7 Vah Lindel

"I think the new teacher's great," Jen said, looking up from the tub of unwashed dishes. "All the teachers before him always treated us like idiots, but Vah Lindel says we're almost too smart for our ages. He even let us take some of his books home, isn't he great? Iota?"

"Vah? Is that his given name?" Iota asked, arching an eyebrow.

Jen puffed out her chest. "It means sir in Sevaskarran," she said, lifting her chin slightly. "It was the first thing he taught us."

He cast a sidelong glance at her and sniffed. "So, he taught you some foreign words and let you take home some dusty old books, and now you're worshipping the very ground he walks on?"

"Well, that's just to start, Vah Lindel-" she paused and looked around the kitchen. "He's even been teaching us a little weaving on the side."

Iota nearly tumbled off his old four-legged stool. "He can't do that," he said in a low voice. "You know that, Jen. Remember what happened to the last teacher who broke the rules?"

"Yes, yes," Jen said, waving her spud-covered hand impatiently. "She got ran off by the clan head."

He sighed heavily. Jen wasn't all that younger than Iota, but she must've been imagining a very different set of events to the one he was recalling. Half a decade ago or so, a young, pretty-faced teacher came down from the highlands at the request of the clan head. When his mother caught wind of her teaching the basics of weaving to the village children, she switched her publicly in front of the entire village. Ran off was an understatement.

The young teacher returned to her hometown soon after. Iman was furious, but the clan head stayed silent on the matter. So his uncle could do nothing but gash his teeth in anger. Now that Iota thought back on it, he could've sworn he'd seen Iman taking the pretty-faced teacher out on more than one walk to a secluded part of the forest. Only now, at fourteen years of age, did Iota understand just what sort of illicit activities they were committing together. He shivered and shook his head hastily. Just imagining it made him cringe.

"Look, Jen," Iota said, rising to his feet. "I won't go around advertising that the teacher is breaking clan law, but you shouldn't go around telling people about that, understand? You wouldn't want to lose this teacher, right?"

Jen cleared her throat and crossed her arms. "I wouldn't tell that to just anyone," she said, looking up at him with a sly smile forming on her lips. "I'm not an idiot."

"Sometimes, I seriously doubt that," Iota muttered under his breath.

She frowned. "what?"

"Nothing," he growled as he left through the kitchen door. The matter of Lindel worried him. The silver-haired foreigner was an odd, arrogant one. He talked as if he held all the knowledge in the world. As if all the secrets in the world were privy to his eye's and his alone. Or perhaps that's just how all Sevaskarrans acted. It frustrated him. The teacher treated him like he was some living experiment.

But Iota could not refute there was some truth in Lindel's words. The voice hadn't come back since that time in the schoolhouse, but how long until he returned? No, Iota corrected, how long until I start talking in my head again.

After a brief period of aimlessly wandering through the halls, Iota felt a pang of hunger gnaw at his stomach. It dawned on him that he hadn't eaten since the night before. Eating can come later, he told himself. He had some research to conduct first.

. . .

The library stood just behind the main hall, separated into two spacious rooms. The left for storing books and tomes, the other for artifacts too valuable to be kept out on display. Iota seldom visited this part of the estate.

A pair of wizened old sisters—the librarians—had kept watch over the library since even before the clan head's time. They guarded and patrolled the shelves of leather-bound tomes and antique scrolls like a pair of dragons hoarding treasure.

They stared daggers at him from their desk as he pushed through the large double doors. The desk was on a slightly elevated platform in the middle of the library, giving them a panoramic view of the room. He wrinkled his nose at the smell of rows of musty, old books.

"Do you need something? Myra's brat," the sister on the right spat. Their contempt for clan hierarchy was infamous, but he supposed that was one of the perks of being absolutely ancient. "After the last ear lashing I gave you, I'm surprised you still have the gall to come crawling back."

Iota blinked in confusion.

"No, no," the other sister said, shaking her balding, wrinkled head. "That was Noa."

"Then who's this?" the former snapped.

"It's Oyta," the sister on the left said.

He grimaced. "It's Iota, actually," he said. "And I've come here regarding a subject I wish to learn more about."

"No forbidden sword techniques," the sister on the right said, nearly hissing the words. At this point, Iota wadn't even quite sure if they were still in possession of their mental faculties. "And no, you cannot bring girls in here for studying sessions."

"No, no," the sister on the left sighed. "That was Noa, remember."

The sister on the right sniffed. "I remember," she snapped. "Now, what were you seeking?

"Heart demons," Iota said in a flat voice. "I want to learn all there is to know about heart demons."

The two sisters glanced at each other before shaking their balding, wrinkled heads in sync.

"Heart demons? Any reason in particular?" the sister on the left asked dryly.

Iota shook his head. "Just curious is all."

The sister on the left nodded. "Well, all varya related materials should be in the very back, but you might have to do a little searching for heart demons. It's not often we get inquiries about them."

He nodded, and under their scrutinizing gaze, made his way to the back. The lighting became poorer the further Iota ventured into the aisles of dust-coated books. Despite the love the sisters held for the library, they clearly didn't do much upkeep.

As Iota rounded a long shelf of tomes, he found one of the preservers thumbing through a copy of Varya and its many intricacies. Elyse, his aunt, and an enigmatic figure even among the other preserves.

Iota noticed a book placed beside her feet was labeled, Heart demons, a comprehensive study." Just what Iota needed.

"Greetings, Preserver Elyse," Iota said, bowing his head only slightly.

She looked up from her book, just noticing him for the first time. "Do you need something, child?"

Iota hesitated. "May I borrow that book?" he asked, gesturing politely to Heart demons, a comprehensive study. "I'll return it as soon as I can."

Elyse snapped shut the book in her hands and sorted it back into the bookshelf. "Why?"

"I believe a heart demon is plaguing my core," Iota said with a shaky voice.

She paused, her hand lingering over a thin, leather-bound book. "Do you mind repeating that for me, child?" her tone made it clear it wasn't a question.

Iota frowned. "I believe a heart demon is plaguing my core," he repeated, his voice more firm the second time around. "I hope to learn more about my condition." He shifted uneasily. "Any guidance would be much appreciated, Preserver Elyse."

He wasn't sure if his eyes were playing tricks on him, but he could see a hint of a smile form on her mouth. "A heart demon?" she said, lifting a finger to her lip. "At your age?"

Iota nodded. "I hear the voices. They come and go, but whenever I give them any mention, they happen to pop up."

She stared at him blankly. "Voices?"

He nodded again. "Voices, ever since Mother-" he froze. "Ever since last night."

"So voices and heart demons?" she sighed. "Is this some joke? Or did you hurt your head in a fall somewhere?"

"Pardon?"

"You don't have a heart demon, boy," she muttered. "The way it looks to me is, you either bumped your head too hard, or you've got quite an overactive imagination."

Iota opened his mouth to say something, but he found no words came out.

"You haven't even weaved your first thread of varya," she continued, "and you think a heart demon is plaguing you? You're thinking of sprinting while you haven't even learned to crawl, fool child."

His cheek's flushed. "Lindel told me-"

"Lindel? The third-rate weaver Iman picked up from the dredge?" She shook her head derisively. "A quack who overestimates his abilities. I'd take the word of a mindless beast in higher regard than that of a silver-tongued fraud. Forget teaching others. The hack hasn't even taken a single step over the novice threshold."

Damn, Iota thought. That complicated things.

Frowning, Elyse returned her attention to the shelf. "Now, if that's all, I'd like to get back to my research."

Iota sighed. He was not a single step closer to unraveling the mystery, and it was clear he had expended all the time his aunt was willing to make for him. "I apologize for taking up your time, Preserver Elyse."

She waved him away without so much as even another glance in his direction.

. . .

His mood had worsened considerably by the time Iota left the library. He spent valuable daylight poring over ancient books and scrolls. It was almost shameful to admit he had read more in the past few hours than he had in his entire life. And so it was all the more frustrating to realize he had virtually nothing to show for it. Elyse did not lie. Heart demons could cause sudden, violent mood shifts, poor physical health, and even cripple weavers. But not once had head voices been mentioned anywhere in the quite expansive list of symptoms.

After hours in the musty, dust-covered library, Iota felt the urge for fresh air. He followed a narrow hallway, designed for servants to make their rounds unnoticed, to the kitchens. It felt odd to scurry around in the back halls and rooms, but he wasn't about to put it to the test whether Iman saw his face or not.

As Iota walked into the kitchen, he was mildly surprised to see Noa standing around with a servant girl. They were engaged in low conversation over a tub of soapy water.

"Are you sure you've checked everywhere ?" Iota heard Noa ask the servant girl.

She nodded her head resolutely. "Yes, Young Lord," she said. "It isn't like her to disappear like this. She's usually a very good girl."

Noa fell silent as the servant girl cringed under the stony gaze of his younger brother. He had always been good at making those sorts of faces.

Iota took the chance to jump in. "What's happening?" he asked. The two nearly leaped out of their skins, startled like deer caught in the sights of a crossbow.

Noa regarded him coldly. "Your little friend, Jen, I believe was her name, has disappeared on us." He jerked his head to the servant girl. "Explain it to him."

The servant girl glanced at Iota. "I was coming in to take over for Jen, you see, usually Lewey usually has duty after Jen, but-"

Noa coughed into his hand. "To the point, please."

"But I couldn't find her anywhere. So, I go looking in the servant's quarter, but she wasn't there either. At this point, I'm a little frustrated, thinking she had skipped her chores and all. That's no way for a servant of the Ashvan to act. But once I had some of the other girls help me, I started to get worried. So, I-"

"Basically," Noa said, cutting the girl off, "Jen is missing."

One thing after another, Iota thought bitterly, as if the immortals themselves have it out to damn me.

"Do the preservers and head servants know about this?" Iota asked, his fingers refusing to stop trembling. A sinking feeling his gut told him Jen's disappearance was no coincidence.

Noa shrugged. "Why would the preservers need to be informed of such a trivial thing," he said. "And, of course, the head servants know by now. They've scoured every inch of the estate looking for her. But so far, they've come up with nothing. You don't think she'd be out in the forest, do you?"

Jen had never shown much interest in the forest, much less enough to run away to it in the middle of the day. That was something Iota would do, not the bug-hating Jen he knew.

"Keep on the lookout," Iota told Noa. "If you can't find her by the time the sun is down, then tell a preserver."

Noa arched an eyebrow, the corners of his lips tugging downwards. It was clear he was displeased with taking orders from Iota, but he made no move to protest. "What about you?"

"I'm going to find some answers," Iota muttered darkly. "And I think I know just where to start."

Iota rubbed his nose as he stepped outside through the kitchen door. Lately, he had been using it more often than he liked. But considering the circumstances, he felt such feelings were trivial. He glanced up at the horizon line. The sun was dipping, causing the sky to take on a red-orange tint. He didn't think Lindel would find it too offensive if he showed up a tad bit early.

He thumbed the hilt of the dagger tucked through his belt, well hidden under his coat, as per Verda's advice. Just yesterday, a man had tried to kill him with it, now for some unknown, bizarre reason, it brought comfort to his mind.

He peered ahead at the school, darkness quickly falling over the Ashvan region. Strangely enough, he was looking forward to the meeting. Lindel had fed him false information. That he knew for sure, but whether it was ignorance or purposeful intention speaking, Iota had no clue.

A moment later, as Iota was just meters away from the barn, Lindel stepped out. He was carrying a lantern in one hand and a hide-bound tome in the other.

Iota said nothing as he stepped towards Lindel.

"You came!" Lindel exclaimed, spreading his arms wide out as if to welcome him with a hug.

Iota cut straight to the chase. "Tell me more about the heart demon," he said, "and teach me how I can get rid of it."

The silver-haired teacher grinned ear to ear. "Of course, my job is to teach." He hummed softly, gesturing for Iota to follow him inside.

It was drafty inside and poorly lit, with only a few candle stubs and Lindel's lantern to light up the interior.

"What exactly is the procedure?" Iota asked, shoving his hands within his coat to ward away the chill. "I can't imagine it must be easy slaying a heart demon."

Lindel chuckled. "Oh, It's not easy at all," he said, licking his lips. "But I'm fairly confident I can break through it."

Iota furrowed his brows. "How are you so certain?"

"I'm afraid I haven't been entirely honest with you, Iota Ashvan," Lindel said, slowly walking up to his desk. He placed the lantern down and picked up a silver syringe. "When I mentioned heart demons, I wasn't talking about yours."

Before the man could say another word, Iota already had his dagger in hand and pointed at Lindel. "What do you want? And who the hell are you?"

"Remarkable courage at such a young age," Lindel mused, placing the syringe back down and grabbing at a scalpel. "Yes, yes, you will do nicely."

Iota swallowed back the urge to scream. "I asked, who the hell are you?"

The instant Lindel turned round to face him. Iota bolted towards the silver-haired teacher, his dagger streaking toward the man's face. A smug grin spread over Lindel's face. Iota's face fell. He wasn't going to reach him in time.

Lindel's unseen blow struck him, sending him flying into the air. Something twisted inside of him, a violent, blazing power that rippled throughout his body, scorching his veins and filling his lungs with fire. He screamed, an animalistic scream caused by a level of pain he had never felt before.

Suspended in mid-air, Iota groaned softly as the fire within him subsided.

"You've surprised me, Iota Ashvan. If you can manage to withstand even that, surely you can take a little more pain." Lindell whistled a jolly tune. "But we can't have you screaming too loud, my young friend. We most certainly would not want anyone interrupting our playdate." He snapped with his fingers.

Iota's jaw clamped shut. His teeth grinding, he glared furiously at Lindel.

"Now, now," Lindel crooned, "no need for all that. We're only getting started, my young friend. You'll forgive my earlier deception, won't you? Well, I suppose it doesn't matter. I'm sure we'll become very close, they always do."