Was he the one currently overseeing the production of artificial attuned? Or perhaps the one watching over the visage they held as a prisoner?
Both were possible. Both would put him in immediate danger now that Katashi knew that he was involved.
Vera had described a tall, Emerald-level swordsman who had attacked Visage Tenjin directly. I’d assumed that was Derek, but my brother was the same age and a similar build. Now that I knew Derek wasn’t connected to this whole mess, it was possible that Tristan had been the attacker.
How can I look into this further?
Tristan had clearly been observing me through the book, as well as sending messages to manipulate me into the course of action he wanted me to take. I’d learned that he was a Whisper — one of the secret servants of the visages — and that meant he had the necessary trust to make changes to the tower itself.
That was presumably how he’d managed to place the book somewhere I would find it. It was also probably how he made sure I had a key to open a cell door, and why the cell doors had locks that were meant to be opened by someone taking the test.
The dead teenager I’d found in front of the bars implied that it was possible I hadn’t been Tristan’s first choice.
I didn’t know how deep his abilities to influence the tower went. Was he able to shift the layout of the rooms themselves to make sure I followed a path to that prison?
I had no idea.
One thing I would have to learn more about was how the Whispers worked and their level of influence. That might help me narrow down whether or not Tristan was currently inside the spire, and if so, how much freedom he had to move around and confound any search.
Another thing I’d have to look into was how the book worked. If Tristan had been using it to spy on me, could I find a way to reverse that process? Was he just writing in a similar book of his own to send me messages, or did he have another method of sending writing to it? How was he viewing me from a distance?
If I could view Tristan from a distance, I’d gain a major advantage in finding him and learning what he was truly up to.
Third, I’d need to look into what Elora Theas was up to. How deeply involved had she been?
Fourth, I’d seen my mother working with Elora Theas in the city council chamber when I’d viewed the contents of a memory crystal. It was the first I’d seen of my mother in years, and I’d discovered that she’d somehow managed to secure an important government position.
Did that imply that mother was working with Elora on this whole affair? Did that further imply that my mother was aware of Tristan’s situation and had chosen not to tell me?
If so, she had a great deal to answer for.
That last line of thought made me realize that I was neglecting something important while I was fixating on solving this newly-arisen puzzle.
I’d been terrible about sharing what I knew with my family.
Telling my mother about this was questionable; it would be a sign of trust, and if she wasn’t involved, I’d be doing her a great kindness.
But if she was involved, telling her I knew about Tristan was playing my hand openly.
…Then again, if she was working directly with Tristan, he could just tell her that himself.
So, I’d tell my mother. Maybe not immediately; it’d be safer to do it in person.
I wrote her a quick letter, one that I’d hand off to a courier in the morning after I’d had a chance to acquire a seal for it.
Dear Mother,
I didn’t heed your warnings, as I’m sure you expected.
Fortunately, I am alive and relatively intact.
I have a considerable amount of information that I believe you would be interested in. In specific, I am aware of Keras Selyrian’s current whereabouts. I also have conclusive evidence that he was not involved in Visage Tenjin’s current situation.
Due to the sensitive nature of this information, I would like to share it with you in person in an area that is warded against observation. I understand that this letter may take some time to reach you, and that you have other responsibilities, but I would like to meet at your earliest convenience.
I hope you are well.
-Corin
She’d last told me that she had urgent business in Dalenos. That was months ago, however, and I hoped she was back from her journey. If I didn’t receive a reply within a week or so, I’d see if I could find a Wayfarer who could send her a message with magic. I wanted to avoid that route for now because it would require giving that Wayfarer all of the information in the letter, which wasn’t a great idea.
For the moment, though, I had other family members to attend to.
My father? Given how he’d treated me, I didn’t feel the world’s strongest urge to be kind to him.
But I couldn’t justify hiding this knowledge forever just because of how he’d treated me.
I planned to tell him as soon as I could safely travel to his estate and figure out what I wanted to say. That would probably be sometime after I finished my first year of classes.
I had another family member that was closer, though, and one who deserved answers as much as I did.
I left my room, taking the book with me, and knocked softly on the door to the guest bedroom where Sera was staying. Fortunately, the Hartigan manor was large enough that she had a room to herself.
“It’s Corin,” I added after a moment.
I heard some shuffling within the room. About thirty seconds passed before she opened the door, her eyes narrowed and her hair hilariously askew. She’d been sleeping.
Honestly, seeing her like that reminded me of how similar we looked when she hadn’t gone through her morning hair-wrestling and general beautification rituals. Her hair was a little longer than mine, but it was the same black with a bit of wave to it, and we had a similar athletic sort of build. Neither of us was as skinny as Marissa, but we were both in good shape.
I grinned at her disheveled appearance. “Can I come in?”
She waved me inside and closed the door behind us. She went to sit on her bed.
I pulled over a chair from the nearby writing desk. “We need to talk.”
She tilted her head to the side, narrowed her eyes, and pointed at her throat.
I coughed in apology. It was too easy to forget that she couldn’t talk. She still hadn’t recovered from the damage she’d sustained drinking the potion I’d given her in the tower.
I’ll have to figure out a way to help her. It’s my fault she’s in this bad of shape.
I shifted the book to show it to her. “Poor choice of words. I mean I need to tell you something? Or, really, to show you something.”
I handed the book to her. She raised an eyebrow.
“Look at the last few pages that have writing.”
She nodded, flipping through the pages until she reached the end, then going back a bit. I waited patiently while she read.
Her eyes visibly widened when she read the part I’d expected, then she slammed the book shut and handed it back to me.
“Yeah, I’m…”
She raised a hand to quiet me, then moved over to the writing desk and retrieved a pencil and paper. We were lucky that Derek had a pencil and an eraser available; pens were far more common in Valia.
She scribbled a quick message on the paper. “What are the odds that it’s really Tristan?”