[I think this week will just have to be shorter pieces for a while as I’m insanely busy, but at least 300+ words!]

Lighting a candle, I looked around for the indexing marked on several bookshelves. Spells, History, Religion, Politics, Astronomy… that’s the one. I worked my way into the aisle containing Astronomy and related texted. Now came the problem. I had no idea what I was looking for.

“Star signs?” I mused out loud, taking a giant tome that was bigger than my head and set in down on a nearby book stand. Looking through it, the text seemed to cover more astrological topics, dealing with constellations and birth years. Not so useful. I picked up a scroll on astral charting.

After several hours more of sorting, I was no closer than when I had begun. Maybe she lied to you? Ikiru asked, sounding almost as discouraged as I was.

“I have a feeling, it has to be here. I’m not seeing it.” I replied, impatient.

Take a break, get some air.  I feel stifled in here. Even though I was loathed to disagree I knew it was good advice. Picking up the candle that had burned low, I returned to the front desk to find the monk at it still sleeping. Leaving the candle there I stepped outside into the hot sticky evening light.

I had spent too much time on this. But I needed to know what they were planning. I looked up at the sky which was clearer now, the rain of the past few days had finally begun to blow away and I could see more of the stars overhead. A monk with long hair walked past me into the library. I saw several others milling about the Temple complex. How much longer did I have to solve this? Was Saito really behind the murders? If not what was he planning?

So many things spinning in my mind with no answers. I took another look at the sky. Having read books and scrolls about the stars for so long I tried to find a few constellations that I had seen. One of the texts had said they were deities, and while recently that seemed possible, but somehow unlikely. I traced out the golden wheel that marked the seasons. It was near mid-summer, around the time of the change in the solstice. One had said that you could predict the entire year’s crops by the rain around the solstice and the spinning of the golden wheel. I looked for the highest point and… wait. That was it.