“May his spirit be blessed, and return to us once more.”

A casket was lowered into the grave.

“For the empire!” a shout rang out.

“For the king!” a chorus replied.

The crowd dispersed with anxious hearts. The Shildwell emperor had died of mysterious causes. Though some were sad, there were a greater number who were scared. Each passing of a ruler brought with it changes, and most of the people knew that the next heir was bad news for the empire.

Change did not take long. With the passing of the throne swiftly came oppressive tax laws, humiliating requirements for many officials, and a significant number of executions.

The antics of this heir did not stop before his family either. The heir being a powerful mage, there was only one individual he feared-his sister. The brutal training regiments from Lucille’s father had born fruit, as her heart quickly grasped the painful lessons. That combined with her resolve and natural ability brought her to nearly the pinnacle of the world’s known power. This had not brought her to favor the empire, however, and her brother knew this. Through deceptive arts he managed to seal her powers with a powerful magic artifact, and then placed her in the royal prison.

“Lucille, have you heard?” A young official said from the cell beside her. “The empire is growing restless. If this continues, I don’t know if even the rest of the Shildwell house will be able to hold them back. Of course if you were still free I’m sure it would be a different story, but nevertheless…”

Brother, why—oh why are you doing these things? Her heart cried out.

*** *** ***

“So, what did you think of the banquet?” Brent asked in the morning.

“It was... nice.” Reylor said anticlimactically.

“Talk about an understatement!” Brent bellowed out. “I have received the praise of many people from many different places, but I still believe Splendor out does them all! It’s revitalizing!”

“Brent, today’s orders,” A cold voice broke through.

“Oh, Queen, what’s wrong with a little fun now and then?”

*Glare*

“Oh, alright, fine. Our orders today are to scout out the forest to the north east. Old man Segur seems to think there is a pack of normal wolves threatening his sheep. Try to find and eliminate them, but remember this is the area where the shade usually come from.” “Oh, and Reylor, please report to the Elder. He has another request for you.”

This was not unusual. In the year that had passed since arriving on Aretor Reylor’s 24-7 training routine had helped him become quite strong. Nevertheless, the Elder still worried about him having to fight the shad of the region—particularly because Elder Glen’s beloved assistant had taken an interest in this man. Either way, he had a different task for Reylor.

“Ah, Mr. Seldin, the roads have become a bit dangerous these days. There have been reports of highway bandits, and I have a delivery to be made. Would you mind escorting Elany to the next village?”

True, this was still a dangerous task, but it still paled in comparison to fighting the shade. Unless these highwaymen were magicians, this was still a far less dangerous task.

Elany still felt a bit of apprehension around Reylor, but time had brought her to the point where she could talk fairly normally with him.

Reylor enjoyed listening to her happy chatter, as they made their way to the town.

As they made their way to the gates, Reylor grabbed Elany’s shoulder and stopped walking.

“Reylor? Is something wrong?” Elany looked him questioningly.

“There is a barrier,” he said.

Not only could Seldins freely manipulate matter, they also had perfect vision, able to see all things, including the composition of mana and aether, which is why he was able to notice the barrier.

“That’s odd. They never had one up when I came here before.” Elany said.

Reylor picked up a branch from the “road” and touched the barrier.

“Halt, who goes there?!”

“We have a delivery from Splendor.”

“A delivery?” a man materialized from behind the barrier.

“It’s for Shintle,” Elany said.

“For Shintle?” “Oh, it’s Elany! You should have mentioned that.” Please come on in.”

A portion of the barrier dissolved, allowing them to enter the village.

“I’m sorry about that. There has been word of the Crystal witch residing in Otium. Vilnor’s looking for her, so we aren’t taking chances with those dogs on the loose.”

Rumor had it that Vilnor was pushing to annex the far Western areas of the continent. The likely would have managed, but they were stopped by a single mage-who they called the crystal witch. Her main affinity was with water, and her title came from wiping out an entire battalion of state magicians with her powers, not the least of which was the ability to rain down millions of enchanted ice crystals.

Now having gathered an ultra-elite group of mages, Vilnor was on the offensive again, prioritizing finding and killing this Crystal witch.

“Anyhow, you’ll probably find Shintle at the Inn. I’ll let you go” The man disappeared just as quickly as he appeared.”

“Alright, it’s this way,” Elany said.

After delivering the package of herbs to Shintle, the town physician, they were each given a room for the night. They set off early the next day, anxious to get back to Splendor to share the news.

Nevertheless, the mood was fairly light as they set out, each having had a decent night’s sleep.

They had only walked for a quarter hour, when Reylor turned to Elany.

“Quick, hide”

“Huh?”

“Bandits. Hide!” Reylor urged, giving her a light push toward a patch of trees.

Still confused, she obediently slipped into the woods.

“Snap” “Woosh”

Reylor dodged as an arrow nearly grazed his cheek.

“Tch, I guess we’ll have to do this the hard way” The sound wafted through the trees on the other side of the path.

“Shiiing!”

Two swords were drawn. Reylor followed suit.

The two men walked out from the cover of the tree line.

“Hey, give us the money, shut your lips, and we’ll let you go. We don’t want to take up any more time than we have to.”

“We don’t have any,” Reylor replied.

Liar. It’s with the girl, right? We saw her make the transaction.

“I do not know what you are talking about, please leave us alone.”

Know your place, trash!”

And so they fought.

The thieves attacked together, hoping to overwhelm him quickly.

Instead of cowering, though, Reylor also leap forward, shifting to the left at the last moment.

Taken by surprise, the one thief felt a sting on his side as Reylor swept past him.

The year of intense training had paid off. Alone, the two brutes were not Reylor’s match. There were two of them; but even then, they still did not have the upper hand. Reylor had been trained to fight the wild beasts, which would include situations where there were multiple opponents. Moreover, their mentality was nearly the same as the wolves he regularly encountered

“@#$%!” “He’s a hunter!”

The leader of the two had sensed that something was off with Reylor's sword. He finally noticed the soft glow emitted from his sword, the glow of a blessed blade; and that meant one thing—this man was a hunter—one of those revered as gods.

But it was too late now. He had already lost a great amount of blood, and his vision was glowing dark.

I guess my job hasn’t really changed a whole lot. Reylor thought, as he sheathed his sword. I’m still just taking care of bad karma. Heh.

These were not the worst of the lot, though, so he showed some pity. He stopped the blood flowing from some of the greater wounds.

“It’s safe” Reylor called out

“Oh, ok” Elany stepped out into the clear pathway.

Somehow she didn’t seem as worried as a normal girl would have been. Still, there was a relieved expression on her face.

Reylor did not seem to notice.

After backtracking to alert the local town guards they resumed their journey, eager to arrive back at their home village.

*** *** ***

“Reylor, Isn’t this a wonderful day?” Elany said with a smile.

“It sure is,” He replied

“It’s too bad we had to encounter thieves. Otherwise it would have been just perfect!”

“Good thing the thieves couldn’t rob the weather.”

“Yeah, that’s true!” Her face lit up with a radiant glow. “Oh, I’m so excited to get back! I’m looking forward to seeing elder Glen, Uncle Brent, and Miss Queen so much!”

While Elany was chiefly the Elder’s servant, she also enjoyed watching the hunters practicing, and had thus become quite fond of the two. Sometimes they would even take her with them on low risk patrol missions—much to the elder’s dismay.

Elany kept chattering happily as they walked along. However, Reylor’s face had become solemn. Something wasn’t right.

“Reylor. Reylor? Mr. Seldin!”

Reylor turned to look at Elany.

“Is there something wrong?” She asked. “Wait. Why does the air feel so heavy? And it smells like…”

Smoke. That was the word she was looking for. She didn’t have the chance to finish her words, though, because just then, they made a turn, bringing the village into sight.

--Or what used to be the village. But now it was just a black smoldering patch.

Rey (pant, pant) Reylor. Get out of here, you have to go. Find Queen in (deep breath) Vilnor.

“Brent?” Reylor widened his eyes. He could hardly make out the person in front of him through all the blood and soot he was covered in.

Queen. Talk to… queen in… (Gasp) Then he changed his tone sharply. Just go! I’ll distract them for awhile. Take. Elany from here.

Brent turned around to face the dark figures that descended upon their position.

“Brent! Brent! No! Elany suddenly burst out.”

“Let’s go.” Reylor simply said, as he grabbed her wrist and transferred them as far as he could see in the other direction.

Reylor really did feel bad for Brent, but he realized there was nothing to be done. Brent was far more experienced in combat that Reylor was, and if there was even the slimmest chance of escape, Reylor knew that Brent would not take it so long as Elany was still in danger.

He replayed Brent’s words in his mind: Find Queen in Vilnor But how was he supposed to do that? Also, there was a more ominous part of the message. You have to go.

It didn’t take long for him to realize the import of this message. Already, more figures were emerging from the direction of the village, heading directly toward them like starved vultures catching wind of new blood.

Reylor turned to his companion.

“Elany, we are leaving”

She numbly turned toward him

Alright, plan B.

“Void transfer”