Chapter 3

  The goblin nuts, after Vin had traded them for bronze on the Orkfield market with her uncanny efficiency, had yielded just enough to secure us four beds and enough food for three days in the village's shabby inn. It was a minimal, but vital, victory.

  We all slept quite close together in a single, small room. Two rooms would have been far too expensive, but it worked—necessity forged us together. However, I slept in my armor. The black armor was now hard and uncomfortable, but had I taken it off, there would have been little room left in the already cramped space when getting up. The smallness of the room was a constant, physical testament to our pitiful situation, but at least it was dry and safe.

  After the first day of rest, food, and necessary cleaning, it was time for strategy.

  We sat huddled around a small, wobbly wooden table, its surface covered in beer stains. On it lay a crude but functional map of the continent, which we had acquired from the tavern-savvy Arik.

  “Reyn’s first target,” I began in a confident and analytical voice, while the others listened intently. I forced myself to push aside the exhaustion and worry and focus entirely on Reyn’s logic. “After the fusion, he w a local warlord. He is a cosmic deity with a need for validation.”

  I emphasized my words with my hand on the map. “His first move will be to show the world his new, undeniable power. To set a sign that no one can ignore.”

  For that, I leaned slightly forward to stress the urgency, “He won’t attack a small realm. Not a weak territory, not an isolated city-state. That would be beneath his dignity and ineffective for his goal of total order.”

  Then I let my words sink in and paused briefly, just to make sure the others were keeping up and following my line of thought. Even though Vin was already dozing, her head resting on her folded arms. Arik stared intently at the map, while Maira guarded our meager food rations.

  “I believe he will attack a powerful but unstable kingdom. A realm that is fragmented, but strong enough to pose a challenge. One that, if it falls, triggers a domino effect across the entire continent.” I ran my finger over the map. “He needs a quick, symbolic victory with maximum political impact. He needs to show that no one is safe from his new order.”

  I searched for the right spot on the map, my finger pausing briefly. Finally, I pointed to a small but prominent blue spot with a complicated, irregular border, positioned between the North and East.

  “Caleon,” I said decisively. “The Black Woods. A power that is tearing itself apart. Ideal for Reyn’s purposes.”

  At that moment, Vin, who had been almost asleep, suddenly shot up. She flung her eyes wide open. Her face was deathly pale, and her body twitched with unexpected shock. The sleep had instantly vanished from her.

  “No!” she breathed, her voice barely a whisper of horror. “Not Caleon.”

  We looked up at her, I more bewildered than she was horrified. Her reaction was completely inappropriate. What did Wood Elves, whose affairs were usually confined to the borders of their forests, have to do with any princely houses in the distant East? To my knowledge, the population of the Black Woods and the heartland of Caleon was purely human. Only the South was a mixed bag of nobility and refugees of all kinds. Vin was a green anomaly in this equation.

  Finally, Arik asked arguably the simplest question. He broke the tense silence with the pure logic of a former city guard.

  “And… why not?”

  Vin’s cheeks immediately flushed red. It was a quick, deep blush of embarrassment that spread across her otherwise cool, elven skin. She wasn't trembling, nor was she genuinely panicking about an impending danger. She seemed more caught red-handed. Mortified. Or as if an uncomfortable, personal consequence awaited her there, one she would rather have avoided, a result of her own past.

  A very unpleasant suspicion quickly formed in my head. The emotional reaction of the usually so pragmatic Nature Mage was too strong and too specific for a simple political aversion. I didn't have time for games or sensitive inquiries. The apocalypse was knocking at the door.

  I decided to simply voice the suspicion.

  “You sold yourself to some prince, built his trust, then you had sex, and at the last moment, you ran off with all his money.”

  All eyes in the room—Arik, Maira, and the demon essence Gravor in me—stared at me in surprise. The accusation was so completely unexpected and brutally frank that it discharged all the strategic tension.

  Vin's fleeting, caught smile told me everything. It was a smile of mild guilt and wild memory. Finally, she simply nodded, opposition was futile. She explained dejectedly, but without real remorse:

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  “Yes… I was once in Caleon. And there…” she hesitated, her gaze wandering toward the window as if seeing the memory of the great human cities, but she knew she had no choice. “…I did a few things that were not, shall we say, elven.”

  Elven things, I thought bitterly. Elven things usually meant hugging trees or writing poems about the dew. That she had drawn her moral and cultural lines so specifically was indicative of the severity of the act.

  Seeing that we were waiting and her dry humor wasn't distracting us from the core information, she sighed. She leaned against the wall and spoke in a compressed whisper that combined history and great distress:

  “Shortly after my journey began, ten years ago, when I was among humans for the first time… I slept with a young heir to the throne several times. He was nice enough, if insanely ambitious. I think his name was Thivan, or something similar.”

  Thivan Sothar. The Supreme Lord. The man we had to warn about cosmic death. My suspicion had hit upon the most improbable and annoying truth.

  “And one night, well,” a self-deprecating smile returned to her face, the memory replacing the embarrassment, “I snuck into his treasury. Elves don't need coins, but I was curious… and hungry.”

  I sighed, the sound deep and heavy like a guillotine blade. I put my hands over my face. The irony was agonizing.

  Of course.

  The first king we had to warn about an international war had been robbed years ago by one of our own, and specifically by the only being who could even get us close to him. Fate truly had a terrible, absurd sense of dramatic timing.

  “I swear,” Vin said, recovering instantly and sounding as innocent as possible, “that I didn't steal more than half. It was more than enough for my journey, and he still had enough to finance his palace.”

  Maira let out a dull, resigned groan that sounded almost human. Arik shrugged.

  A long, quiet, annoyed “Aaaaarghhhh!” escaped into my hands. It was the sound of despair from a former Paladin whose duties constantly clashed with the moral grey zone of his allies.

  Saving the world had just gotten significantly harder. We had to travel to a fragmented kingdom to warn an ambitious, powerful mage who would now rightly believe we were a sworn group of thieves and cheats coming to take the rest of his money.

  "Perfect," Gravor thought in my head with dry amusement. "Absolutely perfect."

  -

  Thivan Sothar was abruptly torn from his deep, strategic concentration as he walked down the long, ornate corridor leading to his mentally ill father's sickroom.

  The corridor was a testament to family history and the unyielding toughness of Caleon. It was, as always, covered with thick, heavy carpets made of roughly tanned Orc hide, which swallowed the sound of his boots and created a muffled, solemn silence. Imposing paintings hung on the towering marble walls, depicting Thivan's ancestors in their mighty, often battle-damaged Golems.

  Not only figures from the Sothar line were visible on the walls; quite the opposite. The Princes of Caleon, before and after the Schism, had always viewed themselves as one big, dysfunctional family, despite all the conflicts and blood feuds. The Golems of the Barwans, the Grey Lords, and the Ironfist Houses looked down from the walls. And even in every extended family, there were occasional disputes, even if they didn't usually lead to thousands of deaths. Thivan saw this pragmatically: fratricide was a traditional method of internal selection.

  He wanted to bury these hatchets forever and finally complete the dream of a true, unified family for his land.

  These were the things that occupied him day and night right now—the negotiations, the magical training sessions, the strategic plans for the next alliances. Yet, it was something else that caught his attention on this path and abruptly interrupted his concentration.

  They stood outside the wide bedroom door: The Healers.

  They stood in militarily perfect rank and file—an unusually large contingent. They were dressed in their customary, blood-red robes, a heavy, paradoxical color for the servants of the healing arts. In their hands, they held small censers made of blackened iron, which, however, did not contain ordinary incense, but emitted thick, white smoke, fueled by mana and cut with highly concentrated healing herbs or magical essences.

  Thivan quickly tested them with his mana sense. It was an instinctive, magical scan of the surroundings. He immediately recognized that the censers were full and that the Healers were all active. They were in the middle of the process meant to buy his father as many hours as possible.

  The Supreme Lord was confused. He had expected the process to be finished when Iden called him.

  “Am I too late?” he asked with a raised eyebrow, his voice cool, clear, and devoid of any trace of grief. It was a pragmatic question of logistics. He wanted to know if the interruption of his training had been worthwhile.

  He certainly felt sorry for his father—the once strong ruler, now reduced to mental confusion and a dying body. And Thivan had to admit that he would regret not being by his father's side in his final breaths. But this pain was secondary and subjective. There were many, many matters that required his priority—the rebirth of Caleon tolerated no emotional breaks.

  The Healers showed no reaction to his callousness. Their discipline was impeccable.

  Archpriestess Nymira, nicknamed Nym, and the leader of the healing group, stepped forward. She was a tall, gaunt-looking woman whose eyes always saw the veil of death.

  “Your father wishes to speak with you alone, Your Excellency,” she answered monotonously, without evaluating the emotional component of the request. “Of course, we have taken measures. We have lit Heartlight Candles in the room to give him the necessary mana support that will sustain him until the conversation is over.”

  Heartlight Candles. Thivan knew them. They were expensive, and their gentle, golden glow nourished the dying organs with pure, albeit artificial, life force. They bought time in the final minutes.

  Thivan nodded with satisfaction. The Healers were merely doing their job. However, he hated the smell the Heartlight Candles emitted—a sweet, cloying odor that tried to mask the smell of decay and sickly breath.

  But it was interesting that his father, who had barely uttered more than unintelligible mumbling in recent weeks, had found the words to order the Healers out. It had to be a moment of clarity.

  Thivan sighed, a quiet breath of resignation. He had to fulfill this family duty. He stepped forward and opened the door.

  A thick, warm wave of smoke immediately streamed toward him, so dense it was almost visible. Yet this smoke healed and sustained, rather than causing a proper bout of pneumonia. The concentrated mana essence from the candles and previous rituals filled the room.

  “Then let’s see what my old man has to tell me,” he whispered, the coldness yielding to a waiting, professional curiosity.