The city of Sophia is truly the gem of Adrias. Its charm is matched by the backdrop of pristine skies which have helped shape the city to what it is today. The climate these skies brought were of great importance, but they were also influential when it came to architectural designs as the vast majority of buildings have been built to great heights, as if to try and reach the blue skies above them.

Many different cultures have left their mark not just on the city's development, but also upon Sophia’s identity. What historically was a city of no variation full of Cyrans has grown into a large melting pot of diversity. Hundreds of food carts, ethnic inns and taverns offer a plethora of culinary choices and those who feel hungry for something else can enjoy nature, music, magic sports or one of the many other recreational venues.

—Trav Ellor, Sightseeing in Adrias, Vol. 1, Chapter 6.

November 6, Wednesday, Year of 1842. Lotti Hasard.

The Galan soldiers are surprised by Lotti’s squad’s aggressive manoeuvre, but they recover quickly, changing their formation to divide Lotti, Ethan and Lynx. Some of them rush towards Ash and Nina, but Lotti knows that Ash can deal with most of them. Thirty more minutes. She could make the time faster for a while, but it would absolutely crush her vigour for weeks if she does so with so many people around.

When she tries to move towards the enemy commander, she is surrounded by twenty men, who all have their air barriers raised. At least they aren’t mounted. She unsheathes her sword, then points it in the enemy commander’s direction, glaring, “Get out of my way.”

Only two of them hesitate, but that’s enough for her to jump at them, breaking their air barriers and pushing them away to the side. She runs through the opening, just barely outrunning the soldiers behind her, but before she gets to the commander, she gets intercepted by ten more soldiers again. Great. The enemy is focusing on her.

She is thinking of what to do when she hears a round of gunshots. It hits her barrier. She decides she cannot let them hit her barrier freely with gunshots, and so she brings down the barrier, then brings down wind so quickly that the enemy muskets get torn in half.

There are screams all around even though she hurt none of them. “The red witch!” She hears them say, afraid. Of course. Very few people know how to make air so fast that it pierces metal, or beheads people, and it’s all the Church’s fault. They teach that they’re nine elements, but humans can only use seven of them. And even when they teach the seven elements, they only teach the absolute basics. They tell you how to make a fire, but do not teach how to remove heat to create ice. They teach to create barriers and spikes of earth, but do not teach digging.

She had to invade the Church’s secretly for four years to find this information, but even then she did not get to the deepest secrets of the Church. Who knows what else have they hidden?

Four men flee away from her after she has cut their muskets, screaming “Witch!” but the remaining score or so of soldiers stand around her. They charge at once at her barrier, and she grits her teeth as she thinks of a way out without hurting them.

She puts her barrier down once again and pushes them away. What a pain. Maybe she should just kill them. A fire wouldn’t be so bad. There would be many screams. It could also buy them a lot of time, but Lotti doubts that she can set up a fire easily in the stone tavern.

The enemies get up and surround her once again quickly, lunging at her. This time she takes slightly longer to raise the air barrier, and so one of the enemies’ swords finds itself inside the barrier. She looks at it almost touch the side of her stomach, then slows the time for herself and barely moves out of the way.

That was close. She returns the time back to normal, then throws him and his sword on the ground, resisting her urge to stomp on him. She hears Ethan scream, and immediately rushes towards the scream, throwing anyone in her aside to the side.

As she runs towards him, she realizes Lynx has also done the same, and now the three of them are exactly in middle of the enemy formation. “Nina is in trouble,” Lotti says to Lynx. He stares at her blankly.

Lotti repeats, this time, irritably, “Nina…is…in…trouble.”

Lynx starts running towards Nina and Ash’s direction, and Lotti makes the space for him by pushing everyone except a few that have strong air barriers. Then Lotti examines Ethan, who has found a sword pierced through his left shoulder. He is still somehow maintaining his air barrier under the attacks of Galan, his entire life depending on the air barrier.

Lotti manipulates time yet once more to get to them quickly and drive her sword in their chest. She’s had enough. She cannot possibly keep both her allies and enemies alive.

She grabs Ethan, then observes his wound. The sword doesn’t seem to be poisoned, and it’s only his shoulder. He should be fine with light healing. “Stay on the defence, and stay close to me,” she says, then walks to help Lynx. She can look at Ash and Nina from the corner of her eye, pushed to the wall. Ash still has her barrier up, however, and most of the enemies are dealing with Lynx, not them.

She hears his scream this time, and sighs. “Why did you send him there alone?” Ethan asks, and she almost throws him to the enemies. Why does this piece keep questioning her? Does he not realize it’s his scream that has caused her so much trouble? He’s almost intolerable. She should have sent him to the enemies instead. Lynx is so much more useful, even though he has a stupid sense of justice.

She then shouts aloud, “Leave my soldier alive! If you kill him, I guarantee that none of you will be leaving this place alive tonight.”

The enemies stop attacking Lynx, but keep their guard up. Their commander shouts from the other direction, having moved deeper, “Don’t listen to her! Kill him!”

“I swear upon Rudis,” Lotti screams, then pushes air at the source of the enemy commander’s voice, and hence beheads him and the four people in the way. “If you do kill him, all of you will die in a similar manner. If you want to live, drop all of your weapons and walk outside the tavern.”

The soldiers are in a state of panic upon seeing the fallen commander’s head, but even then they make the decision to slowly back away from Lynx’s fallen body, screaming ‘witch’. Now that Lotti can see him without bugs surrounding him, she can see that two of them have driven their swords his stomach and chest. That must hurt.

“Go outside,” she orders. “And tell the rest of the soldiers to not enter. I will kill anyone that tries entering this tavern as soon as you are all out.”

When the soldiers do not react, she beheads two more soldiers to her left. “Go outside already, will you?”

There’s a few screams, and two of them seem feminine. One of them is from one of the enemies, and one is from Nina, who watches Lotti, peeking out of Ash’s back. This is the first time Nina has seen Lotti fight.

The Galan soldiers immediately start heading outside, and Lotti smiles, relieved. Her bluff worked. It was going to be difficult to behead more enemies. Accelerating wind to high speeds always took a heavy toll on her vigour. She needs to get better at it.

She walks to Lynx, and looks at Ash. “Go guard the entrance with Ethan. Keep a barrier around it. Nina—you come here with me.”

She does not like kneeling so she raises Lynx’s body using air to examine his wounds. “The chest one looks deep,” she says, removing the sword.

“What are you doing?!” Nina asks from her side, almost screaming. “He will bleed to death if you—”

Lotti looks at her and is about to say something when the smell of blood hits her. Finally. It’s been taking longer and longer for her to pick up on the smell of blood on battlefields. Perhaps she’s getting used to it. She hopes her nose never gets used to it, however. It’s a nice smell.

“Nina, go bring me a cloth from one of the dead soldiers. Make sure there’s no blood on it, and that it is clean.”

Nina hurries to a dead soldier, and Lotti immediately removes the other sword off Lynx’s stomach. He coughs up some blood, and looks up at Lotti, almost pleading. Lotti begins her magic, and starts fixing his internals, bit by bit. She stops for a moment when she hears someone vomit. It is Nina, of course, but she does eventually brings a uniform to Lotti, and thankfully none of her vomit falls on her dress. The uniform fumbles in her hand, as if she’s afraid of Lotti…or perhaps it’s just her nervousness again.

Lotti immediately tears the uniform into half, and Nina watches the wounds get patched on Lynx’s body. “You…know light magic?”

“I wish,” Lotti says, smiling. “Then I wouldn’t have to rely on Arael so much.”

“But the wounds—”

“It’s not light magic,” Lotti says. She lowers her volume, and whispers in Nina’s ears. “There are two elements that the Church hides. I want you to guess and tell me what they are.”

“Time,” Nina says instantly, and Lotti nods. “Then what about this one?”

Nina looks down at Lynx’s body, and more specifically at his wounds. “Blood,” she whispers. Lotti nods once more.

November 11, Monday, Year of 1842. Veradis Candor.

Veradis’ parents accompany Lily and Veradis to the ball party inside the Grand Hall of Sophia. Neither of them are fond of her. They don’t like that she’s a commoner, which is to be expected. Veradis is the first son, and they always urge him to him marry someone like Blight Demonia, the heiress to the Demonia noble house.

“Speak of the devil,” Veradis whispers, grabbing Lily’s hand, as Blight shows up next to them with three of her friends whose names Veradis has forgotten. Two of them are young men, and one is a young lady. Blight and her friends address his parents respectfully, bowing. Veradis’ parents start talking to her as Lily urges him to walk away. Before he can do so, Blight turns to him and grabs his other arm. She completely ignores Lily as she asks, “How are you nowadays, Veradis?”

Veradis tries to not look impressed at her pretty black dress as he shakes off her hand, “I have been fine, Blight. Thank you. What about you?”

“I have been quite fine, too….but I could be better. Would you have a dance with me tonight?”

Before Veradis can answer, Lily grabs Blight’s hand, gripping it tightly. She smiles, then says, watching Blight’s repulsed face, “That is how it feels when someone grabs your hand without permission. And Veradis is quite busy tonight. Perhaps you should find someone else.”

Blight quickly shakes off Lily’s hand, then stares down at it. “Now that’s enough,” Veradis’ father immediately says. “You young ones should be getting along. Lily, you should mind your actions.”

Lily nods meekly, and Veradis frowns at his father. “She didn’t do anything wrong,” he says. His parents stare at him blankly, then sigh. “Veradis…we have been over this,” his mother says, “We thought it was just a…phase, but you seem genuinely interested in Lily. You’re the heir. You cannot marry a commoner. It will bring great shame to our house.”

“But you accepted her,” Veradis snaps.

“We thought you would get over her in a few years,” his mother says, looking at Lily. “It is unfortunate because she is such a sweet girl, but we really cannot afford to have you marry a commoner.”

“Cannot afford? We are one of the strongest noble houses in Cyra!” Veradis says forcefully, but still keeps his voice low.

“Which is exactly why we can’t do that,” his mother says.

Veradis glares at her, and his father sighs once more. “We will talk about this after the party.” Then he and his wife leave, leaving the young ones to themselves.

Veradis looks at Blight, whose smile has broadened. “I’m afraid you’ll have to spend your life with me, like it or not,” she says.

Veradis ignores her, and looks at Lily, who looks absolutely devastated. “We’ll find a way,” he says, putting a hand over her shoulder. Then he finally looks at Blight, asking, “Is this your doing?”

“Perhaps,” Blight says, glancing at Lily. “Either way, you should teach your wench some manners. She has no respe—”

Veradis raises his hand and barely stops it before it hits Blight’s face, making her stop. Her only female friend gasps. “Maybe you should learn some manners yourself,” he threatens. “It would good you do to not call my future wife a wench.”

Blight smiles. Did you not hear what your parents said? She’s not your future wife. I am. The Demonia house will be integrated into the Candor household before the next year. Our parents have already decided the marriage hall—this same very place!”

Veradis grabs the sobbing Lily’s hand and attempts to go away when Blight catches his hand once more. “You shouldn’t do that, you know. It will only make it harder for her to accept it.”

“Leave us alone,” Lily snaps, shouting. Gazes finally turn towards them, and Blight sighs, shaking her head in amusement. “Look at what you’ve done. Caused so much more drama than needed.”

“Go away!” Lily shouts again, but is more controlled this time. When Blight does not move, Lily almost pounces on her, and Veradis has to control Lily from hurting Blight. “Can you please stop disgracing yourself than you already have?” Blight says. “This isn’t a party for the uncivilized servants.”

Veradis gently holds the back of Lily’s neck and makes her look at him. Only him. “It will be fine,” he says. “It’s not over. You should know better. Don’t you say that you know me the best? I wouldn’t—”

“Yes, I know,” Lily says, rubbing her eyes. “But it was just a big shock…here I was thinking about our future and suddenly I find out that it isn’t going to be anything quite like it. But…it’s fine. We’ll talk about this with your parents afterwards. For now, let us focus on the party.” Lily says.

“Oh, Dear,” Blight says, mockingly. She plays with her long blonde hair as she says, “What a tragedy. Perhaps we should make an opera out of this. What should we call it? ‘The poor wench’? ‘The grand tragedy of a noble and his whore’?”

Blight’s friends stare at her uncomfortably, but say nothing. Veradis does his best to ignore Blight’s remarks and focus on Lily but fails after that remark. “Blight, what will it take you to leave us alone?” He asks angrily.

“Well,” Blight says right after, biting her red lips, “How about we start off with a dance? I suppose I’ll leave you alone tonight if you agree to that.”

Both Veradis and Lily glare at Blight.

“I’ll take as a no,” she says, nodding. “And that means I’ll continue bothering you.”

Then she turns to her friends, and waves at them. “You all should enjoy the party,” she says. “I’m going to spend tonight with him. And then eventually the rest of my life, too.”

“Stay far, Blight,” Veradis warns her as soon as her friends are gone. “Stay very far.”

“No, thank you,” Blight says, stepping close to him. “I really do think we should dance tonight.”

Lily sighs and goes away to find a chair to sit onto. Veradis follows her, and sits next to her, but no matter how much he ignores Blight, she sticks close to them, grabbing a chair right next to his.

For the first time, Veradis and Lily focus on today’s main attraction. A group dressed all in black and white uniforms. They clearly stand out, dressed all in uniforms while everyone is in party wear.

Veradis whispers to Lily, “The new country. I’m not sure whether I understand their thought process behind wearing their military uniform here.”

“They must be ready to fight,” Blight interrupts.

“No. They would never come here to fight. It’s suicidal. It’s just one of their antics, I guess. Maybe they’ll show up at every party with their uniforms. We don’t—” Veradis shuts up once he realizes that he responded to Blight. He is supposed to be ignoring her, but is clearly failing. She smirks at him.

“Oh,” Lily says, discretely pointing a teenage girl dressed in a dress. She’s the only one not dressed in the black and white uniform of New Gala. It’s not too impressive—just a long white dress—but the contrast is undeniable. “Who is that?”

“I don’t know,” Veradis shrugs. “I only know about Lotti Hasard.”

The party has had very little interaction so far so Lily asks “Is this normal?”

“Yes, of course, but you wouldn’t know,” Blight responds instead.

Veradis ignores her and says, looking from group to group. “It’s quite normal. The New Galan group. The Cyran group. The Church of Rudis. Those are the major three powers here currently. But see here, there’s also those small groups from Runan, Ivinity, and Iota.”

“How can you tell?”

“14 years of attending parties will do that.”

The groups finally start diffusing into one another. All eyes are on Queen Lotti Hasard of New Gala and King Aidan of Cyra, but they don’t seem to approach each other. “Are they saving it for the last?” Lily groans, “I’ll grow bored to death.”

“They just want the other one to approach them.”

“As a power move?”

“It’s a noble thing,” Veradis shrugs. “It’s all about who puts away their pride and dignity aside first. I hope it’s not the King, but he wouldn’t want to waste all the night, and the New Galan group is barely interacting with people.”

Just as Veradis says that, an old man dressed in heavy robes approaches Queen Lotti. Lily can’t hear what they are talking about, but the old man looks furious. He’s from the church of Rudis, judging from his robes. Has Lotti Hasard done something to piss off the church? Surely not. Queen Lotti suddenly grabs the shoulder of the only girl not dressed in a uniform and sends her away.

“What?” Veradis frowns, as the girl walks away, extremely hesitant. She seems to be walking in no particular direction. “Who is that? Why’s she dressed differently?”

“Political marriage, maybe,” Lily grumbles. “Isn’t it really common for you higher class people? Like you and this…bitch.”

“Be careful with your words, wench,” Blight says. “I can very easily get you removed from the military. You should be thanking me that I haven’t done so yet.”

Lily ignores Blight and looks at the New Galan girl. “She looks like she’s 15. That’s not an age for marrying.”

“Political marriages don’t really care about that,” Veradis says.

“I’ll go have a talk with her,” Lily says, and Veradis grabs her hand tight. “Why? What’s the point of picking a dress that doesn’t stand out if your actions are going to stand out?”

“I…I just want to make sure. She’s too young. Besides, I want to be…not around with you or her for some time.”

Veradis frowns, then says, “I’m telling you that it’ll be fine, aren’t I? Why are you acting like it’s over?”

“Because I really have nothing against her,” Lily says, glaring at Blight. “I know that she’s going to get me fired from military no matter what I do. She’s going to make sure we’re separated.”

“I’ll stop it,” Veradis says. “My word weighs higher.”

“It doesn’t weight as high as her or your parents’ words. You’re the heir. They’re the real nobles.”

“I see the commoner has some semblance of brain, at least,” Blight says. “She’s right. As I said, our parents have already decided to marry us off, regardless of whether we want it or not.”

Veradis lets go slowly off Lily’s hand and she runs off. Blight begins to talk about something, but he isn’t paying attention to her. A moment later, he gets up and chases after Lily, despite her wishes to be left alone for a moment. Blight follows him, and he follows Lily to the white dress girl.

The white dress girl still seems quite lost, and no one else approaches her, unsure of what and who she is. She reminds Veradis of Lily ten years ago. Left alone. As they walk closer, a tall man and a short woman intercept their path. They’re both wearing the New Galan uniform. The man scares Veradis very much, but he still says, “We would like to talk to that…young lady.”

They look at each other in amusement, then bring the white dress girl ahead. “You can talk, but maintain your distance,” the tall man says.

“Hello,” Lily smiles, “What is your name?” Good old Lily, trying to be nice to people even when she’s really pissed off.

The girl anyway in a thick Galan accent, “Nina.”

“Where are you going? You’ve been roaming in circles for a minute or so.”

The girl doesn’t answer, just shakes her head in a light manner. She looks so terrified. “What is the matter?” Lily asks, “Now I know that our countries haven’t been on the best terms recently…but if there’s any problem you have in Cyra as our guest, it is our problem, yes?”

“I don’t know,” Nina says, “I…I just want to get out of here. I feel the church glaring at me. They’ll…” She doesn’t say anymore for a second, then takes a step back. “I shouldn’t be this far. I need to be in Lotti’s sight.”

She’s an impure, Veradis notices. Not that it would matter much in a political marriage if that’s the case. “Are you getting married?” Veradis asks, and Nina looks at them, stupefied. “What…? No?”

“Then why are you dressed in such a…uh, normal manner? The rest of you are all in uniforms.”

“Ah,” Nina nods slowly. “That’s because I’m a grape.”

Veradis tilts his head. Grape? A fucking fruit? “Grape?”

“Yes, a gra—”A sudden scream makes them all turn towards its origin. Lotti. No, not Lotti. The old man that Lotti was talking to—now he is floating in the sky, at mercy of Lotti. “No violence in here!” A Cyran guard’s voice echoes, and all of the Cyran guards unsheathe their swords, ready to fight.