After another uneventful week and another of Vell's lectures, the halls were the same as always, still full of trailing students.
Some lingering, still buzzing with excitement from the class. Others drifted off in pairs or small groups, chattering, tired but awake in that soft-glow kind of way that came after a lesson that made you think.
Sonder used to think he was just lazy. He was ancient, after all, but over time, she'd realized it wasn't that. It was just how he was: unhurried. Time was never his enemy.
It seemed more deliberate, and as he had lived for such a long time, there was no need for rushing.
"You know," Vell began, as Sonder helped him clean up by stacking a few stray papers. "I thought maybe the Magnus Halls would have something. A theory. A spell. A relic, or at least a piece of it that may help us discover something."
"And?" Sonder asked.
He turned, lowering his voice so it wouldn't carry beyond them. "The more I dig, the more certain I am they don't. The Halls are brilliant, yes. Vast. They've refined spellcraft into something surgical. They can rewrite the body a dozen ways. Extract a soul and place it in a bottle. But none of it feels right."
She frowned. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, if the queen of the Kalandir really died," he whispered, not wanting the rumor to spread any further through the halls, "it wasn't by anything as clean as spellwork. Not anything that fits into a ritual circle. The closer I look, the more it feels wrong. Not complicated. Just... let's say wrong."
"Wrong how?"
"I don't know yet," he admitted. "Just that it doesn't feel like something anyone was meant to learn or discover, more like something someone tripped over by accident or forced into the world. As if it was built. Cursed from the start."
Sonder's thoughts drifted to old stories of curses. Not the kind a wart-covered witch puts on someone. But the kind of things that generations of people feared and were there for as long as anyone could remember.
Vell seemed to follow her thinking. "I've come across a few things like that," he said. "Artifacts and spells. They never act the way you expect them to. You can't control them, not really. You can only direct them. Maybe something like that found its way into Qualtagh's hands."
"Maybe the Irath have something like that," Sonder said.
Vell paused.
Yes, of course they would.
The Irath were masters of control, obsession, and secrecy. Their Wizard King, Endrith, wouldn't share a weapon like that, not even with his people.
But what was it? A spell? An object? A bargain?
And if they had one, could they have more?
Killing a Kalandir wasn't just rare. It was unthinkable. The Queen's death was a crack in reality. The kind that only made sense if something monstrous had been used.
And still, no clear story had come out of it. The funeral was behind them now for quite a while, but no one had spoken plainly. Nobles, dignitaries, and powerful people from all over the world had attended, but few had been seen or heard from since. What had been said wasn't enough to cause panic.
Maybe that was the plan.
Vell wasn't sure if it was wise or foolish to hide the truth. But he understood it.
That was their way.
And really, he hadn't told anyone either.