"Those decisions will not be easy.  The archives...there might be something, but I have no idea where to begin looking.  Rodion and I would sneak down there sometimes, when we could get away with it."  A flicker of a smile crossed Ziotea's face as she remembered the hours down among the stacks, alone save for each other and things so old the dust stung her nose when they disturbed them.  "I never came across anything like this, and really...I don't know if the church would care to keep them around.  To say there was an appetite that exceeded Lord Varya's treads close to heresy."  The gentleness in her expression faded, turning cold, and she twisted the haft of her spear in her hand.

"I don't know what I believe," she admitted at last, not liking to sound uncertain but finding no better answer.  "I can't dismiss this out of hand, but there's too many questions still unanswered for me to accept it.  But even if it isn't true, we would do well to learn all we can before leaving, now that we've begun -- especially if we need to deal with the three upstairs as well."  She glanced around, tapping a gauntleted finger on her spear before adjusting her grip and swinging the point downwards as she turned to go.  "I'm going to find the boy, and see where we'll be sleeping.  I mean to talk to Rose after."  She paused, glancing over her shoulder.  "If we were guided here, it was Leviathan's Aspect that did it.  ...You should know, Father Oren, I don't see any of this as my heritage.  I am Varyan because that is who claimed me.  Lanostre is the ones that abandoned me, but Omestris...Omestris is the heritage that was nothing but a curse.  I am not one of you."  She faced away and headed off.