The opening pages recounted the tale of Bain Eldricourt as though the kings before him had never existed. It was he who had ruled Valerion when the other magical nations were tearing the world apart. He had believed that a man without a gift was the freer for it, for he relied not upon supernatural forces but upon the strength of his own will. It was this very conviction, that the people of Valerion must trust in their own reason rather than in magic, that ultimately secured this kingdom power over all the others.

Bain Eldricourt had also been among those who led the assault upon Mythos, and while the other generals and kings held the advantage of their gifts, he had possessed only a sharp blade and the element of surprise.

Every page painted him as a hero and savior, and though Quincey had once believed it, he now began to doubt the truth of the tale. After all, Cassian too had not been as just and noble as he had once thought. Who knew what Leander believed, when the prince so clearly possessed more answers than the knight.

The Messenger-at-Arms chose the opposite approach and, instead of continuing through the opening pages, turned the book to the last recorded entries. Cassian had not yet had his story written, having only just begun his reign, but his father and grandfather had.

The account of the previous king had ended only recently, and it seemed the royal scribes had taken care to record his final moments with haste. Thus all might know that the valiant Caius had died in battle for the sake of peace, just as his forebear once had. He had fallen in self defense while protecting a village attacked during his travels and had laid down his life for their salvation.

It was nothing Quincey had not heard before, and so he moved further back through the chronicle. Thus he came upon the account of Arbor, brother to the late King Caius, whose reign had been brief indeed, which was reflected in the shortness of his record upon the pages.

It stated that King Arbor had died at the age of three and twenty, only two years after ascending the throne. He had, in truth, been the very same age Quincey was now.

He knew not why he made the comparison, yet he ascribed it to the fact that he had learned nothing further of the former king. The chronicle merely claimed his death had been an accident and that though his brother had mourned him, he had been ready to assume the crown and honor his memory. That was all.

The brown-haired knight shifted his gaze from the chronicle to his own notebook, where the words stared back at him: “The true heir must live.” Just beside them he had written the word “Me” followed by a question mark, for it seemed Leander had meant Quincey himself, yet that made no sense. He was certain he must have remembered it wrongly, for there was no reason the second-born prince would think such a thing.

Quincey was the son of the knight Alaric Acerbo, known as the Shield of the Crown, and Harathea Feywin, daughter of a merchant famed for supplying the knights with the finest equipment, from horses to armor. The man was no longer living, yet in his lifetime he had amassed enough wealth to ensure his daughter might live comfortably even in widowhood.

Both of Quincey’s parents had been exceptional, and he hoped that one day he might leave behind a legacy worthy of theirs.

First, however, he needed answers and could not allow himself to be persuaded he might be someone he was not. So he returned to his research and resolved to focus upon the father of Arbor and Caius, for that man might yet have had living descendants… albeit illegitimate ones, though the knight doubted such would be granted space within an official chronicle. Still, it was worth the attempt, for he had begun to work with the theory that the true heir Leander had spoken of must be someone secretly born into the royal line.

Yet the following pages of the chronicle revealed nothing more than he already knew. Still, he would not surrender too soon, and though he found no answers regarding the secrets of the royal family, there remained two matters that would not let him rest.

The first was the elixir Leander had poured down his throat. The second was the masked man who had surely belonged to the Serpent-Kin of Night. One or the other had most likely caused his awakening back in time, and thus he needed to discover which it had been.

It took him another week spent in the library before he found anything that might serve as a plausible answer.

He did not uncover much, for just as Valerion despised magic itself, so too did it seem to disdain the recording of knowledge about it. Some might have called that folly, yet Quincey had no time to ponder it when he discovered a page concerning something called “Aethel-Solaer”.

There was no illustration nor any description of its taste, yet its history and description of appearance compelled the knight to wonder whether what he had seen in the prince’s hands had been this very thing. It sounded impossible, especially since, according to the records, Aethel-Solaer had been created shortly before the fall of the kingdom of Mythos and was lost during the war, until many came to believe it nothing more than myth.

Nevertheless, the knight lingered upon the description: “a golden essence that bound within itself the power of the Light Weavers and the last mages of Mythos, and thus it shone like the morning rays of the sun woven by the beings of Caelestia, and the mages granted it a power that could reshape worlds.”

Quincey’s world had most certainly been reshaped.

The description did not state what power the potion possessed, relying instead upon various allegories and metaphors to convey its might. Some claimed it could rewrite the past, others that it could bend the mind of any who merely breathed its scent. All agreed on one matter. It was well that the elixir had vanished, else the war might have ended very differently.

So… in the end, Quincey found himself once more at the beginning of his search, though he noted down what little information he had gleaned into his notebook.

Only the Serpent-Kin of Night remained for him to study, yet he was beginning to suspect he would learn little, for the records within the royal library were not as he had imagined. He had thought secrets would lie hidden here that common folk were never meant to know, yet instead he found only accounts that cast Valerion and House Eldricourt in the most favorable light.

Perhaps it should not have been surprising.

Nor was it surprising that Nivemare was depicted in the exact opposite way.

The Nivemare Dossier was brief, but it described in careful detail all that its authors deemed dangerous. From their fearsome appearance, to their sharp teeth and piercing gaze, to their poisonous blood. The book declared them cold blooded creatures who knew no mercy and that among all beings, the Serpent-Kin of Night were the most dangerous of all.

Their appearance was described as Quincey knew it: their skin pale, almost white, their veins and the blood within them black as ink. Their eyes were said to resemble those of serpents, and the more piercing the gaze, the more powerful and treacherous the creature was believed to be.

The knight’s thoughts automatically drifted to the masked figure. To the swiftness of his movements and how easily he had escaped him, though it had cost him a tear in his cloak. His eyes had been near hypnotic, and it was perhaps the one memory from the time that had never truly come to pass that the Messenger-at-Arms recalled with perfect clarity.

He almost believed that if he saw them again, he would know them.

And he did… but let’s not get ahead of ourselves just yet.