Kael looked around, absently turning a key in his hand.
The grass really was greener on the other side.
He had passed through the fourth layer fairly quickly. It was beautiful in its own right. Men and women there always put on their best clothes when going about their day, and there was a great deal of business. Not nearly what layers one to three had, but the quality was on another level.
There was probably more to it, but that wasn't what held his attention now. The fifth layer was.
Here, Luminaires had dropped the prestige act entirely, wearing ordinary coats and enjoying cheap food. The requirement for entry was to be rank four or five, or an exception like Kael, so everyone already knew how capable their peers were.
Because of those requirements the streets stood close to empty, and the houses lining them remained dark.
That wasn't the whole reason, though. From what Kael understood of Jian's words, rank fours and fives rarely stayed in one place, driven by their own journeys to advance and a desire for independence. There was also the matter of safety. Sole had clear rules against mote abuse, but the world contained endless motes, and no law could account for all of them. For their own protection, many high-ranking Luminaires simply avoided one another.
Kael eyed the passing streetlights as he walked toward the centre. They were cast iron, each engraved by an artisan and holding a glowing mote.
He paused in front of a brick building with climbing plants stretching over every open surface.
Kael glanced at the key.
"Must be my house."
The door opened silently. He stepped inside and removed his boots, letting his fingers brush the silk of a chair as he ventured into the living room. It was furnished to match the rest of the house with royal green silk and draped surfaces.
He placed the key on the table and flopped onto the couch, staring at the chandelier.
This hadn't been part of his plan for Sole, but it wasn't a problem. He'd just have to adapt a little. That was why he rarely made absolute plans, leaving room for improvisation.
He tossed the silver coin into the air, his mind drifting.
'So I'm advancing, according to Darian. But how do I know how far along I am?'
Until now advancement had always felt vague. But now, knowing his inner realm was gradually growing more alive, even if he couldn't tell how close he was, he could estimate how far he had come from where he started. It gave him a clear sign that he was progressing.
He caught the coin and moved into his inner realm.
It was somewhat regrettable that he hadn't documented what he had learned more carefully. Of course, he knew what he knew because he had learned it himself. But had he recorded it, he could have catalogued exactly what made him advance and structured his cultivation around that.
Kael crouched beside the river and studied a small bluebell poking up from his Soul.
He waved a hand through it and watched it scatter into thousands of silver specks, then slowly drift back into shape.
This was his latest progression, or whatever one called it. A plant formed from his excess Thoughts, condensed into something new. He couldn't help but wonder if it had taken the shape of a bluebell because it reflected his Soul. They were his favourite flower, after all.
He raised a hand and whipped it forward.
The river shook violently and exploded into a million drops around him like a rainfall of blood.
Kael pulled one of the scattered drops to his fingertip and watched the tranquil ruby rotate in slow and uneven spins.
He was far from fully understanding it, but one of the books he had raided from the Valthorne library mentioned something besides Luminaire rank: attainment.
Luminaires used it to better understand their own standing. It wasn't carved in stone what it meant to have novice or master attainment in a pathway, but you could sense it once you knew it existed. At the moment he rested at the lowest level, novice attainment, in almost every pathway, refinement being the exception.
But what was it really?
In actuality, attainment was the same as talent. You were born with a certain level of it, though it wasn't fixed. It was the intuitive understanding of one's pathway, and the deeper it ran, the faster you advanced. It was directly linked to deepening one's knowledge.
Then came advancement itself, or rather, what it meant to rank up.
When he had advanced early on from rank one, one of the first things he had noticed was how much the current had increased. Wasn't it fair to assume that was because his inner realm had become more influenced by the Heavens? The river's sound at rank three had been so blatantly obvious that it was only then that it had really caught his attention, but the stronger current in his earlier ranks? The river of Will expanding? Those too had been the Heavens influencing him.
So advancing wasn't as simple as deepening one's knowledge. If anything, thinking so had been an insane oversimplification. What really happened was that somewhere along his journey his inner realm had opened to the outside, letting the Heavens in, changing the environment and making him more one with them, which had led to advancement.
Where did the line stand? How much more one with the Heavens did a person have to become to rank up? He couldn't answer that fully yet, but it appeared that, at the lower ranks at least, one ranked up when the current of one's river of Will reached a certain strength.
He withdrew his consciousness and sat up on the couch with a yawn.
Something he hadn't felt in ages stirred inside him.
Bored. He was bored.
As a new member of the High Council, it was a given that they would watch him closely. So to avoid stirring any suspicion, he had decided to do nothing any time he was in the fifth layer, which left him to do unusually mundane things.
Lumi landed on his shoulder, tilting her head as he stepped outside.
"I'm getting restless," Kael said, feeding her a piece of bread.
He crossed the road to an identical house, raised his hand, and knocked three times.
Syleena opened the door and stared at him with a deadpan expression.
"What do you want?"
"Coffee?"
With a sigh, she stepped aside and let him in.
They both sat on the balcony with steaming cups in their laps, watching the gentle breeze play with the leaves.
"Wasn't this forest made to honour someone?" Kael asked.
"Ehh. Kind of. Or not really." Syleena shrugged. "It's one of the oldest forests on the western continent, if not the oldest. It's only a fraction of what it was millennia ago, but it holds up. It's actually a funny story. Early Luminaires needed quality wood for houses and boats, but they were so unlucky."
"How so?"
"Out of all the trees they could have chosen, they picked a close relative of the titan trees."
Kael studied one. They were much shorter than the ones in the Titan Woods, but they radiated the same ancient air. "What's funny about that?"
Syleena blinked, not realising she had let out a small chuckle. "Well. They only recently matured enough to harvest."
Kael sipped and followed her gaze back to the trees.
"I suppose that's a little funny."
"So, do you have any plans for the meeting coming up?" she asked.
"Just to lay low and stay out of the spotlight."
Syleena brushed a few strands of hair from her face. "Doing brilliantly in that regard, aren't you?"
A short silence stretched. "Did you get in contact with Aurelion?"
"I did. And he was awfully quick with it too. How did you find someone like that?"
Kael emptied his cup and placed it on the table. "He was hired to kill me."
"I should have guessed..." Syleena murmured.
Kael's eyes wandered across the stars as he walked out of the first layer. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a silver pocket watch, ornate with an amethyst lilac encircling its rim.
"Two hours left."