in the age of beasts and Dreadborne megannums ago. It was true beneath the Smolten dominion three hundred and fifty million years ago. It is true now."
Kael continued, unfazed by her gaze.
"All life is equal before death. Mortal, beast, plant, Luminaire, Paragon, it makes no difference. The world does not weigh worthiness when it closes its jaws around us. It offers no judgment, no preference, and no mercy. In the end, those who persevere do so through their own strength, their own choices, and their own will to continue."
Another book disappeared into his arms.
"The prestige of Valthorne, the glory of empires, the titles of Paragons and Lords, these are things we created to comfort ourselves. They are stories. In the face of death, I am no more deserving of life than the mortals I have slain, nor are they less deserving than I. The rank nine who stood at the pinnacle of the world and the farmer who tills the soil share the same fate. One may persevere longer than the other, but neither is inherently worth more."
She released her grip without thinking.
Disbelief filled her eyes.
What kind of worldview was that?