I Thought I Was Collecting Systems, Not Overpowered Wives

Chapter 64: Saga 64: What the Heart Remembers

They convened again the following morning, exhaustion evident on every face after a night spent processing both the attack and its unsettling revelations. Ari sat curled in a chair near the window, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders despite the mild morning warmth, staring out at the cathedral grounds below with an unfocused, distant expression.

"You don’t have to talk about it if you’re not ready," Kael said, settling into the chair beside her.

"I want to, actually. Might help to say it out loud rather than just turning it over endlessly in my head." Ari pulled the blanket tighter around herself.

"He used to tell me stories, you know. Before training sessions, to help me relax. Stories about ancient heroes, forgotten kingdoms, the kind of things a lonely child desperately needed to hear."

"He sounds like he genuinely cared, at the time."

"He did. Or I believed he did, which felt the same thing to a scared eight-year-old suddenly thrust into ceremonial expectations she barely understood.

" Ari’s voice wavered slightly. "Then one day, he simply wasn’t there anymore. Nobody explained why. I assumed, eventually, that he’d grown tired of me, or found the assignment beneath him. I never imagined he’d left to become the leader of an organization dedicated to killing me."

"People change," Kael said carefully. "Or maybe he was always more complicated than the kind mentor you remember.

Sometimes both things can be true at once."

Sylvia entered partway through the conversation, having spent the morning coordinating with the Church’s investigators combing through the archive for additional clues. "The masked figures left minimal evidence, unfortunately, consistent with everything we already suspected about Umbra Black’s methods. But we did recover this."

She produced a small, tarnished pendant, clearly old, engraved with a symbol Kael didn’t immediately recognize.

Ari’s breath caught the moment she saw it, reaching out with trembling fingers to take it from Sylvia’s palm. "This was his. Vane’s. He wore this every single day I knew him, always tucked beneath his robes."

"Any idea what it means?" Kael asked.

"It’s a old symbol for a organization called the Hollow Choir," Ari said slowly, turning the pendant over in her hands. "A splinter faction from generations ago that believed the Church had strayed too far from its founding principles, that its embrace of political power had corrupted whatever divine purpose it once served."

"You think Vane’s using Umbra Black to resurrect that old ideology?" Sylvia asked.

"Maybe. Or maybe it’s something more personal than ideology alone." Ari clutched the pendant tightly, something fierce and sad mixing in her expression. "Either way, I think it’s time I stopped simply reacting to whatever Umbra Black throws at us, and started actively figuring out exactly what Vane truly wants. If I understand his goal, maybe I can find a way to end this without losing anyone else."

"We’ll help however we can," Kael said, meaning it fully.

Ari looked up at him, something warm and grateful breaking through the lingering grief. "I know. That’s precisely why I think we’re going to get through this, together, whatever else Vane still has planned."

Sylvia, who’d been quietly studying the pendant’s engraved symbol, finally spoke up. "I’d like to send word to Claire about this. Her research into ward theory touched on several old Church splinter organizations during her deep dive into the Sleeping Ruin archives.

If the Hollow Choir left any documented trace in Reinburg’s records, she might recognize the connection faster than we could working from Songrel alone."

"Good idea," Kael said. "The more perspectives on this, the better."

"I’ll also want to speak with the Cardinal again," Ari added, tucking the pendant carefully into a pocket rather than wearing it visibly.

"If Vane once held significant standing within the Church, there may be others who remember him well enough to shed light on what actually happened during his disappearance. Colleagues, former students, anyone who might know something the official records don’t capture."

"Careful, though," Sylvia cautioned. "If Vane truly commands an organization this patient and thorough, there’s a real possibility some of those old colleagues remain loyal to him even now. Trust cautiously."

"Noted." Ari managed a tired smile, some of her earlier fire returning despite the exhaustion weighing on all of them.

"Whatever it takes, I intend to understand exactly what drove someone I once trusted completely to become the person who sent assassins after me last night. Maybe understanding won’t change anything. But I’d rather face this with clarity than confusion."

Kael watched her, something quietly admiring settling in his chest at her resolve despite everything she’d endured in less than a week. Whatever came next in this fight against Umbra Black, he found himself increasingly certain that Ari would meet it with considerably more strength than anyone, himself included, had initially given her credit for.

"Then let’s get to work," he said. "Starting with those archives the Cardinal promised."

The three of them settled around the small table in Ari’s chambers, the thin folder of records spread open between them, and for the next several hours, they worked through every fragment of documentation the Church had retained on Cardinal Malrick Vane—his early career, his rapid rise through ecclesiastical ranks, and the curiously sparse details surrounding his sudden, unexplained departure fifteen years prior.

"There’s a gap here," Sylvia observed, tracing a finger along a timeline Kael had sketched based on the scattered records.

"Nearly six months before his disappearance where almost nothing is documented. No assignments, no correspondence, nothing."

"That’s unusual for someone in his position," Ari said, frowning at the gap herself. "The Church documents everything, usually to an almost obsessive degree."

"Which suggests someone deliberately removed those records afterward," Kael said. "Whatever happened during those six months, someone wanted it erased."

Ari closed the folder slowly, expression troubled.

"Then that’s where we need to look next. Whatever changed him, whatever turned my old teacher into the leader of Umbra Black, I suspect the answer’s hidden somewhere in those missing six months." Her voice was subtle pink eyes filled worry. It was obvious this carried more weight than she let out.

—

End of Chapter—