As I walked up the stairs, I considered the reasons Lilly could have come. House Shielding had sent me a missive several weeks ago which detailed her use of my name inappropriately to garner a position in the guard for another orphan. While I still hadn’t responded to them, mostly because it was beneath my concern, I had put aside that knowledge to address with Lilly in our next correspondence.

The correspondence I received from the Arcanum master regarding her also indicated that while she did well in her studies, she was socially ostracized in many instances. Her time at the Arcanum should be one of the most memorable of her life, where she should be making lifelong connections and friendships. This wasn’t acceptable in my eyes, especially for one of my pupils. A modicum of pride, certainly, but she should be leading those groups not standing outside them.

I found my brows furrowed as I reached the top of the stairs, only for them to raise in surprise at what I saw. Lilly stood several feet inside the doorway holding tightly to a tome and an urn. Her yellow eyes were bloodshot, and she stared vacantly at the ground before her. Her normally brushed hair was frazzled and I could see her face was puffy from crying. Behind her, a man her age dressed as a guard from Sena looked at her with a helpless concern.

“Lilly?” I asked, my own voice colored with concern.

She slowly looked up from where she had been staring and her despondent expression turned to that of pain. Without concern for tact or propriety, she ran toward me and wrapped her arms around me. I had adjusted my defensive spells in that instance, barely in time to allow her to hug, as she collapsed against me. My illusion spell, normally strong enough for many things, faded in and out until it disappeared entirely to leave my real visage apparent for all to see.

Though I paid no attention my lost spell nor the reactions from the others in the room as Lilly bawled. Her face was buried in my robes and the hard tome and urn pressed stiffly into my back. I held her like that for an undeterminable amount of time and rubbed her back as I shushed her. She was thinner than when she had departed, but I knew how grief could hurt an appetite. When we finally broke apart, she looked at my real face in confusion for only an instant before holding the tome and urn before her.

“Dad, this. This is all that’s left of him,” she said, anger and sadness both strong in her tone.

I looked at the urn and the tome, and knew that a single word could push her back into tears. The urn was the type the army provided to families when it returned the remains of departed soldiers, or at least for those soldiers of a rank to warrant it. The tome was the parting gift I gave Walker not that long ago.

The quickness of his death was startling, and, even without Lilly’s presence, my heart felt as though it were wrenched in two. This was the very reason I tried not to get close to others. The very reason I held myself separated so far from those around me. I knew it was only a matter of time before I added them to my Book of the Dead. That Walker would have an entry so soon made me feel even worse.

The man never had an opportunity to start a family. No children or grandchildren. I wouldn’t get the opportunity to see what greatness he would have achieved in his life. I thought I had separated myself enough from him, Lilly, and Kine not to feel this pain, but it was another task I failed at. It was one of the reasons I bid them depart, one of the reasons I limited my assistants to only work for two years’ time.

With a meaningful look at Lilly, I took the urn and tome from her hands, and said a single word, “Come.”

I walked down the stairs, the two items I held felt heavier in my hands than they were. Behind me, Lilly’s sniffling nose and shuffling feet created an eerie chorus on the stairwell. Together, we entered my Hall of Valor, the place where I kept my Book of the Dead. The entrance overhead where I had once pridefully sculpted the words ‘For the Glory of Sena’ now felt a sarcastic quip.

I cleared a space on one of the pedestals for Walker’s tome and urn. There, I quietly removed the remaining enchantments I had placed as his introduction into ‘wizard tricks’ and instead bounded it with protection wards to keep the tome strong and the ink from fading.

Lilly watched in silence, and I barely noticed that Rolf, Chelsea, Eni, and Tond had joined us, though they kept their distance from us and stood at the entrance to the hall. I didn’t know if they were afraid to step in, or if they were purposely giving us our space, but proceeded just the same. As soon as I was satisfied with the placement of Walker’s effects, I moved to the reason I truly came. The Book of the Dead.

I opened the massive tome to the next blank page and began to draw a sketch of Walker as I remembered him. Lilly came to my side to watch. When I was done with the illustration, I wrote. I wrote everything I knew and remembered of the young man, from the day we met to the day we departed. I wrote of his magical strengths and weaknesses, his friendship with Kine, his romance with Mena. I wrote of his eagerness to achieve greatness in battle and his pride in service to me. When I had done my part, I moved to the side and offered Lilly the quill to add her own remarks.

She spoke aloud as she did, her voice stopping and starting as she considered her precise choice of words, “My brother was always there for me. He protected me from the taunts and jeers of the other orphans over our hair and eyes and skin. He helped me when I had trouble with my letters and numbers. He showed me how to tie a knot--”

She paused here to allow her writing to catch up, her words tumbling from her mouth faster than her hand could write them. Tears fell on the book, but they wouldn’t be the first nor the last. I said nothing as she wept. Soon, she started again, “There was one time when the other kids were really mean, and I found myself crying in a corner. The nun, Matron Adila, found me and told me that they were just jealous. That I was likely a princess from the Quad Isles that had gotten lost. I knew her words the lie they were, just an attempt to make me feel better.”

“Walker knew that too, but he went along with it anyway. Called me princess with a smile. Stupid. If I were a princess, then he would be a prince, but he never brought that up. I knew it was childish to call myself a princess. A mask to keep from getting hurt or showing my feelings when kids were being cruel. Yet he never said anything. I loved him for that.”

We went on like that, the day turning into evening. The others had their own stories about Walker, and some even made it into the Book of the Dead. By the time night was in full, Lilly could barely keep her eyes open, and I had Eni carry her to one of my new Long Chairs with a pillow and a blanket.

The young guard that had accompanied her took watch outside the room. Despite looking tired and weary, he also looked resolute in his desire to do so. I didn’t know the man enough to trust him, so I set Tond to stand with him.

It was only after the others had been situated and gone to sleep that I returned to the Hall of Valor. The Hall felt quiet and empty now. There, I read through Walker’s tome. It detailed the training and spells he learned with the Army. How well he did there. How he was advanced in rank almost immediately. His writing told of the handful of mages he led, detailing what he thought of them and how they acted around him.

Buried within his words, I also found what I was truly looking for. The orders that sent him to the front lines to do battle, despite him being a [Geomancer]. A [Geomancer], to all of my knowledge, would normally be held to fortify defensive positions. Sending one to do battle was either desperate or intentional. Not that it would always mean death, but it was unusual. It was when I checked the date of that entry, I realized that they had done so after my meeting with the King. I memorized the names of his commanding officers, those he wrote down. The ones who handed him the order.

Despite my pain in his loss, or maybe because of it, I found myself sneering at his tome imagining the smug face of the man. It wasn't enough to send an assassin for me? They had also moved against Walker for my slight? I carefully closed Walker’s tome and moved through my tower with quiet, angry steps. I had thought that all my plans for vengeance were sufficient, that the two plots I had enacted to counter the tea would satisfy me.

No, that belief was shattered. Instead, I let my anger roll through me, as I paced at the top of my tower. No, I wouldn’t act immediately. I wanted to. I wanted to fly to the capital and burn the King's castle to the ground, but I had more self-control than that. I would, however, avenge this injustice. King Sena had made this an entirely personal matter, and I would not be letting it go.