“I was just told to take this back to archives by Yilik the drafter,” she explains, holding up the wrapped tablet.

“Ah yes, Yilik. He’s an immensely talented artist, but he doesn’t think much beyond his canvas.”

Rather than taking the tablet away from her, Edger reaches out and pulls back a corner of the cloth covering it.

Dyeawan can’t help but look. It is indeed a stone tablet, carved and still retaining the aspect of long-faded paint. The corner he reveals exposes the eye and gills of a fish, much like the koi Yilik was incorporating into his port archway. He must’ve been using the tablet for reference.

“Well then,” Edger says, tucking the corner of the cloth back in place. “We’d better return it as ordered.”

“Are you sure?” Dyeawan asks, returning the bundle to her tender.

“You heard me tell Oisin there’s not a corner of this place forbidden to you. I meant that.”

Dyeawan smiles, choosing to hear the truth in his words and ignoring whatever he’s obviously leaving out.

Spinning her tender around, she waits for Edger to take the lead, and together they climb the stairs and ascend the last ramp in the Planning Cadre.

There are no corridors on the twelfth level. Neither are there the archways of the maps level. The highest plateau of the structure is one gargantuan warehouse, its ceiling stretching higher than any other in the Cadre. Panes of glass fill rectangular windows high up in that vaulted stratum, allowing sunlight to pour in over every inch of the vast space and its contents.

Dyeawan smells age and dust as the sight of enough ancient artifacts to fill ten Capitol museums immediately overwhelms her. Although one thing is apparent right away: None of these artifacts are from Crache. Nothing about her surroundings speaks of the Capitol or Crachians as a people.

She sees triptychs of mighty battles featuring dozens upon dozens of soldiers on each panel, fighting with sword and bow and arrow. There are oil paintings that tower over even Edger at full height, renderings of kings and queens resplendent in silken finery and jeweled crowns. There are stone sculptures of powerful generals in military uniforms and even full battle armor. There are rows upon rows of books, ancient volumes and tomes that could break rocks with their spines.

Dyeawan rolls past monoliths of stone and tablets ten times the size of the one on her lap. They’re all carved with characters from a language she doesn’t recognize. Though she never learned to read beyond simple wayfinding signs in the city, it’s definitely not Crachian writing. It must’ve been important to someone, however, to be immortalized in such grandeur and in such a lasting way.

It finally occurs to her that’s what she’s looking at; it’s history, the history of an entire people she’s never seen or even heard of before.