Rain had settled over the old Valerian manor in the eastern settlement sometime before dawn and showed no intention of leaving.
It tapped against the tall dining-room windows while servants moved between the tables, replacing empty dishes and refilling cups. Beyond the glass, the garden had almost disappeared behind the weather. The stone paths glistened beneath the rain, the hedges sagged under the weight of collected water, and the trees swayed whenever the wind passed through them.
It was the sort of morning that made staying indoors seem like a sensible decision.
Unfortunately, the warehouse I needed to inspect stood on the opposite side of the settlement, and the road leading toward it had apparently become a series of muddy depressions connected by puddles.
I sat at the dining table with a maintenance report beside my breakfast, trying to determine whether the estate’s finances were genuinely complicated or whether I simply lacked the intelligence necessary to understand them. Grain, wages, transportation, taxes, repairs—every document introduced another collection of figures, and every collection seemed to lead to three more documents I needed to examine.
Being a noble had sounded considerably more appealing before I discovered how much of the position involved paperwork.
Across the table, Edwin poured himself another cup of tea. He had been watching me struggle with the same report for long enough that I was beginning to suspect he considered it a form of entertainment.
"I have a question," I said, pushing the document toward him.
"That is generally how one begins learning something, Young Master."
"Do you always have an answer ready, or do you prepare them in advance for my benefit?"
"Only the difficult ones." Edwin glanced at the paper. "For the easier questions, I trust you to find your own answers."
I gave him a flat look, but he had already begun examining the report.
I decided not to pursue the matter. Winning an argument with Edwin appeared to require a level of preparation I had not yet developed.
"Why have we paid for repairs to the same warehouse several times in the past few years?" I asked. "The roof, the drainage, and the outer wall all appear in multiple entries, yet the building is barely being used."
Edwin set down his cup and leaned over the document. "The warehouse is old. The roof leaks when the rain is heavy, and the drainage along the eastern wall has been troublesome for years. The previous steward recorded the repairs but left very little explanation of what was actually done."
"So we might have spent the money properly, or we might have spent it patching the same problems over and over."
"That would be one interpretation."
"Is there a more reassuring one?"
"Not without seeing the building."
I looked back at the figures. I had initially suspected that someone might have been taking advantage of the estate’s declining oversight, but there was no point accusing anyone without evidence. An old building could require repeated repairs, particularly when its owners had spent years postponing larger expenses in favor of more immediate needs.
Still, the entries bothered me.
"Can we inspect it today?"
"We could." Edwin glanced toward the window.
I followed his gaze. Rainwater was streaming down the glass, and a gust of wind sent the branches in the garden bending sharply to one side.
"Would you recommend it?" I asked.
"Not in those boots."
I looked down at my footwear before returning my attention to the rain. "You could have led with that."
"I thought the view might help you reach the conclusion yourself."
The road was already muddy, the weather showed no sign of improving, and I doubted a thorough inspection would be possible if I spent the entire journey trying not to fall into a ditch.
"Fine. We’ll wait until the road is passable. I want to compare the repair records with the actual condition of the building before deciding whether someone made a mistake."
Edwin nodded. "I’ll have someone check the road later."
That settled the immediate problem, although it left me with an uncomfortable amount of paperwork and no excuse to postpone it.
The settlement wasn’t bankrupt. That was the good news. Its finances had survived through careful spending, delayed repairs, and the widespread practice of making old things last longer than they probably should. The accounts suggested that its problems had accumulated gradually as trade declined and fewer people remained to support the local businesses.
It wasn’t a disaster that could be solved with one dramatic decision. It was a long list of ordinary problems, each small enough to postpone and collectively expensive enough to become a serious burden.
By the time Seris entered the study later that morning, I had managed to make some sense of the maintenance report. She carried a ledger beneath one arm and several notes in her hand, wearing the familiar expression of someone who had already dealt with three problems and expected two more to appear before lunch.
I moved the breakfast dishes aside to give her room. "Please tell me none of those are emergencies."
"One delivery arrived late, the gardeners need timber for a fence repair, and two servants disagree about how much storage space they’re entitled to use."
"So nothing is on fire."
"Not at present."
I glanced at the notes she placed on the desk. "And the delivery?"
"Already arrived. I told the gardeners they could use the spare timber as long as they recorded what they took. The disagreement can wait until after lunch."
"You dealt with all of that without me?"
"It didn’t require you."
There was no challenge in her voice. She was simply stating a fact, and I found it reassuring. If I insisted on approving every purchase, settling every disagreement, and inspecting every broken fence, I would become so occupied with the small details that I would never understand how the settlement actually functioned.
"Good. Keep doing that."
"I intended to."
Seris drew the maintenance report closer and scanned the entries. "You’re still concerned about the warehouse?"
"The same roof has apparently required three separate repairs. Either the building is falling apart or someone has been unusually creative with the maintenance budget."
"The old property maps might help. If the drainage was altered when trade began declining, the surveys could explain why water collects along that wall."
"Do we still have those maps?"
"In the library, I believe. The older surveys were kept there, though I don’t know how well they’re organized."
"That sounds promising."
"I could ask Edwin to look for them."
"No, I’ll do it. I should learn where things are kept before asking everyone else to find them for me."
Seris gathered her notes. "Try not to reorganize the entire library while you’re there."
"I make no promises."
"I was afraid you’d say that."
She left before I could defend myself, taking the remaining paperwork with her. I returned to the accounts, determined to finish the report before lunch.
By midday, the rain had weakened, although the sky remained heavy with clouds. A servant delivered word that the low road was still too wet for a proper inspection. I set the maintenance report aside and reached for the ledger containing the settlement’s older records.
A memory surfaced before I could open it.
It began with rain against a window.
For a moment, I thought I was simply recalling the weather outside. Then the room in my mind shifted, and I saw a different window, narrower than the one beside my desk. A small boy sat on a chair beside it, his knees tucked close to his chest as he watched the garden beyond the glass.
Kain.
The original Kain.
The image lasted only a few seconds. There was no conversation or dramatic event, just a boy sitting alone and watching the rain.
I remained still, one hand resting on the closed ledger.
The memories left behind by the original owner of this body rarely arrived with useful context. Sometimes a familiar voice or a particular smell brought back a fragment. Other times, I saw brief moments like this one, ordinary pieces of a life I could never fully reconstruct.
I didn’t know how old the boy had been. I didn’t know whether he was waiting for someone or simply watching the weather. I couldn’t even tell whether the memory came from this manor or another residence he had lived in.
Yet I found myself wondering how many afternoons he had spent alone like that.
The novel had given me a reputation to inherit, not a complete person to understand. It had told me what other people thought of Kain, what he was known for, and how little anyone expected from him. It had never given me all the quiet moments that made up his life.
I had his body, fragments of his memories, and a name that belonged to someone I had never met.
For the first time, I wondered whether the original Kain had ever been given the chance to explain himself.
The thought lingered as I closed the ledger. I looked toward the window for a moment, then gathered the records I needed and headed for the library.
The room was quiet when I entered. Its heavy wooden doors muffled most of the sounds coming from the rest of the manor, leaving only the soft patter of rain against the windows and the occasional creak of old timber. Tall shelves filled the walls, crowded with books accumulated over generations of the Valerian family. Some were in good condition, their titles still clear beneath the dust; others had faded until their spines were nearly indistinguishable from the wood.
I began with the sections devoted to territorial records and household administration. Finding the right shelf should have been straightforward. Unfortunately, whoever had arranged the collection appeared to have believed that a sensible system was an unnecessary restriction on the imagination.
I found a book about the settlement’s history, a collection of household regulations, and a survey of the surrounding farmland. None contained the drainage maps I needed.
The catalogue on the reading table was only marginally more helpful. Several older surveys were listed without shelf numbers, accompanied by brief notes indicating that they had been moved during a previous reorganization. One entry referred to a collection of records kept near the rear of the library, but the details ended there.
I followed the reference toward the shelves at the back of the room.
That was when I found myself looking at the sealed section again.
It stood behind an old wooden partition, separated from the rest of the library by several tall shelves that appeared older than the furniture around them. I had noticed it during my first visit, when Edwin explained that the section had been closed for years. At the time, I had accepted the explanation because there had been more immediate matters to deal with.
Now I was standing in front of it because a poorly maintained catalogue had sent me searching for documents nobody seemed to remember moving.
There were worse reasons to become curious about a sealed room.
I examined the visible book spines, looking for any indication that the property maps might have been stored there. Most were too faded to read, and several had been pushed so far back that their titles disappeared into shadow. The wooden partition bore scratches and patches of worn varnish, but nothing immediately suggested that it concealed anything.
I was about to return to the catalogue when I noticed a shallow line in the floor.
It ran beneath the nearest bookcase, disappearing under its base before continuing along the edge of the partition. I crouched to examine it. The shelf’s foot rested in a narrow groove, and the dust had accumulated differently along one section, leaving a faint strip of wood exposed.
I ran my fingers along the shelf’s edge.
Near the bottom, a small patch of varnish felt smoother than the surrounding wood. Someone had handled it often enough to wear away the finish.
I pressed it with my thumb.
Nothing happened.
I tried again, this time leaning my palm against the side of the bookcase. It remained firmly in place.
I was considering whether I had wasted enough time on an old piece of furniture when footsteps sounded in the corridor.
Edwin appeared at the doorway with a ledger beneath one arm. His gaze moved from me to the shelves, then to the books I had taken down and left on the table.
"Looking for something, Young Master?"
"An old property map. Seris thought it might explain the warehouse drainage."
"The earlier surveys were kept here. Some of the records haven’t been used in years, however. You may have better luck with the estate catalogue."
"I tried it. Either the catalogue is incomplete or whoever wrote it enjoyed making a simple search unnecessarily difficult."
"The former steward had a particular way of organizing things."
"Was it a good way?"
Edwin considered this while setting his ledger on the table. "It was a way."
I decided not to pursue the matter. There were limits to how much I wanted to know about the former steward’s filing habits.
My attention drifted back to the sealed section. Edwin followed my gaze.
"That part of the library has been closed for a long time," he said. "Most of what remains there is presumed to be old household material."
"Presumed?"
"No complete inventory was made when it was closed. By the time I arrived, it was already being left alone." He opened his ledger and checked a note inside. "I’ve never had a practical reason to investigate it."
"Do you know who closed it?"
"Not for certain. The records from that period are incomplete."
He said it without reluctance or unease. As far as Edwin was concerned, the sealed section was an administrative inconvenience that had survived because nobody needed what was inside.
That was reasonable enough. Old houses accumulated unused rooms and forgotten records all the time. There was no reason to assume a secret lay behind every locked door.
"Then I’ll leave it alone for now," I said, turning back toward the catalogue.
Edwin nodded and continued toward the exit. "The maps may be in the survey collection near the central windows. I’ll ask the staff to check the storage room as well."
"Thank you."
He left, and the library settled back into its usual quiet.
The survey collection near the windows contained nothing useful. I returned to the catalogue, but the remaining references were too vague to be helpful. I was reluctant to spend the rest of the afternoon searching storage rooms for a map that might no longer exist.
My gaze returned to the sealed section.
I went back to the bookcase and pressed the worn patch again, shifting my hand slightly lower. This time, I felt something give beneath the surface. A faint click came from inside the partition, followed by a soft scrape.
The bookcase moved.
Only a fraction of an inch, but enough to send a thin layer of dust trembling from the upper shelf.
I stepped back and watched as the mechanism settled. Then I placed my palm against the wood and pushed carefully. The shelving shifted along the groove in the floor, revealing a narrow opening behind it.
Darkness lay beyond the gap.
I stood still, listening. There was no sound from inside the passage, only a faint draft carrying the cold, damp smell of stone.
I could close the shelf, find Edwin, and let someone with experience investigate it. That would be the sensible thing to do. I had no idea where the passage led, how stable it was, or whether the mechanism might jam once I entered.
But the opening was already exposed, and I had found no ordinary explanation for it. Before raising an alarm, I wanted to know whether the passage led to a simple cellar or something that required more immediate attention.
That wasn’t a guarantee of safety. It was merely a reason to take a brief look.
I fetched the lantern from its stand near the hearth and returned to the opening. The light revealed a short landing and a staircase descending into darkness. The stone steps were uneven at the edges, but I could see no immediate sign of collapse.
I wedged a small piece of wood beneath the bookcase to keep the opening from closing, then tested the first few steps with my weight. They held.
With the lantern in one hand, I stepped through the opening.
The staircase descended more steeply than it had appeared from above. I kept one hand against the wall and tested each step before moving forward. The edges were worn, and loose grit shifted beneath my boots. A careless step could easily send me tumbling down the stairs, which would be an embarrassing way to end my brief investigation.
After several turns, the steps finally levelled out.
The staircase ended at a narrow corridor built from dark stone. Its walls were covered in carvings, some worn almost smooth and others preserved well enough to reveal intricate patterns. The masonry was older and rougher than anything I had seen above, and the markings bore no resemblance to the scripts used in the Dragon Kingdom.
I raised the lantern to examine one of them.
The symbols meant nothing to me. I couldn’t tell whether they were writing, religious marks, or decoration, and the repeated patterns offered no obvious clue. Whatever this passage had originally been used for, it had not been designed as an ordinary part of the manor.
At the far end stood a metal door.
I approached cautiously, keeping the lantern raised. The door was black, its surface strangely intact despite the weathered stone around it. There was no visible handle or keyhole, only a faint outline where the metal met the frame.
At its centre was a symbol.
I stopped several paces away.
The shape stirred an uncomfortable sense of familiarity. It didn’t resemble the insignia of any noble house or religious order I knew. Intersecting curves surrounded a central mark, forming a design that seemed simple at first glance and more complicated the longer I studied it.
I had seen it somewhere before.
Not in the manor. Not in the settlement records.
In the novel.
The memory arrived in fragments: an illustrated page, a passage about ancient legends, and a symbol printed beside references to beings whose existence predated the current age. I couldn’t recall the surrounding text, no matter how hard I tried, but I remembered that the mark had mattered.
The Ancient Gods.
The words surfaced without bringing the rest of the memory with them.
The novel had connected the Ancient Gods to eight lost objects scattered throughout the world. Their names appeared in fragments, their histories were obscured, and their abilities were not all explained clearly. I couldn’t recall the complete list or the details surrounding each relic, but I remembered seeing this particular symbol associated with that mythology.
I looked toward the staircase.
My brief inspection had already turned into something I couldn’t explain as an old cellar. The sensible choice was to return to the manor, bring Edwin, and investigate the passage with proper equipment.
Yet the symbol had changed the calculation. If my memory was correct, I might have found something connected to a part of the novel that would eventually matter on a much larger scale. I had no guarantee that I would remember the relevant details any better tomorrow, and I couldn’t exactly ask Edwin whether he had ever encountered a symbol from a story I had read in another life.
It was a poor argument for continuing alone. I knew that.
I moved closer to the door, searching its edges for a handle or a mechanism. The metal appeared to be a single solid slab, its surface unbroken except for the symbol. I found no keyhole, no latch, and no obvious place to apply pressure.
I was about to retreat when I noticed that the symbol’s central lines were cut more deeply than the surrounding marks.
Touching it seemed like an unnecessary risk. Still, I could not see another way to determine whether the door could be opened.
I took one last look toward the staircase, then reached out and touched the symbol with two fingers.
A faint vibration passed through the metal.
I jerked my hand away.
Something clicked inside the door. A narrow gap appeared along one edge, and the heavy slab shifted inward slightly.
I stared at it, my fingers still raised in front of me.
"Of course," I whispered. "Naturally, the ancient door opens when I touch the mysterious symbol."
The joke did little to make me feel better.
I waited for several seconds, listening for further movement. None came. I pressed against the metal and pushed. The door moved slowly, scraping against the frame with a low sound that travelled through the stone beneath my feet.
Beyond it lay a chamber.
I remained at the entrance, holding the lantern high. The room extended far beyond the reach of its light, with tall pillars rising into darkness and broad stone slabs covering the floor. The pillars formed a circular arrangement around a low platform at the heart of the chamber. Their carved patterns faced inward, drawing the eye toward the centre as though the entire room had been designed around whatever occupied it.
I couldn’t tell what the chamber had originally been used for, but the arrangement was too deliberate to be merely decorative.
I listened for movement, then stepped inside.
My boots left fresh marks in the dust. Nothing else appeared to have disturbed it. There were no discarded tools, no broken containers, and no signs of recent occupation. Whatever had once taken place here had ended long ago.
I moved along the outer edge, keeping the lantern raised. The pillars were carved with symbols similar to those in the corridor, although the patterns here were more elaborate. Some formed circles around small central marks, while others extended in long lines toward the floor. I couldn’t read them, but their arrangement directed attention toward the central platform.
A pedestal stood on it.
Something rested on top.
A book.
I stopped several paces away. Its cover was dark and worn at the edges, made from a material I couldn’t identify. Despite the age of the chamber, the book appeared to have survived remarkably well. Dust coated the pedestal, but the cover itself was comparatively clean, as though it had been sheltered from the worst of the surrounding decay.
There was no visible glow, no mist, and no strange force pressing against my skin.
It looked ordinary.
That was almost more unsettling than if it had been surrounded by obvious magic.
I approached the platform but stopped before stepping onto it. The dust lay evenly across the floor, and there were no footprints leading toward the pedestal. I could see no mechanism beneath it, nor any sign that the book had been moved recently.
I raised the lantern.
An engraved symbol marked the centre of the cover.
My breathing caught.
It was the same design I had seen on the door, reproduced with precise, unmistakable lines. The mark brought back the pages of the novel more clearly than before: the references to the Ancient Gods, the accounts of eight lost objects, and the scattered descriptions of relics whose true histories had been obscured by time.
I still couldn’t recall every detail. I didn’t know the full extent of their abilities, and my memory offered no reliable answer about how they had disappeared or where they had been hidden.
But I recognized the name associated with this particular symbol.
An Ancient God Grimoire.
The words emerged with a certainty the rest of my memories lacked.
I stared at the book, trying to reconcile the discovery with the morning I had expected to have. A few hours earlier, my greatest concern had been whether the estate was wasting money on repeated warehouse repairs. I had intended to spend the day studying accounts, inspecting buildings, and learning how to manage a settlement that had been neglected for years.
Now I was standing beneath its manor, looking at an object connected to the oldest legends of this world.
I had no idea how the grimoire had come to be here. I didn’t know who had built the chamber, who had concealed its entrance, or whether the people who once lived in this manor had known what lay beneath them. The incomplete records and sealed library section offered questions, but no answers.
I didn’t know whether touching the book was safe, either.
For once, I decided not to satisfy my curiosity immediately. I held the lantern steady and examined the grimoire without reaching for it. If it truly was what I believed, then I had discovered something far beyond the ordinary responsibilities of the neglected settlement. I would need to be careful about what I did next—and even more careful about whom I told.
The chamber remained silent around me.
The book lay on its pedestal, waiting beneath the dust and the weight of an unknown history.
The object resting before me was an Ancient God Grimoire.