Page 139 of A Liar's Twisted Tongue

We’re trudging through the dirty hallway for miles, both our footsteps silent, as is our breathing, until we come along a large, circular door against the wall of dirt. The same steel as the door of the weapons facility.

Calista turns a knob and it lifts up, then she grabs my hand and pulls me through. The room is brighter than the hallway—not by much—and bigger than I would’ve expected from the outside. It’s three times the size of our suites, with a chipping wooden table that seats twelve in the middle of the room and old purple cushions on all the tall chairs. The walls are filled with shelves that hold books and maps of every world: including Soma.

Secrets, alright.

I pick up the first book that catches my attention while Calista wanders farther into the room. It’s only a history book, and the most intriguing part of it at first is that it’s dated seventy-eight AA. Seventy-eight years after the Arcanian War and subsequently the burning of the Irisan Archives.

Opening the book, I find that it was written by Soman Scholars. Highly educated Lucents who were still trying to piece together the history that was lost, even though I’ve been under the understanding that they gave up by fifty-six AA.

Flipping through the book, there is a name I see repeated. Mial. There is no last name, or any correlation to what the name means. The scholars only know that the name was riddled across the universe. By page two hundred, I find that Mial is the reason for the belief that going to the void takes your existence with you, leaving you forgotten.

It was the only explanation the scholars could devise.

“Lucian!” Calista whispers. Setting the book down, I walk to the back of the room. “This is where I found the map. And remember, this is your problem.” She glances at me sideways. “Not mine.”

“This is soon to be everyone’s problem.” I’ve never seen this iteration of the map of Lorucille. Locations of power are littered everywhere, in every continent and mountain peak. More soldier training camps than they’ve ever reported. More welding and mining villages too.

They must’ve been planning for a war for decades.

“How many meetings do you sit in on?” I ask Calista.

“I’m a princess. No more than a glorified trophy here.” I see the spite in her eyes.

“None?” I surmise.

“None,” she says bitterly.

She has no idea what this map means. I always knew they viewed the woman differently here, though I didn’t know it was that different. Lilac sits in for every Soman meeting. I can’t decide whether to burst her bubble now or later. Perhaps later, since we still have to get out surreptitiously.

“When you found out about the weapon the first time, what did you find?” I ask.

“I only saw it on the map.”

“No plan?”

“All you asked for was a location.” I can tell she’s still bitter about the circumstances by her tone.

“Look for anything pertaining to the weapon.” Within a moment, I’m scurrying through the maps and papers and books on this side of the room. Calista clears her throat, and I look up to see her arms crossed over her chest. Relenting, I say, “Please.”

She rolls her eyes at me. “So much for not taking my autonomy,” she mutters, going about a shelf of books on the other end of the room.

Most of the books aren’t titled anything, seeming to be nothing more than handwritten journals and accounts of earlier wars. Still, I skim through them all. Book after countless book until my eyelids droop and my shoulders grow sore.

I can’t leave here with nothing.

The Hidden Powers is one of the few titled books I come across. As such, I do more than skim, to find that Lucent powerists on Soma had been working on multiplying the Soul Stones. This goes against every single belief held by Zola.

There is a reason for the six stones of each of the six main planets. They were tampering with Zola’s balance.

The Soul Ruby is repeated—it’s the Soul Stone that they worked to maximize. They would break pieces off the original and grow them bigger. Slowly eroding the original until they had nothing but less powerful, smaller pieces.

More harrowing, the Soul Ruby was the main component of the creation of the void.

What if that is what Isa meant? They wanted to use the Soul Ruby to destroy the universe it created, and they never could because it’s been abraded.

I hear a footstep, then another, and my head snaps to the entrance of the room. A woman appears, her eyes growing wide when she sees us. The seal of Lorucille is on her shirt, but there is no distinct marker of her ranking.

I have her ankles wrapped in shadows before she can take a step.

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