Manes was a liar.
Cassian sat on the edge of his narrow wooden bed. listening to the morning birds chirping outside and the whole forest singing its dawn chorus, when he came to this definitive conclusion.
Manes had claimed he was completely fine last night, standing on the grass like some invincible old guardian. But the truth was clear now: Manes couldn't even muster the strength to wake up early. He was a lying old fraud.
It had probably taken almost every single drop of reserve energy he had just to stand in that doorway and sound strong for five minutes. All that bravado had evaporated the moment he sat back down inside. Despite all of Cassian's attempts to get him to lie back down and rest, the stubborn old man had insisted on sitting up to talk, only to pass right out the moment his head touched the pillow again.
Cassian let out a bitter breath and reached for the desk beside him. He picked up the heavy grimoire and slowly flipped through its rough, yellowed pages.
Dea still wouldn't talk to him about the text itself. In fact, she had become noticeably more adamant now that Manes had woken up. We'll talk about the book when you finally learn something useful from the old man, she had told him with that immovable tone of hers.
She was still a pain. Always had been, and it was beginning to seem like she always would be.
Cassian stared down at the dense, incomprehensible script running across the paper. If Dea was going to keep him out of the main prize, he would just have to find a backdoor.
"You can't tell me anything about the Mark," he said, speaking aloud into the quiet cabin, "but you can answer basic questions, right?"
"It depends entirely on what the question is," Dea's voice echoed in his mind.
"Good enough." Cassian held the open book up toward his face and pointed his index directly at a specific, recurring set of characters. He couldn't understand the full syntax, but after days of looking, he found that these exact character combinations appeared in every single one of the book's seven subsections.
"What does this word mean?"
Dea didn't answer right away, but when she did, she replied with a single word.
"Talos."
Cassian blinked. "Talos?"
"Yes."
"The same Talos the old man keeps quoting?"
"The exact same one."
Cassian paused, his fingers tightening against the leather binding. What he was hearing made no sense. He had assumed the old gaffer was just spouting quotes from some dead philosopher or an obscure military general.
"I thought he was just a historical figure," Cassian muttered, his mind racing. "What is his name doing scattered all over a book about ancient Marks?"
"Because he was a bearer of one of the Seven."
Cassian froze. The morning air felt cold, like a gust of wind had blown in the room.
A bearer of the Seven? Someone who had held a piece of the exact same rare power sitting on the back of Cassian's hand right now?
"Which one?" Cassian demanded instantly. "Which Mark did he carry?"
"And how would that be relevant to you right now?" Dea countered dryly. "You don't even know what any of the Seven Marks actually do."
"Well, since it's so completely irrelevant," Cassian pushed, narrowing his eyes, "you could just tell me."
"I don't think I will," she replied sharply, her tone leaving no room for negotiation. "You have two more questions, Cassian. After those, I will not be answering anything else for the rest of the day."
Two questions was barely enough to scrape the surface, but arguing with her when she drew a line was a waste of breath. He had to be careful with how he used his questions.
He leaned back against the wooden headboard, staring at the ceiling as he weighed his options. He needed actionable intelligence, something that could help him survive.
"Okay," Cassian said slowly. "Question two: What did Talos actually do?"
"He was a great Mark user, and an even greater warrior."
Dea went silent. Cassian waited, holding his breath for a few seconds, expecting her to elaborate on his grand conquests or maybe his martial techniques.
Nothing followed.
"That's it?" Cassian scoffed, annoyance flaring in his chest. "Nothing more? That's barely a sentence!"
"One more question, Cassian."
Scheming thief. She had never planned on answering his questions honestly or thoroughly in the first place, but he supposed he shouldn't be too surprised. That was her nature. Give him just enough meat to keep him hungry, but withhold the real sustenance.
"Fine," Cassian snapped, running a hand over his tired face. "But you have to actually answer this one. Not some vague rubbish."
He paused, deliberating carefully over his final query. He needed to understand the mechanics of success. If a bearer of the Seven had built a legacy big enough to end up in books and philosophy quotes, there had to be a practical reason for it.
"What made Talos so strong?" Cassian asked finally. "What made him superior?"
Dea's presence shifted in his mind, taking on a slightly more serious weight.
"He had talent unlike any other," she explained, her voice echoing clearly. "His fundamental understanding of divine energy was bizarre, almost unnatural. He possessed an innate aptitude for manipulating it, and more importantly, he had the relentless, hardworking nature required to push that talent far past its absolute limits."
Cassian waited, but once again, the flow of information abruptly cut off.
"That's it?"
"Yes. That is it."
Cassian let out a long, heavy sigh, slumping his shoulders. She hadn't given him what he really wanted.
He wanted tactical secrets, practical applications, or hidden mechanics he could exploit. He should have known he couldn't outsmart her with simple questions.
He closed the grimoire with a dull, hollow thud and tossed it onto the desk.
"Since you're sulking so badly," Dea's voice chimed in again, carrying a subtle, mocking lilt, "I'll add a little bonus."
Cassian didn't bother moving from his spot on the bed "I'm listening."
"Talos wasn't strong just because of his raw power alone, " she said softly. "He had allies. People he could trust without hesitation who helped him along the way."
Cassian let out a short, humorless laugh. She had to be joking. Allies? Trust? In a world where his own empire wanted him executed and every shadow could be a potential bounty hunter, she was offering him empty parables about friendship. That was completely worthless information. More useless than all the others intact.
"Sure," Cassian responded, his voice thick with sarcasm as he picked up his wooden practice sword from beside the bed. "I'll definitely keep that in mind."
"You should," Dea replied quietly,
"Because you might need an ally far sooner than you think."