Contrary to Ailn’s expectations, the next morning Renea seemed perfectly fine—in an awfully pleasant mood even, once she overcame her grouchiness at being awakened so early.

  “You’re not scared that they were trying to kidnap you specifically?” Ailn asked.

  Renea bit her thumb anxiously, then shrugged. “Does it matter? They’d intended to slaughter everyone else.” Her eyes narrowed, and she looked off to the side glaring at nothing in particular. “I refuse to let them ruin this for me.”

  And so, they went to see the naiads.

  She’d lived in this world for nearly seventeen years, but just like Ailn, this would be her first time.

  The crowded bridge they were on was popular for ‘spotting’ naiads. To be honest, it felt a little bit like they were at the zoo.

  He’d expected them to be more elusive, but he’d been naiad watching for half an hour now, while three of them reclined on the water about ten meters away.

  Their skin was translucent, and their forms blended seamlessly with the water, but otherwise they looked like normal women chatting, pretty and youthful, lounging about their day. They were even fashionable, the materials from their river environment floating through their bodies like clothes.

  They seemed to like using water lilies like blouses, and reeds like skirts. All of them were trading colorful shells like accessories, joining hands into one continuous splash of water to exchange their favorites.

  Enamored gasps and hushed excited whispers moved through the crowd. Renea held her breath at the sight.

  Then one of them pretended to exchange a rusty hook, before they all burst into laughter that sounded like a soft cascade of water.

  If he perked his ears, though, Ailn swore he could make out their conversation.

  ‘If you ask me, the tourists today look a little ugly.’

  ‘One of them gave me a set of pearls, though. Look!’

  ‘They look cheap.’

  He sort of wished he hadn’t listened in. Was no one else paying attention?

  “They look so graceful and kind,” Renea sighed, leaning over the bridge. They’d managed to get a good spot, even if people were crowding behind them.

  “...If only their speech matched,” Ailn winced.

  She gave him an odd look, but moved on from it.

  “This world’s filled with so many amazing things,” she said quietly. The glimmer in her eyes was somewhere between excitement and tenderness. “I wonder just what else is out there.”

  Renea was clearly a curious soul that had ‘till now lived in an incurious land. Ailn had gotten the sense for a long time now that most Varantians were rather provincial; Renea, however, didn’t fit that mold.

  Rather, her tenure as Saintess would have simply precluded most opportunities to travel—even setting aside that Sophie seemed to enjoy being a homebody. Watching her now, Ailn could tell she’d been yearning.

  One of the naiads, as if noticing Ailn’s disenchanted gaze, waved in their direction, then turned her face away in a faux-demure gesture. To Ailn, that pose meant ‘you can look but never touch.’

  The crowd tittered excitedly at the gesture, and Renea gave a shy wave back.

  Honestly, the sight made Ailn want to skip a rock her way.

  “Duke eum-Creid? Lady Renea?”

  They heard a female voice coming up from behind them. Turning around, they saw a woman with honey blonde hair sporting a pair of glasses.

  “Are you the Areygni scholar?” Ailn asked. “I’m amazed you found us in this crowd. Should I call you Magister Lirathel?”

  “Just Ellen is fine,” the woman said.

  “Wait… Lirathel?” Renea echoed the name before the realization hit her. “Are you a descendant of that Lirathel?”

  “That’s right,” Ellen said with an embarrassed smile. “The Lirathel family’s claim to fame is a portrait of another artist. My ancestor, Elenira Lirathel was the one who allegedly painted Noué Areygni.”

  Apparently, they were hardly the first vault seekers to come to Sussuro. Portrait or no portrait, it just made sense to go looking for someone’s secret treasure in their hometown. And the Areygni Villa was already notorious for its artificed architecture.

  For the chance to see the legendary portrait herself, the Areygni scholar was happy to oblige giving them a tour of it.

  Renea had brought along the perspective finder.

  The Areygni Villa wasn’t exactly a short walking distance from the bridge, but Sussuro made for a pleasant stroll. It gave Ailn the time he needed to take in the lay of the city.

  There were naiads all over the river, if you really looked. They popped in and out of the water wherever they wished, and soaked in the attention from tourists. If there were cameras in this world, Ailn had a feeling they’d happily pose all day.

  They were also terrible gossips.

  ‘The count has a new guest.’

  ‘The young duke? His brother was more handsome.’

  ‘I saw him making eyes at the creepy daughter of the count.’

  ‘Poor man. That girl is super pretentious. And creepy!’

  Then they all gave that laugh—light and trickling, like water over stone—while looking at him with smug, pitying eyes. Ailn found himself idly scanning the riverbank for saucer-shaped rocks.

  “The real treat is hearing them sing,” Ellen said. “Of course, it doesn’t have quite the recognition that sylphsong has, but I’ve found that all fae have their own lovely way of singing.

  “What do they sing about?” Ailn asked.

  Both Ellen and Renea gave him a confused look.

  “Well, naiad things I suppose,” Ellen replied. “We’d never have any way of knowing.”

  “It’s imaginative, though,” Renea said happily. “I didn’t know you had that kind of wonder in you still, Ani.”

  It was clear to Ailn they were talking past each other, but he couldn’t pinpoint exactly what was being misunderstood, and on whose end. He also got the sense that chasing this gap in communication would be exhausting, and frankly, he had more pressing matters to attend to.

  “You’re a scholar of Noué Areygni and not your own ancestor?” Ailn asked, furrowing his brow.

  “What can I even say?” Ellen asked. Her embarrassed smile was back. “Must be a family vice. After all, the reason my ancestor painted Noué was because they were close friends. And, well, who isn’t interested in Noué’s art? I have to make a living, too. The market’s not exactly ripe for Elenira historians.”

  “Elenira and Lirathel both…” Renea said thoughtfully, “Those are both words from the ancient language. It’s a bit odd, isn’t it?”

  “They mean ‘good’ and ‘sight,’” Ellen said helpfully. “It’s not so strange for commoners who were granted titleless nobility to take on a surname, and use a word from the ancient language.”

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

  Renea didn’t seem quite convinced, but she didn’t say anything.

  As they went on toward the east of the north bank, the residences started to get grander, with wider spaces between them and vineyards springing up intermittently.

  “Noué herself took on the surname Areygni which means ‘beautiful truth.’”

  “Eveliscia’s the word for truth, isn’t it?” Ailn asked.

  “The ancient language was supposedly invented by the magi. They had quite a number of words for truth,” Ellen said. Her intonation made a subtle dynamic shift as her explanations dug deeper. “That’s what’s so odd about an artist taking the name Areygni. It’s not really the kind of ‘beautiful’ that you’d associate with art. It’s more a word you’d use for magecraft, or…”

  “Mathematics?” Ailn offered.

  Ellen hesitated.

  “I suppose that works too, yes,” Ellen said ambiguously. “Logically, you’d expect Noué to use the word ruhs which is the more straightforward word for beauty. Yet because the word ruhs contains the connotation of being mesmerizing, and even seductive…”

  “It would be more like ‘beautiful lie?’” Renea asked.

  “...That seems to be how Noué interpreted it, at least,” Ellen said. “At any rate, you probably haven’t noticed, but for a while now we’ve already been on the Areygni estate.”

  It had been a while since they’d seen any other mansions for sure. She really must have been rich in her lifetime. They came up the crest of a hill, and below surrounded by hedges was a huge stone villa—limestone maybe—replete with odd modern art sculptures all around.

  The whole thing screamed nouveau riche to Ailn.

  “Did she have this kind of personality?” Ailn asked, brows furrowed. They started their descent down the hill, toward the villa.

  “Most who’ve studied Noué feel the same way,” Ellen replied with a wry smile. “It’s completely tasteless, isn’t it?”

  The villa’s scale could really only be appreciated up close. Reaching its front entrance took longer than it looked, from the top of the hill.

  The same could be said of the odd sculptures scattered across the grounds. Each stood about a man’s height, but one in particular—placed ostentatiously before the entrance—drew Ailn’s eye. It was a dragon, twisting in on itself into a symbol he recognized from his past life. But he couldn’t quite place it.

  The dragon’s shape resembled something between an ouroboros and a M?bius strip: a single, seamless ribbon of steel curving inward to form three interlocked ovals—only this had the added flourish of a dragon’s head sprouting out from the center.

  Renea’s attention, however, was directed somewhere else.

  “What’s wrong with this archway?” she asked, a bit put off. She glanced around the grounds, and she seemed to be struck by how nicely maintained they seemed in comparison. “It’s…”

  “Gross,” Ellen offered.

  The villa’s archway was decaying, to put it politely. It clearly wasn’t bearing any actual load, because it was almost crumbling to the touch.

  For the most part it had the texture of cracked stone, with streaks of black running through it. But there were hints of it being metallic: rivulets of rust running through it, and patches of a shiny yellowish gleam.

  Rusty red, with rivulets of a cracked stone texture running through and black streaks all around, the archway reminded Ailn of the look of old tools, forgotten tools.

  “It’s fool’s gold,” Ailn winced as bits of it disintegrated at his touch. “She really likes to give off mixed signals.”

  He turned to Ellen, asking her honestly.

  “What’s your take? Was she a liar—or honest?”

  “Well… that’s the question isn’t it?” Ellen asked sheepishly.

  The inside of the villa gave off a surreal impression, to say the least.

  Stairwells led to dead ends—walls or ceilings—and doors opened onto sheer drops. The Areygni Villa felt like something out of an M.C. Escher painting.

  “Did she really live here?” Ailn asked, eyes narrowing.

  “There are real living amenities here, like bedrooms. We’ll see one when the layout shifts. The stairs rearrange themselves every five minutes,” Ellen said. She gave Ailn a knowing tilt of her head. “It’s a villa, allegedly, but really it’s more of a museum.”

  That was the other striking aspect. There were paintings everywhere. Noué Areygni, it seemed, had been an incredibly prolific artist—which made sense, if her vault had her last hundred works. Even here at the entrance was a painting: a man with dark hair, rendered in bold brush strokes and soft colors.

  Basically, it was done like a Monet: blurry. The man’s eyes were hard to make out, but he had a refreshed smile.

  Underneath on a wood plaque was the title of the painting: ‘A Sight for Sore Eyes.’

  “She painted in so many styles,” Renea said. She held the back of her thumb to her bottom lip thoughtfully. “Almost like… she was a chameleon.”

  They followed Ellen up the stairwell, when she advised them to wait for a moment. She opened a door at the top of the stairs.

  “As you can see,” Ellen said, gesturing to the bare wall revealed, “the villa has many false doors. However…”

  She waited a few seconds, and the loud sounds of stone moving echoed throughout the entire huge structure. About half the stairwells shifted—rotating along a vertical axis, for the most part. A few bizarrely and seemingly meaninglessly turned on their sides or even upside-down.

  The one they were on didn’t happen to, however. Yet when Ellen opened the door, a bedroom was revealed.

  “The villa is not a normal space. Some vault seekers who thought the vault may simply be at the top have tried to fly up there.” Ellen grimaced, then it turned into something of a depressed smirk. “Quite a few vault seekers trying to ‘trick’ the villa have found themselves suddenly trapped in rooms with no exits and nearly starved. Which is why the city has stopped letting people freely enter.”

  “...Gotta wonder what she did if she needed a midnight snack,” Ailn asked, as they entered the bedroom.

  Up on the wall hung a subtly odd portrait, of a man and woman standing in front of a house painted lavender.

  And yet they were depicted from rather far away. There was a broad stream of water between them and the artist, and the viewing angle was rather high—as if Noué were looking down on them from a tall cliff.

  Still, it was easy enough to see that the man’s red hair matched the exact shade as in the portrait of Noué. And both the man and woman wore long tunics similar to the one Noué wore—though theirs were simpler.

  Sure enough, the plaque beneath the painting read: ‘Mom and Dad.’

  “Were they actually?” Ailn asked.

  “As far as we can tell. They were commoners of little interest to the empire,” Ellen said. “Now, because of the spotty recordkeeping, some would have you believe that Noué wasn’t actually born in Sussuro—that it was just a retirement spot for her.

  She spoke with irritation that transformed slowly into a mildly triumphant tone.

  “You’ll note near the left edge of the painting, a flood marker painted a rather distinctive teal,” Ellen said. “Though the color has long faded from these stone markers, they can still be found through Sussuro, with historical records attesting to their original appearance.”

  Renea made a slightly dissatisfied hum.

  “...Neither of her parents are smiling,” Renea said. Her own frown deepened as if to match the couple. “It’s not a very tender painting, is it?”

  “There’s evidence which suggests she didn’t get along with them,” Ellen said. “Her earliest paintings were sold when she was just a teenager, living as a bohemian artist. Whether she ran away or got kicked out—no one really knows.”

  “From living on the streets to living in a house like this?” Ailn asked. “It’s a great rags-to-riches story.” Then he poked his head out the door, gazing at the alienating, inhuman architecture. “Or maybe a miserable one.”

  “...It’s a grander rise than you can ever imagine,” Ellen said, smiling sadly. Gesturing for Ailn to step back from the door, she shut it, and waited half a minute for the next layout change. Then, opening it, they came into a twisting corridor.

  The entire corridor was a gallery. Many of them were landscapes—a few clearly Sussuro itself. There were other odds and ends, like a painting of a small fairy lying against a fruit titled: ‘Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like an apple.’

  They slowly walked down the corridor. Renea herself lingering to try and appreciate each painting; seeing this, Ellen smiled rather broadly at her interest.

  “Have any of these pieces caught your eye?” Ellen asked. “Many of them are from her bohemian period. Now they’re all highly valued and sought after, of course, but their obscurity was what allowed Sussuro to snatch them up.”

  “They’re all interesting,” Renea said, eyeing a piece titled ‘Angel Looking in through the Window.’ “These were her earlier pieces? Some of them feel…”

  She stopped herself. This particular painting looked creepy. An angel was in fact looking through a window. She had a wide smile, and yet her eyes looked anguished and were tear stricken.

  “Yes, some say Noué’s greatest works were her early ones, admired for their simplicity—or, at times, their unsettling rawness. They like to say she sold out,” Ellen said, smile polite, nostrils flaring. “There’s certainly something to be said for how her style evolved, veering toward something more majestic, and yet warmer at the same time. Most refer to it as her ‘Divinity Period.’”

  They walked to the end of the corridor.

  “These were the pieces which enchanted people,” Ellen said. “Sussuro is lucky enough to own one of the most famous… though the capital always tries to bully us into giving it up.”

  Opening the door, they came into a room centered around one portrait. A pauldron and half-cape donning his shoulders, the man portrayed had striking red eyes and a seemingly kind smile. One of his hands was stretched out, palm facing downward.

  It was titled: ‘Surprisingly Soft.’

  “Oh…” Renea’s hand flew to her mouth. “He looks like…”

  “That’s right,” Ellen said. “It’s a portrait of the emperor—from that time. Emperor Claude ryu-Genis. Do you know the most famous legend of her vault?”

  “... That it contains her last hundred portraits, I assume.”

  “There’s something even grander people want to find,” Ellen said, shaking her head. “It’s a ring… called The Dragon’s Promise.”

  Her eyes caught on Ailn’s ducal ring.

  “Supposedly that ring,” Ellen said, “was given to her by the Emperor Claude himself.”