Alea Triscan
The Prince and Princess were truly incorrigible.
The thought settled into my chest like a stone dropped into still water as I soared above the endless green of the Elshire Forest, the wind whipping past me with a fury that would have torn an ordinary person apart.
Leaving Zestier without even telling the King and Queen? Not even Elder Virion? From His Highness, I almost expected it; the little prince was not new to such things, had been slipping away from the palace since he was barely old enough to walk.
But the Princess too? Something was going on.
When they failed to return to Zestier after more than a couple of days, the King commanded me and Aya to search for them. His voice had been calm, but I had heard the tremor beneath it, the fear that no father could fully hide. The twins were his world. They were all of our worlds.
I now flew high above the Elshire Forest, west of Zestier, where the heirs had last been seen riding Her Highness's Elenoi Highcolt.
The forest stretched beneath me like a rumpled green blanket, its canopy broken here and there by the silver glint of rivers and the dark shadows of clearings. The Grand Mountains rose in front of me, their peaks white with snow, their flanks dark with pine.
Even as a white core mage, I rarely flew, but every time I did, I looked at those mountains and felt as if I were a mountain myself, a giant looking down on Dicathen, seeing the shape of the world spread out like a map.
I shook my head, adjusting the military uniform I was wearing. It made flight far easier than the maid uniform would have, its impractical design would have slowed me down, the skirts catching the wind, the sleeves dragging against the air.
Who would design a maid uniform with flight in mind? Who would design any uniform with flight in mind? White cores, the only mages able to fly, were seen as more mythological than real by most of the population.
I gave a push to my mana. Flying worked by weaving the atmospheric mana in such a way that the magic in the ambient environment sustained you. It was like running while augmenting your body, only with extra steps and with every muscle in your body involved.
Before I could change direction, however, I heard something unexpected. The chirping of a bird.
Few mana beasts flew this high, and the ones that did—like Phoenix Wyrms—did not live in Elenoir. I scanned the sky, my hand moving instinctively to the seeds I kept in my pouch, ready to summon my roses at a moment's notice.
And then I saw a robin. Small, unremarkable, utterly out of place in the thin, cold air of the upper altitudes.
It was Her Highness's robin. Coco.
She chirped wildly, flapping her wings with an energy that seemed almost frantic, totally unbothered by the powerful winds at this height—winds that could send any normal bird tumbling to their death.
"Where is your master?" I asked, keeping my voice level despite the unease curling in my stomach. "I need to bring her and her brother back to Zestier."
Coco chirped even louder, nodding her head vigorously. Then she turned and started to fly northeast, toward... Peak Firrod?
My geography lessons, just one of the innumerable lessons I had been forced to take to become a Lance, were rusty, but Peak Firrod was quite famous.
A mountain on the northern edge of the Elshire Forest, near the border with the Sapin. A place few elves visited and fewer returned from.
I followed her. At first, I flew slowly, conserving my strength, watching the small robin to see if she would falter. But when I saw that she could match my flying speed without apparent effort, I stopped holding back. I had Corvis and Tessia to find. I had to bring them home.
Whatever they had gotten themselves into, I would pull them out of it.
It took little time to reach Peak Firrod at such speed. The mountain rose before me, its peak lost in the clouds, its slopes dark with ancient pine. Coco flew stationary above a valley below, a valley I had never seen, a valley that did not appear on any map I had ever studied.
"There?" I frowned, slowing to hover. "In the middle of nothing?"
I extended my senses, reaching out with my mana, trying to feel any sign of life below. But there was nothing. No mana signatures, no familiar pulses of elven magic, nothing but the ever-present fog that blanketed the Elshire Forest like a second skin. The valley was hidden, shrouded, invisible to my Lance-trained senses.
The robin chirped, insistent.
Fine, I thought, a smirk tugging at my lips despite the gravity of the situation. Let us trust the bird.
I took my Courtblade, modified over years of practice to behave like a wand-sword, channeling my magic as easily as any dedicated focus and a handful of seeds from my pouch.
I clenched my hand around the seeds in a fist, breaking them slightly, feeding mana to their insides. They responded eagerly, their dormant life awakening to my call.
And as roses began to sprout around me—a mantle of red petals and green thorns, swirling in the air like a garden made cloak—I dived toward the ground.
—
I pierced through the fog and the canopy of trees in a burst of speed that shattered branches and sent leaves spiraling in my wake.
The impact of my landing cracked the earth beneath my feet, but I absorbed it with mana, rolling forward, my roses spreading around me like a shield.
The scene that greeted me was chaos.
His Highness's bear was fighting a monster unlike anything I had ever seen.
It was massive, a nightmare of crimson-black fur and bone antlers, with too many red eyes and a maw full of curved teeth. Its body was a patchwork of wolf and serpent and deer; something that made my skin crawl just to look at it.
The creature howled, and the sound was wrong, a mixture of wolf howl, moose bellow, and serpent hiss that grated against my ears and made my head throb.
Her Highness was locked in combat with a cloaked figure nearby, their weapons clashing in a dance of steel and shadow. She was holding her own, barely, her face pale with strain, her movements not quite as sharp as they should have been.
And Prince Corvis—
I saw Finn Warend. Why was he disguised as his dwarven identity? It did not matter. He was injured. He was helpless.
I had to end this fast.
I was in front of the mysterious figure in a second, my Courtblade aimed at their neck, the tip pressing against the fabric of their cloak. My roses swirled around me, ready to strike, ready to defend, ready to tear apart anyone who threatened the royal children.
A masked face stared back at me. The beak of a carrion bird. Black leather, cracked and stained, a design I had seen only in the sealed reports of Grephin House, in the files that only the King and his most trusted were permitted to read.
And in the dark, on one stormy night, when I was barely a teenager. When my parents fell. When I had to take a newborn Alwyn—not yet a year old—and run until the rain blurred my eyes and my legs gave out beneath me.
Caduchicil.
I gritted my teeth, hatred surging through me like fire. These traitors had been a thorn in Elenoir's side for decades, poisoning the Forest, corrupting the mana beasts, trying to tear apart the kingdom I had sworn to protect.
And now one of them had dared to lay hands on the heirs of the Eralith line.
I moved my blade. A powerful blast of air surrounded the figure, a repulsive current that burst against me like a hurricane, trying to throw me back. But I was a Lance. I had trained for years to resist such tricks. I planted my feet, called on my mana, and pushed forward. My blade was unstoppable.
The Caduchicilist raised the black wooden scythe in their hand and the crescent blade met my Courtblade with a clash that echoed through the valley.
Sparks flew. The air crackled. And I felt something strange, something wrong: my plant magic seemed to weaken when the two weapons touched, as if the scythe were draining the life from my roses.
"Your Highness," I said, not taking my eyes off the enemy, "take Prince Corvis."
I saw the Princess hesitate for just a moment, her eyes darting between me and her brother. Then she nodded and ran to his side.
The monster howled when the scythe came down at me, the sound making my ears ring. I launched all the roses forming my mantle at the creature. A shower of red flowers, each petal sharp as a blade, each thorn a dagger.
They struck the Chimera's hide, embedding themselves in its flesh, drawing blood that steamed in the cold air.
The monster screeched in pain, thrashing wildly, and the Caduchicilist attacked me. I parried her scythe, the impact jarring up my arm, and pushed forward, driving her back.
"Your face is quite familiar," the Caduchicilist said, her voice feminine, almost amused. "Have we met, Lance?"
"Silence, traitor," I hissed.
Behind me, I heard a wet, tearing sound. Berna had finished the monster. Her powerful jaws had torn its head from its body, and the monster's corpse slumped to the ground, twitching, bleeding, finally still. The bear immediately rushed to His Highness's side, joining the Princess.
"That Chimera required a great deal of work, Lance," the Caduchicilist said, her scythe colliding against my sword again.
I felt my plant magic weaken further, the connection between me and my roses fraying at the edges.
I jumped back, throwing a Rosedagger—one of my roses, hardened and sharpened into a throwing knife—at the woman.
She rotated the scythe in her hands, and the blade caught my weapon. The rose withered on contact, turning brown, crumbling to dust.
If only the royal children were not here, I could end this fight immediately. I could unleash the full extent of my power, call on the spells I had spent a lifetime perfecting, burn this valley to ash if I had to.
But a Lance also knew how to fight discreetly.
I flew at the Caduchicilist at full speed, my Courtblade extended, the point aimed at her heart. The air screamed past me. The world narrowed to the edge of my blade.
I got to—
There was a flare. A blinding light. A portal appeared behind the woman, its edges crackling with energy, and she stepped backward into it. The light swallowed her whole. One moment she was there, the next she was gone.
S-she teleported away? How?!
"Triscan! Corvis, he... help me!" Her Highness was shouting, her voice high and desperate.
I turned. Prince Corvis lay on the ground, still as death. Not moving. Nothing of him was moving. His face was pale, his eyes closed, his chest. Was it rising? I could not tell.
Oh no.
Coco the robin was frantically flapping her wings, her tiny body shaking, her plumes: strange, ember-like feathers, falling from her body in a cascade of golden light. Healing magic, I realized. The bird was using healing magic. Berna growled and nudged the Prince's side, as if trying to wake him from a deep sleep.
"Corvis! Corvis!" Tessia screamed, shaking her brother's shoulders, her tears falling on his face.
I moved. I was at the Prince's side in an instant, my hands finding his body, checking for wounds, for signs of life. He was breathing. Barely. His heartbeat was weak, fluttery, like a bird trying to escape a cage.
I took him in my arms, cradling him against my chest, and I took flight. I left the valley behind, the fog swallowing it, the ruins disappearing beneath me. I flew at maximum speed toward Zestier.
The wind screamed in my ears. The cold bit at my skin. The little prince—the boy who had grown up under my watch, who had trained with me in secret, who had trusted me with his secrets—was dying in my arms.
And I would not let him die.