"You see, Baronet Oliver." Said the spearmaster Frin, his forefinger circling the rim of the cup of tea he held. "Your children needs need to be met. You need to stay alive for that." He pours the cup of scalding tea atop Baronet Oliver's bruised head below him.
"So, my employer and your peculiar patron requires you to stay alive."
Baronet Oliver Verticia in truth had no patron. He did owe loans but not much. Rather there were conditions by which they could be paid.
Frin abruptly, his pupils constricted, put the cup next to Baronet Oliver and left him there as he ran away with several combinations of his lesios. It wasn't even more than ten seconds that a few people landed next to Baronet Oliver as Oliver began to stand up in the open field. They did not ask him what happened to him or anything.
Oliver had been expecting them and that's why he risked fighting Frin to pay the installment. Extending his right arm, palm open, four out of the group stepped forth and dropped three different letters on his hand. Then, all eight of them vanished before Oliver's eyes.
Oliver began walking back to his home due north. "So, they have decided on Anaphol's lesios." He was reading the first letter by Lady Izne. It also mentioned that Anaphol will take another day before he departed to the academy.
Meanwhile several regions away in the royal castle of the Highest family.
Anaphol woke up from a dream. A dream he did not understand, yet was intrinsically part of his identity. His self as he understood.
Sitting up, Naph spotted Inri and Izne sitting around the round table in his room. One indulged in a book deeply, while the other skimmed through letters as if they were blank except they were not.
"Uh…," Naph began and Izne's and Inri's gazes both landed immediately landed on him. Not letting the other two speak over him, Naph said. "Duchess Inri, I think I understand what you meant by the lesio 'Perspicuity's ember.'"
Duchess Inri Plora smirked ever so slightly under the glare of Lady Izne Hont Keyriftrian. The gaze wasn't made of her cata immersion but she literally was glaring at her.
"He could have died." Lady Izne proclaimed it as a fact.
Inri's gaze went back on her book as she flipped to the next page. "Would have been worth it."
How much she meant it did not even exist within her.
Next thing Anaphol knew or did was eat his lunch and be debriefed on the seven lesios chosen for him to learn within this week or his proposal will not be considered by the Emperor Stelart.
"Ok. I am already halfway through to Perspicuity's ember shouldn't that count as something?" His plate snatched away just as he put the last bite in. A different servant grabbed him and took him behind a changing screen.
"Hey!!" Naph was stripped without his permission or consent. And a uniform fitting him of Sanctuary aspiring Proficiency and Wisdom was forced on him. All done with the help of a technique-centric lesio by a servant.
The next one hour or so he thought went so fast he had no time to register or call out for help to anyone. The only thing he could take note of was Inri nodding at him silently with comfort and concern laden in her eyes.
When did Aergylden arrive or begin he was not told. Anaphol simply descended from the carriage that brought him. It had no horse to pull it, and smoke wafted outward from underneath than from the back or the side.
Lady Izne Hont Keyriftrian descended after him. "We have arrived at the Sanctuary aspiring Proficiency and Wisdom in Aergylden of Jhorime."
Catching that, Naph asked one thing that he thought would tick her off. "Is Aergylden not part of the Keyriftrian Empire or does you not have a damn influence out of the castle?"
Irrespective of his heart wanting to save Don Extea, and maybe, just maybe save Sevenren, the very same volatile heart jumped to shoot a flame of disrespect at his host.
'Inri was far better.'
Sighing, Lady Izne fell back. Naph was nowhere near moved to catch her. And he watched as she landed on air becoming foggy and fluffy around her cushioning her.
Lady Izne Hont Keyriftrian moved merely two fingers and the vehicle behind them evaporated with its driver and servant inside leaving behind the stored luggage of a single suitcase to be dropped instantly.
As all that happened the very space that existed a hundred metres around Izne evaporated. Becoming as intangible to itself as it was to the people's understanding that it was there.
"We," Lady Izne gaze fixed on Naph, "will wait for a minute inside as the world's time passes by a day."
Naph's throat worked. He spoke. The sound existed. 'I can't hear it?'
Izne counted down.
Naph glared at her. Anaphol wanted to smite her with his words even when he knew he could die if he upsets her too much, so he chose not to blink. That was a stupid decision.
As the minute got over, Izne's nonchalance walked into her words. "You should blink quite a lot because your eyes will get dried like a leaf instantly in ten."
'Huh?'
"Nine."
Naph began blinking. 'I am not taking chances. Wait, this reminds me of that weird caestre that long, no, top hat bounty collector had fought of. Didn't he talk of following new laws or rules in the presence of a caestre it had to hunt suddenly in the caves?'
"Eight."
He kept blinking.
"Seven… six… five.. four.. three… two.. one."
The space that had evaporated itself reformed. The light of the morning landed upon the cooled ashen hair of Anaphol. He opened his eyes and looking around. He noticed a detail.
"We are high."
"Yes, this is Aergylden." Lady Izne stood up from her controlled fog throne.
Her gaze as well as Anaphol's eyes captured the brilliance of the golden morning skyline of the clouds hovering below Aergylden. A river broke through the clouds to the very floating island they were standing on. That river a streak of silver and whitish blue that danced with orange, green, and reds mixing within it.
"We are not at the academy, I guess?" He had a suspicion.
"No, we aren't." Lady Izne confirmed finally.