A parchment inked in tight bck script rested in the man's hand, the message containing it was a cryptic letter brought by a girl with flowing red hair, it was night when he saw the intruder, yet he couldn't forget the brown and tinted green eyes of the stranger.

  "Did you find her?"

  A man with silver light hair looked at him with irritation as he exhaled another sigh, "For the millionth time, your highness, No." He muttered "And I'm not one of your servants. You can't just command me what to do!"

  "Stop calling me that, you irk me sometimes Eli." He remarked with apparent vex in his words.

  "Good, you should be." He stated as he regains his focus to read the book he's currently reading.

  "What use of your powers if you are not going to use it? You are literally the archmage of the tower." The man uttered as he gnces at him with profuse impatience.

  Eli closed his book and turned to face him, "My duty is to help you find the missing people, your highness," He stated "Forgive my impertinence, but I am not committed to find some peasant girl that you saw the other day."

  The man ran a hand through his thick, windswept blond hair, the pale strands gleaming like burnished gold in the light “She’s not just a peasant girl,” Damir said softly, but there was an intensity behind the words that cut through the calm. “She carries mana that outstrips mine.”

  He remembers the moment clearly, the way her eyes lit up, not just with recognition, but with something deeper. A splurge of light, a spark igniting through her gaze, as though some long-buried memory had stirred awake. It wasn’t just surprise, it was a knowing. A silent acknowledgment of who he was... or at least, who he might be.

  Eli returned to his reading, his voice steady as he spoke, "I already did what I could, Damir. I can't fully use my powers right now as I can't jeopardize the secrecy, that you– our Crown Prince– is here in this nation. Unguarded."

  "You underestimate me too much." He smirked. "And besides, you are here. What more do I need?"

  "I am not your Royal Guard."

  Damir ughed at the dry response. "That's what you get from losing a bet."

  He shot him a gre. "The bet did not state that I have to go scurrying around the whole southern hemisphere with you."

  "I gave you an order, Eliphas," His voice edged with quiet authority.

  Eli didn’t bother looking up. The dim candlelight flickered across the worn pages of his book as he calmly flipped to the next, his fingers stained faintly with ink and something darker.

  "Now that we're on the subject of duty," he said, his tone cool and detached, "what do you want me to do with him?"

  With a casual flick of his wrist, as if brushing away a fly. The answer came not in words, but in sound.

  A scream tore through the chamber. Not human, not anymore. It scraped the air like rusted metal against stone, raw and ragged, reverberating through the cold walls and into the bones of anyone who heard it.

  From the shadows, a body slumped forward, colpsing onto the stone floor with a sickening thud. The man was a mess of bruises and blood, his limbs bound tightly in rough rope, flesh swollen where the fibers had cut in deep. Crimson smeared the floor beneath his cheek, mixing with spit and dirt. His chest rose and fell in quick, each breath a struggle, each exhale ced with the quiet desperation of someone begging without words.

  There was no resistance left in him. Just the echo of pain and the silent question that hung in the air.

  Still, Eli did not look up. He licked a thumb and turned another page.

  Damir's eyes sweep over to the broken man on the floor like he were little more than trash left to rot. "I did gather enough information from this insipid fool. He's of no further use to me."

  The man didn’t react, not even a flinch. He was barely conscious, his breath shallow, body limp beneath the weight of his pain and defeat.

  "They actually tried to instigate an assassination attempt on you," Eli said, lips curling into a smirk as he turned another page, his voice ced with amusement. "How ludicrous."

  Damir chuckled, the sound dry and ced with disbelief. He held up the worn letter he'd been clutching, its once-pristine parchment now wrinkled and stained. The seal had been hastily broken, as if he'd torn it open the moment it reached him.

  "Can you imagine?" he muttered, reading the lines again though he already knew them by heart. "They’re coming for you. Leave now or you won’t make it to morning." He said, shaking his head in amusement. "Though, I do appreciate the sentiment."

  Eli stared at him in silence, eyes narrowing with the weight of thought before he sighed and shut his book with a soft, final thud. “A common girl,” he murmured, each word crisp with disbelief, “bearing mana that rivals the sanctified bloodlines and the towers of the arcane.” he said, voice cool and detached. “And now whispers of bdes in the dark meant for your throat.”

  He gave a dry, almost amused exhale, reopening his tome as if the absurdity were just another passing tale. “Truly, the world’s gone mad.”

  “No matter,” Damir muttered, slipping the letter into the folds of his coat. His voice was ced with quiet resolve. “Let fate weave its thread.”

  He pivoted on his heel, the folds of his coat sweeping behind him like the wake of a storm. But as he neared the door, a squelch beneath his boot drew his eyes downward. Blood—dark and congealing—had pooled in a sticky trail across the stone floor.

  He clicked his tongue in irritation, gncing back over his shoulder.

  "Ah,” he said, turning back with a grim smile tugging at his lips. "I almost forgot about this imbecile."

  Turning back, Damir approached the bound man with slow, measured steps. The man was barely conscious now. Head lolling, breath shallow, skin pale beneath the bruises and grime. He looked more corpse than captive.

  Damir crouched beside him, lowering himself with a calm that felt far more dangerous than rage. He reached out, grabbing the man’s chin between his gloved fingers and forcing his face upward until their eyes met.

  There was no fire left in the man’s gaze–only a flicker of awareness, and something else.

  Fear.

  Damir’s expression didn’t shift. His voice was quiet, almost kind.

  "Let's send your friends a message, shall we?"

  ~

  The stench of blood still clung to Damir’s gloves as he slipped them on, fingers flexing against leather that hadn’t yet cooled from his st touch. The scream had long since faded, but the echo lingered. A ghost behind his ribs. Eli’s spell burned the corpse to ash behind him, blue fire casting dancing shadows across stone and bone.

  "You could’ve waited,” Eli muttered, waving smoke from his face. “Some of us like to finish a chapter without the scent of broiled innards.”

  Damir adjusted the crimson-lined cloak across his shoulders, the sigil of the Capital gleaming on his pel. A crowned fme fnked by swords. “He served his purpose. Besides, you’ll have another body soon, I’m sure.”

  “You’re walking into House Fanum’s territory,” Eli said, tone dry as dust. “With a fake identity, a forged writ, and that charmingly smug grin. I feel underdressed.”

  “No,” Damir replied, slipping the scroll into his coat like one might tuck away a stiletto bde. “You feel nervous.”

  Eli rolled his eyes. “And you feel like a fool pying envoy to a backwater house with too much pride and not enough relevance.”

  Damir smiled, though it didn’t reach his eyes. “Which makes them dangerous. And desperate.”

  A bitter draft scraped across the desote countryside, winding through cracked stones and abandoned roads until it reached the gates of House Fanum.

  House Fanum stood like a monument to faded nobility.

  Once proud, now overlooked.

  A minor noble house in a forgotten stretch of the southern nation, it governed out of obligation rather than power. Yet today, it found itself hosting an envoy from the Capital.

  Or so it seemed.

  Damir adjusted his cloak as the guards stepped forward, their armor patched and dull.

  “State your name and purpose,” one of them barked, eyeing the insignia stitched into Damir’s shoulder.

  “Elion Vale,” Damir replied smoothly, offering a sealed scroll bearing the wax sigil of the Capital. “Envoy from the Crown. I bring word of agricultural subsidies and trade inquiries following the drought in the region.”

  Behind him, Eliphas stood with his arms crossed, gring at the back of Damir’s head.

  “‘Elion Vale,’” Eli muttered under his breath. “Bloody hell.”

  “Shh,” Damir whispered without looking back. “Let me enjoy my performance.”

  After a tense pause, the guards examined the seal, exchanged a gnce, and then grudgingly opened the gates.

  The corridors of House Fanum smelled of stone and wilted incense. The tapestries that lined the walls were frayed, colors dulled by time. The house bore all the scars of a family clinging to nobility by name alone.

  Damir and Eli were greeted with polite formality by a steward, who led them through the manor with the stiff air of someone used to pretending everything was fine.

  “Lord Fanum is currently indisposed,” the steward said. “But you are welcome to stay in the sor until—”

  “No need,” Damir interrupted kindly. “I’ve heard Lady Artemisia Fanum has a keen grasp on local affairs. I’d prefer to speak with her, if she’s avaible.”

  The steward hesitated. “The third daughter?”

  Damir smiled. “Exactly her.”

  They met beneath the half-dead garden arches, just beyond the eye of the main house. Ivy strangled the statues here, and the rose bushes were more thorn than bloom.

  Arty approached with quiet steps, a shawl drawn loosely over her shoulders. Her golden-blond hair swept over one shoulder. Her eyes narrowed the moment she saw him.

  “You’re not here for trade,” she said softly. “You’re risking too much being seen here, Your Highness.”

  Damir’s brow lifted. “So formal.”

  Arty didn’t smile. “You came under a false name. I assume you didn’t want your arrival known.”

  He nodded, stepping closer, his voice low. “I had to see you in private.”

  He then reached into his coat and produced a folded, soot-smudged letter.

  “You sent this.”

  Arty’s eyes flicked to the letter, then back to his. Her jaw tensed.

  “I did, your highness,” she said, after a long pause. “One of my father’s guests… a trader, or so he cimed. He was drunk, careless. I overheard him mention a shadow in Araes. ‘Cut the serpent’s head before it coils too tight,’ he said. He didn’t say your name, but I knew. There was only one serpent they'd risk hunting in the dark.”

  Eli, leaning casually against a moss-cracked pilr, his arms crossed and eyes half-lidded with an air of dry indifference, spoke up. "Would’ve been nice if it were signed," he said, his tone almost zy, but there was an edge to his words. "Nearly had our dear prince kill someone innocent.”

  Arty froze at his words, the prince had almost killed someone. Arty’s fingers trembled for a moment, and she quickly clenched her fists at her sides. She hadn’t meant for any of this to happen. She only wanted to warn him, to give him a piece of information that would help. Now she could barely stomach the weight of what she’d unintentionally caused.

  But her face remained impassive, the shock not registering as visibly as it might have for someone else. This was no time to let her emotions show.

  “I couldn’t,” she said, voice quiet but firm. “If that letter was found, they would’ve known. My father keeps eyes on everything that comes and goes. Including me.”

  Damir stared at her, his expression unreadable. “You risked everything by sending that letter.”

  “I risked more by staying silent, Your Highness,” she replied quietly. “I came to you because something was wrong. People disappearing. Soldiers changing stations without notice. Caravans vanishing en route. And Father… he always spoke of Ara as if it needed to be ‘purified.’ As if it were a rot he meant to excise. I thought he was speaking in metaphors.”

  Damir exhaled, then motioned to Eli.

  Eli stepped forward, dusting off his sleeves. “We tracked magical trails, residual sigils embedded deep in the ground. These people didn’t vanish, they were restructured.”

  “By what?” Arty asked.

  “Not what. Who,” Damir replied grimly. “They call it Uromodomiaz. A name spoken like scripture. It’s a cult, a parasite. It infects the weak-willed, breaks them down, and rebuilds them into zealots. Hollowed vessels who serve without question.”

  “I managed to interrogate one of them,” Damir said, his voice carrying a cold edge, as though the mere memory of it disgusted him. “What was left of him, anyway. His mind had been completely hollowed out like it had been torn from him. But I saw the brand. The same one we found in those cursed ruins south of Araes.”

  Arty seemed to struggle with finding the words, as if the weight of what he said was too much to process all at once. Her lips parted, but nothing came out.

  Damir stepped forward, closing the distance between them, his gaze never leaving hers. “This isn’t just some isoted incident. Whatever this... thing is, it’s moving through your father’s nds and the whole southern empire. There’s no denying it now. And as for Lord Fanum?” He paused, his voice darkening, ced with suspicion. “Whether he’s blind to it, complicit, or already corrupted by it, I can’t say. But I’m certain of one thing: It’s spreading faster than we can understand.”

  The silence that followed was suffocating, the air heavy with the implications of his words. Arty’s eyes darted to the garden’s grass, her hands trembling slightly as they gripped the edges of her cloak. It was clear that the full weight of what The Prince had just revealed was still sinking in, and it shook her to her core.

  Damir’s voice softened just a fraction, though the urgency never left his tone. “We’re not just dealing with a few stragglers anymore. This is something much bigger. Something that’s been pnted in the whole of Celestia. And it’s growing.” His words hung in the air like a dire warning.

  Arty lifted her head slowly, golden hair catching the cold gray light that filtered through the overgrown arches. Her jaw tightened, and her voice, when it came, was steady.

  “Then tell me what to do, Your Highness. I won’t sit idle while this festers beneath my own house.”

  Damir didn’t answer immediately. His gaze passed over her. Not cruel, not unkind, but distant, as though he were weighing her like any other tool in his arsenal.

  Only calcution.

  “I want eyes. Ears. Your father’s words, his movements. The people he speaks with, especially those who arrive at night. If Uromodomiaz is crawling through Ara, he’s letting them in or worse, inviting them.”

  “You want me to spy for you?”

  “You already are.”

  Her mouth tightened, but she didn’t deny it.

  “I’m not asking you to wear my colors, Artemisia,” Damir continued, tone ft. “This isn’t loyalty. This is survival. For you, for Ara. For all of us.”

  Arty exhaled slowly, then gave a sharp nod. “I’ll py the obedient daughter. Smile at the right dinners. Listen closely. But when I find something, how do I reach you?”

  Eli pulled a small carved stone from inside his coat and tossed it her way. She caught it without flinching.

  “Break it,” Eli said. “Once. Only once. It’ll send us your location. After that, toss the shards somewhere they’ll never be found.”

  Arty turned the stone over in her fingers. “And if I’m caught?”

  Damir looked her dead in the eye. “Then pray you die quickly.”

  For a moment, neither of them spoke. The wind stirred the ivy overhead, tugging at leaves like idle fingers.

  “You’re not doing this out of kindness,” she said finally.

  “No,” Damir answered. “I’m doing it because I intend to see this through. Whatever’s rotting this nd, I’ll burn it out root to stem…”

  “Even if it means turning every noble house to ash.”

  Their alliance wasn’t forged from trust.

  It was born out of necessity.

  Arty turned the carved stone in her fingers again, her brows furrowing just slightly as her gaze dropped. The wind tugged at the shawl around her shoulders.

  Damir’s voice broke the silence, quiet but deliberate. “There’s one more thing.”

  Her eyes lifted to his, sharp and alert. “Yes, Your Highness?”

  “The girl who delivered your letter. Crimson hair. Small frame. Brown eyes, tinged with green.”

  Arty’s lips curved into a knowing smile. “Ah. So, you did notice.”

  “I make it a habit to notice things others overlook,” he replied coolly.

  She folded her hands neatly in front of her. “Noticed her enough to ask me about her now. Curious.”

  Damir allowed a pause before offering a subtle smirk, one that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Are you implying I have a preference for little messengers covered in street dust?”

  Arty’s smile widened. “Well, you’ve always had a fondness for odd things.”

  “A fondness for control, perhaps,” he said, voice quiet and deliberate. “But I don’t waste it on strays.”

  He took a step toward her, gaze unblinking. “Let’s not pretend I have time for indulgence.”

  “Of course,” she said, still smiling, though the edge of it dulled. “I only find it amusing. You’re usually so… aloof.”

  “And you're unusually bold today, Lady Fanum,” Damir replied, his tone cool as cut gss. “Careful. You may find there’s a limit to my tolerance for being toyed with.”

  Her amusement faded, though her posture didn’t falter.

  “I’ll remind you,” he added, softer now, but heavier in weight, “who you’re speaking to.”

  Arty inclined her head, a noblewoman’s version of an apology.

  Damir’s gaze lingered a moment longer, before he allowed a faint, humorless smile. “She is nothing more than a flicker of interest,” Damir continued. “A spark in the dark. And if she carries something dangerous within her, that makes her a liability not a temptation.” He turned, the shift of his cloak breaking the stillness.

  At that, Arty tilted her head slightly. “What do you mean, dangerous?” she asked, the edge of intrigue creeping into her voice.

  Damir paused, his face impassive. He turned away, his cloak swirling around him, cutting through the silence like a bde.

  He didn’t answer her question, leaving the air between them heavy with unspoken words.

  “If you see her again,” Damir said, voice cool as ice, “tell her I remember her face. That should be enough.”

  With that, he left her standing in the stillness.

  Arty watching their retreating form with narrowed eyes, her jest now tempered by something far colder: calcution.