Chapter 882 — Fragments of an Ancient Book
Blade of Dawn · Page 3 of 4
The Archminister shook his head, skipped past those tedious tales at the front, and turned further into the book, while the scholar beside him leaned closer and pointed to the corners of certain pages or the inconspicuous spots in the gutters between them. "Look here, and here... these patterns..."
"They look like some kind of heraldry... a shield-shaped border, thorns, a symbol of frost..." Sevin Terry's brow gradually furrowed. "Noble heraldry—high nobility—but the recorder deliberately distorted it, as though unwilling to reveal his identity. We need a heraldry scholar, or an expert in noble lineages."
"Mr. Berkelang has already examined these patterns, Your Eminence," the scholar said. "After reverse-reconstructing them according to the rules of heraldry, we confirmed that this is the emblem of the Vild family of the North."
"The Northern Duke?" Sevin's expression turned serious at once. "These pages were left by some member of the Vild family?"
"A rather central member, in fact—highly proficient in heraldry, and entitled to use the family arms freely. Moreover, we detected faint magical imprints in the pages—this parchment is six hundred years old, yet the magic in it has not fully dissipated, which means whoever left them may have been one of the earliest Northern Dukes!"
Sevin Terry could not suppress a low cry of astonishment: "Six hundred years?!"
"Yes, the alchemical reaction test surprised us as well—that they survived intact to this day under such poor storage conditions is a miracle in itself, though I imagine it has to do with the magic that still has not fully dispersed from the pages," the scholar nodded. "But although the pages are largely intact, the writing in them is badly worn and stained. We are trying to restore that."
"...Perhaps we should report this matter upward. Duchess Victoria would be interested in it," Sevin Terry let out a soft breath and nodded. "Also, can you trace where this book came from? I'm curious why it ended up here."
"Only in part. The collection records here show the book was presented by a small chapel in the southeast—it nearly fell victim to theft there, and afterward the local pastors decided it should no longer be kept in a small chapel and presented it to the Holy Frostbalance Church. Clearly, the book did not receive much attention after it was presented."
Listening to the report from the man beside him, Sevin Terry's brow furrowed slightly once more.
……
Wind rushed past her ears; the summer sky stretched high and wide. A dim black shadow leaped from rooftop to rooftop, and at last came to rest on a bell tower in the mages' quarter, where a figure slowly emerged from the shadows: Amber.
The "half-elf" girl sat on the outer ledge of the bell tower in a posture that looked perilous to outsiders, enjoying the pleasant breeze, gazing down over Xuanque City with a smile.
She loved this feeling of leaping between rooftops, though the reason was not the "occupational hazard that cannot be cured" that Gaoyang liked to tease her about. What she truly loved was the openness and freedom she felt in the act of leaping—an endless sky overhead, the wind rushing past her ears. That feeling might make many people's hearts clench with fear, yet for some inexplicable reason it put Amber at ease, and she savored it.
She had never before wondered whether there was some reason behind this preference, but now, thinking it over carefully, she thought it was perhaps because for a long time she had lived in a dark, sealed place that never saw the light of day...
Compared with the monotonous Shadow Realm, this color-rich "present world" was far more interesting.
Amber opened her little satchel and took out the assorted snacks she habitually hoarded, spreading them out on the narrow ledge outside the bell tower, and began to enjoy this rare moment of leisure (and slacking off).