"Am I supposed to achieve inner peace or something?"

Barley glared at Archie. Archie didn't know Barley knew how to glare.

"You said you wanted to experience our culture," Barley whispered. "The only way to do that is to submit yourself."

Archie looked around the plaza. There had to have been three hundred people kneeling, Archie, Barley, and Sutton in the middle of them all. The Khalyans mimed scooping from the ground into their mouth, bowed toward the Monastery until their heads touched the colored carpets they kneeled on, then mimed scooping from their mouth to the ground, then prostrated again before repeating the process.

Chefs walked between the rows, swinging metal censers by their chain, pale red incense spilling out and spreading in a thin layer of fog across the ground. When the Khalyans scooped their hands into their mouths, they inhaled the fog, blowing it out when they reversed the process.

The people chanted something, but Archie couldn't understand it.

"Ambrosia bara hadhum om. Om bara hadhum Ambrosia," they chanted.

Every so often, a Chef would break through their overlapping murmurs. "Hala Bhasante!"

"Hala Bhasante!" the people echoed before returning to their chant.

"What's it mean?" Archie whispered, unsure whether to direct his question to Barley or to Sutton.

"It's hard to translate word-for-word," Barley answered. "Hadhum is…somewhere between the words for life and nourishment. And empowerment. So the phrase is, Ambrosia bara hadhum om. Ambrosia gifts nourishment to me."

Barley scooped the red fog into his mouth and bowed. With his forehead resting on his carpet, he looked at Archie with raised eyebrows. Archie did his best to repeat the phrase, mimicking Barley's scooping. He breathed in a bit of fog, wincing at the taste of metal and seawater as he bowed down to his carpet. Something floral had been added to the incense, but it wasn't strong enough to prevent the aftertaste of iron and salt.

Barley rose back up to his knees and scooped from his mouth to the ground. "Om bara hadhum Ambrosia. I gift nourishment to Ambrosia."

Archie lifted himself and breathed out into his hands, expelling a bit of the red fog. "Om…bara…had..hum? Ambrosia."

Archie bowed at the same time as Barley. He looked over at Sutton, who half-heartedly bowed with them while fishing a book out of his inner jacket pocket—a pocket that only Sutton had sewn.

"Om bara hadhum Ambrosia," Barley chanted as he repeated the process. Archie mirrored him, going just a second later to make sure he had the pronunciation right.

"Barley," Sutton whispered as he half-bowed. "In this context, is Ambrosia the person or the land?"

"They are the same thing. We believe that Ambrosia was not born from a human. She was created from the earth. When she died, she just returned to her original state."

"Hmmm," Sutton moaned in mild protest.

"You think they're wrong?" Archie asked.

Sutton winced. "Wrong is…too strong of a word. Let's say that I have a preference in believing that Ambrosia was a human like anyone else. Well, not like—you get it. Otherwise where was Ambrosial essence before her birth? And…"

Sutton pushed his glasses up and chuckled, embarrassed at himself. "I like the dramatism of her sacrifice. Feeding yourself to the earth for a better future that you won't be a part of is…more godly than returning home."

"What do you believe, Barley?" Archie asked.

"Ambrosia bara hadhum om." Barley bowed and rose again. "I believe in the message. As we take, we must give. That is how the world persists. Om bara hadhum Ambrosia."

"Om bara hadhum Ambrosia," Archie echoed. He groaned as he bowed. He had been at Buart's every day for a week, and chopping wood had made him sore in muscles he hadn't even known existed. Most of the day, he chose to pick up yak dung instead of chopping wood. He had already gotten so used to the odor that he barely smelled anything other than grass.

"Hala Bhasante!" a Chef yelled as he swung his censer between Archie and Barley.

"Hala Bhastante!" Barley chanted.

"Hala Bhasante!" Archie echoed. He hadn't even really meant to, but the energy of the assembly had gotten to him. He waited for the Chef to walk out of earshot. "What does that mean?"

"It's…Not quite saying bless our leader. Empower our leader? Give to our leader?" Barley shook his head and shrugged. "It's representative of us giving essence to the Bhante."

"That's your…spiritual leader, right? A Chef?"

Barley pointed from Archie's mouth up to the Monastery. "Follow the incense."

Archie blew out the fog and tracked it with his eyes. It joined the rest of the fog in a little current that wove through the masses toward the Monastery, where it thinned into a single stream, barely visible, up and up and up into one of the wooden spires of the Monastery.

"It goes to the Bhante?"

Barley nodded. "It carries some of your essence to him. Everyone's essence. And then he uses it to provide for the people."

"How?"

"Do you mean how does our essence go to him or how does he use it?"

"Well…both."

Barley chuckled. "Beyond the use of incense, I don't know how the magic works that gives him our essence. As for how he uses it…My understanding is that it's mostly duplication."

"That's right," Sutton said. Barley shot him a confused look. "It's in the distribution logs. He effectively doubles the food output of the Khaldeer valley."

"Have you ever met him?" Archie asked Barley.

Barley finished another series of chants before answering, his wandering eyes compelling Archie to do the same. "He's not the meeting type. He only speaks with a few Chefs and does most of his work from the Monastery."

"Have you ever seen him?"

Barley shook his head. "He only leaves his quarters once or twice a year. The Bhantla, though, she's the more…public-facing one."

"But she's not as powerful as him?" To Archie, getting familiar with Khalyan culture meant understanding its hierarchy of power.

"Archie," he chuckled. "That's…The kind of power they have…For us to talk about it is the mouse wondering if the bear or the tiger is stronger."

"They're both White Jackets, right?"

"That's right."

"Are there any others in Khala?"

"No." Barley looked back to the Monastery with renewed focus, ending the questions. "Ambrosia bara hadhum om. Om bara hadhum Ambrosia."

Archie smiled with hometown pride. Khala had two White Jackets, but Ambrosia City had three—even if the two Juliennes had been born in Labrusca and Grand King Flambé had been born in what was now Urokan Palm Coast, Archie still counted them as products of Ambrosia City.

"Hala Bhasante!" a Chef yelled.

"Hala Bhasante!" the crowd echoed, Archie just a half-second slower than the rest.

Listening to the chants made Archie feel guilty. He was obsessed with status. Ranks. Power. Reputation. Prestige. But the people around him were focused on the survival of their community.

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If saying the chants and breathing the incense helped them, then that's what Archie would do. Before dedicating himself to the worship, he took an errant glance at Sutton, who was frozen in a half-bow, leaning down to read a book that he had set on the ground.

Archie laughed to himself and took a deep breath. He scooped the incense into his mouth.

"Ambrosia bara hadhum om."

He bowed and raised himself again. He blew into his hands and returned the incense to the fog that rolled along the ground.

"Om bara hadhum Ambrosia."

He bowed and repeated the process again and again and again. At some point, his body was no longer sore, and his mind was cleared of thought. In a blissful trance, he submitted.

Despite being in Khaldeer for over a week, Archie still hadn't gotten used to how quickly it got dark. Even worse, the western wall of mountains blocked the sun an hour before true sunset. By the time Archie finished eating dinner, the sky had a dim purple glow, pink clouds soaking up the last of the light.

And then, even a couple hours later once everyone had retired to their rooms, Nori had still not returned. Archie sat in bed, practicing with his omnihandle, listening for her distinct footsteps in the hall—for as small as Nori was, she walked louder than Barley. Another hour passed, and he heard nothing.

He was worried about her. The first few days, she had been quiet and distant, something bothering her beneath her skin. But the last few days, she had been all smiles—too smiley for Nori—and came home reeking of fish and grime.

Figuring that he had just missed her footsteps, Archie went to her room to check, knocking on the door.

"Come in," someone called out.

Archie entered, but it was only Blanche.

"Oh, hi, Archie," she smiled as she sat in her bed brushing her long brown hair.

"Nori hasn't come back yet?" He kept his eyes fixed on Nori's empty bed.

Blanche pursed her lips and shook her head, her bangs swinging back and forth across her forehead. Archie must have looked concerned, because Blanche leaned forward and offered a comforting smile. "Don't worry about her. She's working at this orphanage down at the docks. She said she'd be late."

"Picea has her working this late?"

"No. It's Nori's doing. She's been a girl on a mission recently."

Archie winced and sighed. "She shouldn't be out at the docks when it's dark. It's dangerous."

Blanche scoffed, making the same sound as her brush as it ran through the knots in her hair. "Dangerous for whoever runs into her, maybe. She's still Nori."

"Heh. Yeah. Alright, well…" Archie started to move toward the door.

"You could hang out here with me." Blanche sat up and folded her legs sideways beneath her. "Just until Nori gets here."

And then Archie really looked at Blanche for the first time since he had come in. She must have just washed. Her face was clean of dirt—a rare thing—and her wet hair soaked the loose white nightgown that draped off her figure. Archie's jaw tensed. His heart raced. His mind raced faster. He caught himself and raised his eyes back up to her face. Her lips curled into a tight, mischievous smile.

And then they heard a door open down the hall, and Sutton's voice rang out. "Archie!"

The sound scrubbed Archie's mind clean, giving him the ability to swallow once more. He offered a bundle of awkward, misshapen words to Blanche as he pointed out the door and made his escape.

"Another time," Blanche cooed as Archie closed the door behind him.

Safely in the hallway, Archie took a second to regain his composure.

"Archie!" Sutton's head poked out from Archie's room. He waved a bundle of pamphlets. "Come here, come here!"

Sutton had laid out several books across Archie's bed. It wasn't the first time. Not even the second. Barley hadn't even sat up from his bed this time.

"What is it Sutton?"

"Ahaha!" Sutton waved his papers around like a madman. Despite the late hour, he had more energy than ever. "Ambrosia is the earth, and the earth is Ambrosia!"

By this point, Archie had learned that as much as Sutton loved to ramble, he often needed validating questions to get started. "I thought you didn't believe that?"

"I don't! But it got me thinking! I had read this book—remember how I was looking through times of great need in Khalyan history?" Sutton tapped his finger repeatedly on a hardcover book.

Archie waited for Sutton to read it, but he didn't oblige. Archie leaned in. "The Second War of Khalyan Independence? They had two wars for independence?"

"We've had three," Barley added. "Uroko can't take the hint."

"Yes, yes, that doesn't matter," Sutton said, prompting a raised eyebrow and annoyed look from Barley. "What does matter is the terms of reconciliation!"

Again, Sutton waited for the unneeded question. "And what were the terms?" Archie groaned.

"Well, there were a lot of standard things. But there was one…" Sutton flipped through the book and ran his finger along the words as he read aloud. "Khala must procure an acorn to provide unsho to Kodoloun."

"I don't know what half of those words mean."

"Kodoloun is a Urokan island. Often called the lone island due to its distance from the rest of the archipelago. Now, unsho…I didn't know what it meant the first time I read it. It didn't seem important, so I set it aside and forgot about it. But then! We got to talking about Ambrosia being the earth and the earth being Ambrosia and I remembered this sentence. So I looked it up."

Sutton closed the book and waved it at Archie, his eyebrows raised and his lips curled into a grin. "It's an ancient Urokan word for the manifestation of Ambrosial magic!"

Archie knew the routine well. He was still confused, but the revelation was coming. He just had to prod Sutton a little more. "So…they wanted to manifest an island?"

"Yes! Well, no." Sutton tilted his head side-to-side. "Technically, volcanos manifest islands. But yes, they wanted to make the island manifest."

Archie sighed at the semantics. "It's about time for you to make your point, Sutton."

"Archie, don't you see?!" Sutton's voice rang out in their room, his excitement prompting Barley to finally sit up. "Kodoloun was without essence!"

"And?"

"And now it's not!"

"And?"

Sutton took his glasses off with one hand and rubbed his eyes with the other. "Archie! Where are you from?"

"Sain."

Archie didn't understand the relevance. Sutton bobbed his head back and forth, waiting for Archie to connect the dots.

And then he realized what Sutton was saying.

"Sain!"

"Exactly!"

Archie's energy started to rise to match Sutton's franticism. "So Khala gave Uroko an acorn that turned a barren land into one full of essence?"

"Exactly!"

"And they could do the same for Sain!"

"Exactly!"

Archie couldn't believe it. For forty years, people had tried and failed to bring essence back to Sain. To reverse the damage done when Archie's Gluttonous grandfather had salted the land. That act had been the beginning of the end of Sain. The essence-deprived land could hardly grow anything. Chefs left for greener pastures. Those with the means to move away did so. Sain became a shell of its former self. A ghost town.

Sain only ever got to be as big as it did because of the Kents moving and starting Petrichor, but it had also been the Kents that caused the town's demise.

But now? A Kent could save it. Archie could bring prosperity back to his home. He could erase the black mark on his family's name.

He grabbed Sutton's shoulders in excitement, shaking him. "So where do we get this acorn?!"

Sutton laughed, gripping onto Archie to keep himself upright. "The grove!"

Archie stopped shaking Sutton. "The grove?"

"Remember the legend? The Labruscan ships?"

Archie's excitement started to wear off as he looked at Sutton with confusion. "Uh…"

Sutton slapped Archie's hands away and sighed. "Remember? The ships?"

Archie looked at Barley. Barley shrugged.

"Ugh!" Sutton paced as he ranted. "I told you, discoveries don't just happen! They're built brick by brick."

"Okay, okay," Archie said. He needed Sutton to calm down. He needed to know how to get the acorn. "So walk me through it, then."

Sutton walked over to Archie's bed and poked a pamphlet. "Labruscan Shipbuilders Society Konst Gestelt. There was a time when Labruscans built ships from a single duplicated stick."

He pointed at the next pamphlet. "The Legend of Khala's Grove. There's a myth that a grove of trees with immense amounts of essence grows in yeti territory. Barley?"

Archie and Sutton turned to Barley, but the Khalyan just shrugged. "I know the legend. I don't know if it's real or not."

Sutton laughed to himself in a little sinister giggle. He pointed at a large tome of a book. "Hando Diptla. The first queen. Tamani. She had some reconciliation terms of her own, you know? When she exiled the yetis to the northernmost mountains, she gave them a large portion of Ambrosia's ashes."

Sutton rubbed his hands together, then clenched them into little fists, then shook them. He grinded his teeth back and forth. "Don't you see? Each of these is a brick. And then this!" He tapped the final book, The Second War of Khalyan Independence. "This is the key!"

Archie laughed at Sutton's enthusiasm. "Wait, is knowledge a building or is it a lock?"

Sutton shook his hands high in the air and threw his head back. "Knowledge is everything!"

Archie and Barley laughed.

"An acorn that can provide Ambrosial essence to an entire island!" Sutton declared. "This all but confirms it! Ambrosia's ashes were meant to be spread, but the yetis must have hoarded them into a single place. That's why Khala has a lower concentration of essence than any other kingdom. Wherever those yetis kept those ashes, a grove grew. And it was a branch of one of these trees that they used in Labrusca. It was an acorn that they used in Kodoloun."

This time, it was Sutton's turn to grab Archie and shake him. The little bookworm bounced around the room, beating on Barley's shoulder, stacking up his books, doing a little dance.

For a while, Archie joined him. Even Barley laughed and clapped. But then Archie's emotions started to return to earth.

"Wait. So…how exactly are we going to get this acorn?"

"We're going to have to meet the Bhante."

Just as Archie started to grin, he heard the doorknob jostle.

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