Under The Veil Chapter 4: Chapter - 4: Who is brother?

Read chapter 4 of Under The Veil by Phoenixfly_steller on NovelPedia.

Chapter - 4: Who is brother? The hollow ache in his stomach tightened again, a sharp, biological demand from a body he did not own. But Agastya ruthlessly shoved the hunger aside, locking it away in the back of his mind. Physical discomfort was a minor inconvenience. He moved toward the heavy wooden counter. His footsteps were perfectly silent out of pure, ingrained habit. His brown eyes were locked entirely on the object waiting under the dim light. It was a thick diary, bound in dark, weathered brown leather. The surface was scuffed, scratched, and worn soft at the corners. It shows the mapping out of years of constant handling by its previous owner. Wrapped tightly around its centre was an old, coarse jute ribbon, knotted firmly to keep the covers bound shut. It sat there like a locked vault, holding the quiet weight of a confession. Agastya stopped at the edge of the counter. He hesitated for a fraction of a second. Curiosity was a dangerous, often fatal trait in his line of work, but right now, it was his only compass. He reached out with hands that belonged to someone unknown or likely to be the man he was in. His fingertips brushed against the rough, bristly texture of the jute. Slowly, with the deliberate, agonising precision he usually reserved for disarming a tripwire, he worked the frayed knot loose. The stiff ribbon finally gave way, slipping off the diary and dropping to the wooden counter with a faint, dry rustle. Agastya rested his palm flat against the leather cover, feeling the subtle, worn indentations in the material. Then, taking a slow breath, he pulled it open. The stiff spine let out a faint, cracking groan. A single, pale yellow page came into view beneath the lamplight. The paper was incredibly dry. Its edges were brittle, jagged, and deeply discoloured by the slow burn of time. As the book opened, it released the distinct, heavy scent of old dust, dry air, and faded ink. The page looked ancient, far older than the bakery, and perhaps far older than the man whose body Agastya now inhabited. Agastya’s eyes locked onto the first page. There were no complex cyphers, no clockwork diagrams, and no intricate introductions greeting him. There was only a single line of text resting dead centre on the yellowed paper. It was written in large, ornate calligraphy, styled in heavy, sweeping typography that belonged to the previous century. The ink was not faded. It was a thick, deep black, formulated from crushed iron gall and soot, looking as though it had been stamped into the brittle paper by a heavy industrial press. ‘The Last Book of House Esrala.’ It was a surname. Agastya stood perfectly still, his eyes narrowing as his mind instantly began to sift through the vast, dark archives of his memory. As a high-tier assassin operating in the shadows of the empire. He was required to know every player on the board. He knew the royal bloodlines of the old nobles, the wealthy merchant barons who controlled the steam railways. The names of the Empire officers who ran the colonial docks, and the ruthless crime syndicates that ruled the smog-choked slums. But ‘Esrala?’ The name yielded nothing. It sounded ancient, carrying a heavy, aristocratic weight, yet it was completely absent from the underworld ledgers. The fact that a master assassin had never heard of a "House" powerful enough to wield reverse-entropy powers sent a cold, sharp spike of unease down his stolen spine. He moved his hand, his calloused fingertips extending to grip the dry edge of the stiff paper. He needed to see the next page. He needed to know what House Esrala had left behind. But just as his thumb brushed the parchment to turn the leaf, the atmosphere inside the bakery violently shifted. He felt it in his bones before he heard it. A sudden, massive drop in barometric pressure sucked the air from his lungs and made his ears pop painfully, exactly like a steam train plunging into a deep subterranean tunnel. The hairs on his arms stood on end, prickl