The streets of Jael were full of the bustle of life as Kaeto made his way towards the city archives, Adarelle, as always, at his heels. Liveried soldiers organized food and emergency supply distribution to the free houses, who would then disperse the rations among their gin and gerin.

Kaeto’s legs ached slightly. He’d opted to take the grand stairs instead of one of the elevators, making his steps brisk. He could feel his steward's similarity struggling behind him as they walked and only felt a hint of guilt for making her walk those steep steps.

The archives were more a complex of buildings than one large structure encircled by a large sandstone wall. Manicured rock gardens and flowerbeds lined walkways, and moonstones hung from poles at the entrances and exits of every building. There were even moonstones laid into the paving stones in places to light the paths.

The pair walked into the archive’s main hall, a large colonnaded marble building, and were immediately greeted by a passing attendant.

“Good night, my lord prince, master steward, how might we help you?” The woman asked, bowing low, chin to her neck creating half a dozen folds of fat.

Kaeto gave the land master a respectful half-bow, and Adarelle did likewise, slightly lower than the prince. “Stars light your path, Master Keriin,” Kaeto said. “I’m here on personal business tonight, so do not press yourself too hard on my account. If anybody comes looking for me, I’ll be in the histories.”

Kerrin rose as the prince spoke, a warm smile on her broad face. “As you wish, my lord. Shall I have the gerin prepare you something to eat then?”

Kaeto shook his head. “No need. I doubt I’ll be long.”

“As you say then,” the land master said before bowing again and bustling off between the rows of bookshelves and scroll cases.

The two made their way to one of the side chambers, near the back of the main hall. The histories section was easily the largest in the archives, with records stretching back nearly ten thousand years. Kaeto, however, wasn’t looking for history.

Since that first council meeting after his return, something had felt off to him. He wanted to learn more about past swords and maybe try and find the records from the time of Mora’s breaking. Adarelle helped him look through the stacks, the two reading spine after spine through the night.

It turned out that there wasn’t much on either subject. Together with Kaeto's copy of ‘The Cult of Lytash: Prophecies and Plots,’ it amounted to a disheartening collection. Adarelle approached from the other side of the room, two books and a scroll in her arms.

“What did you find?” he asked, hopeful but not expectant.

His steward held up one of the two books. “This one’s a history of the northern realms, and the other is a treatise on Katori code of law,” she said, then laid them out on the table. “This is just an illustration of Lytash pulling Mora out of the sky, but it's dated to around the time of Mora’s breaking, so it might have some interesting insights.”

Kaeto looked over the meager collection and stifled a sigh. He’d worked with less before. He grabbed the copy of ‘An Index of Mora Spawn” and leafed through the pages, glancing at all the entries.

The pages were primarily full of morantai variants, most of which were too absurd for even Kaeto to give credence to. However, he paused on the entry for changelings. There was a depiction of a fuzzy worm-like creature, a caterpillar he believed they were called, but the reference image gave it the size of a small human.

He frowned, showing to Adarelle. “Have you seen anything like this before?” he asked. He certainly hadn’t, and morantai had always been a passive fascination for him.

This time, Adarelle frowned. “Maybe,” she said, unfurling the scroll carefully and using moonstones to hold the paper down.

The illustrated page spanned the length of the table, nearly as long as Kaeto was tall. It was decorated in delicate brush strokes with vibrant colors, depicting the scene as if in motion. An army of men rode moas from the left, charging towards a horde of morantai, the creatures depicted as a mass of monsters that looked to be various combinations of insects, animals, and humans.

Arrows flew over the army of men, lances lowered, and wisps of kar drifted along the page in multicolored ribbons. On the left marched an army of zoran, multi-form lizard people who once occupied the plains that were now the shattered sea.

The zoran army had an air of organized chaos about it that made Kaeto frown. Most modern stories about the zoran claimed they were simple nomads who sailed the shattered sea. The scroll showed them organized into specific ranks, generals directing from behind.

Some of the lizardfolk stood tall as trees and thick as boulders, while others were no taller than an average man. Some bore thick shells, others long tails and talons. Yet more of the zoran stood near the generals, no bigger than a house cat. Kaeto guessed they mainly acted as messengers. He made a note to read more about zoran history.

A white haze of morakar hung above the reptilian army’s heads, strong near the front of the battle but fading near the back. Beyond both armies and behind the morantai, a figure stood atop a tall mound, all seven aspects of kar collecting around him in a pillar of power that stretched towards the great star Mora.

The great star was painted at the top center of the scroll, flanked on either side by mountain peaks. A line of pure kar split the star in two, and the way the artist had painted Mora made it seem as if the star were already falling.

“Adarelle, I’m not seeing anything here that even remotely…,” Kaeto trailed off as his steward pointed to a figure mixed in among the ranks of human soldiers.

A thin white line, barely noticeable among the chaos of color, rose above the head of a single soldier, but the man was not a man. The artist had captured the creature mid-transformation, halfway between a human and the changeling caterpillar creature from the index.

“They’re hard to see at first,” Adarelle said, politely ignoring Kaeto’s oversight. “But once you find one, it's easier to see the others.”

Kaeto looked closer at the scroll, and he did indeed find more of the creatures. There were dozens of the things among the ranks of human and zoran forces. To his surprise, there was even one hidden among the diminutive zoran at their general's feet.

“So, these changelings were spies sent to disrupt Lytash’s enemies then. If he really has returned, then I suppose they could be a risk, but a fog mask shouldn’t be too difficult to see through,” Kaeto said.

Adarelle just frowned. “You are correct, I believe, Lord Prince. However, I don’t think these things use fog masks.”

Kaeto looked back down at the figures. It looked like a fog mask to him, just a simple trick with air and fire to bend light and change the way you look. Most starborn children could do it from what he understood.

“Explain,” he said, stroking the long red hair on his chin. Adarelle bowed.

“You know how the zoran ended up in their forty-two forms, yes?” she asked. He nodded. Of course, he knew the legend. They were once supposedly Mora’s favorite people, so she blessed them with the power to change their shape. After Mora’s breaking, they became trapped in their forms.

Adarelle’s point suddenly clicked in his mind. “I see. Well, then they certainly won’t be a threat to us now. Morakar is gone after all,” he said simply.

“That would be my guess as well, my lord. What does the index say about them?”

Kaeto nearly flushed. Why hadn’t he thought of that? Returning to the book, he skimmed through the unsurprisingly brief text.

“It does mention their using morakar to shapeshift similar to the ancient zoran, but on a much deeper level. The author speculates here,’ he said, pointing to the passage. “That they would have lost the ability after Mora’s breaking just as the zoran did. The text also suggests that they might have been very long-lived creatures.”

Adarelle nodded. “All of that would make some sense. If you could change your shape to such a degree, making yourself immortal, or as nearly so, might be possible.”

She eyed him curiously, something the steward rarely did. “Why are you so curious about these creatures?”

Kaeto put the index down, grabbed another book, the treatise on Katori law, and thumbed through the pages.

“It's all this business with the sword. I’ve never liked Jotaranell much, that's no secret at this point, but something about Keros seams off to me,” he said.

Adarelle raised one brow slightly and said in a polite but flat tone, “and so you think he’s a changeling?”

Kaeto shrugged. “I’m just exploring possibilities. I am the head of Jiovar’s military, after all. If I get blindsided by a con artist, then how would that reflect on the kingdom?”

“I understand, my lord,” Adarelle said, bowing slightly again. “Was there something, in particular, that might have sparked the feeling of something being wrong in you?”

Kaeto nodded. “It was the way Jotaranell and Keros interacted with one another. From my understanding, the astrologians and the katori have hated each other for centuries. It just seemed wrong to me that the two of them would have agreed so quickly on raising a new sword.”

Adarelle straightened and was quiet for a moment as Kaeto skimmed the book. He wasn’t finding anything of actual use inside, so he tossed it onto the table with a sigh.

Suddenly, Adarelle asked, “Do you know who they’ve chosen to be the new sword?”

“One of Lawthe’s three. Sora, I believe,” Kaeto said, drawing out a chair from beneath the table and sitting. “Why?”

“If I remember right, it was Jotaranell who intervened with slave master Gael to make her Jah Annan.”

Kaeto frowned. “Where did you learn that?” he asked, genuinely curious and a bit surprised. The astrologian barely seemed to tolerate the female Jah Annan’s presence most of the time. Why would he, of all people, have sponsored her?

“The gerin gossip,” Adarelle said with a shrug. “And Gael might have let it slip while drunk. You know how he gets.”

Kaeto nodded. Give the slave master a few good drinks, and he wouldn’t shut up until he passed out. “You think he’d been planning for this then?” Kaeto asked.

Adarelle’s expression became uncertain. “Perhaps. The man never struck me a very clever. Most astrologians don’t, but it could be an act. But why? And how?”

Kaeto began tapping one finger against the table, staring blankly down at the painted scroll still laid out across the hardwood. “It does feel like quite the stretch. Not as much as changelings, I suppose, but still a stretch.”

Kaeto sighed, closing his eyes and leaning back in his chair. “He’s been a royal adjunct for the court since before I was born. Everything he’d done has made Jiovar a better place. Even if he is plotting something, should I try and stop him?”

His steward was silent for another long moment before speaking again. “Maybe. It's hard to say, honestly. Perhaps the best thing to do would be to watch him and Keros for a while. Then you could interview if you don’t like where things are going.”

Kaeto thought about that. It wasn’t a terrible idea. In fact, the more he thought about it, the better it seemed. “I believe you may be right, Adarelle. If this scheme has really been going on for so long, it's unlikely I’ll discover anything. At least if I’m by his side, I can get between Jotaranell and the kingdom, if it comes to that anyway.”

“Should I return the book then?” Adarelle asked.

“No,” Kaeto said. “There are a few more things I want to check before leaving. I still need to refresh myself on katori customs, and I’d like to know more about the morantai if they really are attacking. If you like, you may leave. I doubt I’ll be gone before sunrise.”

Instead of bowing and leaving as he suggested, Adarelle pulled out a chair opposite him, sat, and grabbed one of the books. “That is kind, my Lord Prince, but if you don’t mind, I think I’ll stay and help.”

Kaeto smiled, then retrieved the book on katori laws and began reading. The pair poured over the books for hours until the first rays of sunlight seared their way across the sky.