Chapter 65 — A Taste For Gold

Ria sank back into her chair, thoughts churning.

She had begun preparing herself for the possibility that her mother had been a bastard of noble descent, but… to be of royal descent! It was something different, something unbelievable—and maybe even terrifying!

Her silly childhood fantasies of afternoon teas and dancing in fancy dresses at grand balls lit with magical lights and romance were a far cry from the dangers of actually being a lost heir or hidden spare or something! Quick glances around at the other tables as she returned the obfuscation ring to her finger, thankfully, didn’t show anyone paying her group any particularly unusual attention.

“If Orlisi’s divination was accurate and she really does find a princess…” Keira worried.

Zena chuckled. “Maybe it means we’ll be adding a fun new member to our circle of friends.”

“What if she gets caught up in Ria’s troubles and there’s an international incident,” Faris pointed out, earning a double nod of agreement from Keira.

“Yeah, exactly that!”

Ria would normally complain but was a fair bit shocked that her friends weren’t treating her any different from before learning that she had a royal bloodline. Was it because Crysellia didn’t have a king or royal family? Or… maybe she was overthinking the divination’s results?

Atresia’s research had already implied that precious metal affinities were common among dwarven royalty. Why was she suddenly panicking?

She took a deep breath to calm herself. Even if she was descended from royalty, that person didn’t have to be anyone recent. The way the question had been asked, her royal ancestor could have been uncountable generations back.

And, surely, everyone was descended from royalty if the magic went back far enough into the past?

Except, they weren’t. A very limited number of arrows had shown.

A single thought kept coming back to her:

She didn’t know her grandparents.

Not her mom’s or her dad’s.

Like Kiera said, a royal heritage would explain her rare and powerful bloodline and her talent for magic comparable to Phaelys and his family, particularly if the responsible ancestor wasn’t far back in her tree of ancestors. Such an ancestor might even explain her divine affinity and maybe even Hemse’s interest in her—after all, the Vesali bloodline came from a land god. Would it be unusual for other royal bloodlines to have similarly divine origins?

If she really had a dwarven royal bloodline… that wouldn’t be too bad, she didn’t think, but…

A terrible thought occurred to Ria. She was from Revant. What if rather than a dwarven royal ancestor, she was descended from Revant’s royal family? From the king she hated...

Chills spread along Ria’s spine and a cold pit knotted itself in her stomach. Did she have the courage to ask the question of her scroll and learn the answers?

Thankfully, Orlisi had run off with her scroll.

She could only hope that Atresia was right and her bloodline was dwarven, because if she were related to the king she hated… could she kill family? Maybe the only blood-related family she had left…

Kill family…

Ria’s breath quickened.

The king, had he ordered their deaths even knowing there were royal bastards and descendants among the conscripted villagers? Or worse, because there were.

Could her existence have doomed all of Shadewood? Doomed Jeni and her family.

Her brow furrowed. If that were the case, wouldn’t the soldiers have made more of an effort to find her?

Ranger sent a concerned probe through their bond.

“...ia?” Keira’s voice also sounded concerned. “Are you okay?”

The others had all stopped talking and were looking her way.

“I’m fine.” Thankfully, her aura hadn’t come out yet, but it had been a close thing. Ria forced herself calm.

She couldn’t blame herself for deaths the king ordered. At the time, she had thought herself just a normal peasant girl. Whether her parents were to blame-

Ria stopped that thought before it could go anywhere.

If what Ophesia and Nielle told Amilee was right, then she had just as much chance being of Crysellian descent—maybe even the result of Inquisitor experiments using stolen bloodlines. Inquisitor agents were sure to have all manner of fantastical bloodlines.

But even if all that proved to be true, she still didn’t have an answer for why the talent for magic didn’t show up in her brothers or parents. Maybe they hid it from her? Priest Dohan did say that her father died heroically protecting others from rift fiends. How could he do that without training, without magic?

“Want to talk about it?”

Ria met Keira’s gaze and came to a decision, gently shaking her head. “No. That I could be… it was just a bigger surprise than I expected.”

Keira rolled her eyes. “After all the impossibilities involving you, isn’t that something to be expected? Rather, I feel relieved that there’s now a perfectly acceptable reason why you are more talented than me at magic. How you ever thought yourself a normal village girl is the real mystery, isn’t it?”

Zena laughed and slapped the table. “Right!”

Worryingly, that might indeed be the more important question…

“So… does this mean that we don’t have to worry about the ‘Saintess’ thing anymore?” Arthur asked with a slight smirk.

Wha-?

“Saintess?” Iselyn queried, looking up from her book with a raised eyebrow that was mostly hidden by her long dark hair.

“Come to think of it, Mother seemed excessively excited at the idea of Ria wearing a saintess regalia for her debut…” Faris added, his own eyebrows raised as he looked from Arthur to Keira.

Ack. That was something she still needed to talk to a priest of Hemse about.

“Is that why Ria’s aura feels like a priestess’ when she removes her medallion of faith?” Zena mused, her eyes carefully watching Ria’s reaction. “It’s a strange enchantment for an amulet of faith—to hide one’s attunement to the divine. But there are scriptures where powerful priests would hide their aura to seem ordinary when traveling among the common people…”

Ria gulped. A divine gift and an Oracle. And even if her orichalcum affinity was due to a bloodline of royal origin, she couldn’t deny the possibility that Hemse had blessed her. The divine energy in Shadewood’s shrine feeling similar to her own was certainly suspicious.

“Is that really what a priestess’ aura is supposed to feel like?” Iselyn asked with interest. “The priests in Erime had a different feel.”

Zena placed a finger against the side of her mouth and her eyes became distant. “Yeah, it’s not like the priests of Anasari, more like the priests of Khalgar that work the Holy Forge of Dar’Farren.”

“Oh!” Iselyn nodded. “Like that. I’ve never met one, but I could see it being like that.”

“Wait,” Faris objected. “Ria’s medallion of faith really hides part of her aura? You mean that scary pressure and burning metal smell she sometimes has?”

Zena waved Faris’ idea away. “No, no. That’s something different that Ria has learned how to control now. Well… that’s part of it, I guess, but there’s this sense of something more… it’s hard to describe. Like the colors, sounds, smells of the world around her become more vivid, more real.”

Faris was stunned, but Arthur’s face became like that of a merchant spotting a potential source of profit. “I wonder if that would have an effect on enchanting…”

Ah-! Would it really make a difference? Maybe she could use one of her Order’s isolation rooms and test it?

Keira’s brow had furrowed at the discussion. “That amulet—I still don’t understand why a frontier priest like Priest Dohan would even have something like that to give you.”

“Because Hemse wanted me to have it?” Ria nervously suggested, hoping that would be vague enough that she wouldn’t have to admit where it actually came from.

Fortunately, Ellen chose that moment to return, and with a big grin, the girl began placing crystal goblets holding eye-dazzling royal-themed shortcakes on the table in front of each of them. “The chef was over-excited by the special request—maybe because he missed the chance to participate in yesterday’s celebration—so your other food will still be a bit longer.”

From the candy jeweled cream shaped into a glittering golden crown atop each cake to the metallic glitter of the cake itself visible through the crystal to the delicate and small royal-themed silver spoon sticking out of the festive dessert before her, Ria thought ‘over-excited’ might have been underselling it…

“How enticing!” Zena approved and unreservedly reached for the spoon in her dessert. The first scoop revealed a somehow clear custard inside the cake that glowed and sparkled with a rainbow of colors, drawing out a delighted laugh from the raven-haired hero’s daughter. “Now, this is how you celebrate!”

At Ranger’s questioning woof, Ellen placed one at his usual spot under the table. “He made a special one for you as well, Ranger.”

“Woof!”

Curious, Ria turned to hers, easing the spoon free and nudging a smidge of cream to the custard coating the spoon—custard that looked more like slime gel… and something about the smell had her suspecting that the glitter might be powdered gold and gold flakes!

How decadent! Was it really okay to eat gold?

The whole dessert was infused with magic that smelled of gems and ancient power.

Was the chef a Vesali?

Distracted by the thought, Ria found the spoon had already made its way to her mouth and an indescribable taste of flavored gems and gold-laced cream dissolved on her tongue, like eating money and riches, but somehow made sublime through the power of magic.

The taste of the gold, though! It was electric on her tongue, awakening a deep hunger she didn’t know she had. Her mouth began to salivate and a heat rose from her stomach. Unable to hold back, she shoveled the cream and demolished the cake and custard.

In a disassociated corner of her mind, born of her efforts at meditation and soul-strengthening, there was an awareness of her body melting down and absorbing the gold, and in the fading afterglow of each scoop, Ria began to wonder if adding gold to her diet might be necessary.

Somehow, using all her willpower, she managed to keep from gnawing on the crystal goblet and instead used her fingers to scoop every last smudge of golden goodness, before looking for Ellen with pleading eyes.

“Here you go, Ria. Your lunch is ready now,” a crinkling-eyed and grinning Ellen consoled, placing the earth-energy-rich meal ordered before knowledge of royal golden shortcakes existed. “I’ll let the chef know that you appreciated his effort.”

At Ria’s profound disappointment, Ellen hid her face and turned away with her shoulders shaking.

Smelling more still within reach, Ria’s hunter’s eyes turned to the nearest goblet to challenge its guardian only to realize that for some reason everyone at the table was frozen mid scoop.

No, not everyone.

Arthur was enjoying his with a leisurely indifference that made her eyes follow his spoon with barely concealed malice.

“Ria… about that etiquette class you promised…,” Keira groaned. “Tell me you were able to sign up for it...”

Ah-!

That was an embarrassment she wouldn’t live down anytime soon.

Ria sighed as she dropped into her chair for math class, laying her head on the desk. Ranger curled up underneath and made a few supportive noises to encourage her.

Arthur had been polite enough to not say anything while they were walking to class together, but he kept glancing her way and shaking his head in disbelief. Ugh.

“Ria, Ria!” Phoebe called out as she excitedly sat down. “I got to see your fight! That explosion was crazy huge! The Daily Shadow even sold a special collector’s edition with holograms of the explosion and the damage!”

Collector’s edition?!

Ria lifted her head to see Phoebe holding up a copy of the Daily Shadow with the scenes of destruction immortalized onto the page with an article titled: Attempted Bullying of First-Year War Hero Ends Predictably.

The headline was surprisingly sympathetic, maybe? But, the Ria-shaped island was clearly visible in the hologram showing the destruction.

Ria dropped her head back to the desk. Maybe if she closed her eyes long enough, she’d wake up and get a chance to restart the day… or the week. Definitely the week.

“Something wrong?”

“Other than divinations about possibly troublesome ancestors and finding out that I become a ravenous beast around enchanted gold if I don’t get enough of it in my diet? No not really…” Ria grumbled.

“Ah… that sounds… you mean like shapeshifting?!” Phoebe blurted.

“Worse. I licked the goblet clean with my fingers and threatened my neighbors for more with my eyes.”

“Damn. I can't believe I missed out on that!” a cheery elf complained, accompanied by the fabric sounds of the girl slipping into the adjacent chair.

Ria mustered up enough motivation to turn her head to the side and mumble, “How’d the princess hunt go?”

“Great! I’m pretty sure I’ve figured out who it is. She’d already left for the day, so I’ll need to borrow your scroll again tomorrow,” Orlisi reported, sliding the large scroll onto Ria’s desk. “Thanks for letting me borrow that. It’s a fun piece of enchanting. The two-stage divination and arrows make it super easy to use.”

“Ah, sure… wait!” Ria sat up and gaped at her elven friend. “So, there’s really a princess among the first-years?!”

“Yep, yep. Looks that way,” Orlisi confirmed. “She’s pretending to be a regular student and she’s wearing divination blocking items, but they forgot to do the same with her maid and her roommate. Heh, heh.”

“Hey, Ria,” Phoebe tapped Ria’s shoulder. “What’s with the scroll?”

Before she could answer, Researcher Vimlov cleared his throat to begin class, and Ria mouthed that she’d tell her about it later—a promise that got a nod and smile from her pink-robed diviner friend.

“So calling out ‘Towerkeeper’ twice will allow me to talk to Towerkeeper Alenna?” Ria asked Tallien, who was walking together with her on their way to the training hall for Grand Games practice.

“Yep. It’ll work in any of the Towers, and for the Halls, you use ‘Hallkeeper’ twice.”

Ria nodded to herself. That must be how Keira was able to ask the towerkeeper where Ria was during that first practice last week.

The day was looking like it was turning out pretty well overall, even though she’d been a bit depressed earlier. Not only had Tallien been in the student lounge restocking the energy drinks when Ria went looking for him after Orlisi left her alone to ‘finish setting up today’s practice’, but he also had five orichalcum spirit tokens ready for her!

Now, if only she could work off some of her stress. And a good chance of that was waiting for her on the other side of the doors they had just arrived in front of.

“Wonder what Hulle has planned for us today...” Tallien mused, but as he opened the training hall’s door, his wry grin slipped. Unfriendly auras poured out from inside.

Looking past Tallien, Ria saw Orlisi standing in the center of the dueling oval, her face serious. Welkin, Hulle, Ulren, and Endreise were already in position, manning the safety barrier’s anchor points.

“Tallien, join Rialle on the bleachers. Your assistance will be needed later,” Welkin ordered with a tone as if presiding over an official proceeding.

“Yes, Acting Student Tower Leader.” Tallien gave a shallow bow and did as ordered.

The exchange left a chill of worry running up Ria’s spine. The sense of life coming from Welkin was not comforting at all, more like the feeling of an overgrown jungle filled with beasts hunting and devouring the weak. The other’s auras weren’t any less sinister.

Ranger made a questioning wuff.

Ria shook her head. “No idea, buddy.”

“Come, Ria of Shadewood,” Orlisi ordered, sounding deadly serious and looking anything but the usual jovial trickster. “As is my right as an elder disciple in Furrin Martial Arts, I challenge you to prove the truth of your path.”