Archive of Our Own ^beta

“No, this isn’t it.”

Leona closed the heavy book and placed it back on the shelf, promptly returning to the act of scanning through the rest of the old titles on the large, elegant jade-lined bookcase in an attempt to quickly find something that looked a little more promising. Of course, Leona knew perfectly well that it wasn’t supposed to be that easy. Doing research like this, you had to dig through a lot of material to get what you wanted, taking the time to read and understand what you were looking at before deciding on a whim whether it was useful or not, and besides that, any titles that loudly advertised being all about this kind of magic had a very good chance of being blatant pseudoscience—either being badly researched, outdated, or just plain lying out their ass. This last book was the latter, by Leona’s instincts. He needed something denser than this, and maybe older. He also needed to be taking his time with this, but that wasn’t exactly the easiest thing to do with someone watching him.

Someone who, apparently, was taking a very vested interest in whether or not he found what he wanted.

“P-Prince Leona, was that not to your liking? I can assist you in finding more, if you like! You said you’re looking at nature healing magic? Is there anything more specific…?”

“I’m fine, thank you. I’d like to look on my own.”

“O-Oh, okay…” The book collection curator lady nodded but looked extremely awkward about it, fiddling with the edges of her billowing sleeves as she continued to watch him intently from barely two meters behind him.

Leona suppressed a heavy sigh. He would love to have a bit more space to himself while he did this, but also, he could respect that this was not his territory and that he had to do what they wanted if he was going to be coming over here asking for favors. Different country, different rules.

Leona was walking through the grand royal library of the Vidyadhara, a draconic fae people (or more specifically, longs, not dragons, as Malleus would not hesitate to remind him) inhabiting this small island country north of the Land of Red Dragons, known as Scalegorge Waterscape. It was an impressive-looking place, with tall, curved ceilings and shining columns resembling the pearls and coral of the ocean outside its door, but of course, Leona was never one to get all that hung up on fancy architecture. He was here for a specific purpose—finding books to help his research on revitalization magic.

It was a…bit of a personal project of his, now, maybe a useless rabbit hole of one, but working out this yet-to-be-approved mining project on one hand and plans to bring running water to more cities on the other, he got to thinking of the old Sunset Savana legends of the so-called “King’s Roar,” which could supposedly bring life to actively dying lands, not to be confused with his identically-named unique magic which did the exact opposite. What an irony. It seemed likely that the original “King’s Roar” was also a unique magic, simply existing before the time when people started calling it that with their more refined knowledge of how magic worked and what the junction was between its common and individually unique elements. It might have even once been passed down through the Kingscholar line, just like how Idia’s UM was hereditary for the Shrouds, and for some reason, they lost it. Either way, Leona started to want to know more about how it worked, and how it could be replicated. He wasn’t going to be looking for some genie-in-a-bottle solution to their problems, of course, and he wasn’t going to be doing anything on too grand a scale regardless, since he was perfectly aware of how inherently dangerous life magic could be. He simply wanted better ways to apply the alchemy they already used, to support the land itself and their plant life, both for the purpose of helping food crops and of accelerating regrowth to get the people (and his brother) hopefully a little more open to digging into the land for this mining project he wanted. That is, assuming he could get them to be more open to alchemy as a solution at all. That was going to be an uphill climb, he knew, just like literally everything else he had done or fruitlessly tried to do in these three short years since graduation.

Still, it wouldn’t stop him from trying. Leona was a prince, and he could never change that title for as long as he lived, and he couldn’t change the fact that no one expected him to ever do anything besides sit there and look pretty while he did all those ceremonial ‘duties’ that were ultimately pointless. He couldn’t change that, but at some point, he decided that if no one would give him the ‘right’ to do anything, he’ll just have to give that privilege to himself. Strictly speaking, he was his brother’s advisor, and he was using that small title as his excuse to become a commissioner making plans and launching whatever improvement projects he wanted…so long as he had permission, that is.

It was still a pain. Leona going down the rabbit hole with this personal research project learning more about the magic of ages past, going as far as to ask foreign places for a collaboration, was admittedly also an excellent excuse to get out of the palace for a while, although that might be a moot point, since he spent most of his time in the Sunset Savana these days actively avoiding his ‘home’ in the palace, anyways. However, he quickly found the politicians here had vibes far too similar to the ones running the Sunset Savana, making way too big a deal out of his arrival and then talking too long about traditions and rituals and sacred customs like they were trying to impress him with their superiority, so apparently, he just could never escape. He was sure they weren’t all like this, necessarily, but that Taoran preceptor guy was getting on his last nerve. That smug, falsely polite smile of his made his skin crawl with disgust more and more with every second he had to look at it. There was just something not right about him. Maybe it was because, even though Leona kept the details of what he was looking for purposefully vague, he and some of the others looked a little too interested in the fact that Leona was researching life magic—although he used the term “healing” magic to make it feel a little more commonplace. Whether it was an interest out of suspicion or out of wanting to accomplish their own agenda by gaining his help for something else, he wasn’t sure.

Maybe that wasn’t surprising. The Vidyadhara were a unique species in that they could reincarnate and also had this ‘cloudhymn’ magic held in common among them that gave them powerful healing abilities, in addition to the hydrokinesis, so life magic was a big deal for them, and that was exactly one of the reasons why Leona went to them in the first place, besides the fact that they had an ancient library that was sure to hold all those out-of-print books that he couldn’t find anywhere else.

If these people were going to be suspicious, though, then maybe he could just ask Malleus. He knew a lot about ancient texts and magic, obviously. However, Leona wasn’t nearly that desperate yet.

“Perhaps his highness would like to speak with our chief alchemists?” one of the other attendants asked with hopeful eagerness, trotting up to his side. “We could always arrange a meeting.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Leona responded noncommittedly, his eyes still fixed on the shelves. Then again, it might not be a terrible idea to see what they had to say, although he really wanted to avoid making a big deal of this. “If you don’t have more books on magic here, would your alchemists…?”

“Oh!”

The curator’s exclamation shocked him and the three nearby attendants alike, making Leona turn around to see what the commotion was about, but apparently, it was merely because she remembered something.

“The books…no one’s looked at this section in so long, I neglected to get them returned! A lot of books are down in the cavern library, including some of these magic texts! You know, for…for that boy!”

“Wh-WHAT!?” the attendant guy who was talking to Leona so politely a second ago sounded shocked now, curiously enough. “What are you saying!? You gave him magic texts to read!?”

“W-Well, don’t blame me, then! It was Yuanli’s doing! She forwarded the request, and I fulfilled it! That is all!”

“Well, she shouldn’t be involved with him! She’s Bailu’s nursemaid now, is she not!?”

“What’s the problem?” Leona asked, watching both of their gazes quickly swivel to him with the tired-sounding question. He really shouldn’t be getting involved with whatever this was, but now he was almost curious. Their fault for arguing right in front of him.

“Oh, nothing to worry about!” the attendant dismissed with a laugh, his expression quickly snapping back to ‘normal.’ “It’s just…the young high elder, he is but a child and really doesn’t need to be bothering himself with magic at his age! Ah, but, you know how children are!”

“Ah, y-yes!” The curator nodded quickly. “Don’t worry, since those books should be removed anyways, we’ll move them from that library to this one right away. They may have the information you are looking for!”

Leona didn’t answer right away. He paused there looking at them with his arms crossed and his tail slowly lashing back and forth, wondering what kind of irony it was that what they were saying sounded really familiar to him, right now. Too young to be reading stuff about magic, huh? He sure knew what that was like. Granted, he didn’t know the situation, and he didn’t know anything about this ‘young high elder’ and what his motives were, but it was hard not to project, just a little. The high elders of the Vidyadhara were the rulers of this country, and the term ‘elder’ apparently had more to do with blood than with age, so a ‘young’ high elder would basically be the equivalent of a prince—some guy born with all the expectations in the world to one day fulfill some role in the same way his predecessors did (or his own past life did?) and with no option to pick his fate otherwise. Sure, being royalty had its obvious perks, but Leona’s memory of being a child who was constantly being told he wasn’t living up to what a prince should be, while simultaneously being scorned for somehow applying himself too hard in magic and literally anything else, definitely wasn’t giving him a great opinion of the whole idea.

So, frankly, Leona’s very strong gut-reaction opinion was telling him that no, he didn’t want to take away this kid’s books from this ‘cavern library’ or whatever, even though, logically, he knew that this was not his problem. He should just borrow a couple books already or take his notes and then get out of here. He did find some things of interest up here in the royal library too, although he was hoping for something a little more specific to land regrowth and soil enrichment, so he could just stick with that and not bother himself further. He could also let them do their thing and return those books back to this library where he could look at them, knowing that they were going to do that anyways, so it didn’t really matter what he did.

However, Leona had a better idea.

“No need,” he said with a light shrug, as if mildly disinterested at this point. “If you have another library, I could just go there right now and look. Might find something interesting.”

“O-Oh!” The curator looked surprised, again. “Well, it’s not exactly a place for guests…”

“Ah, got it. It’s a private collection, then?”

“Yes—or no, I mean, you can see any book we have there, of course! It’s just not prepared to be receiving guests of your caliber…”

“That doesn’t matter,” Leona spoke frankly. “I don’t care about the conditions. If it’s private, that’s fine, but I don’t want to wait for you to drag everything back here. I can take my leave.”

Obviously, it made sense for the royals—or the high elders and preceptors or whoever—to have private space just like everyone else. Leona wasn’t going to be demanding to see some private collection or even just a room he shouldn’t be in, but he had a hunch that wasn’t the problem, so he decided to press his luck just a bit. Again, he was sure they would move the books back here anyways, no matter what he did, but he gathered that the Vidyadhara were actively trying to impress him, so he was curious to see how far that would take him.

“Ah! Well, is it necessary to leave so soon? We’ll have the books to you quickly!”

“That doesn’t matter.” Leona shook his head, eyeing them now with mild curiosity. “You’ve already been helpful, and we exchanged our goodwill, so is it really that important to you that I find what I need? I can just go on my way.” They accepted his request, and in turn, Leona brought some diplomatic gifts with him when he arrived, because he was a prince, and he knew the expected way these things should go. Their little meeting, at this point, really could just end with that. However, they were obviously intent on impressing him—for their own pride and for following up on Taoran’s lofty words, if not for some nebulous good foundation for relations between them and the Sunset Savana in the future. Of course, Leona’s visit wasn’t nearly that important, and they would probably stop fussing over him so hard sooner or later once that was evident, but for now, maybe, he could use his position to his advantage.

The attendant cleared his throat. “My apologies, Prince Leona. I don’t wish to be an inconvenience to you, of course. You may visit the other library at once. I will ask Yuanli to prepare for your arrival.”

+++

Leona quickly realized why they didn’t want anyone down here.

First of all, it was freezing. Climbing down this unending spiral stone staircase leading into the underground, Leona was struck first with how dark and cold it was, and also, it was creepy. It made him think of Pomefiore’s basement. The cracked stone walls bespoke an age even more ancient than the glittering palace above, producing hollow echoes with their every step, and Leona had to wonder if they were visiting a library or a dungeon, but a library it was, opening up right after a short dark hallway at the base of the stairs where the two guards stood at attention on either side of the doorway. The library, on the other hand, was open and kind of grand, even, or so it used to be, judging by the faded mural artwork on the damp curved stone walls, lined with hooks that might have once held lights that could have provided more illumination and warmth than the few old hanging magestone lanterns adorning the ceiling. Many of the shelves carved into the walls were empty and hollow aside from the one wall in the back where a bunch of books were stacked, which looked to be a lot of history and some magic, plus a couple of books of poetry. Beside that shelf, providing perhaps the only other sign besides the books of life in this place, was a single small wooden chair.

“We’ll give you more comfortable seating, if you like! I apologize for the mess!”

“Yeah, just get me a better chair,” he asked with a sharp sigh. “I’m going to take a look.”

It wasn’t long before he found exactly what he was looking for.

There was an ancient book on magic theory, delving into a few topics by category, with revitalization magic included. The author was a Vidyadhara, apparently, and they definitely seemed to know what they were talking about. They went into cloudhymn magic, as well, which Leona found himself reading through out of curiosity.

He kept reading, getting nearly lost in thought, when he heard small footsteps approaching.

Leona was half-expecting to see the royal kid somewhere around here, but he was still surprised to look over his book to see wide gray-blue eyes shyly maneuvering around the edge of the wall to peer up at him with intensity. Or…anxious curiosity, was probably more like it. He flinched back when Leona met his eyes but then slowly drifted back into view as if emboldened by Leona’s inaction. The child—probably between eight to ten years old by human or beastman standards but who-knows-how-old by fae rules—was definitely a dragon, Leona thought, as he watched his tail slide along the ground and curl around his feet, a feature which most other Vidyadhara either didn’t have or didn’t care to show. It looked a lot like Malleus’s tail, except for it being colored a bright blue and green, and he had two horns like small antler stubs poking out from his long dark hair to match in the ocean-reminiscent color, too.

However, the thing that really had Leona’s gaze fixed was neither of those things.

The kid had a collar. With that small red light and faint smell of nullification magic, it reminded Leona of what STYX had for their “patients,” a thing which Leona was all too familiar with, but it wasn’t nearly as refined, which could either be a consequence of being an old model or being created by someone who didn’t have it in them to care. It was far too tight and too rigid. Even a metal choker needed to conform to the shape of one’s neck, but this band was obviously cutting into him, evidenced by the long red scars scratched above its edge. It was similar to the thin scars on his bare feet and ankles, and his wrists and forearms…

“DAN HENG!”

The kid recoiled and cowered immediately. The attendant still accompanying Leona snapped to attention out of nowhere to bark at the kid with a sharp glare. “Didn’t Yuanli come to get you!? You should be in your...your room while we have guests!”

“I-I’m sorry, I didn’t know…!”

“Well, apologize to the Prince of the Sunset Savana for bothering him and—”

“He can stay.”

“Wha—huh!?”

Yet another impulsive decision on Leona’s part, but he gave the man a look that told him that yes, he was dead serious. “I said, he’s not bothering me. He can stay if he wants to.” He turned to look at the kid—Dan Heng—directly. “Do you want to?”

Maybe that was too much to throw on him at once. Dan Heng looked scared and uncertain, like he hadn’t planned for what he’d do if he was discovered, and now the simple question carried the weight of certain doom. He might actually prefer it if he could retreat back into solitude somewhere, which was completely fine, but Leona didn’t want him to apologize to him, that was for sure.

A long pause lasted before he said something. “Is…that okay?”

Leona shrugged. “They’re your books. You’re the expert, so I might as well let you tell me what’s in them. Or, you can just watch. That’s fine too. Do whatever you want.”

“I…I’ll watch.” Dan Heng nodded, with a hesitant glance at the attendant.

“Ah…if that’s what Prince Leona wishes…” he conceded with a sigh, and Leona could imagine he did that through gritted teeth. Oh well. Sucks to be him.

Dan Heng came only a little closer before sitting down on the ground silently, keeping a distance like some kind of cat who really was intent on just watching him with an equal mix of fervor and passivity. “What are you looking for?” he finally asked with curiosity.

“Nature healing magic,” Leona told him. “Like healing people, except for plants.” He placed down the book he was reading to let him see the pages. “I was reading a bit about your cloudhymn magic…” Leona started, going on to explain a bit about what he was looking at, which still being just as vague as he was before, especially important given their company, here. He just talked to Dan Heng and let him listen and comment whenever he wanted, which wasn’t often. That was fine; Leona wasn’t planning on becoming chatty about this, either, but even so, his little bit about Dan Heng being an ‘expert’ did kind of ring true, actually, given some of the stuff he said commenting on the book, proving that he really did read the thing. Despite his shyness, he seemed to enjoy it, too.

Still, the whole time, it did feel kind of cruel in a way, talking about magic like that and watching his interest subtly rise, when he probably wasn’t even allowed to use it.

Leona didn’t know why the kid was wearing a fucking collar. If it was magic suppression like he suspected, then it could be an extremely suspiciously cruel way of eliminating his abilities to keep him out of trouble, or he could take the more generous assumption and say that it could be a needed safety net, to keep him from hurting himself with his magic if it was something he couldn’t control. It wasn’t at all unheard of for kids with naturally strong magic to lose control over it and hurt themselves or others. Leona certainly suffered from those same fears over him, even though he worked hard to perfect his control over his magic, but even with all the shit they put him through back then from being afraid of him to condemning his studies, he supposed that maybe he could count his blessings that they never once thought to literally collar him because his unique magic was so destructive and strong. Again, maybe Dan Heng’s attendants had a damn good reason, but even so, Leona’s very strong opinion was that it was just a bad idea either way. You learned control through practice, and even if you had to have a collar, you could at least get one that didn’t hurt him like this. 

However, even if Leona chose to give these guys the benefit of a doubt, the other details he was picking up on really weren’t painting a great picture, either. The small scars on his feet and wrists were extremely suspicious in themselves, and also, unless this was somehow normal for the Vidyadhara, his skin was unnaturally pale, in Leona’s opinion. It looked unhealthy, or like he just never saw daylight, which is to say he looked even worse than Idia on a bad day.

So, was that it? Was he sick? Was he being sequestered down here in the basement because they just thought he needed perpetual rest of some kind? Leona just didn’t know. He wondered what would happen if he asked. He probably shouldn’t ask, though. This was not his business, and he was sure that the politicians wouldn’t want him to know. Again, he should just do his research and leave. 

Leona spent more time here than he thought he would, going through book after book and taking notes, while watching Dan Heng slowly allow himself to sit closer and closer to him. Most of the time, they didn’t talk. He just waited and then shyly picked up a book after Leona was finished with it, although he just as quickly swapped it out for a history book from the shelf as if he was becoming quickly aware of the attendant’s scrutinizing eyes on him. Every once in a while, he would pause to look up at Leona with wide eyes and then glance down at his notes with a small, curious twitch in his pointed fae ears. Sometimes, then, Leona would speak up again and make another comment about what he was doing, to satisfy the curiosity. Sometimes Dan Heng would respond, sometimes he didn’t.

Leona wasn’t a fan of people watching him while he did stuff. He also wasn’t a fan of being hovered over by children. This time, however, it was fine. He didn’t mind it.

“Alright…time for me to get going. I’m hungry,” Leona announced a few hours later, closing the book and getting up out of his seat with a big stretch, since he knew he had to call this off sooner or later.

“You’re leaving?” Dan Heng asked, the tone betraying that subtle hint of not wanting him to, that tone being all-too familiar for Leona from all his time with Cheka, although in Dan Heng’s case, it was infinitely more muted than Cheka’s loud pleading. However, he also might really be better off to finally get out of sight of these attendants who obviously didn’t want to be here.

“Yeah,” Leona responded with a nod.

“Did you…find what you were looking for?”

“Yep, some of it. Thanks for letting me borrow your books.”

He found a lot of useful—or at least interesting—information, and thus, he got exactly what he was looking for. He decided against asking to borrow any of the books to keep for himself for a time, but that wasn’t an issue. He could easily leave this place forever and just move on to continue his research somewhere else.

+++

That night, Leona announced his decision to stay. For an indeterminate period of time, he was going to live in a nearby hotel that housed tourists and traveling scholars alike, paying his board just like everyone else, and he would take advantage of the royal treatment to ask for continued access to the royal libraries—which is to say, the Jade Cavern library, in particular. He said that he liked that place the best. It was a good environment, he liked the cold and the quiet, and he was curious about the art on the walls. It was very important to his research, obviously. Also, he would like the kid to still be able to join him if he wanted to, because Leona had questions and he was convinced that Dan Heng was the key to them, for reasons, and also it was a really big cultural thing for the Sunset Savana that the older generation shares research with the younger generation because anything else would be theft or something, so this was simply the best arrangement he could possibly have, and he would settle for nothing less because he was a spoiled prince and he was just picky like that.

Of course, Leona was lying out his ass for most of that, but if it works, it works.

“Oh, of course, we would be honored to have you as our guest!” Taoran assured in that same annoyingly ‘friendly’ voice as before, effectively quieting all those present who got alarmed at Leona asking for the Jade Cavern and, worse yet, mentioning Dan Heng. Leona gauged all their reactions closely and took note of the surprise and discomfort in the room, but for Taoran, the reaction was of satisfaction and maybe self-assurance of control, although it was also really just much harder to read. “Our libraries are yours. In fact, I would love to discuss this with you at your earliest convenience, from one scholar to another. We will share our knowledge with you, and in return, all I’d like is for you to share the knowledge of life from your own homeland. Would that be suitable for you?”

Leona agreed, although he didn’t particularly look forward to dealing with that guy. Still, he’d take it. He would get to spend his days studying, presumably without as much oversight as before, although guards and maybe attendants would likely be present, somewhere.

Before his decision and after his exit of the underground library that night, he was given an explanation for Dan Heng by that one attendant guy, after Leona ventured to ask the simple question: who was he?

“Ah...yes, Dan Heng, he is a recently reincarnated High Elder, you see! He lives here, in the palace.”

“You mean underground?”

“It is a place that suits him the best.”

Leona nodded. “I see. Then, can I ask him to come with me to the rest of the library upstairs tomorrow? He knows the books well. I’d like to ask his advice.”

“His...advice? Your highness, he’s only a child! And, ah, you see, he does not leave that chamber. He should not. It is...his punishment, right now, that he should stay there. It’s a Vidyadharan matter. Please, don’t worry over it, but I would advise you to stay far away from him, Prince Leona.”

Unsurprisingly, Leona got hardly any details at all, but that made sense, really. He was an outsider, so it was not his business to know why the supposedly important ‘high elder’ child was being kept in the basement that aside from the library felt like a dungeon, but it also didn’t change the fact that he was, in fact, a child being kept there. With a magic-suppression collar, he might add. Needless to say, Leona didn’t like his one bit. Sure, being “punished” as a kid by being grounded and told to stay in your room was not at all unheard of in itself, but everything else about this made the picture much more suspicious. Dan Heng did not look well, and Leona just couldn’t bring himself to ignore it. So, he would start by investigating a little; that’s all. Then, he’ll figure out what to do next.

“Leona? You came back!”

Dan Heng was in the library when he arrived again the next morning, his wide eyes that were staring down the doorway quickly lighting up when Leona appeared into view. It made Leona feel a little odd, honestly, thinking that his presence would have that effect. It really shouldn’t. The kid should be warier of strangers, just like he shouldn’t look so fearful every time the guards at the doorway made a move or a sound.

“Be more respectful of the visiting prince!” one the guards barked out gruffly right after Dan Heng spoke, causing the kid to immediately flinch and look down at the ground.

“I-I’m sorry! I... forgive me, Prince L—”

“Tsk, kid, I literally don’t care what you call me. Look up.”

“O-Okay!” Dan Heng snapped his head back up with the same fearful expression, and Leona sighed sharply. He really, really hated this.

“So...is it okay if I stay again?” Dan Heng asked. “While you research? Or do you want me to leave?”

“Nope, you can stay if you want to. You can help too, if you’re up for it,” Leona answered, thinking he would just leave it at that, before the other guard decided it’d be a fine idea to speak up.

“Yes, Dan Heng, the visiting prince will be staying for several days, and he specifically requested that you would be allowed to stay on assistance, so that he may perform research on you, so please comply with his wishes!”

“Research on...me? Oh...I see.” Dan Heng visibly deflated, at that, his ears drooping like the answer was a deeply disappointing one, before he clenched his hands together like he was nervous. “Do you want to ask questions about my past life? Because I...I promise I really don’t remember...”

“What? No, that’s not what I meant at all,” Leona corrected briskly, not really liking the squirming feeling he was getting in his gut from how scared Dan Heng sounded when he asked that. “Actually, that’s not even what I said. I’m not doing research on you, I was just going to ask you about Vidyadharan dragons; that’s all. And you don’t have to answer anything if you don’t want to.”

“Oh, really?” Dan Heng’s eyes lit right back up again. “You don’t want to do any experiments?”

Leona constrained his answer with a heavy sigh. “No, kid. No experiments.” What the fuck was he talking about...?

“Okay! Then, what do you want to do?”

“I was going to continue the book I was reading yesterday. You want to look at it together?”

“R-Really?” he asked, gratefully now seeming both relieved and excited. “Okay!”

+++

That night in his hotel room, Leona started doing a bit of research, and it wasn’t the kind that had anything to do with life magic.

He had to figure out what was up with Dan Heng, and he knew he wasn’t going to get any straight answers from the guys at the palace, not that he should even really bother asking. If he went too far, he could risk showing his intentions and alarming them, so he let his first step instead be the internet, plain and simple. He knew that the kid was a “high elder” who had reincarnated, so he could start by finding out more about the high elders.

The first picture he found was an old one, colored in black and white, but it confirmed a hunch that had already been worming around in the back of his head—he had actually seen Dan Heng in person before, or more accurately, he saw Dan Feng. That was the name of the Imbibitor Lunae high elder, and once a long time ago, the Sunset Savana royal family played host to them, during a diplomatic summit, just as the customary exchange was for so many leaders around the world. Leona was young at the time, staying only on the outskirts of the event; he was supposed to be present for looking nice and nothing more, but he remembers catching a glimpse of the dragons from far away, and he remembers the one with the blue-green tail and horns, and that long black hair... an ancient, dignified leader with long old-fashioned robes who was so different than anything he ever knew that he might as well have been from another world.

It was a really weird thing to think about, now. It wasn’t like they really ‘met’ back then, but it was still strange to think that fifteen or so years ago, Dan Feng was the old man and Leona was a small child, and now, Leona was the adult meeting him as a small child—or his reincarnation, anyways. Leona was only vaguely aware of how all that worked before, that magic being so different from what was possible for most species of the world, but looking into it now, he found that it was a bit more like recycling a soul than simply letting the same soul live on... it was still them, in a way, but rebirth also took away your memories and reformed and reshaped the soul into its renewed child-shaped vessel, so to most of the Vidyadhara, the rebirth really did make a new person, just carrying on the spirit of your predecessor. It was to the point that they, apparently, had a very strict law stating that no person could ever be tried for deeds done in their past life, since the slate for them was supposed to be completely renewed.

All of that about reincarnation felt...important, but Leona wasn’t sure how yet. He needed to dig some more into their history.

Finding out about Dan Feng was much harder than he thought it would be, though, despite his status as a monarch-like leader. Information and news reports about the man was sparse, his very existence being acknowledged more by other countries than his own. In a way, it seemed just like typical fae behavior when it came to news and internet presence in general, to be enigmatic and act a bit like the cryptids too many people of the world still liked to see them as, but the Vidyadhara of Scalegorge Waterscape were also much more international-trading-affluent and technologically advanced compared to Briar Valley. Plenty of information existed, just not about Dan Feng, but soon, Leona found it: the news from just a few short years ago, which revealed exactly what happened to him…and maybe exactly why no one talked about him.

“The Sedition of Imbibitor Lunae.” That was the name they gave for the catastrophic event of five years ago, when Dan Feng used black magic during an important ritual, defiling the event, and, more importantly, leading to his overblot. The military subdued him, but many people died in the attempt. Afterwards, the High Elder was sentenced to molting rebirth, to be followed by lifelong imprisonment, so that he may atone for his sins.

At that moment, with a cold feeling settling into Leona’s chest, everything started to make a whole lot more sense.

He quickly looked back at what he had just read about reincarnation and that law saying that they weren’t supposed to be tried for what they did in a past life, just to make sure he didn’t read that incorrectly, but no, it seemed that really was supposed to be the case. Dan Heng wasn’t supposed to be serving some lifelong sentence because of Dan Feng, but it looked like that was exactly what was happening. So, was that it? Was that the big reason why he was being kept in the basement, and why he was wearing a collar and had scars like that? Perhaps, considering the sentence, he could be considered lucky that he still got to walk around in that space and be in the library, but now, he couldn’t help but think of how much those scars probably matched perfectly with where a traditional set of manacles would be.

Leona looked a little further, getting into whatever social media forums where government oversight would be less likely to be found, but he still found next to nothing on what exactly happened or what that ‘black magic’ was even trying to do. No one seemed to know. Maybe it didn’t matter. All that mattered now was the end result, and people did have opinions, when it came to that, both from within this country and in the surrounding ones. Some seemed to disapprove of the sedition, saying the sentence was unprecedented and broke the law by carrying a punishment into one’s next life. It should have stopped with the molting rebirth, which was akin to an execution. Others said that it was necessary. The crimes were just so great that it had to be justified, and he was so powerful that he shouldn’t be allowed to overblot. That part alone was proof that he couldn’t be trusted, that he was “defiled” and “corrupted.”

“The black magic doesn’t even matter, does it? The fact that he overblotted at all just proves he’s a ‘sinner,’ through and through. If he was that unstable then, who’s to say his next life won’t be any different?”

Leona decided that he needed to get away from the computer for a while.

He left the hotel and started walking the streets, putting on plain clothes and letting himself blend into the crowd, inasmuch as a lion beastman could blend into a city of dragons. He would settle on just being seen as a tourist, which might not be so different from all those times when he was younger when he would drive off and end up in some town in the Sunset Savana where lions were not expected to be. Then, he could just let them assume he was from the capital and leave it at that. The one good thing about being a useless second prince was that not a lot of people would immediately recognize him outside the palace and not dressed in fine clothes, so that when he was chafing over being a hated, useless second prince and needed to get away from home for a while, he could do just that. Either he would walk the streets of the capital or somewhere else, or he would just relish the ability to drive out into the middle of nowhere, in the endless savanna where no one could hear him scream.

So, just like so many times before, Leona mindlessly explored. He got a late dinner just in view of the ocean beyond the bustling ship port, and watched people come and go and live their peaceful everyday lives, and he watched a few tourists congregate around some monument before looking out excitedly at the ocean view. It was a beautiful city, really. The architecture was exquisite, the mountains beyond the shore were majestic, and the flying machines overhead stood as proof as the unique way they embraced both magic and technology. Leona wouldn’t call himself an expert when it came to city planning, especially when the question aesthetics got involved, but seeing both the palace and the cityscape, he couldn’t help but realize how much everything seemed to belong here, like the architecture and the lush natural landscape was one and the same. It was a place where modernity coincided with oneness with nature...thinking about it, Leona thought he might learn something from here, actually. Maybe...this was a good reason for him to keep traveling, just so that he could learn about how other people did things, and maybe get inspired by them, somehow. He could figure out how to make a compromise with all those old politicians from his homeland and have ammunition to argue past their excuses, by making some kind of ‘harmony’ with nature even with the improvements he wanted, and more importantly, he could find people he could hire that would get the job done. Maybe it was a lost cause either way, but...it was something he could try, at least.

Leona thought about this a bit and considered the importance this revelation might have for him, but of course, in this moment, the sensation was a numb one. He had too much else to think about, and just everything else that had ever plagued him, it felt like a problem that was ultimately hopeless and impossible.

It was present enough in his mind that he subconsciously half-expected to get some random mention of it as he walked among the people, like he would overhear passerby talk to each other in shocked or hushed tones about the great and grand disaster that happened, but he knew, obviously, that he wouldn’t. Just like any other news story, no matter how big or small, people only talked about it for as long as it was relevant. The forums had their fair share of chatter five years ago, but he saw nothing about it now. Probably, next to no one gave a second thought about the very existence of the imprisoned ‘young high elder’ aside from the guys at the palace, and why would they? He was just an afterthought to the story of the high elder who went rogue and overblotted on everyone, who was stopped because the heroic military saved the day. He was a king no longer fit to be king, and he got what he deserved. That was the end of it.

Leona finished his food and continued walking, with barely any destination in mind. He didn’t like this. He didn’t like it for Dan Heng, and he didn’t like how personal it felt to him. Leona was lucky, he knew. He was lucky that the news of his overblot didn’t spread far, and he was lucky that no one got seriously hurt or worse. It never stopped being terrifying to him to think back and realize how close he got to sanding Ruggie’s throat and killing him on the spot. As if that wasn’t bad enough, it made it only worse to think that him losing control only confirmed everything that everyone ever thought about him. He had a terrifying power; he was a disappointment no matter what he did; he was as unstable as he was rude and uncouth. He wasn’t fit to be a prince, let alone a king. For so long, Leona thought it would have been better if he had been the firstborn. They never would have said any of those things about him, then. However, he knew now that the chance was all too real that they would have disapproved of him regardless. He would still be cast out, if he didn’t fit their mold. It would have still felt like he could have died back then and there would be few who would miss him when he was gone.

He didn’t know what kind of person Dan Feng was. He didn’t know what he was going through back then, either. However, he knew all too well that for him to overblot, something must have been going on, to break him down like that. It never was just the magic.

Leona found himself drifting to the alchemy commission, after that. He remembered the palace staff recommending him a visit to them for his research, but Leona had no intentions of following through with it, at least not right now. He just went out of passive curiosity into the area where all the other outsider visitors were. Already, just from the outside, he could tell it was an impressive place, much larger than he thought it would be. It was an elegant, sprawling walled complex set atop a hill, probably a scientist’s paradise judging from all the equipment Leona could spot from where he was, and it had a large sectioned-off area by the entrance where a couple of clinic buildings were situated. People came here as patients, seemingly to get treated by magical means. It was interesting to watch, and Leona wondered if there would be any use in setting up a meeting with some of the alchemists for his life magic research, like some kind of academic exchange. The only problem was, the life magic thing wasn’t feeling that important right now. He just had to keep making it important to justify his being here.

“Oh, sir? The waiting room for walk-ins is over this way.”

Leona was surprised to hear someone talking to him, but he guessed he was kind of just standing around looking out over the wall like some kind of lost tourist, so that was fair. He turned to see a young teenaged girl with long brown hair and bright red markings on her skin, dressed like one of the alchemists and carrying a poised air about her as she carried some materials under her arm.

“You could...” she continued, before cutting herself off abruptly with a look of shock in her widening eyes, her previous dignity shattering and then getting hastily patched back together again. “Y-You’re...! The visiting prince! Prince Leona Kingscholar! Oh, my apologies, are you...here to see my master, Cauldron Master Yunhua? I could arrange a meeting; you’ll just have to, ah, wait a moment...”

“Dan Zhu. Have you forgotten what I told you? I do not wish to be interrupted when I’m with patients, no matter how important the guest.”

In a moment of fantastically coincidental timing, the stately elder gray-haired woman with sharp eyes who must have been the famous Cauldron Master walked up to them, her face stern with a dignified calm as she briefly eyed the absolutely-out-of-place Leona and then turned to her apprentice, instead.

“I-I know that!” Dan Zhu protested. “I was simply...going to lead him somewhere to wait for you, where I would have assured him that you would be there soon, which would have... appropriately pleased him, I am sure,” she added with a small huff and a tired look in her eyes, to which Yunhua just laughed.

“Ha, you mean it would have been better than me telling him to his face that he should wait his turn like everyone else?” she remarked with a bold smirk, as if for the sole purpose of making Dan Zhu look awkward, before turning to Leona with a more polite smile. “No offense, of course, young prince.”

“None taken, ma’am,” Leona replied with an amused smile of his own. He liked this woman already. “Your time is important; far be it from me to demand it from you just because I showed up to ask a few alchemy questions. You have every right to refuse me no matter what your reason is.”

“Ha! Well said. Well then, what is your business here? I was told that you were researching nature healing magic and may be paying a visit to the alchemy commission for that reason. Should I take it that this is that time?”

Leona shook his head. “Not at all. I was just passing through to see the sights, just like any other tourist. I didn’t mean to cause a stir.” Which is to say he didn’t mean to be recognized at all, but in retrospect, coming to the alchemy commission was probably asking for it. It was too close to whatever was going on with the royals, probably.

“Hmph,” she huffed, her sharp gaze seeming to eye him even more closely, now. “Well, you are certainly stirring up something, just so you know. Word has spread about your insistence on doing your studies in the palace dungeon.”

“The dungeon?” Leona echoed blandly, feeling almost amused by the frankness. They never called it that before, but it certainly matched with what he knew now.

Yunhua exhaled a sharp sigh, weightier than before despite its brevity, like she was well aware of what was going on and knew far more than she would ever tell him. “Ah, I suppose at the palace, they would have smoothed the matter over for someone like you, wouldn’t they? That dungeon fell into disuse a long time ago, so part of it was converted into a library, about three hundred years ago. It was Dan Feng’s doing, to be precise.”

“Dan Feng?” Leona echoed, suddenly realizing what kind of irony this must be. “The former high elder. So, the library was his, then...”

“That is correct.” She nodded. “It was once a beautiful, secluded place, and now, the dungeon part of it has been repurposed once more to ‘house’ his reincarnation. Perhaps they found it was fitting, or perhaps...they wanted only to keep the important child close, where no one would ever see him...or ‘harm’ him, I mean. Ah, but don’t mind me. This must be a topic of absolutely no interest to a princely scholar like you, isn’t it?” she asked with a note of challenge, as if she already knew the truth. “Do you know who Dan Feng was, even?”

Leona shrugged. “He visited the Sunset Savana once. Him and the other high elders.”

“Mm, of course.” She nodded with a hum of thought. “Well then. This matter aside, I suppose we might as well take this time to arrange a meeting at a later date, if you desire it. There is always benefit in the exchanging of ideas, after all. How long do you think you will need, to find what you are looking for?”

Leona wasn’t sure how long he had, before something might happen to change the situation, but at this point, he might as well take his chances. He wanted to stay long enough to figure out what was going on, and something told him that he might as well save for meeting for when he knew that. “Three days.”

“Alright. Well, I wish you the best of luck until then, Leona Kingscholar.”

+++

Dan Heng had spent a long, long time reading about the outside world and hoping that one day he would get to see it, if only for a little while, but he never once thought that one day the outside world would come to him.

Yuanli told him about the prince coming to visit, but she was in a hurry and didn’t say much except to tell him to stay out of the library, while she went and tried to find accommodations for the prince, and Dan Heng knew that meant he should stay far away, but he was also really curious about him. He never saw any new people aside from the guards and the servants and sometimes the Preceptors, much less someone from a whole other country, and he also never ever had seen a beastman in real life before, so he thought he would just take a peek, but then he got even more curious and forgot to stay more behind the wall, so they saw him. Dan Heng was really nervous about getting in trouble, especially when they said he should be in his “room,” but then, Leona said he could stay, like that actually wasn’t a problem at all, and he could hardly believe it and thought he might change his mind or get mad at him later, but he didn’t. He talked to him as he read the same books Dan Heng liked to read, and he let Dan Heng talk to him back if he wanted to and didn’t get mad if he didn’t want to, and he got to sit there and read when he was reading, so altogether, Dan Heng was pretty sure that it was the best day of his life.

He just hoped that Yuanli didn’t get in trouble, though. When Yuanli locked him in his cell at night, she didn’t put the chains on unless she really had to, like if a Preceptor was there or one of the guards who liked to look at him and not just stay at the door way over by the stairs, and Dan Heng was good at keeping secrets, so he would never tell so she wouldn’t get in trouble. He liked it when she was the one to watch him, or the guard Guiying. Some of the others... didn’t like him so much. That was okay, though. He knew that there was a good reason why they didn’t like him, which was also why he had to stay down here and couldn’t come and go like everyone else, but also, he liked it when he got to walk around, and he really liked the library. It was much more beautiful than his cell. He would do his best to be good, then, so he didn’t have to be punished and he could keep walking around. He wasn’t good at being good when the Preceptors came to ask him questions, though. He wasn’t that good at all at telling them what they wanted.

Even more exciting than the first day was the day that Leona came back. He almost got a little afraid that Leona was actually only there because he wanted his memories, just like when the Preceptors interrogated him and when they did the experiments to make him remember his past life, which always gave him nightmares afterwards, but that wasn’t what Leona wanted at all. He was here to do the exact same thing as yesterday, which was read books for his research. So, Dan Heng read books with him, because that was something he was really good at doing. He’s a good reader, and he likes books because they have a lot of interesting things in them.

The next day after that, Dan Heng finally worked up the courage to start asking questions. He knew that someone like Leona being here, who was from another place and also who didn’t hate him, was a very rare thing to happen, and it may never happen again, so he needed to make very good use of this time. He knew a lot of things from books, but he knew that it just wasn’t going to be the same as asking a person what they thought, so he wanted to try.

“Mr. Leona, is it...okay if I ask a question?” Dan Heng asked, feeling immediately nervous as Leona looked up, since he was definitely interrupting his reading. He wasn’t feeling as confident as he was two seconds ago, but it was too late to back out now. “Just one question! It will be quick; I promise!”

Leona sighed deeply again. “Kid, you don’t have to be so tense about every little thing. What is it?”

“O-Okay, so, um, my question is, in the Elephant Graveyard, do the bones...talk?”

Leona blinked at him for a second. “Do they...talk?”

“Sorry if that’s a bad question!” Was that supposed to be a secret? Should Dan Heng even know?

“It’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with the question. Just...why do you think that?”

“W-Well, you see, in the history book, it says that the Elephant Graveyard is full of giant elephant bones, and it used to be that no one would ever go there because it was dangerous, but I wasn’t really sure what they meant by why it was dangerous, and then, in this story I read, the characters kept hearing voices that echoed everywhere, and I know that’s just a story, but I wondered...if that was the reason the Elephant Graveyard was so bad? Because the bones talked?”

Leona smiled like he was going to laugh, but he didn’t laugh. “Ah, got it. Well, no, the bones don’t talk. A ghost will, though. That might have been what the story was going for. But yeah, no, if you’re asking why people used to avoid that place like the plague, that’s literally just because nothing grew there, and it was a graveyard. People get superstitious about places like that, and because of that, the only people who’d go there were the people no one liked, which meant that the reputation got only worse. You see what I mean?”

“Um...maybe?”

“Yeah, well, what I’m saying is, people were scared for no good reason. They made a judgment, and then what they thought came true. People do that sometimes, you know. Even today.”

“But things are better with the graveyard today, right? Because it’s a hot springs and a tourist place now?”

“Yeah, that’s right.” He nodded. “It’s a real popular spot, too.”

“So... Leona, what’s a tourist attraction like?”

“Heh. It’s a place where people come to visit and gawk at things,” he answered, before raising his eyebrows with a bit of a teasing smirk. “So what? You got more questions than ‘just one,’ now?”

“Sorry, I don’t mean to take up too much time!” Dan Heng assured, shaking his head vigorously. “I know you want to keep reading about magic science, so you can keep doing that now. I just...had a few other things I was curious about, that’s all.”

Leona shrugged. “Yeah, well, ask away. I got more than enough time for everything I need. You can ask whatever you want.”

“R-Really?” Dan Heng felt a surge of hope. “You mean it?”

“Yep. Just as long as...eh, never mind. Ask as much as you want.”

“O-Okay then, well...” Now he had to remember all the questions he had! He really wished he’d written them down. “What about heat? What does the hot feel like?”

“What does it feel like?” Leona grimaced and scratched his ear, like that might have been a hard one to answer. “Well, it’s a lot different than here, I’ll tell you that. It’s freezing down here.”

“Yeah...that’s true.” Dan Heng nodded sagely. “It’s fine now, but it does get really cold in the winter. I can barely stay awake when it gets like that! It’s like I just can’t even move.”

“Huh, just like that lizard, then...” Leona muttered to himself, but Dan Heng heard him clearly and now he was curious.

“Like who?”

“What? Oh, yeah. Guy I know. He’s a dark fae dragon who likes the cold, but at a point, he does get pretty languid in it. Once went out like a light in the tundra, and I had to be the one to carry him, annoyingly,” he added with a scoff and a smile. “Same thing actually with this other guy I know, a half-fae crocodile. It’s a cold-blooded thing. Reptilian species tend to be sensitive to the cold like that.”

“You know other fae?” Dan Heng asked, his interest growing even more. He thought that since Leona was from the Sunset Savana, he must only know other beastmen, and maybe humans. Dan Heng had questions about the beastmen, too, but now he wanted to know about these people, because it sounded like they were friends if Leona carried the dragon through the snow even though it was annoying. That was just like this book he read in which the friends who were different species had to help each other get off the mountain in the blizzard because that mountain spirit hated them and wouldn’t let them get through on their journey. “What are they like?”

“What are they like?” Leona echoed, raising his eyebrow.

“Mm-hmm.” Dan Heng nodded. “Like, what kind of people are they?”

“Uh, okay...where do I even start...?”

“I-It’s fine if you don’t want to!” Dan Heng corrected himself quickly, the moment he realized the guard was looking at them again. He got way too carried away, didn’t he? He hoped that wasn’t the wrong thing to do... “I didn’t mean to be distracting, sorry!”

“No, you’re fine.” Leona sighed heavily again. “Remember what I said? I got time, so you can stop apologizing.”

“O-Oh, I see. Sorry!” he apologized.

Leona sighed. “Yeah, okay, well, that dragon. He was someone I knew from school, a few years ago. Same with the crocodile. I’m...not good at descriptions, so I’ll just tell you the story of how we met, if you want...”

+++

<<<Chatting with Horned Bastard>>>

8:06AM

>>>Leona: Hey Malleus, what do you know about the Vidyadhara?

8:25AM

>>>Horned Bastard: Greetings, Kingscholar. It has been some time since we last conversed.
The Vidyadhara are a noble species of fae descended from longs. They possess cloudhymn magic,
which is unique to them and lends to their unique ability to reincarnate, and the majority of
their people live in Scalegorge Waterscape, known for their advancements in technology and alchemy.
They and Briar Valley have friendly relations. They were allies in past conflicts. This is only
the beginning, but does this answer your question, Kingscholar?

>>>Leona: okay my fault for not being specific

>>>Leona: what do you know about recent events

>>>Leona: or better question. Do you know about the sedition of Imbibitor Lunae?

>>>Horned Bastard: sedition? Are you referring to the High Elder?

>>>Horned Bastard: I was not aware, and that is very surprising. Did he run into trouble of some kind?

>>>Leona: yeah that’s an understatement

>>>Leona: he did forbidden magic, had an overblot, got executed

>>>Leona: was just wondering if you guys knew anything of it, since you’re allies

>>>Leona: it was five years ago

>>>Horned Bastard: I see. Now that you say so, I do remember there being news of a disaster,
but I knew little of it, and I was unaware it created such consequences for the High Elder. As I recall, we were
attending Night Raven College, at the time, so I was not immediately involved with events
outside campus grounds, Briar Valley matters included.

>>>Leona: yeah you’re right my fault for asking you first

>>>Leona: see ya

>>>Horned Bastard: hello? Kingscholar, what is this about?

 <<<Chatting with Lilia>>>

>>>Leona: Lilia I have a question

>>>Lilia: fufu, as it just so happens, I’m with Malleus rn. I already know~

>>>Leona: great. So what’s up with the sedition of IL?

>>>Leona: I know the gist. I didn’t find many details

>>>Lilia: why do you need to know?

>>>Leona: its complicated

>>>Lilia: ah, I’m sure. Well…it is a very difficult situation. Dan Feng was sentenced to molting rebirth;
his reincarnation was sentenced to a life imprisonment, or so I hear

>>>Lilia: One of our own generals, Jing Yuan, was close friends with him. He tried multiple times to
visit the child (Dan Heng, is it?) but they won’t let him see him at all

>>>Lilia: for that matter, Jingliu was also close to him. she was a Briar Valley general too, Jing Yuan’s
mentor. Retired now. She was the one to fight Dan Feng in his overblot state and break him out of it.

>>>Leona: really? news I read just said the ‘military’ did it

>>>Leona: that’s not surprising though

>>>Leona: where is she now?

>>>Lilia: disappeared, unfortunately

>>>Lilia: she went missing not long after that happened

>>>Lilia: rumors say she went mad after that and overblotted herself, but…unfortunately, I really don’t know

>>>Leona: well fuck

>>>Leona: as if this couldn’t get any worse…

>>>Leona: good to know

>>>Lilia: ‘good to know,’ he says

>>>Lilia: you haven’t gotten in trouble with the Vidyadhara, have you?

>>>Leona: not yet I haven’t

>>>Leona: probably will be

>>>Lilia: excellent

>>>Lilia: nice to see you going on new adventures :)

>>>Lilia: but in all seriousness, please let us know if you need help. We’d be glad to lend a hand, if we can

Leona paused for a moment, staring at the screen with a grimace. He didn’t really know what he was asking for, or what he was looking for. In asking about the sedition, he was wondering if the Briar Valley guys had knowledge of more detail than the internet did and might even be able to tell him what the heck this ‘black magic’ even was, just because he didn’t like being uninformed about it for worry this would come back to haunt him later, but what Lilia said might be even more useful…and more concerning. Two Briar Valley generals—which is to say, two considerably important people from Briar Valley—knew Dan Feng as a friend. They had stake in this situation, and that opened up potential to solve this with international pressure… or maybe it could have, if it wasn’t so obvious how badly that was going for them. Jingliu had gone missing with suspicious timing, and Jing Yuan was being aggressively shut out completely. They wouldn’t even let him see Dan Heng, much less intercede for his situation, assuming that’s what he wanted to do.

So…between the deal with Jing Yuan, and Jingliu’s erasure from the narrative or worse, that confirmed the Preceptors had no qualms with acting against Briar Valley, their allies. Of course, Leona had to remind himself that the Briar Valley council of elders were pretty messed up themselves, considering what they did to Lilia and to Malleus, so they probably didn’t care about any of this, either. So, that left Leona right back at square one.

He just couldn’t leave this alone. The longer Leona stayed here, the more sure of that he became—he knew he had no business interfering with this sentence and whatever fantastic reasons the Preceptors were sure they had for it, but this was just wrong. Dan Heng was just a kid. What was Leona supposed to do, leave and forget about this? As if. He was way too stubborn for that, and for the record, Leona hasn’t ‘known his place’ since he was a kid, so there no reason to start now.

Just breaking him out by force would cause way too many problems, though…not to mention it would freak the kid out. Leona had to be smart about this. He wondered if there was some way he can get outside interference on this. The reincarnation thing and the disaster his past ‘self’ caused could make things messy, but locking him down there in that condition was still absolutely child abuse, and that was most likely not even reporting the half of it…

…which made for a good question. Was there any kind of law out there to override this?

<<<Chatting with Riddle>>>

>>>Leona: hey mr. law school, what do you know about international child abuse laws?

>>>Leona: are there any?

>>>Leona: like with the ARU or smth

Leona waited for a little while as he continued to turn over scenarios in his head, feeling both exhausted and restless as he stared at the hotel ceiling, but before long, he saw that Riddle got the message. He turned to staring at the phone, watching the typing icon persist for a while, which was probably Riddle typing and retyping considering the shortness of the first message he got back.

>>>Riddle: Leona, why are you asking this? What is going on?

>>>Riddle: Also, to answer your question, no. Not that I am aware of. The ARU is, as you surmised,
the most significant body that exists with international jurisdiction in Twisted Wonderland,
but they are involved solely in crimes related to magic. Would that be relevant in this case?

>>>Leona: does collaring a kid to seal their magic count?

>>>Riddle: A magic-sealing collar? Like what STYX uses?

>>>Leona: I wish

>>>Leona: it’s cutting into his neck

>>>Leona: not form-fitting at all and he probably outgrew
it a long time ago. the scarring’s really bad

>>>Riddle: I…see.

>>>Riddle: Leona may I ask that you answer my first question??

>>>Leona: i’m in scalegorge waterscape rn and there’s this kid
being kept in a dungeon. he’s in one piece but not in great shape.

>>>Riddle: a dungeon?? By whom??

>>>Leona: got sentenced to it. its complicated. Past life got convicted
and theyre punishing him for it in this one

>>>Riddle: That…is indeed complicated.

>>>Riddle: May I ask how you got involved in this??

>>>Leona: met him by chance in the dungeon ofc

>>>Riddle: and…why were you in the dungeon?

>>>Leona: there’s a library down here

>>>Riddle: why is there…okay fine. There are more important questions.
However, considering the rules that would apply…

>>>Riddle: I’m sorry. If he got sentenced by an accepted governing body, international law will not help you, here.
The ARU never gets involved in matters like that, which contradict someone else’s court rulings.
Unless the child is himself a foreigner…I don’t believe anyone would intervene. I’m sorry,
I understand how this might be upsetting to watch, but I don’t believe there is anything you can do.

>>>Leona: legally, you mean. Nothing I can do *legally*

>>>Riddle: Leona what are you thinking

>>>Riddle: Leona

>>>Leona: so, if I get arrested over here, any chance you’ll be my lawyer?

>>>Riddle: LEONA

>>>Leona: I’ll pay you

>>>Riddle: by the Seven why are you…fine. Maybe I will. Just don’t be reckless.

>>>Leona: Got it. I’ll let you know how this goes

+++

The next two days went by with the same routine as before. Leona got some more books transferred over to the ‘Jade Cavern’ library, and he proceeded to spend most of the day down there, still reading over those thick texts of ancient magic and gleaning material for his research project and then some, while Dan Heng continued to shadow him for the entire time. It was a wonder that the kid never got bored. Leona guessed it might have a lot to do with books possibly being the only source of stimulation that he had at all down here, but he really did seem to genuinely enjoy reading, even when it was difficult texts that he barely understood the meaning of. Leona explained some of those things about magic that he was curious about—he was no teacher, by any means, but it was good enough to satisfy him, it seemed.

Dan Heng got a little bolder when it came to asking questions, as time went on. He was still kind of the quiet type, seemingly most content when he was reading or he was listening to some story he pulled out of Leona, but he obviously had no shortage of questions about the world—not just about magic or science, but about the stuff he read in his history books and stories, from the weirdly obscure to the (unfortunately) very mundane.

“Leona, what does the ocean feel like?”

“The ocean?” Leona echoed, biting back the automatic follow-up question in his head, because of course, he already knew the answer to that. ‘I should be asking you,’ he wanted to be able to say, because Leona grew up in the middle of the savanna, and by contrast, Dan Heng lived on an island, but no, that was irrelevant, because he probably never left this palace ‘dungeon’ at all.

“Mm-hmm.” Dan Heng nodded, his wide eyes expectant and hopeful, like he could somehow trust Leona to give a satisfying answer.

“Yeah, well, it’s…wet, I guess.” Leona hadn’t exactly made a visit to the beach more than a handful of times, himself, and even if he was an ocean-lover, how was he supposed to describe it? “And there’s movement. Ocean has a current, so, if you’re standing in the water, you feel the flow going back and forth.”

Dan Heng nodded. “Yeah. I read about that. Did you ever fall down?”

“What? No, kid, I never fell down.”

“Okay, so…what was the first time like?”

“My first? I was a freshman at Night Raven College then. You remember me mentioning NRC, right?”

Dan Heng nodded silently. “You knew a lot of people there.” He kept staring at him, then, like he himself forgot what to say next, and thus, Leona found himself forced to read in between the lines.

“You want me to tell you the story of my first time seeing the ocean?”

Dan Heng nodded more rapidly. “If you want to!”

Leona sighed slowly. Yeah, he was starting to get the picture that this kid was just really interested in his stories, to the point that even his questions about something else were just thinly masked excuses to get Leona to talk about himself, since it wasn’t like he knew how to explain things succinctly, anyways. First it was the story of how he and Malleus met, which wove into him talking about the other Diasomnia guys and some of the others from NRC, too, and then, it was his short-lived pet lizard when he was eight, then it was chess with Neiji, then it was that Fairy Gala disaster, and then it was that Spelldrive game when Ruggie found all that broken equipment from the other team in the trash and insisted on bringing it back with them, just so he could ‘fix’ it up and sell them. All of Leona’s stories were short, and he was pretty confident that he was, objectively, a terrible storyteller, but Dan Heng kept asking for it anyways, and then, come that last day, he even asked for paper so he could start taking notes, recording both the magic and science stuff and the random stories with the meticulousness of some kind of chronicler.

Dan Heng kept going just like that, diligent as ever and taking in everything to the fullest with whatever topic they landed on for hours and hours, but on that last day, he did manage to finally run out of energy, late into the afternoon. At that time, he had settled in sitting right next to Leona on the floor, leaning back as comfortably as they could be against the wall, as they quietly read a large book together, and at some point, Dan Heng fell asleep, slumping into Leona’s side and then onto his lap. Leona let him stay there. He just…kept reading, while the kid slept so quietly, still choosing to be right by his side like a magnet, even after all this time.

Leona looked down, then, at the small dragon child curled up with his head resting on his leg, with his tiny, scarred hands and wrists dropped against the cold stone ground, with the shadows from the soft light barely masking the unhealthy pallor of his skin, and he felt his heart twist with the cold reminder of just how fragile he really looked.

He…didn’t like this. Any of it. He didn’t like what was happening to Dan Heng, and he didn’t like that it felt so easy to believe that the entire reality may be even worse than the facts he knew, but also, he didn’t like it that he was the one left with this need to do something about it. Someone like him had no business being the one responsible for the well-being of any child, so no, he didn’t want to be the one responsible for what happened to Dan Heng. He didn’t want to consider who the most vulnerable one would be if whatever plan Leona enacted went terribly wrong. Leona had no business being here. He might only make things worse, instead of better. He didn’t want to be relied on. He looked down at Dan Heng, and he imagined what would happen if or when he finally asked the question, when he finally got the chance to ask if he wanted help, if he wanted to leave this place. Leona would never force him to do something without asking, of course. He just…didn’t like to think about what would happen if the kid said ‘yes’ and really seriously decided to put his life in Leona’s hands, only to watch his promises turn into empty lies. He didn’t want to ask for trust just so that he could fail him.

Leona took a deep breath. He knew it was useless, doubting himself on something he already decided on. It was just, even after all these years…it was still hard, putting this kind of thing on himself. However, he had to remind himself that he was no fool. He could handle himself. He just needed to play his cards right, and then, he’ll use whatever means necessary to finish this. Perhaps tomorrow, when he had that meeting with Yunhua for whatever cryptid reasons she was implying, things will finally start to fall into place.

+++

The next day came, and it got off to a terrible start with a messenger from the palace meeting him in the hotel lobby to say that Preceptor Taoran wanted to see him today.

Leona, in short, absolutely did not want to. He didn’t trust him, and even if the situation wasn’t so tense, he was not at all a guy that Leona was in the mood to talk to. However, since the situation was that tense, he knew he couldn’t refuse. All this time, he had been here on the Preceptors’ hospitality, and he didn’t want to risk getting kicked out of the palace altogether before he had a chance to act, since that would make things so much harder. He needed to keep up the ruse that his intentions and his goals were aligned with his research and only his research, so it would be a bit suspicious if he snubbed his host. Leona was reminded of how much he hated playing politics, but he could handle this…probably.

He went down to the dungeon library again that morning, staying for a while with Dan Heng joining him just as before, breaking for lunch as usual, and then sticking around another couple of hours before taking his early leave to go see Taoran at the appointed time, which should still leave him ample time to head to the alchemy commission and have his meeting with Yunhua afterwards. He kept his senses sharp as he got led down to the grand politician’s office that belonged to Taoran, and the blue-haired, one-horned Vidyadhara was there to greet him, with a wide, satisfied smirk plastered all over his face.

“Prince Leona Kingscholar! How nice to meet with you again!”

“Good afternoon, Preceptor,” Leona said politely but stiffly in return, feeling his hackles immediately bristle with alarm at the gleam in Taoran’s eyes and the smirk on his face. Though the words were as friendly as ever, his outward demeanor was much different and much freer than it was before, which made Leona realize that this might be the moment he got, at last, the Preceptor’s “true” self, and he was not at all looking forward to finding out what that meant.

“Come, sit down. It’s been…ah, five days, hasn’t it? You’ve done a lot of research in our libraries in this time. How has your progress been, Kingscholar?”

“It’s been fine,” Leona answered simply, with a shrug. “You have a good collection. I’ve gotten a lot of good notes.”

“Mm, I see. That is good to hear. Considering the reports from the guards, I was worried you might have been a little too…distracted, to do your scholarly research properly. That child…had quite a habit of steering you off topic, didn’t he?”

“Yeah? So what?” Leona challenged, though he made an effort to keep his tone constrained. “That didn’t bother me. My culture’s big on teaching the younger generation, remember? If I didn’t want to answer a question, I would have told him so. He was fine.”

Taoran chuckled in response, and Leona bristled again at the sound of it. “Ah, of course. Your kindness truly knows no bounds, dear prince. But back to the topic, please. Tell me more about your findings. I would love to see what results this ‘project’ of yours has given you.”

“Results? I’m not finished yet, you know,” Leona countered briskly, before then deciding to break into a ‘friendly’ smile, instead. “Sure, I could give the progress report, but I doubt it’d be news to such a learned guy like you. All these books are yours, after all, and besides, you’re a long-lived fae, and I’m just some kid fresh out of high school. What do I know?”

Taoran chuckled again, shaking his head like Leona was being cute. “Oh, Prince Leona. Were you not the one who said that sharing information between generations is important. Please, no need to be defensive. But perhaps, I should explain. Do you know why your research topic was of such interest to me? To us, I should say?”

Leona sighed sharply, crossing his arms. “You hadn’t mentioned it, no. Why?”

“Because…we seek a similar goal. As vague as your topic of research was, I am, as you said, a very learned man, and I was well aware of how important the concept of ‘nature healing’ might be to someone from the Sunset Savana. You have legends of a great magic, a ‘roar’ that could turn a barren land green again. This is much more than just a story to you, is it not?”

Leona released a tense breath, careful not to betray too much emotion as he met the Preceptor’s eyes. He hit the nail on the head, and Leona was wary to know why that was so important. “Yes, of course it is,” he said. “Everyone knows the legends have truth to them; that’s nothing new.”

“Mm, but of course. Well, you see, the power to heal, the power of life… that is something very close to us Vidyadhara, too. The magic of the Sunset Savana, which you have lost, can bring the dead back to life again. The magic that we have, here at present, is to offer a soul a chance at a second life. Cloudhymn magic provides powerful healing spells, as I’m sure you’re aware, but even that is not much different than the magic available to any mage. Bringing things back to life, on the other hand, is much, much more difficult.”

Leona wasn’t sure where he was going with this. He…was interested in the King’s Roar? But why? Was this really what he wanted from him this whole time, just some knowledge of some old spell that no one remembered? Leona couldn’t deny, of course, that it would be something interesting, because he was interested in it, and that’s what got him on this whole project in the first place. It wasn’t like he was looking for miracles, but he couldn’t deny that it was a spell that sounded miraculous, especially the more you thought about the implications. Even that crazy powerful spell Malleus knew, which could return everything to its ‘proper place’ as it was a short period of time ago, couldn’t bring back something dead, even if that dead thing was just a little plant. Life was…just much more difficult, like that.

Leona hadn’t exactly been thinking about it that way, though. He was looking for magic that would accelerate plant growth and heal damage to the land, but he never even attempted to go at it from the angle of reviving the dead. Taoran, on the other hand, obviously had, but Leona still didn’t know why.

“Yeah, I guess it is,” Leona agreed. “To your point, though, don’t you guys already have all this figured out? Your people can be reborn. Isn’t that basically like bringing the dead back to life?”

“Ah…you flatter us.” Taoran clicked his tongue and shook his head with a smile. “But child, you must know that such magic is…severely limited. It is not the dead who reincarnate, you know. When a Vidyadhara is at the end of their life, they must choose to follow through with that ending and submit themselves to the ritual of rebirth. Our people will die, however, if they are killed, or if they succumb to age or illness without performing the hatching rebirth. It is… not a perfect magic, and with the rebirth, we do not consider the person to even be the same as who they were. They have no memories, and aspects of them will always change, every time, so if this truly, I ask you, an overcoming of death? Is this truly immortality of the soul? Tell me, if there was a way out of this, if there was a way even someone even like you, a non-fae, could experience everlasting life, would you not take it?”

Taoran paused, that time, like he expected Leona to answer the question. Leona didn’t think he wanted to answer. He didn’t want to deal with this… “So. You’re not talking about plants anymore, I’m guessing? Because you know that’s the only thing I care about.”

Taoran laughed. “Oh, Prince Leona! Such a diligent, faithful scholar you are! Indulge me an answer to the question, will you? I just bore my own soul to you, didn’t I? How about we talk, from one national leader to another? If we truly hold the key to the answers of your questions, can you not do the same in return?”

“Okay, fine. So what are you getting at, really? You’re looking for immortality?”

“You could say that, yes. Or just…a longer life, than the one we have—than the ever-so-short one that you have. Or maybe…you want this for someone else? Pardon my intrusion on your personal matters, but it is no secret, of course, that your dear mother, the queen, died many years ago, when you were but a small child, and your father has been sick for several years and may be on death’s door right now. If you could bring them back to life with our magic, or your own, or some mixture of both…wouldn’t you take it?”

Leona went speechless, for a moment. He…didn’t expect the conversation to go this way, and he really didn’t expect this guy to have the gall to make this personal for him, like it wouldn’t be so blindingly obvious that he was trying to manipulate and entice him for…for what? For resurrecting the dead!? That was forbidden magic; no one could do that and expect to be successful with it, at least not without a disastrous cost. And then his going on about ‘immortality’ wasn’t any better; it was suspicious as hell, and maybe, Leona could just consider himself lucky that he could see it that way. He already had no reason to trust him, and this only confirmed it.

At least now, that one little clue he got before, when he was doing his research, finally made a lot more sense.

“Well, you’re already making progress, aren’t you?” Leona said, finally answering the question with a question. “I just so happened to see a few pictures of you, from a few years ago. You look…much younger now, than you did then.”

That statement of Leona’s, which might have been perceived as a warning to someone else, seemed to only to boost the man’s ego, which was exactly what he wanted. Taoran’s smirk widened. “So, you see the benefit, then? Of the true power of Vidyadhara healing arts?”

“Sure. But again, what do you need me for?”

“Well…I say you should use your magic, for me. It’s alright if you can’t make it work, at first. You could try again, or you can try two, or three, or even five or more times. As long as you need. You can join me for a little experiment, and I will in turn give you the key that I believe you need—the missing piece, if you will.”

“Yeah? And what is that?”

“The power of a dragon.”

Leona’s blood froze on the spot. He didn’t want to know where this was going, but he suspected it. He suspected it even before this slimy bastard even dared to open his mouth again. And he was sure he wasn’t doing a good job, anymore, of keeping the anger off of his own face.

“A Vidyadharan dragon’s blood is a powerful agent of healing, and that is precisely what makes the High Elders so powerful and long-lived. You haven’t met most of the high elders, sadly, but fortunately…I do recall you have built a considerable rapport with that child. If you were to take a step forward to the completion of your research, and practice this magic of life with him as your conduit, I’m sure he won’t mind, would he?”

“Not gonna happen,” Leona spat, probably far too quickly and with far too deep of a scowl on his face to leave any hope of keeping up a ruse, but in this moment, that was an act he just wasn’t going to keep up.

“Oh? And what is the problem? You seem upset.”

“I don’t need a conduit to do magic. I’m fine on my own, thank you.”

Taoran angled another smirk at him, his hands neatly folded on his desk. “Ah, but remember, you yourself said that the child was important to your research, did you not? I’m simply providing you an opportunity.”

“He’s reading the material with me; that’s it. I don’t need him like that.”

“Hmm, such a shame, though. Because, if you don’t, well, I think you really just don’t need him at all, do you? He’s an accessory; not a companion of any use.”

“Yeah? And who asked you?” Leona spat back at him. “I’m fine as things are.”

“Oh, but you forget! He is our high elder, and I think, if he’s not that useful to you, then his time would be best spent elsewhere. If you wish to see him again, simply let me know, and I will arrange for the experiment.”

Leona snarled, his eyes narrowed at him and his claws only barely resisting the urge to take a chunk out of this table right here and now. “You fucking serious?”

“Oh dear, Prince Leona! What uncouth language from a man of your stature—it’s a shame, really, to see you grow so upset. But I suppose…you’re just showing your true colors. What a pity.”

“Yeah. Same for you.”

Taoran chuckled and stood up, as if he relished that moment standing taller than Leona was sitting so that he could signal that this meeting was over. “Please, I only wish to serve you to the fullest, as our guest. You may continue your research freely, just as you said you wished to do it…alone.” 

+++

Leona felt as perpetually tense as Rook’s bowstring all the way from the palace to the alchemy commission. He didn’t like this. He didn’t like this one bit, and he dreaded what Taoran was about to do, and he itched with the burning desire to punch him in his smug face and stop him from doing whatever it was that he wanted. At the same time, he felt like he just failed that meeting and revealed himself far too much—all this time, he was playing the part of the unthreatening scholar, but all of that was shattered now, or maybe it already had been. Maybe the very fact that every hour of those days he spent in the dungeon library with Dan Heng was also spent being perpetually watched by those guards should have given him more of a hint that this would go badly. They would see clearly the way he treated Dan Heng, and apparently, it should be no fucking wonder that they might see kindness or mere tolerance and be threatened by it.

Leona wondered, right now, if he should have pretended to go along with Taoran’s plan for that “experiment,” since that might have been the smartest thing for him to do and may have opened up an opportunity to make their big escape, but also, he didn’t regret his refusal one bit. He wished he could have told him off more than he did, but…he would be patient, for that. He was tired of playing games, but that didn’t mean Leona couldn’t manage getting himself a few more tricks up his sleeve.

Upon Leona’s arrival at the alchemy commission, he was recognized by Dan Zhu first, who quickly beckoned him to follow her and then showed him to a small room in a quiet building behind the clinic. Yunhua was already there, seated with a solemn poise on a floor mat, with a table adorned with a tray of hot tea in front of her. She motioned for Leona to sit down on the other side of the table, and then she dismissed her apprentice and asked that they be left alone, for a while.

So now, it was just the two of them, here. The Cauldron Master remained pensively silent for a short while after her apprentice left, and Leona stilled his nerves enough to patiently wait until she spoke first.

“You met with Preceptor Taoran, I see.”

Leona nodded. “Yeah. I guess news travels fast.”

“Yes. I am privy to some things, or rather, I have acquaintances who are willing to share those matters with me, especially when they are as sensitive as this. As such, I know that you refused Taoran’s offer.”

Leona tensed up a bit at that, but he nodded as calmly as before. “I did.” He didn’t know yet what that news would mean to her, and he hoped that he could soon find out, so he wouldn’t be left in the dark. He didn’t know for sure if he could trust her yet, so he had to be careful, but there was no use denying what she already knew.

Leona’s answer, however, came much more quickly than he thought it would. Yunhua liked to get straight to the point, it seemed, and honestly, Leona was glad for it.

“Good,” she said simply, with a curt nod. “Now, I suppose you are wondering my intentions, here, just as I wondered about yours. You should know that there are plenty, now, who wish to make use of the young high elder, so your insistence on being close to him was…suspicious, to say the least. However, my allies among the guards assured me that your intentions were pure. So, I will choose to trust you.”

“Pure?” Leona echoed automatically, disbelievingly, feeling amused that she really used a word like ‘pure’ to describe someone like him, especially when he was intending to steal the ‘young high elder’ away from here if he could, which was definitely illegal and definitely a problem for them.

“What?” The old Vidyadharan woman raised an eyebrow at him challengingly. “You think this is a laughing matter? Or do you take offense with my wording?”

Leona cleared his throat and shook his head, instinctively resuming a more ‘polite’ stance. “Not at all, ma’am.”

“Good. Well, I suppose you might have already suspected that I had more I wish to speak to you about than alchemy, today. I…wish for the high elder’s safety. That is why I am making this request to you: don’t listen to the Preceptors. Whatever they want you to do in regard to your research, do not do it, for the sake of the child and for the Vidyadhara. To that end, I am informing you that Preceptor Taoran has been interested in the lost magic of your people ever since your arrival. He wants the ‘King’s Roar,’ since to him, the revival of a dead plant is a mere few steps removed to finding the secret of reviving a dead person. For that reason, he craves you, Kingscholar, as an ally. Do you understand?”

Leona sighed sharply. So that was it. Even after he tried to be discreet about his intentions when he first got here out of simple paranoid instinct, it still came to this somehow. Just his luck he would end up dealing with a guy who really was obsessed with life magic in that way… “Yeah, kind of,” he answered honestly, head still reeling from all the revelations he was getting hit with today. “Reviving plants and replenishing depleted soil is completely different from reviving a person, though. Plants don’t have souls.”

“Correct.” She nodded once. “However, I would like you to consider how easy it is to convince the Preceptor of that. Taoran has researched many legends of this kind, and to him, you just so happen to be the single most likely person in the Sunset Savana to bear a connection to your own, so you arriving here of your own accord seemed quite fortuitous, I would imagine.”

“‘Single most likely’?” Leona echoed, raising an eyebrow in disbelief. And here he was assuming he was getting good hospitality just because he was a prince. He never thought twice about the possibility that Taoran had plans since the beginning, but even so, they barely made any fucking sense. “What got him that idea?”

“Two reasons,” Yunhua replied briskly, as if they were completely obvious. “You are of the royal family, and your unique magic has the same name as the legendary one. It is as simple as that. Also, your magic is of much greater potency than your brother’s.”

“So that’s three reasons,” Leona amended with a small smirk, leading Yunhua to raise her eyebrows with a sharp smile in turn.

“Cheeky lion cub, you are.”

“Got that right. Anyways, yes, I…understand what you mean.” Now Leona just had to deal with the uncomfortable reality that this guy really did his research, as if that wasn’t already clear by what he said before. Leona was still bristling over him bringing up his mother like that, as if he didn’t have enough to be angry about already. “The name of my spell is just a coincidence, though. They’re nothing alike, trust me. It’s a destructive spell, not a healing one.”

“Hmph.” Yunhua smiled as if the thought was amusing to her. “So you’re a mage inclined to destruction, seeking knowledge about revitalization and creation. How interesting indeed.”

“Ha,” Leona huffed dryly. Yeah, he’s heard that one before, about how someone’s unique magic reflected their true inner nature and how terrifying an implication that must be for Leona’s nature, specifically. “So what, you think I’m going against my terrible, destructive nature trying to do this at all?”

“Not at all,” Yunhua refuted readily, with a light shrug. “I merely meant that you have quite the range. Don’t misunderstand me, either—I do not believe that any magic is inherently good or evil, if that’s what you’re thinking. It all depends on how you use it. There are… some things in this world that deserve to be destroyed, after all,” she said, leaving those last words to hang like a heavy weight as she paused and sipped her tea. “But anyhow, on to other matters. I am sure you have other questions, Kingscholar?”

Leona nodded, as he tried to gather himself together. “Yeah. We talked about me, but where does Dan Heng fit into all of this? Taoran said something about his being a dragon making his blood useful for that ‘experiment,’ but is that really the only reason why he’s important to him? Am I right to guess that he’s keeping him close for a reason other than his punishment?”

“That is correct,” she agreed. “By his nature, he is quite powerful, or he has the potential to be. And perhaps, more crucially…do consider the fact that if someone wants to enact or ‘test’ inherently dangerous, high-cost magic, the equivalent of holding a powerful weapon guaranteed to backfire on themself with its use, would they not rather have someone else pull the trigger? I am not privy to what they plan to do, now or in the future, but I do fear a repetition of past mistakes. They want both his power and his memories, and that includes the memory of ‘forbidden’ magic…the kind used on that day, five years ago.”

“The Sedition of Imbibitor Lunae?” Leona guessed, and Yunhua’s silent nod gave him confirmation. It all came back to that…but now, Leona wondered if maybe, he could get an answer to that pestering question from before. “Master Yunhua, can I ask what happened then? I heard about Dan Feng doing ‘forbidden magic,’ but no one seemed to know what that magic even was, exactly.”

Yunhua nodded in assent, like she had already decided that she didn’t mind telling him this part. “It was the revival of the dead,” she answered simply. “A close friend of Dan Feng’s, who met a tragic end. He tried to bring her back.”

Leona hummed in acknowledgement, with a grimace. There’s that ‘reviving the dead,’ again… Really, he wasn’t surprised, considering what Taoran had just been going on about a few hours earlier, but it still made his blood go cold in more ways than one. Previous points made about ‘no magic is inherently good or bad’ notwithstanding, it didn’t take a genius to guess that resurrecting a dead person was an insanely dangerous thing to try, not that most people would ever even be able to gain the magic reserves required for it, or have the knowledge for it, either. It was no wonder it backfired, but also, Leona was left to wonder if Dan Feng was even the only person involved. If this was just him going rogue, then why would Taoran and the other Preceptors be so interested in the magic he used now? Did they just have so much pride that they thought they could succeed with the high elder failed, or were they involved with the plan back then, too? The latter really seemed to be what Yunhua was hinting at, anyways. He didn’t know whether that was speculation on her part or something she knew for certain, but either way, the words had weight. He had no doubt that she knew the situation better than most around here.

“I see,” Leona acknowledged with a sharp sigh. “So then…you just said something about his power and memories. I get that the Preceptors are interested in this magic, but why would they want Dan Heng’s memories? All of that get erased on rebirth, right?” Leona realized he had a suspicion about this, now. On that second visit, Dan Heng said something about thinking Leona might be there for his memories, and he mentioned an ‘experiment.’ That little mention has bugged Leona ever since, so, he wondered if Yunhua might be willing to enlighten him on that part.

She paused a moment, with an expression that was surprisingly different from usual. Before, she would be stern or angry, but now, if Leona was reading this right, she seemed more…sad and regretful. It really made Leona wonder even more about what could possibly be going on, here…

“You are correct,” she said. “We Vidyadhara do indeed lose our memories on rebirth. It is an unfortunate limitation, which almost deems it pointless for us to submit ourselves to rebirth at all, because what is loss of memory, but in itself a kind of death? For this reason, I have been researching a ‘fix’ for this, for quite some time now…nearly two centuries, I believe. I wished to improve the process of rebirth, but in doing so, I realized that the memories are not truly ‘lost,’ just inaccessible. It is similar to the effect of one having their memory wiped via magic: the best methods leave hardly a trace behind, but the memory still does not leave the mind entirely. It is only suppressed, and as such, it may be regained by similar magical means. I…say all this to say, that I have not quite found absolute success, but I have succeeded, in limited measures. My work is not yet public, because of the dangers of its experimentative nature, but the Preceptors know of it. That’s…why they asked for my services, to restore the memories of Dan Heng concerning his previous life as Dan Feng.”

“So…that was you?” Leona wasn’t going to judge so quickly, but he did feel a little flash of anger along with the twisting in his gut when he thought about it. “You experimented on him to get his memories back?”

Yunhua nodded, with grave solemnity. “I was called to the palace dungeon just after the rebirth was complete, to do the procedure. He was barely awake at the time. I…was considering that there might a chance of complete success, unlike before, considering his great natural magic ability as a dragon, but it was all the same as before. Only a few fragmented memories, recalled as if it were a dream. I really did think it might end with that, but the results were not satisfactory to the Preceptors. They called me back…and then they called me again, and so, the cycle repeated. Over the past five years, I have performed the procedure a total of seventeen times. I would cause the child to remember more of his past life, and then, they would interrogate him. I was not allowed to observe these sessions, but it did become quite clear to me that they wanted something very specific, and that this was likely relevant to Dan Feng’s overblot and the circumstances surrounding it, considering the things they would say. At present, I am abstaining from their requests, on the argument that the child is in too poor health for it, which is true. I also have never done the procedure on anyone in rapid succession due to the psychological toil it takes, and I did not bend on that aspect, at the very least.”

“So…you’ve done this with other people, too?” Leona asked, feeling himself grow simultaneously tense with rage and numb with cold the longer he heard this story, as if he didn’t already expect that ‘experiment’ meant something bad the moment he first heard it, or if he didn’t already have a pretty clear-looking view of just what the Preceptors really saw Dan Heng as: both a sinner, and a tool.

She nodded. “Dan Heng was…the only unwilling participant. My work, again, is something of a secret among the higher-ups, and I have performed procedures on them by request, although no one else but myself has been willing to go through with it more than once. I also have not told Dan Zhu of this, just so you know. One day, she will know the truth of what I have been doing in the palace all this time, but I will not tell her how I did it—not her or anyone else. I have already destroyed key texts of mine, although I continue to research this. If I can’t find a better solution, then…I won’t allow this to continue,” she determined, with a grim fierceness in her eyes. “The secret will die with me.”

She shook her head, breathing out slowly as her eyes settled numbly on the table in front of them. “However, since I am telling you this…I do not expect forgiveness, just to be clear. It would be easy for me, of course, to tell myself and anyone else that I had no choice. The Preceptors are my superiors. I am honor-bound to fulfill their wishes. However, I also was aware that we were doing this behind the backs of the other four High Elders, and besides, I myself believed in the goodness of my actions, at first. My intention was to raise the status of Dan Heng as soon as possible. I did not believe that the judgment upon him would last, once the anger of those who cast it had cooled. I believed then, and I still do, that it is absolutely imperative for the sake of the Vidyadhara and our heritage that the five High Elders remain as the sovereign heads of state, here with us for eternity. The imprisonment of one of them would surely undermine the entire state, not to mention that the mere fact that an exception was made threatens to undermine our entire rule of law. Exceptions should never be made, for a law to deserve the trust of the people. This, then, is why I knew I must act. The restoration of his memories would allow for Dan Heng to resume his previous station more quickly, taking on the wisdom and experience of Dan Feng and leaving no reason why he should be ignored. See, as you are aware, a reincarnated Vidyadhara will be reformed as a small child, still possessing some basic abilities from their previous life, such as how to read and write. Although the rates of growth between us vary, they will not stay in this form for too long: Dan Heng will reach adolescence and be self-sufficient in a mere ten to fifteen years, although he will still be considered a junior for decades after that.

“However, I thought that perhaps, I could make him mature faster… How shortsighted of me. This did not help, not in the slightest. All it did was bring him pain. This procedure…it enacts great psychological pain on the recipient, and I should know, for I have tested it on myself many times. I don’t believe I can accurately describe how it feels—the pain isn’t physical in any way, but it is pain, all the same—as if your very mind and soul are being torn apart and then pasted back together again. It is like drowning—in the moment, you are convinced you will lose your mind and never be able to think ever again, until rationality returns and all that is left is a deep weariness in you. I say this, Kingscholar, because I do not intend to hide behind lies. I will not mask the severity of what happened to assuage my own guilt. I wish I had never accepted that request, but I still consented to repeat that same sin many times. Hearing the child’s screams were enough to convince me to burn my own books, but that did not alleviate his pain. The first few times, I allowed myself to be hopeful that my efforts would not be in vain. After that, I continued out of fear. My protests were met with threats. It was…laughable, really. I am older than most of these fools, and I am not one to give that kind of deference to them or to anyone else just for their station, just so you know, but still…I let myself be fearful. I will not let my soul be sullied any longer, however. If they kill me or submit me to molten rebirth, so be it. I already have means prepared for my apprentice to be taken away from this country and to safety in such an event, thanks to my allies. She may hate me forevermore, but she will be safe. That is enough for me,” she concluded, before taking one last sip of tea and placing the empty cup on the table with finality. “So, Kingscholar, does this answer your questions? Because I believe I am finished with everything I have to say which is relevant knowledge for you. What shall you do now, then? My advice, for your own sake, is that you leave this country quickly and not look back. Do you have something else in mind, though?”

Leona didn’t answer right away. He paused and breathed in deep, continuing to let all this sink in. What was he supposed to do with that? This gave him a lot more context, which he might be able to use against Taoran at some point soon, but mostly, it just confirmed everything he already feared while still managing to horrify him even further. He could only imagine what kind of torture all those ‘procedures’ and ‘interrogations’ must have been like to Dan Heng. Leona believed that Yunhua was genuine in what she said about her motivations and her regrets, but she was right: that didn’t change what happened. There was no use ignoring the severity of it, just like there was no use just dwelling on the past or wiping your hands clean just by avoiding it all now. Still… Leona didn’t think he liked what it sounded like the Cauldron Master’s idea was of ‘facing’ the issue, either…

“So, that’s it?” he asked, deferring her question for just a bit so he could establish what she just said, first. “You’re going to let yourself die? That’s how you want this to end?”

“Hmph.” She smirked dryly. “I wouldn’t put it so brazenly as that. I am merely foreseeing the ending that is probable. I didn’t say I desire it, but again, it might be for the best, considering the knowledge I hold, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, but you’re the one who just got done saying that they’ve been trying to pry secrets from Dan Heng’s past life out from him all this time. Who’s to say these guys won’t try that again on you this time?”

“Ha!” she laughed. “You speak in paradoxes. They will pry my memories from me to discover how I pry out memories? Although I will concede that yes, they will likely try. Rumors have it they are doing so even now…so no, I can’t guarantee that there isn’t some other way they will access this information, or even if they haven’t stolen it already. It still does not change that this is the best option I hold in my power at present.”

“Yeah, true, but…what about leaving, then?” Leona asked instead. “You said you can get Dan Zhu out of here, and you say that because you think she’d be in the crossfire otherwise, right? Why not go with her?”

“Hmph. Why else than what you just said? It’d be dangerous for her if I come.”

“Then you’d just leave her alone? Sure, sounds really ‘safe.’ Bet she wouldn’t have any problem with you getting disgraced and taking a hit like that while she’s off in exile somewhere.”

“Well.” She cleared her throat with a suspicious squint of displeasure. “I was not quite expecting you to take such an issue with this. Are you not just delaying the question I asked to you?”

“Yeah, fine, you’re right.” Leona shrugged. “You choose your path; I’ll choose mine. I’m guessing one reason you told me all this is because you want to be privy to what a wild card like me would do next, right?”

“Yes and no. I don’t expect you to trust me with whatever you plan to do exactly, just as I will not share with you the names of those in my circle, just to be safe, you must understand. I only wish to know what you intend to achieve, if I may be so bold to ask.”

Leona sighed deeply. He guessed he had to come right out and say it, then. “Alright. I want to get Dan Heng out of here, if that’s what he wants.”

“If that’s what he wants?” Yunhua echoed with a note of confusion.

Leona shrugged. “If he trusts me enough to accept the risk, yeah.”

“I see.” She nodded. “It is as I thought, then. Well, I will warn you: Preceptor Taoran probably suspects something along these lines, already, although I presume that he will assume you are but a naïve youngster who is all talk and will easily cave to pressure. You have my word that I will share this with no one, but that does not change that the damage is already done.”

“Yeah, I get that, and that’s why if you’ll let me be so bold, here’s what I think: if you’re going to leave this island, now would be a great time to do that. I’m going to stir up a lot of trouble around here. If you think that’s going to backfire on you, take Dan Zhu and go, because I’m about to let anyone die on my account. If you need asylum, I can probably talk my brother into granting it, or if you’d rather stay among fae, I can talk with the guys at Briar Valley, instead.”

Yunhua paused for a second with that one, in a rare moment of surprise, before she broke into a dry laugh. “Ah, you’re right, you are quite bold, young man. But…yes, thank you. I appreciate the consideration. I will argue that I cannot simply abandon my duties, but…I will think about it. At the very least, you have convinced me that you are a man who knows how to think through the consequences of your actions,” she said, softening into a smile. “It is good to know that the Sunset Savana is in capable hands, Leona Kingscholar”

“Yeah, well, it’s not in my hands at all, just to be clear. I’m not the king, and I never will be. I’m just a prince; that’s it.”

“Hmm, true, but if you were the king and not a prince, you would not be here in Scalegorge Waterscape, having this conversation, would you not? I believe there is great importance to the monarchy, but no nation is run alone, and sometimes, actions in the shadow have an even greater impact than actions in the light. You have a freedom now that the throne cannot give you. Take care to make good use of it.”

“Thank you,” Leona accepted, feeling that was one bit of advice he really could stand to accept. He would argue there was still really not much he could do, but sure. He did have freedom, maybe, and he could be making use of it. And that includes right now.

“I will.”

+++

“I’m sorry, the high elder is quite tired, today. He will be staying in his room and must not be disturbed. I trust this is acceptable, Kingscholar?”

Leona schooled his expression into a blank one. He nodded at the guard who along with his partner were the only company he had in the Jade Cavern Library today, and it felt ten times more empty and hollow for it. Leona didn’t realize just how used he had gotten already to seeing Dan Heng be there to greet him every day. Unfortunately, he wasn’t surprised, though.

“Yeah, that’s fine,” Leona lied, offering nothing more than a light shrug to convey his feelings on the matter. “I’m sure he needs the rest, with how much we’ve been doing. I’ll just continue as normal.”

And that was exactly what he did. He got out some books and sat at the chair he had been using only half the time, and he continued reading and taking notes, while mentally, he planned.

Leona stayed up late last night getting everything in order. He used his time at the alchemy commission to get all the materials he needed—some to take to the hotel with him, and some to be brought straight to the palace later the next day—and in the hotel, he continued researching and checking over everything he knew to ensure that he had as much ammunition as possible. He knew there was a good chance something was going to happen today, given what Taoran said, and it looked like his hunch was right. That meant he needed to act…even though he knew very well that was exactly what he’d be expecting.

So, Leona played it ‘normal.’ He bided his time. He wouldn’t stay passive forever, though. Soon, he will slip out and find Dan Heng…and hope that wherever he was, he was still okay.

+++

Dan Heng knew that he must have really messed up, this time.

They were angry with him. He got put in his cell without dinner that night, and the chains were tighter than usual. His wrists and ankles hurt really badly from how tight it was, and they did the thing again where they used the short links and then connected a chain from the wrists to the ankles too, which made it impossible for him to lift his arms up. He guessed it must be because they didn’t want him to take off what they put on his face. A thick, coarse cloth wrapped around his mouth tightly, which made it so he couldn’t talk. They did this before, when they didn’t want him to scream so much during the experiment, and also a long time ago, when someone was visiting here and he had to stay quiet in his cell, he remembered. Maybe… this was what they meant to do on the first day Leona came, too.

Dan Heng made a big mistake, and he knew it. He never should have tried to see Leona that day. He knew they’d be mad at him for showing himself, and him staying in the library with Leona every day after that would only make them madder. He just…really wanted to, and he thought it’d be okay. He thought that, maybe, he wouldn’t be ‘disturbing’ him at all, and that he could have someone to talk to, and read books with…

But he shouldn’t have. The Preceptor was mad and said he should ‘know his place.’ Dan Heng was scared, and he hated it. He hated that he was scared. He felt terrified when the Preceptor said they had indulged him too much, given him too much freedom…he didn’t want what he had to be taken away again, but it was too late. Dan Heng was a prisoner, and he was supposed to be treated like it. He was a sinner, and he deserved all of this. The only way he could get freedom back was to do what they said and make them happy, but he didn’t even know how to do that anymore.

Dan Heng cried when they were gone and he feared they would never come back for him. It felt like an eternity had passed by since then, and it was dark, and he was hungry, and he wanted to be able to move again. He curled himself into the corner of his barren cell and wrapped his trembling tail around his legs and hoped this would be over soon, if only for a little while again. Was that…too much to ask? Why did that have to be too much to ask? He knew he deserved this, but sometimes…many times, he wanted to be angry about it.

Why did it have to be him? Why did he have to be the one to atone!? Dan Feng wasn’t him, he…he was someone else he didn’t even know! Except…now, he did know a little. He got scattered memories, and it was never enough to know how to answer the questions they wanted, but it was enough to feel far too real, like…it really could have been him, in some distant way. Why else would he feel all that emotion like it was his own emotion? That last memory, on that day they really wanted to know about…that part scared him the most. He felt shock, and grief, and guilt and sadness and anger, all mixed and bubbled in a way that was too confusing to understand, and he felt a manic surge of something terrible as thick black goo dripped from his eyes as he attacked the person that Dan Heng didn’t recognize, but he knew she was supposed to be his friend. He didn’t know what happened next, and he didn’t want to know. He didn’t want more memories. He wanted them to stop the experiments that gave them to him, because he didn’t want to be him. He didn’t even want all those faint, happy memories either, because Dan Feng was an awful, awful person who had nothing to do with Dan Heng and he didn’t want to ever feel happy at the things that made him happy or feel mad at the things that made him mad. He hated Dan Feng, for ruining his life like this. Dan Heng would never get to leave and see the places he read about, and he would never make the Preceptors happy enough to stop them from hurting him (please, he would make it up to them if he could. He would do anything. Just please make the chains a little looser…he couldn’t take it anymore…), and he would never be able to escape it, the pain and the memories of what he did.

He…hated himself.

He hated himself. He hated that he did this to himself. He hated that he was the kind of person who would kill people for evil. Dan Feng was a villain, so he guessed that meant that he was one too.

He had been…happy, getting to spend time with Leona these past few days. He just wished he could have had a chance to say ‘goodbye.’

+++

Leona felt keenly aware of the guards’ gaze on him the entire time he read. They were more vigilant than before, it seemed—probably, these two had been warned about him. This was going to make things difficult, but still, Leona was patient, as he mentally reviewed his plans and backup plans. He knew he had to be subtle with this. As tempting as it was, he already determined that knocking the guards out by force simply wasn’t an option, if only for the fact he’d be quickly outnumbered if anyone got alerted, and not for all the obvious consequences of the aftermath. He couldn’t just attack some government’s seat of power; he may be fully planning on getting into trouble with them, but he had to be careful about what kind of trouble he got into, both for his sake and Dan Heng’s.

So, he waited, hoping to bore them with his routine. Or rather, he waited past the first changing of the guards, and he continued his thing into the second, so that it would sufficiently bore them, too. Before that, he had his lunch break, as well—as usual, he would leave the library briefly to ascend the stairs again and get something quick from the kitchen, since food wasn’t permitted in the “library,” apparently, and this time, he tried to watch and see if he could spot a staff member heading towards the dungeon after him, to bring Dan Heng his meal, but he saw nothing. He wondered if this might be evidence to Dan Heng not really being down there, but that really wasn’t conclusive enough, he thought. Leona still had a hunch that the dungeon itself would be the best first place to check, even if that was a little obvious. For Taoran, keeping an innocent show of the usual routine would probably be more important than finding some other place to hide him away, and it might even be an important part of the ‘script,’ if he suspected what Leona was about to do. It was hard to say for sure, but he’ll soon find out. Leona had run through several possibilities in his mind already for how this was going to go, so he just had to make his move and let them make theirs, so that he could respond in kind.

A couple of hours after the new guards arrived, Leona created a dust cloud.

He had previously ordered more old books for this library, making a point to get the absolute oldest and thickest and least-used ones he could possibly find, and he started pacing, making a show of flipping through the pages and coughing on the layers of dust that had settled on them, getting close to the guards while subtly making a bit of sand out of the surrounding rock to add to the mix. He listened for a small cough from one of the guards and pretended to ignore it, while he walked back and reached for the one other item he had down here besides his notebooks—his ‘water’ bottle. This metal cannister had all the liquid he needed for the day, and he took a big gulp out of it to soothe his irritated throat. Then, he ‘noticed’ the two guards standing at the door, and he held out the bottle to casually offer it to them.

“Want some?”

Lucky for him, this pair of guards, whose faces Leona now recognized, by this point, were much less uptight than the last pair. That was one reason he waited until those others were gone. He couldn’t guarantee this would work, still, but it was worth a try.

“O-Oh! Prince Leona!” the one guard went on alert as if surprised he was talking to them. “Ah, thank you, but that is fine. It won’t be necessary.” He then cleared his throat with a bit of a raspy sound, betraying himself as to how thirsty he must be, after breathing in all that dust and sand.

“Are you sure? I know I was kicking up a lot of dust back there. I’d feel bad not offering you anything. Here. Try it.”

Leona pressed the bottle to his hands again, and this time, he took it, then opening the cap to sniff it and then appear confused. “Is that…apple?”

“Yeah. It’s apple juice. It’s homemade, too—came from the family farm of a friend of mine. It’s really good.”

He could see in the guard’s eyes that he was definitely curious, then. He unscrewed the cap and swirled the liquid to look at it, probably a matter of habit for someone like him, who worked at a palace. Leona expected as much, but the guard obviously found nothing wrong with it, because he nodded. “Ah…yes. If you don’t mind?”

“Not at all.” Leona summoned a couple of straws and twirled them around in the liquid a bit, and the guard accepted one and took a drink from it.

“Oh! You’re right; this is exceptional!”

“Can…I try, as well?”

The other guard took the other straw and gratefully took a drink from it, and he was obviously pleased as well. “Mm, thank you! That really was quite good; may I ask the name of your friend’s brand, Prince Leona? Now I want to find this…”

“Yeah, sure. It’s Harveston. The whole town brands it after themselves.”

“Harveston! That…oh, that sounds almost familiar, actually. Wanqing, wasn’t there some homemade apple juice brand like this that got promoted a few years ago by some famous teenaged actor, and then the whole brand blew up overnight? Who was it, again? I wanna say either Vil Schoenheit or Neige Leblanche. I get those two mixed up a lot; they’re in all of the same things.”

“Ah…I have no idea?”

“Oh, by the way, I heard that those two are co-starring in that new Darkwing Duck movie coming up! Bet it’s going to be huge; it’ll be the first new Darkwing Duck in twenty years, and they might be making a whole series out of it. It’s also the first time those two have starred in something together since they were, like, fourteen or something. Wanqing, did you ever read the Darkwing comics as a kid?”

“Ah…yes, but, let’s save the chit chat for after work, please?”

There was a sleeping potion coated on the straws. Leona had prepared it ahead of time last night, with the stuff he got from the alchemy commission, and he let those straws rest in it in a beaker in a box in his hotel room. The magic for conjuring a thing looked virtually the same as summoning an item from somewhere else, so he figured it’d be easily assumed that he just conjured up a simply straw to be the temporary construct it needed to be, rather than summoned a very specific straw from a nearby place. Then, the sleeping potion itself wasn’t all that potent, to avoid any alarm or last-minute detection. It was basically just the equivalent to an over-the-counter potion that any person might drink when they need a little help getting to sleep at night, except that it was also strong enough to evade a person’s notice so that they wouldn’t realize they were falling asleep until it happened. And today, that was exactly what happened.

Leona kept reading as normal until the guards unceremoniously dropped off where they stood, leaning languidly against their spears and then hitting the wall and slumping to the ground. Leona waited for just a second longer, until they were satisfactorily asleep, and then, he moved.

He used magic to muffle the sound of his footsteps as he, for the first time, left the library and went into the hallway leading out from the back door, venturing into a space that quickly started to feel a whole lot more like the dungeon it really was. Heavy wood-and-iron doors appeared intermittently in that hallway, with small barred windows cut in the center and illuminated through the old, dim magic lamps perpetually flickering lining the stone walls. Leona used a basic light spell to illuminate his way a little more, and he used it to start checking the cells. One after another, he looked through the windows to see dust-caked cell floors that looked like they hadn’t been used in forever, turning his way through the small maze in search of the prison’s only inmate, or at the very least, the cell that looked like it had been used most recently, until finally, looping back around to an unassuming cell not far from the entrance, he found him.

Leona felt his heart leap to his throat as he got almost jumpscared in this silent, gloomy place by the very person he was looking to find, curled up in a corner and barely showing any sounds of life until he obviously heard him coming and lifted his head. Leona immediately sanded the lock on the door and pushed his way inside, where the light hovering above his other hand could better illuminate what he was seeing…and make his heart twist even further at the sight of him. Dan Heng was chained up and gagged. His mouth made a garbled noise as his eyes, red and puffy as if he’d been crying not long ago, shot open wide with shock or maybe fear at Leona, leading Leona to react by crouching down and raising his hands placatingly, while taking a lot of effort to school his emotions, which right now were a turbulent mix of anxious concern and barely constrained rage.

“Hey, kid? It’s me. I’m…not going to hurt you, I promise. Just let me get that thing off your mouth.”

He moved slowly and deliberately, feeling subconsciously gripped with the fear of spooking Dan Heng like one would a frightened, wounded cat, but he wasted no time in getting the gag off and then quickly checking him over. He looked awful, and his wrists and ankles were swollen black and purple…

“L-Leona!” Dan Heng yelped as soon as his mouth was free, his chains rattling as he jolted upright. “What are you doing here!?”

“Are you alright?” Leona asked instead, even though he damn well knew it was a useless question. It was just…still the most important question to ask, regardless.

“Y-Yeah, I’m fine. Really.” He nodded, like a liar. “This is, uh…this is my room. I’m used to it. I…can’t come out today, because I’m in trouble, and…and I…” he trailed off, looking like he was shaking and trying hard not to cry, and Leona had no intention of letting him be in that state while bound up like this.

“It’s okay. It’s not your fault. I’m going to take the chains off now, alright? Just hang tight for me.”

“Y-You are?” Dan Heng looked simultaneously hopeful and confused. “You have the key?”

“Nope. Now, stay still.”

However, Leona was confident enough in his magic, these days, that he could do this even if the kid had been moving around, although it helped that he didn’t. Ever the instruction-follower, Dan Heng locked himself into being completely motionless as Leona cast King’s Roar. With it, he broke apart every one of the manacles and the chains that linked them and kept him locked in that position, reducing them to nothing but a pile of sand. While he was at it, he did the same thing to the collar around his neck, dissolving it all without a single errant mark added to his skin. After that was done, he conjured a few tissues to hand to the kid so he could handle the maybe-hours-old lines of tears and snot on his face, and then he started casting some healing spells, mainly for the swelling. For some godforsaken reason, those manacles were so tight on him that they dug into his skin and cut off circulation in his hands and feet to the point they were turning a bit blue. This, however, didn’t stop Dan Heng from just clutching the tissues while looking down at his hands in pure amazement and moving them around as if the battle were already won.

“You…You really did it!” he exclaimed, with the start of a smile on his face. “Was that your magic? That’s…that’s so amazing! I feel so much better! But…” Dan Heng’s excitement quickly tempered, as he looked around nervously as if expecting something bad to happen. “But why?”

“Because I’m here to get you out,” Leona answered simply, although he suspected those two simple words were a way more loaded question than that. “I know this is a lot to take in at once, but…we can get out of here right now, if you want to. The guards are asleep, and no one else is here. So, are you okay with coming outside with me?”

“O-Outside!? Where!?” he yelped.

“Yeah. I mean, getting out of this dungeon for good, and going outside the palace.”

“Out of…but…” Dan Heng’s look of hope turned into confliction, and that confliction quickly grew into some kind of despair. Leona knew, right then, that it was a good thing he had plenty of time before the sleep potions wore off.

“But I can’t.”

+++

Dan Heng couldn’t believe this. He touched his wrists with joy at the relief he had from the chains being gone, and he touched his neck, too, which felt so weird without the collar there, but weird in a good way. It always hurt so much when he tried to stretch or turn his neck any way, and a while ago the alchemist lady got upset and said that they should remove it or give him a bigger size, and they said they’d take care of it, but then they didn’t do anything. Adults were like that, sometimes…they said a lot of things they didn’t mean when it was something good, but if it was bad they probably really meant it. Like when they said he’d definitely be punished if he ever tried to escape.

Dan Heng didn’t know what to do right now. He was happy Leona came, but he didn’t know why he came, and he said they could go outside, but that just…wasn’t true. Maybe, Leona just didn’t know. Or maybe, he did know the rules, and he chose to break them anyways because he was trying to help, but he didn’t know why.

Dan Heng shifted around to sit on his knees with a trembling breath, dabbing the offered tissues at his face like Yuanli once showed him how to do it, while he tried really hard not to cry again. He shouldn’t cry. He didn’t deserve to cry. (They’ll get angry at him, if he did). But he also just…was still really upset, right now. He was so scared that no one would come for him, this time. He was so surprised when Leona was the one who came, and he was happy, too, but… Leona also wasn’t from here, and there was a lot he didn’t know.

“I-I’m sorry, but…” Dan Heng breathed shakily, trying hard to get the words to come out right. “I’m not supposed to go outside. I’m here because…I’m a prisoner, so I can’t leave. It isn’t right for me to.”

“I know,” Leona said, like that didn’t actually change anything. “I know you’re a prisoner, but you shouldn’t be. That’s why I’m breaking you out.”

Dan Heng blinked owlishly. Breaking…him out? Oh no…no, that’s not right… “W-Wait, but, no! You don’t understand!” he blurted out. “I really did do bad things! I mean, it wasn’t me, but…it’s my past life! Dan Feng! He…he overblotted and he killed people!” he said, because he couldn’t not say it, he couldn’t lie and risk Leona finding out later and hating him for who he really was, but also, he hated saying it. He didn’t want to talk that way. He was not Dan Feng. He tried over and over to tell himself that and he hated it when people told him otherwise. He hated it when they interrogated him like they were interrogating his past self. But he also…he also didn’t know what else to say. He didn’t know how to describe it except to just say it like they told it to him. After all, they were the ones who knew everything, and he did not.

Dan Heng choked on a sob. He had forgotten how close he was to crying again until it was happening. “He was awful!” he blurted out again, choking on the words. “I…I have to live here forever because of him! Because he’s…me. He’s crazy and mean and cruel and I…and I…and you don’t understand! You don’t know me!”

Dan Heng clenched his eyes shut and hung his head, even as he felt Leona’s comforting hand on his back. In spite of his racing thoughts making him doubt what he was supposed to do, he instinctively got closer and leaned into him anyways, and next thing he knew it, he was in his lap with his head buried in his chest and his hands clenching his shirt tightly. He cried and he cried, because he had been so upset before and because he didn’t know what to do now. He wanted to leave. He wanted to go outside. But he just…couldn’t. Something bad would happen. Leona would get hurt, and it would all be his fault. Dan Heng would get punished. The one time he snuck past the guards when they were paying attention to something else and explored the stairs because he was curious, he got beaten really badly. He didn’t want to think about what would happen if he went all the way up.

“It’s not your fault,” Leona told him. He gently rubbed circles into his back to comfort him, while he continued to heal with his other hand. It felt…nice, but he still couldn’t stop sobbing. “Dan Feng isn’t you, okay? You did nothing wrong.”

“But he…but he is. And I have done things wrong.” Dan Heng felt so surprised by that, though. No one ever told him that before, not even the nice people. No one said it wasn’t his fault, but that…couldn’t be true, right?

Leona was quiet, for a moment. “He doesn’t have to be,” he said, calmly and seriously. “Even if you do have the same soul. Even if you’re exactly the same. He still doesn’t have to be.”

“But I don’t…I…” Dan Heng choked. He didn’t understand. Leona sounded like he did know everything already. So why was he here? “I hate him,” he said simply, truthfully. He never got to talk about this out loud. He never got to say how he felt, but he had to say it. “I hate him so much. I…wish he could’ve just died.”

Leona breathed out deeply, like he was in pain too, and that just made Dan Heng feel even worse. It was all his fault, somehow… “You…don’t have to hate him, you know. You can still move on without hating him.”

“But how?” Dan Heng stressed. How was he supposed to move on? He wasn’t allowed to. He still had to atone. If he only just didn’t exist, then this would all be over, but he did exist, so he had to live like this. Even if he ran far, far away, he couldn’t escape what he did and the memories he had. He would always feel guilty, and he would always have nightmares. So why did he always dream about going somewhere else anyways? Why did he have to want what he couldn’t have? It wouldn’t work. He just knew it wouldn’t. It’d be better if he just didn’t exist at all.

“By deciding for yourself,” Leona said, his tone firm but gentle, too. “You…have to decide for yourself what to live for. If all you do is just keep hating the past, you’re never going to move on into the future, okay? Believe me, I know—feeling guilty or sorry for yourself isn’t going to do you any good. That’ll just make you hate yourself. Even trying to put all your hate on others will just make you hate yourself more. You can’t live like that.”

“But…I…” Dan Heng’s head was spinning. What Leona said, it sounded…it sounded so right, but also… “But I can’t,” he reiterated his old point all over again, because he didn’t know what else to say. “I have to…I have to atone, or else, I’ll be in trouble.”

Leona sighed sharply. “I know. I get that was probably a weird thing for me to say, since you haven’t exactly had much of a choice, but…you still have to know what you want, alright? If the Preceptors weren’t here, and no one was around to tell you how to feel about yourself, how would you feel about yourself?”

“I…I would…” He didn’t know. He didn’t know how he was supposed to feel. He didn’t know how he wanted to feel. “I would still be guilty, though. Dan Feng still did all those things. I know it’s true, because I remember it, now.”

“Yeah,” Leona said with a huff. “I know; it still happened. You can’t change the past, but that doesn’t mean you have to keep living in it. That won’t help anything.”

“But…what if it happens again?” Dan Heng asked, peeling away for just a bit to look up at Leona and see his face, at the same time he subconsciously touched his own neck. “You took the collar off, and it feels a lot better now, but I kind of need it, I think. I can’t use magic or else I might overblot again.”

“You won’t,” Leona said automatically, although then he paused a bit with a sigh and then amended himself. “I mean…fine, I can’t guarantee it won’t ever happen, but it’s not going to happen just because you used magic. It takes a lot to overblot. You’ll be fine.”

“But I don’t know, I…” Dan Heng wrung his hands, now feeling scared again since he was thinking about it. “I don’t know if I’m stable,” he said, echoing the word he had heard multiple times before. ‘Crazy’ and ‘unstable’…that was what happened when you overblotted. What if the same thing happened, once Dan Heng was free?

Leona paused again, as if thinking about something. “I’m an overblot survivor too, you know.”

Dan Heng blinked in surprise. What did he say!? An overblot…survivor? “You’re a…! Uh, what does that mean!?” Does it mean somebody had a dangerous overblot while he was there and he survived, or did he really mean…?

“It means, I survived an overblot, too. Just like Dan Feng,” Leona said, and he sounded so calm even though it really did sound like he really meant it.

“But…you’re not crazy!” Dan Heng blurted out without thinking, although he immediately felt awkward afterwards because that was rude.

Leona just laughed, though. “Depends on your definition, but, nope, I guess I’m not, am I?”

“Well, but…” Dan Heng quickly tried to make sense of this. “You have to have a lot of negative emotions for an overblot to happen…right?”

“Yeah, you’re absolutely right,” Leona said, surprising him yet again with both the confirmation and how calm he sounded saying it. “Negative emotions really do accelerate blot and turn it into a monster, like that. Never seen an overblot happen without them. It’s…kind of like getting possessed by some violently unhinged version of yourself, I guess. It makes a monster, but, that doesn’t mean you’re a monster. It just means you’re angry, or sad, or hurt. It’s no excuse for doing what you did, sure, but… it doesn’t mean you’re broken forever. Does… that make sense?”

Dan Heng nodded very slowly. He wasn’t really sure he understood, but, he was thinking about it. He was thinking about it really hard. “I…never heard it called that before. An ‘overblot survivor,’ I mean.” It sounded so…different. A lot less like an ‘overblotter’ person who was crazy or evil, and a lot more like…someone who had something really bad happen with them, but it was a good thing that they lived anyways. “And, you said… ‘never seen an overblot happen without them.’ Have you seen other overblots before, Leona?”

“Yeah, a few.”

“What…what did you do?” If he knew how to handle it, then maybe, it wouldn’t be so bad that Dan Heng was so dangerous…

He smiled, like that was amusing. “Beat them up, of course.”

“O-Oh.” Right.

“Hmph, don’t get me wrong,” he amended, ruffling Dan Heng’s hair a little. “That’s just the way it is. Only thing you can do to save a person from a phantom is to beat the phantom.”

“And…did it work?” Now Dan Heng really wanted to know. “Did you save them?”

“Yeah, but, don’t get me wrong on that part, either.” Leona’s face fell with a sharp sigh. “I was with other people who were fighting too, and also, I’m no hero, just to be clear. I was just unlucky enough to be there, and I didn’t want to die. I’m…glad those idiots didn’t die either, though.”

Dan Heng nodded, suddenly feeling like there was something he understood a lot better now. “I see. It’s like…that lady,” he recalled, furrowing his brow and wondering if he could remember that name, now. He didn’t like remembering things that were Dan Feng’s memories, but…she was such an important person, so somehow, he really felt like he should. “Y-You see, there’s this memory that Dan Feng had, that I have now, because of…reasons, and it was when he overblotted, and everybody was running away and no one was there anymore, except there was this white-haired lady who was his friend, a-and she fought him, just like you said! It’s really, really fuzzy, but she was the person who beat the phantom, I think. There was someone else there too who was a friend, but he was hurt and unconscious, so I think it was mostly her.”

“Yeah, I heard,” Leona said, to his surprise. “That must have been Jingliu. Don’t know anything about the guy you saw, though.”

“Y-You know her!?” Dan Heng’s eyes shot open wide. “But no one ever told me anything about her! It was…just the memory.”

“Yeah, well, a friend of mine told me about that, and you’re right. She was the one who beat the Phantom and saved his life.”

“Oh.” So that’s what that memory meant… “Do you know where she is? Is she okay?”

Leona shook his head. “Sorry, I don’t know.”

“Okay.” He nodded, furrowing his eyebrows. “I…think I have a lot more questions. I just need to think of them first.”

“Heh, I’m sure you do, kid,” Leona said with a half-smile. “That’s…going to have to wait, though. We don’t have a lot of time.”

“O-Oh! Right!” Dan Heng forgot! They were…leaving? Are they really leaving? “You said…the guards are asleep?”

“Yeah, but they might be up in ten or fifteen minutes, assuming no one’s caught on yet. So…what do you say? Do you want to leave?”

“Oh! I…” Leona was asking him the question again, and Dan Heng was still nervous about it, but… “Y-Yes,” he decided, wiping his eyes with his hands and trying to make himself feel stronger. “Yes, please. I want to go outside.”

“Hmph. Good to hear,” Leona replied with a half-smile, but his face just as quickly fell as he got serious. “I’ll have to warn you, though, this is risky. I almost guarantee people are going to try to stop us. I have a few plans, but I can’t guarantee we’ll win.”

“O-Okay.” Dan Heng felt nervous again, but he steeled himself, because right now, he decided…he wanted to be brave. He wanted to leave. He wanted to decide for himself what he wanted, just like Leona said. Even though his past was awful, maybe—just maybe—that didn’t have to be his future. He really wanted to believe that was true. He was just still afraid of how angry they were going to be, when he tried to leave, but…he wanted to try. “That’s okay. Don’t worry about me. I just don’t want you to be hurt. I’m used to it, though, so I’ll be fine.”

Leona breathed in deep with a groan like he didn’t like that so much for some reason. “Yeah, you know, kid, I’d prefer it if you were a little more concerned about your own safety. I’m the adult here, remember? If anyone’s going to be in danger, it should be me, got it?”

Dan Heng nodded, even though he didn’t think he liked that so much. “Yeah, but, you’re the one trying to help me, and…” And Dan Heng kind of forgot what his point was, but he was sure it was a good one. He just didn’t want anyone to get in trouble or get hurt because of him. “Well, you’re our guest, so it’d be really extra bad if they hurt you, you know.”

Leona laughed at that, then getting up and offering a hand to help him upright. Dan Heng winced a bit when he got on his feet, although they did feel a lot better now since Leona used magic to make it not so bruised. Dan Heng knew a lot about healing magic, though he never got to use it. Now, he wondered if he could ever ask Leona to teach him what he knew, or if he could finally learn cloudhymn magic on his own…

Dan Heng didn’t actually have to worry at all about walking, though, because Leona offered to pick him up right then and carry him on his hip, just like Yuanli used to do.

“Yeah, well, I’m about to be a very rude guest, so, we’ll see what happens. Anyways, it’s about time we get going. One last thing, though—just to warn you, once we get up there, things are going to happen, and I may be saying some weird or scary stuff, but no matter what, I’m not going to hurt you, okay? Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“Mm-hmm!” Dan Heng decided. He didn’t know what the plan was, but, he knew Leona was smart, so, it’d be fine. They could do this. “I trust you. I’m ready to go, now!”

When they got to the library, the guards were sleeping, just like Leona said they would be. No one else was here, so that must mean no one noticed yet. He felt a little nervous again when they got to the stairs, though. This was really happening… the stairs were so tall and long, just like he remembered them from that one time he came here when he wasn’t supposed to. He looked around with nervous curiosity as he held on tight to Leona, and they got to the top, where the door was.

It was locked, but Leona used his magic again to make the lock go away. Then, he opened it, and…

…and it was so bright.

Dan Heng felt his heart race at his first glimpse of the outside (or, the upstairs), but he immediately had to clench his eyes shut because it was really, really bright up here and it hurt. The outside wasn’t always this bright, was it?

“You’ll get used to it,” Leona whispered to him gently. He must have noticed what Dan Heng felt, but he wondered if that meant he’d get used to the light, or just to the pain…

“HALT! IN THE NAME OF THE HIGH ELDERS!”

Someone was here!

Dan Heng panicked all over again. The guards were here, and someone cast something and it was coming straight at them and—!

…and then it stopped, well before it hit them, because it hit the side of some bubble Leona was making all around them… oh! That must be a barrier! This was protection magic; he read about this before!

“Well, well, what a sorry sight this is.”

Dan Heng rapidly blinked his eyes back open. All around, they were surrounded by guards just outside the barrier, and then, in front…it was Preceptor Taoran. Dan Heng felt himself wince just at seeing him—why did it have to be him? He didn’t like Dan Heng at all, and he was always so mean and the interrogations with him were the absolute worst, and now he scared he was going to…

…no. No, he wasn’t scared. Dan Heng had to be strong…because, Leona wasn’t flinching, either.

“I can’t believe it…you would really try to kidnap the young high elder?” he said with an awful smile. “What a shame. Well, I hate to do this, but you’re under arrest, Prince Leona.”

+++

Preceptor Taoran had an insufferably smug look on his face as he confronted them and gave his little arrest order, but despite how profoundly irritating and infuriating that was, Leona was glad to see it. He had a hunch that Taoran would show up personally and planned accordingly, and if it was instead just the guards who confronted him, he would have asked them to take him to him. It was risky, of course, but everyone knew that they had a meeting, probably, even if they didn’t know the contents of it, so he could use just that.

Leona’s expression stayed carefully neutral, though. He betrayed neither fear nor confidence; he only just looked straight at Taoran with a mild exasperation, as he kept some attention on everyone else out of the corner of his eye. Ten guards surrounded them. Some of the palace staff were watching from a distance in what appeared to be shock and surprise. Leona kept up a magic barrier to fully encompass him and Dan Heng, although he didn’t expect that to make him fully immune from whatever attack the well-trained fae guards might throw his way. He just needed it to buy him a few seconds of time.

“What? ‘Kidnap’ him? I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Leona responded dryly, looking Taoran straight in the eye with a shrug. “I’m just bringing him to you, exactly like you asked me to.”

A flicker of surprise betrayed itself on Taoran’s face, but it was quickly erased with amusement. “Oh? I have no idea what you’re talking about. What kind of pitiful fabrication is this?”

Leona made a point to sigh very loudly, like he was just tired of all of this (which, in a way, he absolutely was). “Seriously, did you just forget? Come on, a couple of guards were watching us during the meeting, right? Back me up.” He glanced around and nodded his head to one of the guards surrounding them. “Yeah, you. You were there; you’d remember. The Preceptor wanted me to do some kind of experiment with Dan Heng. So, that’s what I’m doing now. I’m bringing him up so that we can do the experiment. Didn’t expect I’d turn around and get arrested just for bringing him upstairs though, sheesh. Now I feel like you just made a trap for me on purpose or something.”

The guards’ eyes betrayed a moment of pause with that one, relaxing somewhat in their confusion, some of them looking to Taoran as if for confirmation. Dan Heng, on the other hand, tensed up noticeably the moment Leona said ‘experiment.’ Leona felt bad for doing that—he did warn him that he was going to say some weird things, but there wasn’t exactly time to explain everything. He was reminded of the fact that the kid really didn’t have much reason to trust him…but still, he hoped that somehow, he would catch on. He was a smart kid, and regardless, Leona would keep his promise that he wouldn’t hurt him, even though he was intent on using his lying skills right now to make it sound like he didn’t care one way or another.

“The experiment?” Taoran echoed, freezing for a moment in surprise, his eyes briefly going wide. Leona bit back a smirk, but he was smiling on the inside, for sure. Old man didn’t see this coming, did he? Still, he recovered and took it in stride fairly quickly, which really was exactly what Leona expected—and what he was banking on, too.

“Oh! Of course, well, you should have told me, if we were to do this today!” he said with an air of enthusiasm, although he still narrowed his eyes at him suspiciously. “You realize that I received absolutely no alert from the dungeon guards that you were doing this, so when you came through those doors, why, you must understand that it was quite alarming. Surely you would have asked them to retrieve the boy for you?”

“What do you take me for? Of course I asked them to do it. I told them everything you told me, and they brought Dan Heng out so we could do the experiment. They’re asleep right now, though. We had a little test run, and it backfired, so, you should probably check on them. I promise they’re fine, though.”

“A TEST RUN!?” Taoran blurted out with eyes plastered wide, as if suddenly baffled by what Leona did and not sure which part to be appalled by the most. He quickly cleared his throat and regained himself again with a smile, though. “Ah, that was…quite spontaneous of you. Please, you should have told me of this, first! I meant that I would assist you, obviously!”

“Ah, really?” Leona asked. “My deepest apologies for being so forward, then. They said they would go get you, but then, they fell asleep, so, I just came here myself.”

“My lord, what is he talking about?” a guard who looked like some kind of leader whispered to Taoran, his furrowed eyebrows betraying clear confusion at what was going on.

“It is nothing, I assure you,” Taoran whispered back.

“Should I be sending for the Cauldron Master, sir…?”

“No, that would not be necessary! Just, go downstairs and check on things, will you!?” Taoran ordered, before clearing his throat and looking composed again. “Well then. Your enthusiasm is…appreciated, but truly, you must have realized that you should have notified me first, for you are not even prepared for the experiment I asked of you…”

“No, I’m prepared,” Leona assured briskly. “I already had everything sent here this morning. Where’s that guy from the alchemy commission?” he asked, looking around left to right.

“My lord!”

On cue, a messenger from the alchemy commission came running up to the crowd, looking as exasperated as ever. “My lord, Preceptor Taoran! I was trying to tell you earlier! We have all the materials you need for that experiment you wanted! This young man was the one who ordered them, on your behalf! See?”

And so, he gestured to the boxes by the wall, which had been here the entire time, and Taoran was left, once again, to be the speechless one.

Leona arranged for all of this last night, asking for some things to be sent ahead of him, with the stipulation that his involvement be unmentioned until he had a chance to meet with the Preceptor, saying that it was the Preceptor who asked for him to do that. Of course, he didn’t know what kind of things Taoran would have wanted, if he were to go through with this ‘experiment’ of his, as Leona knew nothing about resurrection magic and had no interest in finding out, but still, Leona knew his alchemy, and he knew plenty about ancient magic. He was confident that he could come up with a convincing mix of materials and even make a convincing-looking display of magic as a result, if it came to that.

When Leona thought about what might happen today, he tried to put himself in Taoran’s head and think of what he might do. There were still a lot of unknown factors and people at play, but he had met this guy, at least, and he had a feeling that he was too prideful and too in love with the sound of his own voice to avoid being the one at the forefront, confronting Leona over whatever he tried to do and letting himself look smart and powerful in the process. The question that remained was what he thought Leona would do. He knew that Leona refused his offer, probably made to be provocative on purpose. Now, Leona was left with a few options: he could continue going on like before and do nothing, proving that all he cared about was the research he came here to do and nothing more, or he could change his mind and accept the offer, either giving in to the allure of success or acting out of fear on behalf of Dan Heng, given the promise that he would not see him again otherwise. Whether Leona’s motives were selfish or altruistic, the result would be the same—he would give in to what Taoran wanted and become yet another useful tool in whatever his grand plan happened to be.

The third option, however, was that Leona take action and try to do something on Dan Heng’s behalf, maybe existing alongside some fourth option where Leona acted as a whistleblower and revealed the Preceptors’ intentions to practice forbidden magic, an act for which Taoran probably already had plenty of protective measures in place, given how long this had been going on. The possibility of Leona simply taking Dan Heng and running, however… that was something which, at first, Leona was convinced they would never see coming. Even if he betrayed his concern over the kid through that conversation, a lot of people in their right mind would never dream of going through with an experiment like that. To just steal him away, on the other hand—that would make no sense. He would have virtually nothing to gain and far too much to lose. So, in that case, Leona may be able to use the stealth option all the way—he could deal with the dungeon guards one way or another, and then he would just have to maneuver his way to exiting the palace by using magic to muffle sounds and make his own doors. However, he didn’t know the place well enough to guarantee success with that, and also, he had to consider the possibility that Taoran would see the breakout attempt coming, if only for the reason of the fact that Leona was, indeed, planning to take Dan Heng and run. His entire purpose for staying in the cold and dark little library all this time was because somewhere in the back of his mind, he wondered if he might end up doing just that. Would have been nice to have an easier solution, though, but here they were.

If Taoran suspected him of a breakout, he would either double up on security in the dungeon, or he would catch him once he was out of it. Given his nature, Leona suspected the latter. Not many other people should have reason to suspect Leona of taking drastic measures, so changing up the routine would cause a lot of alarm and could even backfire if rumors started spreading about what their meeting was about and why Taoran was antagonizing him at all. Catching him in the act, on the other hand, would make Taoran look like he acting quickly to something that came as a complete surprise, which in this case may be better for him. He would mobilize the guards and seize Leona right as they were leaving, perhaps under the assumption that Leona would assume that he could sneak his way out, or otherwise under the assumption that Leona would come in guns blazing with all that youthful arrogance he was sure to have. The state that Dan Heng was in just seemed to confirm it…seeing the way they chained and gagged him, assuming it wasn’t normal to completely lock his movement and use manacles tight enough to cause swelling like that, Leona couldn’t help but wonder if that whole display was a taunt designed to provoke him even further, and he hated it. He hated the idea that Dan Heng’s suffering was made even worse on his account. However, that wasn’t an emotion he could afford to act on. He had to stay calm. He couldn’t just start attacking everybody, because he would lose and also look like the ‘bad guy’ to boot. So now, he had to not act like some wannabe hero, because really, he wasn’t. He was just some guy thoroughly annoyed and angered to the point that he refused to not do anything.

So, he decided to turn this right back around on him. He wasn’t going to fight or use stealth, at this point. He was going to act like he belonged here, plain and simple. Sure, he would look suspicious regardless, but that was fine. He wasn’t avoiding trouble. He was orchestrating what kind of trouble he was willing to take on. So, he simply used the reason that Taoran oh-so-kindly already gave him on a silver platter.

A guard came running up from downstairs in the moment of Taoran trying to find his words again. “My lord! They are asleep but unharmed, just as he said!”

“Ha! Tsk, tsk, so you put those poor guards to sleep, did you?” Taoran eyed him suspiciously again. “How very forward of you, indeed. Or, I’m sorry, I suppose it was an ‘accident’?”

“Yep.” Leona nodded. “It was a trial of the hensrechher potion—ancient magic, in case you don’t know. It revitalizes the body from tiredness, but it has a chance of backfiring and putting one to sleep, with the additional side effect of short-term memory loss. I used a moonflower reagent as my catalyst—that’s one of the things I got last night.”

“Oh! Yes, that is true.” The messenger from the alchemy commission agreed with him, still standing here although he looked wary at the guards’ presence that was obviously making this a whole scene. “I remember you buying some moonflower from us last night, and then sending some more to be delivered in the morning at the Preceptor’s expense. Ah, but that is true, that potion can be a risky one. Not harmful, necessarily, but the memory loss is quite troublesome.”

“I-I am aware of the details of the spell, thank you!” Taoran interjected, as if not to let anyone forget that he knew as much alchemy as the alchemy commission. “I can hardly imagine why you were doing this, though…”

“My research shows it’s important,” Leona said with a shrug. “That’s what you wanted to know, right? The results of my research?”

“But what would you even need the young high elder for!? It is only a potion!”

“Hmm? What do you think I need him for?” Leona challenged. “I meant what I said, you know. I’m not using Dan Heng as a conduit; I can do exactly what you want without one, thank you. He’s here as my research assistant. Right, Dan Heng?”

Dan Heng remained quiet until he realized that Leona was looking at him. “O-Oh! Am I supposed to talk now? W-Well then, yeah! I am your assistant! W-We’ve been reading a lot of stuff together, and…yeah, now we’re going to do something with that.”

“A…conduit?” the one leader guard again whispered with obvious shock and muted horror, but Taoran ignored him, this time.

“Well, that is absolutely ridiculous!” he blurted out. “Is this why you somehow convinced those guards to remove his magic suppression collar!? Was that what happened!?”

“Nah, I took it off myself. He can’t use magic without it, right?”

“And that is entirely the point! How brazen must you be, to defy the will of our sacred law…!”

“The law?” Leona echoed with a huff. “I thought the law was that reincarnations couldn’t get punished for something their past incarnation did, so, the ‘law’ has nothing to do with it. Obviously, your own decrees supersede the law, so, I’m following your orders. Simple as that. This pathetic collar was old and was probably about to break, anyways. If you were that scared of the kid’s magic, you wouldn’t put him underneath the palace where he could easily destroy the whole place if he wanted to anyways, so obviously, you had it under control. So come on, can we just do the experiment already? Or do you want me to do something else? Just get to the point—I’m a very busy prince, and I haven’t got all day.”

“Sir, please, what experiment is this?” the guard leader asked with decreasing patience. “Is it his memories, again? Why are you asking our visitor to participate in something like this…?”

“That is none of your concern! We will do the experiment in the dungeon, obviously! This is a private affair!”

“Private?” Leona echoed as if confused. “Are you sure about that? I am a foreigner, after all. I get that you’re trying to be a good host and protect my privacy, but it’s not necessary, really. I think it’d be more appropriate if this was in public, so no one got the wrong idea. I can do it right now.”

“Right now? What do you possibly plan to do right now!?”

“What else? I’m showing you my research. For starters, I’ll demonstrate the hensrechher spell, like I was just talking about. Don’t worry; I’ll use it on myself, so no one will be falling asleep but me if I mess it up again. Can I have the box with the moonflower?”

Now, Taoran just looked annoyed. The messenger looked to him for confirmation, and after a very long pause, Taoran gave his reluctant assent.

They moved positions, then, the scene quickly changing from a confrontation at the doorway to an assembly in the ballroom-like space just down the hall. Many of the onlooking crowd of staff members stayed, as if either wary of or curious as to what Leona and Taoran were up to, or both. The guards, of course, also kept a close eye on him and Dan Heng.

Leona kept Dan Heng on his hip all this time, keeping him close while the kid held onto him tightly in return. He felt Dan Heng go through the whole silent rollercoaster of emotions, it seemed, but now, he seemed as calm as he could be, although he was still understandably very tense, probably for multiple reasons. He only tensed up more when now, by the impromptu alchemy setup, Leona finally put him down, but he stayed quiet about it and kept up the act, promptly grabbing the ingredients Leona asked for and playing the role of ‘assistant’ perfectly, while still staying as close to his side as he possibly could have. His proximity made it a little hard for Leona to work, but he didn’t say anything of it, of course.

Leona distilled the flower and used magic on it to make the potion under watchful eyes, and of course, he did it perfectly. He used it on himself and had no adverse reaction, instead giving himself a bit of invigoration in the process which could be useful later. He could attest by experience that it was a good one for dispelling lethargy, if only for a short time. He offered it to others here as well, and one of the guards volunteered to drink it, confirming that it did indeed work perfectly.

“Okay, Prince Leona, you have demonstrated your alchemic prowess,” Taoran acknowledged with exasperation. “Now, if you are quite finished, can you please return your ‘assistant’ to where he belongs and allow us to properly prepare an experiment according to my specifications at a later time?”

“What? Now?” Leona questioned as if surprised. “I’ve only just started. You wanted to see the results of my research, right? This is only the first step. Let me continue.”

“Continue!?” he echoed incredulously. “We’re in the middle of the palace! Please, your highness, this is not necessary. You must be…so terribly exhausted, after all that effort. Surely, you would rather continue at a later time?”

“Heh, no need to worry yourself on my account, Preceptor,” Leona reiterated with a knowing smile. “After all, I think it’s good we have an audience, for both of our sakes.”

“Both of our…!?”

“Yeah, did you already forget? You just accused me of kidnapping the high elder, like, five minutes ago. Obviously, I had no intentions of doing that, but I hate to think about how much trouble I just caused you over the misunderstanding. I mean, you’re the one who gave me the open invitation and let me work in the Jade Cavern Library for all this time, and you were so enthusiastic in your hospitality, too. For me to turn around and take advantage of that, well… it’d make me a terrible guest and you a terrible judge of character. At least, that’s what I’m afraid others would think. So, please, let me prove to you that I’m as much of a researcher as you believed me to be. I know I won’t hold a candle to your many years of wisdom and experience, but I could at least give your task a try, right?”

Taoran glared at him, and Leona smiled in return. Gotcha. He couldn’t say ‘no’ to that, could he? Well, sure, he could, but Leona would still take the gamble and deal with whatever the results were as they came. There was a little something he learned, a long time ago—you really could gain ground sometimes by making problems out of something that your opponent didn’t think to think about before. He was sure he gave Neiji plenty of grief once upon a time by doing just that, getting out of things by illustrating just how terrible the consequences would be otherwise. He couldn’t go to that event because he was just so bad at conversation and so rude that he would make the family look bad, so it’d be even worse than if he didn’t show up at all. He couldn’t give up practicing alchemy because of those complaints, because then his supposed ineptitude would just make Neiji and the tutors look like bad teachers. In retrospect, Leona probably did take those excuses too far, every now and then, but still, let it never be said that he never learned anything from his ‘bad’ behavior.

Point was, now Taoran had to decide whether keeping up suspicion on Leona was going to help or hurt him. Leona realized a little something, after that meeting yesterday—the aggressive hospitality he received on first arrival really might have had more to do with Taoran’s agenda than with Leona’s simply being a prince. Looking back, he remembers those attendants acting almost nervous at the prospect of Leona not finding what he was looking for. Why was that, he wondered? Why would that matter to him? However, now he knew from Yunhua that Taoran in particular got it in his head that Leona and his heritage could be an important asset, right from the start, so he could imagine what might have happened. Perhaps, Taoran stressed to them that Leona needed to be satisfied. He needed to stay and be comfortable. He was a valued guest. So now, after all of that, could he really afford to take it all back? Sure, Leona still looked suspicious. This could still be a betrayal. But the one who opened the doors wide for this ‘traitor’ to come in was still none other than Taoran himself.

Besides, wouldn’t he just love to see what amazing thing Leona was working on?

“Ah…of course, Prince Leona. Forgive me for my brashness,” Taoran conceded with obvious reluctance. “Please, do continue.”

“Thank you. I won’t disappoint you,” Leona lied, and then, he got to work.

He announced that he was repeating the hensrechher spell, with some new variations, this time. Leona searched through the stuff he ordered and took out a little prop—a small, withering plant, with drooping, browning leaves. Then, for everyone to see, he drew a few runes on the ground, and he used the little mobile setup to make a small bit of potion with moonflower and several other ingredients. He cast a spell on the runes, and he poured the potion on the soil.

Taoran was correct in that this was hardly a good spot for doing magic or alchemy, of course. Leona was using a portable crucible to brew the potions, but he imagined that in the future, when he did this for real, he would make the potion beforehand in a proper lab, with a cauldron. However, this, of course, was just a simple version of the magic that he had been studying on all this time, both these past few days and beforehand, for this great ‘personal project’ that brought him here in the first place. Known spells like the hensrechher potion were merely a starting block—this was a bit far removed from that, actually, but it also perfectly resembled plenty of other ancient magic that already existed, which combined the effects of a potion with an active spell, to create a reaction with the appropriate length of activation necessary for it to take root and not fizzle out.

The runes glowed and the potion glittered and then disappeared, and then, the plant transformed into a vibrant green, straightening up right before everyone’s eyes and growing taller and wider in the same moment.

“Oh, Leona! It worked!” Dan Heng reported excitedly, at the same time Leona could feel the curiosity and interest rise in their onlookers.

“Very interesting!” the alchemy commissioner messenger, who had stuck around this whole time, nodded approvingly. “What kind of spell was that you just cast?”

“Healing chained with quickening, mostly,” Leona replied. “It uses hensrechher as a root with some healing and mending spells for strengthening the withered veins, and the runes is just there as a filter, to direct it towards a plant, while the potion both brought revitalization properties and slowed down the process as a whole, so that the magic being cast could be effective.”

“Hmm, yes, I figured as much, seeing the runes,” the messenger acknowledged. “This is interesting. We have worked with plenty of magic geared towards the health of plant life, of course, but I’m not sure I’ve seen anyone do it quite like you, using a spell meant for a person and then refiltering it. It’s unorthodox, but I see your logic. Nicely done.”

“Thanks for the compliment,” Leona said with a smile and nod. “It means a lot to hear that from someone as learned as you. Of course, I have the palace library’s texts to thank, as well, not to mention the Preceptor’s guidance.”

Leona looked towards Taoran, then, who was now looking very ready to change his tune. He stared at the plant with a spark of interest and satisfaction, and he took no further prodding to take the bait Leona offered him, either. “Oh, me? Ah, of course, you flatter me!” he expressed with a satisfied grin. “I simply recognized your talents, my dear prince. I knew all you needed was some thoughtful guidance to find just what you were looking for.”

“So, sir, this was the experiment you were talking about?” the leader guard asked for clarification.

“Hmm? Oh, yes! This is part of it. Of course!”

“Yeah, this is my part, to be more specific,” Leona clarified.

Taoran’s eyebrow shot up immediately. “Your part…?”

Leona nodded. “Yeah, so, as everyone here knows, I came here researching nature healing magic, right? And that’s exactly what I just did. This was what my goal was. However, during our meeting yesterday, Taoran gave me an extra challenge. I’m sure his intentions were to give me the ingredients himself and do this in private, but honestly, I didn’t think it’d be much of a challenge if all of that was just handed to me, so I’m going to try to do it with what I have, here. So now, where’s that dead chicken I ordered?”

“Dead…chicken?” The messenger’s eyebrows shot up, at that one, as if he was already concerned, as he very well should be.

“Yeah, were you guys able to get it?”

“I…let the kitchen staff know of that one, Prince Leona. We have refrigerated chicken meat that you can use, if you need it.”

Leona sighed and shook his head. “No, no, that won’t work. I meant a whole dead chicken, with all its feathers and organs intact and everything. I was going to try to resurrect it.”

“P-PRINCE LEONA!”

And just like that, the tune of this room dramatically changed once again. A murmur erupted through the crowd in shock, and Taoran was looking pretty shocked too, just obviously in a whole different way. Leona stayed calm and passive in the face of it, though, still crouched on the ground with Dan Heng clinging close to his side with a question in his eyes that Leona couldn’t give an answer for quite yet.

“I am…sorry, Prince Leona,” the messenger spoke more calmly now, but with a continued air of shock, “but resurrection magic…that is strictly forbidden, even if it is just for an animal. Perhaps you were merely unaware, but that level of magic is too high of a cost. Blot accumulation will be the least of your worries, as it could backfire terribly and cause extreme injury or even loss of life…”

“Yeah, I’m aware,” Leona acknowledged simply. “It’s against the law—Articles of Magical Use section seven, paragraph four, to be exact. I was a little unsure about this whole thing, so I looked it up. Taoran told me not to worry about that, though, since it was his orders. Knowing about Dan Heng, I figured he must be telling the truth—since the leaders’ judgments can bypass the written law and all that. Still, the physical danger really worried me, too, but I figured I’d just do it for a small creature and get everybody else to stand far back. I figured this was why he asked me to use Dan Heng as a conduit, since he’s a dragon and can take it, but I didn’t want to do that, so I’ll just be using magic traditionally and taking the brunt of it myself.”

“P-Prince, that’s—!”

“NONSENSE!”

Taoran spoke up quickly, looking positively furious as he glared at Leona, and as the assembled crowd watched them raptly with looks of alarm and doubt. “I said no such thing!” he insisted strongly. “I mean, seriously, could you really imagine that I would encourage you to perform forbidden magic? You are digging no one’s grave but your own, Kingscholar!”

“Huh, is that so?” Leona asked dryly. “Guess I misheard. What did you say, exactly?”

“Why, you…!”

“The Preceptor is under no obligation to answer that request!” one of the guards blurted out, who happened to be one of the ones Leona recognized as being their guard during the meeting yesterday. “That was a private meeting! It should not be divulged to the public!”

Leona watched that guard’s defensive reaction and quietly compared it to the mix of reactions he could spot among the guards and the staff, and he figured that with the way this was going, his hunch had been correct about the politics here. This place was a house divided. It was evidenced in the very fact that Yunhua had allies among the staff who were reporting back to her, and it was on full display with what was happening right now. Not everyone was in the know about what the Preceptors were doing, and not everyone would be on board with it if they did know. Taoran must be more aware of that than anyone, surely, but here Leona was, making a public spectacle out of the question, just like he probably was trying to avoid.

“A conduit? Like…a magic tool? Leona, did he really say that?” Dan Heng whispered anxiously in his ear, and quietly, Leona nodded. He’s been saying a lot of lies just now, but he had a feeling that, at least for this part, Dan Heng would be able to tell the difference.

“Yeah, he did,” Leona whispered back. “Don’t worry, though; it’s not going to happen if I can help it. I promise.”

“Yes, of course!” Taoran agreed with his guard loudly, ignoring their whisperings entirely as he relaxed again into that insufferable smug smile. “You have no proof of what I supposedly said, my dear prince. Your actions are your own, and I’m afraid you’ll have to face the consequences for this blasphemy. No one is above the law, and you just said that you read it yourself, so you cannot claim ignorance.”

“Yeah, I wasn’t trying to,” Leona said simply, although, he let himself look a little angry while he did so. “Guess you really did set me up. If you wanted me gone, you could have just said so, you know.”

“Enough!” Taoran barked. “Guards, seize him at once!”

“But sir!” the guard leader rebutted before the others could make a move. “He didn’t even do anything!”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Leona countered with an exasperated sigh. “I get it. The law is more important than some spoken command. Isn’t that right, Preceptor?”

“Yes! Of course it is!”

“So, according to the law, I should be exiled and barred from the country, then. In that case, I’ll just leave. Would it be okay for me to pack my things first, or should I just exile myself on the spot?”

Taoran froze, blinking owlishly at him. “W-What are you saying…?”

Leona only barely bit back a smirk in turn. “What? Surely, you didn’t forget the law? I have materials here designed for the purpose of performing resurrection magic. The penalty for an attempt is banishment. I’m not guilty of manslaughter unless I actually do something dumb. Unfortunately, I guess I really messed up right here, didn’t I? And Dan Heng is my assistant, so, I guess that means he gets banished too? Did I get that right?”

“Not at all!” Taoran countered with a wide-eyed look on his face as if Leona just splashed him with cold water. “The high elder wouldn’t be banished; that’s ludicrous! Are you trying to bring trouble upon him along with you!?”

“What, more trouble than being imprisoned for life?”

“That’s not your concern!”

“So am I wrong? He got sentenced for attempting forbidden magic in his past life, right? I just wanted to be clear on what’s going on.”

Taoran sighed sharply. “Yes. I see you are aware of that truth, so I will not hide it. Everyone here knows of this child’s sins,” he added pointedly with a sharp glare in Dan Heng’s direction, who flinched a little at the sight of it.

“Sure. So, that’s means…huh. Yeah, no wonder all you guys were so shocked when I brought up resurrection magic,” Leona mused with a slightly wide-eyed look as if he was just coming up with this revelation just now. “That’s what happened with that big disaster with Dan Feng, isn’t it?” He then turned to the alchemy commission guy specifically for confirmation, to avoid talking to just Taoran. “Is that what happened?”

“Ah…yes, Prince Leona,” he replied, still looking horrified. “It is.”

“Really? Huh. Then, that’s so weird that Preceptor Taoran challenged me like that. Seems like he of all people should know.”

“Ha! Still so insistent on that story, Kingscholar?” Taoran questioned with a sharp glint in his eye. “You are digging your own grave!”

“Okay, yeah, I get it.” Leona raised up his hands slightly as if in surrender. “No one’s going to believe me; that’s fine. I just got one question, though. I heard that there was some kind of accident that happened after that Dan Feng incident; was that an experiment gone wrong, too? You know, when the general went missing?”

“The…general?” Taoran narrowed his eyes in irritation again. “Who? I have no idea what you mean.”

Leona sighed loudly. “You know, General Jingliu? The highly decorated Briar Valley general who stopped Dan Feng in his overblot? I heard there was an accident that caused her to go missing. The guys I know in Briar Valley suspect she’s dead. Honestly, they kind of want closure for that. I assume something was done about whoever caused that?”

“What are you talking about!?” Taoran barked. “There was no accident! You must have misheard. Her whereabouts are entirely unknown, but the rumor, if you must know, is that she overblotted as well in the aftermath, just like Dan Feng and their mutual friend, Yingxing, who disappeared shortly afterwards. So, you see, that group was obviously of a mutual bad character, I’m afraid,” he concluded with a smirk. “There is no mystery about that.”

Yingxing? Leona didn’t remember hearing that name, but that added bonus really only helped the absurdity of this case, actually. “Huh, really? Three overblots from the same group, in the span of, what? Just a few years? I don’t know, that seems just about statistically impossible, to me. You do realize that overblots are extremely rare, right?”

“And what point are you trying to make!?” Taoran snapped back irritably. “Why question us on them now!? It of no concern to you!”

“Well, not to me, sure, but to my friends in Briar Valley? Yeah, absolutely. But sure, maybe I got the story wrong. I’ll call my friend up right now,” Leona concluded, pulling out his phone from his pocket and making the call on the spot.

“Who are you calling!? This is entirely off-topic!” Taoran barked. “We are talking about your actions!”

“Yeah, yeah, just hang on a second.” Leona waved him off just as the call got picked up, which Leona immediately put on speakerphone. “Hey, Malleus? You got a second?”

“Oh? What a surprise this is. Of course, Kingscholar. You have my ear.”

Malleus was, of course, not surprised at all, since Leona had already asked this of him and Lilia last night (he would never have hoped for Malleus to pick up right away otherwise), but he did a good enough job of faking it, despite the obvious sounds of amusement. Leona hated that he was about to owe that lizard a favor, but regardless, he knew a good card to play when he saw it, and given the turn this conversation took, it seemed like this really would be the perfect strategy to use, to finally finish this.

“MALLEUS!?” the messenger interrupted in an expression of renewed shock. “You don’t mean…?”

“Yeah, Malleus Draconia, Crown Prince of Briar Valley,” Leona introduced dryly, glancing around the room. “I’m guessing some of you have heard of him?”

“O-Of course!”

“Great, now let me have this conversation. Hey, Malleus? Remember what you said about that retired general who just dropped off the face of the map out of nowhere? The one who was last seen at Scalegorge Waterscape and also fought that high elder’s overblot and saved everyone? General Jingliu?”

“Hmm, yes, of course. What of her? Have you found clues of her whereabouts yet?”

“Yeah, I’ve been doing some digging. I think she got killed because an experiment backfired, and they’ve been trying to cover it up with some vague ‘overblot’ story. You did say that they told you it was an accident, right? Because now the Preceptor’s going on about her being of ‘bad character’ or something like—”

“PRINCE LEONA KINGSCHOLAR!” Taoran shouted, as if he were suddenly his authority figure, intent on giving Leona flashbacks of his childhood. “This is ridiculous! Why would you speak to the prince of Briar Valley in such a way right of front of everyone!?”

“Hey, I’m not lying. You said that group was of ‘mutual bad character,’ right? Literally everyone heard that just now. So I guess, you have no problem with insulting the people of Briar Valley, do you? What about General Jing Yuan? He’s still around. Do you think he’s just some bad character too? Is that why you kept refusing to let him see Dan Heng?”

“Of course not!”

“Then why won’t you let him see him?”

“Because this is a Vidyadhara matter, obviously! There is no reason why an outsider should be allowed to enter our dungeons!”

“Ah, is that what you think? That’s such a shame,” Malleus expressed with a deep sigh. “And here, I thought the relations between our countries could remain positive, even past that disaster. How shortsighted of me.”

“Yeah, hate to break it to you, Malleus, but I think they’ve got a problem with your people specifically. I’m an outsider, and they let me into the dungeons just fine. I’m guessing there’s just something they don’t want you to know.”

“Cease this foolishness!” Taoran barked, looking just about livid, by this point. “Are you trying to pin some conspiracy on us!? Is that what this is about, Kingscholar!?”

At that, Leona just looked around at everybody and shrugged. “Yeah, you got me. Not like I was trying to hide it at this point, anyways. I do have an ulterior motive to being here. I guess you suspected it, didn’t you? I mean, I wasn’t lying about my research, of course. That was absolutely real. However, I was doing a bit of investigating, too, on behalf of Briar Valley. You completely shut them out, so, I offered to help look into this, to clear up some things.”

“You…you admit to being a spy!?”

“So what if I am?” Leona shrugged. “I didn’t do anything wrong, and I didn’t go anywhere I wasn’t supposed to go. I just asked a few questions here and there; that’s all.”

That answer was, predictably, not at all popular with him, and it was alarming a whole lot of the guards, too, but Leona stuck with it. “In fact, you could consider me more of a mediator. See? I just got you on the phone with the crown prince. You can finally have a talk and give him the answers he wants, right here and now.”

“Mm, yes, that would be suitable with me. I would admit that your words so far have been…truly quite insulting, really, and I feel obliged to share them with my grandmother the Queen, but I would be willing to overlook that transgression if you provide a satisfying answer to our questions, Preceptor. What happened to General Jingliu? Can you confirm that it was not your people who were at fault?”

“That is preposterous,” Taoran insisted. “I mean, forgive me for my offense, Prince Malleus Draconia, but you must realize that Kingscholar is obviously trying to sow lies to you! We have nothing to do with what happened!”

“Then what did happen? Do you know?”

“Of course we don’t! She disappeared and was rumored to have gone mad. That is entirely on her, I am afraid.”

“Really? Those are bold words. She was a very respected general, Preceptor, of well-known heroism. I hope you realize that. The fact that you have been so insistent on keeping us out only makes us fear the worst for her safety. How do we not know she hasn’t been kept in your dungeon, all this time? You could have taken advantage of her injuries from the overblot battle.”

“Your highness! That is entirely untrue! Where did this accusation come from?”

“Oh? You tell me. You have kept Dan Heng under such close watch…is there something he knows of this, perhaps? Dan Feng was a close friend of Jingliu’s, so it stands to reason that he would have her interests at heart. He would tell the truth, if only he could, would he not?”

“There is no truth to tell! He knows nothing, please understand. He is reincarnated; there is nothing he can know. He is an entirely separate person!”

“Hmm… yes, that is reasonable. Then, there is nothing lost from speaking to him, is there? From what General Jing Yuan told me, I was under the impression that you might have feared their meeting.”

“Feared!? Please, young prince, you are mistaken. Your general seems rather taken with dramatic language, but the reasoning was nothing of the sort.”

“Oh? Taken with dramatic language? What bold words. I didn’t realize you thought so ill of me, Preceptor.”

A much deeper voice came through the phone which definitely did not belong to Malleus. Leona smirked a little, knowing from context exactly who that must be, and by the horrified look on Taoran’s face, he must know exactly who that was, too.

“General Jing Yuan!? That is…ah, what a surprise! How nice to hear from you! I thought this was a personal call between Prince Leona and Prince Malleus, so I am…quite surprised. Why are you here, exactly.”

Jing Yuan chuckled. “Oh, myself? I was only just passing by, and my prince so graciously allowed me to listen in. This has been quite enlightening, too. I almost missed hearing your lofty opinions.”

“General, please. There is no reason to turn this ‘discussion’ into such an ordeal. We greatly sympathize with the loss of General Jingliu, obviously. However, there is nothing we can do to help, and I see no reason to throw accusations about. We do not need to resort to this.”

“Yeah, you’re right. We really don’t,” Leona said, breaking back into the conversation at the same time he stood up and picked up Dan Heng again, carrying him on his hip like before in a clear signal that it was time for them to go somewhere. “So, how about this? You can go ahead and banish me for the attempted resurrection magic, and maybe for the spying thing too, and you can banish Dan Heng while you’re at it, since he was helping me. Once we’re gone, we can meet with General Jing Yuan, and he can ask whatever questions he wants to, and he can confirm for himself that Dan Heng knows nothing about what happened to Jingliu. I mean, obviously, Jingliu disappeared after the molting rebirth, so he wouldn’t know about that unless Jingliu was also being kept in the dungeon, so we can clear that up. So, in that case, there wouldn’t have to be any trouble, and the two of us can be out of your hair forever.”

“Excuse me!?” Taoran sounded even more alarmed, now. “You cannot simply decide that for yourself! Banishment would be reducing Dan Heng’s sentence! You should leave, but he must stay, to atone for his sins!”

“His sins?” Leona repeated incredulously. “I thought you just told Malleus he’s an entirely separate person. Would make sense, too. That’s what your law says, doesn’t it? So really, I don’t get it. Why is he being imprisoned at all, if he’s already been reborn? Shouldn’t Dan Feng’s execution be punishment enough?”

“Prince Leona, please. You would not understand. He is separate, yes, but he is also the same. He has absolutely no memories, but he is the same soul, so therefore, he must atone.”

“Then are you going to change the law, or is he just going to stay the exception? Besides, if his spirit really is the same, then that just proves Malleus’s point, doesn’t it? He would still want to protect Jingliu, so your hiding him could prove that there is something you don’t want him to say. Either that, or it proves my theory, instead.”

“Your theory!? And whatever could your theory be!?”

“That this is a conspiracy, and you’re in on it, Preceptor. Jingliu got killed in an accident caused by your experiments, and in spite of what happened, you kept trying forbidden magic anyways. That’s why you kept Dan Heng around. It doesn’t make sense why you would keep him so close, otherwise.”

“And why wouldn’t it?” Taoran challenged. “Of course we would keep him safe; he is still our high elder. Everything we do is to keep the child safe and well.”

Safe and well!? As if. Everyone here should know that was a lie. The staff had eyes—there might be a lot of people here who had never seen the kid in person before, but surely they could tell that he wasn’t exactly healthy. The scars and bruises made that perfectly clear; however, that wasn’t the argument Leona was going to make.

“Are you sure about that?” Leona questioned. “He had a magic suppression collar on, and he was tightly secured, when I found him. Obviously, you’re scared of his magic, aren’t you? His power could easily overwhelm yours, if he had the chance. So, why keep him here, and why do all those experiments? Wouldn’t it be safer for you if he wasn’t around? It’s not like he can be your high elder, anyways. Criminals are stripped of their positions of authority—that’s clearly written in your laws, too. So, you have no use for him, unless you want to use him for his power, right?”

“Why, that’s…!”

“Hmm, yes, that’s a reasonable-sounding theory, Kingscholar,” Malleus acknowledged. “Would be terrible if it were true, however. If there was foul play involved in Jingliu’s death, I could not overlook that. Briar Valley never turns its back on its people. I would be forced to demand repercussions, or else, I will go there and search for her myself!” he ended with a strong note, his calm voice suddenly snapping to anger, and surely, that did not go unnoticed.

“Prince Malleus!” the guard leader spoke up quickly, sounding too desperate to stay silent any longer. “We have nothing to do with what happened to your general, you must understand! Let’s not come to blows over this!”

“Then prove it! I demand that you find the truth of this matter, and in the meantime, let the child go, just as Prince Leona said. I will not have him in your hands so that you may perform these ‘experiments’ and use his power for further betrayals against my people! You defiled the body of Baiheng, and you caused the death of Jingliu, and after all of that, you insult Jing Yuan by refusing his simple request and denying him hospitality!? Considering your actions, I would consider it quite suspicious that you insist on keeping Dan Heng close to you! You wish to repeat the past! The only assurance I can have for that not happening, is for you to be kept far apart from each other, forevermore!”

“Prince Malleus Draconia!” Taoran shouted in alarm. “Do you seriously plan to tell us what to do with our criminals!?”

“Of course not! But this matter concerns Briar Valley, does it not? I will not overlook this infraction!”

“Prince Malleus!”

Leona had to stifle laughter, on that one. ‘This infraction’? Now he was just sounding like Riddle.

“Haha, there’s no need to get so tense, of course,” Jing Yuan said calmly. “However, I do agree with my prince, obviously. I believe banishment is a more suitable punishment, especially considering that he was already executed and stripped of his title, no? I would be satisfied, as well, to speak with him on Briar Valley territory, so that I will never again have to bother you in yours…unless there is indeed trouble with Jingliu, of course.”

“There…there is no trouble, of course.” Taoran breathed out deeply, seething with the motion and glaring at the phone as if he wished he could break it. “We will…launch an investigation at once, into Jingliu’s disappearance. We wish for nothing more than to continue our alliance with the people of Briar Valley, and we assure you, the suspicions are unfounded. I want nothing to do with Dan Heng, and I have no intentions of ‘using’ him for forbidden magic, I assure you.”

“Yes, thank you,” Malleus said, calming down. “Your cooperation is appreciated. And as for Leona and the child?”

“They…shall leave this place. Immediately.”

“Very well. Do treat him respectively, though. He is a very dear friend of mine, so it would be devastating to hear that he was treated rudely.”

“Of course, Your Highness,” Taoran agreed through clenched teeth. “I will see to it that he is treated quite well. Now please, let’s finish this conversation, for now.”

Leona obliged, at that point, turning off the phone for all their enraptured audience to see.

“This isn’t over…” Taoran muttered under his breath, pointedly at Leona. “Just, get out of my sight.”

+++

Guards escorted Leona back to his hotel room, and he kept holding Dan Heng all the way there, as he looked around at the sights of the city with pure amazement for the first and maybe last time. Leona did find himself feeling a bit guilty about that, now, even though he thought this outcome was the best one. When he asked if Dan Heng would be willing to go ‘outside,’ he didn’t specify that it would require leaving his homeland behind entirely. Right now, there was no way he’d be safe wherever those Preceptors were, though. He would have to settle for seeing the rest of the world, instead, unless something big really did change around here, one day. That might be wishful thinking, but still, Dan Heng was going to have a long lifespan, much longer than Leona’s. Even for a country of fae, maybe it wasn’t so hard to believe that in a couple hundred years or so, the situation could look much different than it did now.

So, Leona got to the hotel room and packed his things. Dan Heng offered to help, looking very curious at literally everything he was seeing, but for the most part, he kept quiet while the guards watched them. It wasn’t until they were both on the large passenger ferry boat, unloading luggage in their little room and preparing to stay until their departure the next morning, that Dan Heng finally spoke up about what was really on his mind.

“L-Leona?” he asked hesitantly. “What just happened just now, at the palace, that…that was amazing!” he broke into bright-eyed enthusiasm, giving Leona whiplash from the suddenness of it. “I was scared, but I just kept listening even when you said weird things, just like you said you would! We did the experiment, and then you said something about forbidden magic and got them angry, and then you called your friend—you never told me your dragon friend was a prince!”

“Huh? Yeah, well, I guess I didn’t.” Leona shrugged, realizing with exasperation that he was going to have to deal with the fact that Dan Heng was going to be even more convinced that they were ‘friends,’ now. “It wasn’t important.”

“Yeah, well, that was so good he helped! He sounded so mean and scary, though!”

“‘Scary’? Tsk, trust me, that bastard was having the time of his life back there.” Leona rolled his eyes, remembering all that dramatic flair, although it really did work out for them exactly as they planned it.

“Huh? Bastard? Leona what’s a ‘bastard’?”

“Uh…not important. Just a nickname. Forget I said it.” Crap, was Leona going to have to teach him what curse words were, now? Of course, he didn’t particularly care about kids using curse words or not, because he didn’t see what the big deal was, but some people would care. Some people, from…well, wherever they were going.

“Okay, but also…what you said back there, about the questions,” Dan Heng brought up, looking nervous again, now. “Am I going to have to be interrogated by that other guy, now? Jing Yuan?”

“No, it’s not an interrogation, I promise,” Leona assured, shaking his head. “Jing Yuan tried to visit you because he was worried about you. He might ask questions about what happened, but it’s not an interrogation like what you’re thinking about. He just wanted to know that you were okay.”

“That I was…okay?” Dan Heng questioned. “But why?”

“Well, because he knew you in your past life. You were friends back then.”

Dan Heng nodded. “Yeah, I know,” he said, with surprising surety. “I recognized his voice. I knew he knew Dan Feng…but, well, I kind of thought he’d probably not like me, because of that. Didn’t Dan Feng attack Jingliu, too? Doesn’t that make what happened his…or, well, my fault, actually?”

“No, Dan Heng, it doesn’t,” Leona refuted, gently but firmly. “We don’t know what all happened with her, but it’s not your fault, and it’s not Dan Feng’s, either. There’s a lot going on, but…maybe one day, you’ll find answers. Or, we’ll find answers.”

“Oh…okay.” He nodded. “So, what now? Where are we going? Am I…going to live somewhere else, now?”

And there, that was the tough question. Leona hadn’t entirely thought this part through, admittedly. He knew he couldn’t just abandon Dan Heng now that he was rescued—he needed to be in a good home, where he could have an actual childhood and grow strong and healthy. Leona wasn’t about to just drop him at some orphanage, either—he needed to take responsibility and ensure that he’d be fine. As for where that would be…that was the tough part. He thought about leaving him in Briar Valley, where he’d be among other fae, similar to his own kind, but that might cause too many problems, given the close ties with them and the Vidyadhara. Despite their bluffs and veiled threats of violence, Leona was aware that the Briar Valley Council of Elders probably would not care about this and would not approve of giving sanctuary to the condemned high elder. That was why Leona knew that he couldn’t just resort to international pressure—instead, he went the route of making the appearance of international pressure, using the select few involved who’d be on his side, and making up a reason for this arrangement to be an outrage which didn’t actually have anything to do with Dan Heng’s wellbeing. They masked the true reason with a different one, but if this was going to last, Leona figured that Dan Heng needed to be far away from the situation.

So, that left him just with the obvious solution, really. Or at least, the obvious temporary one. Leona knew a lot of people from a lot of places, but most of them just so happened to be his peers, all of them at least two years younger than him and probably not planning to take on fatherhood quite yet. Still, Leona could try asking around, but that would take time. In the meantime, Leona would handle this himself.

“You can come home with me, to the Sunset Savana,” he offered. “If that’s fine with you, that is. The palace has plenty of space. You can meet my nephew, too. He’s about the same age as you…kind of. Same age in beastman years, anyways.”

“Oh, you mentioned him!” Dan Heng brightened up again. “Cheka, right? I’d like to meet him! But…are you sure that’ll be okay? I’ve never lived in the top part of a palace before. Will all the other people be okay with that?”

Leona grimaced, at that one. That would be the obvious problem…some people would probably lose their minds once they found out the stunt that Leona pulled. “I…can’t make promises, sorry. Some people might be upset. We’ll make it work, though. You can stay with me until you get a permanent home somewhere, how does that sound?”

Honestly, Leona was kind of wanting an excuse to move out of the palace, anyways, even though he was technically expected to stay there all his life. This could be a good reason to find some other place, just like a ‘normal’ person…assuming a better place for Dan Heng to live didn’t come up, anyways.

“Hmm…okay, yeah! That sounds like a good plan!”

+++

The sun that morning was really bright, but Dan Heng could handle it, especially since Leona gave him sunglasses to use. He wanted to be on the deck when the boat started sailing away. He read about this, a whole lot of times, and he had memories from Dan Feng about it, too, but he never has been on a boat before. He never thought he’d get the chance to.

Dan Heng was sure he was dreaming. He was kind of scared, now that he was ‘banished’ and would have to go somewhere new that he didn’t know yet, but it made him feel better that he wasn’t being banished alone. Leona was with him, and also, he was going to get to meet Jing Yuan for the first time in this life, and…it would all work out, maybe.

He was scared—really scared—but he hoped that, maybe, he could trust them when they said it’d be okay. Or…might be okay. The people in Leona’s family might not like him. Something else bad could happen, too. What if someone tried to send him back? What if he really couldn’t run away from his past forever? Would it all be for nothing? Still…he wanted to try. He wanted to live. He already decided that, so he was going to have to at least try, so he could pay everyone back for taking a chance on helping him.

Dan Heng watched the ocean as they sailed on by, and he felt like he could watch it forever and ever. It was so beautiful. It felt…really good, too, like it made the magic inside him happy to see it. Dan Heng wasn’t used to feeling his magic like this, and he was a little nervous because of it, but he was going to do his very best to learn, no matter what, because that’s what people did. They learned, and they studied, and…they grew. Dan Heng was going to be a mage one day, and he was going to live, in whatever way he wanted to.

“Still staring at the sea, huh?” Leona asked, like it was funny that Dan Heng was still staring, so Dan Heng just smiled and nodded.

“Mm-hmm. It’s really nice. Is it okay if we stay on deck and watch?”

“Yeah, sure.” Leona smiled, leaning against the railing right beside him. “We can stay as long as you like.”