Yet again a gentle breeze of cold air woke her up from her slumber, but unlike just a few hours ago, the air was much colder, leaving a cold sting every time it entered in contact with her fair sickly pale skin.

What? What happened?

“nane…d-did it work?” She waited but received no answer. She found herself still dizzy and unable to move.

Wait, am I being carried?

The more Mina recovered the use of her faculties and mind she started to realize certain things, like the fact she wasn’t standing, but instead being carried on a back that was too broad to belong to a frail old woman, or that the temperature was much colder than it was in almost every corner of Ezohr.

“n-nane?” She asked again, her voice full of fright and cracking at the seams waiting for a reply.

“It worked,”

For a second that lasted a century, Rania tried to locate that voice on the, admittedly, small group of people she knew, that raspy and deep voice that didn’t belong to Mr. Henry, nor did it belong to her father or any other man in the palace that she knew off.

Who is he? Why nane didn’t answer? Did he do something to her? What happened?

The sheer fear-inducing realization of being carried by an unknown man with unknown goals filled her with renewed energy, she opened her eyes and forcibly pushed herself away from him with all her strengths, this was enough to free herself from the grasp of her captor, but it also had the unintended effect of letting her fall back first to the ground.

Rania’s vision was blurry, she was drowsy having just woken up but nonetheless still felt dreadfully tired, adding to that the sunlight momentarily blinded her.

Even so, she could still recognize a faint blurry figure, she pointed her extended palm towards it and chanted as fast and short as she could.

“Luspher,”

This was the chant for a fireball, taught to her by Elizabeth around two years ago, she was proficient in its use, and she could even hit targets from a hundred meters away if she tried hard enough

“revis,”

A large fire sphere, hot enough to burn someone alive, launch forward and explodes on impact

She visualized in her mind what she wanted to occur as she had done so many times before, she hurried to get to the ending of her chant, she felt the energy surround her and concentrate on her hand, a tingling sensation on her fingertips presented itself as the fireball started to take form.

“Se-”

Just when she was about to cast the spell, when she could see the small sparks come into existence and congregate in front of her, making her will a reality, she felt a sharp cold on her throat, one she had never experienced before but could clearly identify as the coldness of a steel blade.

“Young princess, before you try anything do know I will defend myself, I only have one life after all and I have people waiting for my return,”

Rania’s spell dissipated in an instant.

What is he going to do to me? Does he intend to sell me off? Liz warned me about men like him I need to get away now!

“Before you try anything else do listen to me, I won’t hurt you”

The man spoke to her in a calm, friendly voice to calm her down, she decided it was better to not anger him.

“Well now”

She felt the pressure off her neck as the man removed what now she recognized it as battle-worn ax filled to the brim with runes “As is said, I don’t plan to hurt you or to sell you off to anyone if that’s what you are worried about, I’m a friend of your father my name is Alden”

Mina, the princess of Ezohr looked at the man, he had the looks of an old disheveled adventurer, a few grey hairs were appearing on the side of his long-braided hair and frondose black beard, his eyes were shining green gems, filled with grace and wisdom not unlike his own father, he stood in front of her inspiring this dignified aura only nobles give off despite wearing ragged clothes and smelling like he skipped more than a few showers, still, something about him felt nostalgic to her, so she listened and took in the information.

“Where is my nane, my maid, the old woman accompanying me”

The man put on an awkward expression as if looking for the right words “She had to stay back, you were the only one coming”

“And what happened to me? I was receiving a protective charm when I saw a white light,”

“Protective charm uh? Well, he wasn’t wrong, I was told that spell was supposed to keep you asleep for as long as possible as you were brought here”

“Here? And where are we? Why? I was supposed to start the trail of kings, I was supposed to start my own legend!”

“Yeah, well sucks for you then, I’m sorry kid but you won’t be going on any adventures just yet, your father had to keep you hidden away somewhere far from Ezohr but knew you would probably make it hard, so he made preparations to keep you asleep for the whole trip”

“W-what?! That’s ridiculous! Why!? What reason could there be for me to leave like that?”

Alden shrugged “Couldn’t tell you, your father likes to keep his secrets to himself, so he didn’t say much to me, only what he needed”

“And what would that be?” She asked, her voice filled with scorn

I mean, to leave his only precious daughter to a worn-out tramp

“To take you with me, you’ll be living with me and my family until your father says it’s time”

Ha! That’s rich, I waited my WHOLE LIFE for my father to tell me it was time for me to leave, and now I must do it again?! For how long will it be now?

Seeing Rania’s dejected hateful expression Alden felt the need to lighten up the mood.

“Hey, don’t make that face, my wife knows how to cook some good food, well at least one of them, and I’m sure at the very least one of my kids will play with you, tho which one will it be is a bit of a guess, it’s not a bad place and it’s far away from everything and everyone, also the people are a bit more accepting of other races than most,”

She didn’t reply, just sat on the ground thinking about everything and nothing on the white fog clouding her mind.

“To answer your other question, we are in Ostara, maybe not the place you would want to be but don’t worry I’m a good guide, I know how to get us home,”

Eh?

Rania Mina Illyria has had a great burden resting upon her shoulders since birth, such is the fate of one of the very few princesses in the history of the kingdom, all eyes both cunning and kind were dead set on her and her future actions as soon as she cried for the first time, It’s only to be expected that she would be instructed in several fields, not only that of magic but diplomacy history, geography, mathematics, astrology, swordsmanship and many more.

She didn’t have much interest in almost any of them, in most of them she hadn’t even started her instruction, but she remembers enough about geography and history to identify all the important kingdoms.

Ezohr to the south, home to the Zafrir, or as many have taken to call them “demons”, the people who millennia ago both enslaved and massacred almost every sentient race in the world.

“nane are we evil?”

She remembers asking her that one time, just when she was starting to reluctantly pick up the books.

“Why would you ask such a thing princess?”

“This book, it says right here that we did a lot of bad things right? We made the orcs kill people, we made the Rohen’ya build everything, to the humans w-”

“Yes, princess the people that came before Ezohr, our predecessors, did a lot of bad things” Eleanor placed her hand softly atop Rania’s head and patted her lightly “But that was a long time ago, so far long ago that not one Zafrir involved is even alive anymore, you were born free from that sin, it’s ridiculous for a child to be held responsible for something his great grandfather did”

“But why did they do it?”

“Because they were powerful, but terribly strayed, they forgot that the strong have a responsibility to the weak, so they abused their power to rule over everyone”

“So, they were bad!”

“Some of them, yes, but I don’t think every Zafrir back then was evil, it’s complicated, I can only hope that you will find your answers as you grow up,”

Assythia the biggest nation at the center of the continent, built by humans with the help of the elves and dwarfs centuries ago, its history of conflicts both in the field of battle and the ballrooms of the many castles and palaces is both long and blood, the size of the country proves to be unwieldy by just one emperor and conflicts arise every so often from within the heart of the kingdom itself.

Ori-Sha It’s a strange place, it’s not one of the eldest cities or countries, but it does possess the oldest “man-made” structure know to this day, it’s said that the vagrant Elf’s running from the Zafrir found themselves at the mercy of the desert, scorching hot during the day and freezing cold during the night, the sand-terrors ate many of them, but they couldn’t stop running or they would be captured, after many days the survivors managed to spot a structure in the distance, but as the got closer and closer they would come to understand the massive size of it.

A wall, that’s the only way they could describe the uneven gargantuan green vines intertwined at the border of the continent-spanning all the eyes could see and reaching a height of almost 300 meters.

The elves didn’t know what caused such a structure to be built, but this couldn’t have been created by a mortal.

Rania was interested in stories like those of Ori-Sha, mysteries that may never be resolved like black veins of the earth or the floating islands, but sadly she had to skip over the interesting parts to get to the kingdom she hated most.

Ostara, the youngest amongst all not counting any small ash kingdom, at barely 600 years old by the time Rania was beginning her studies, Ostara had been created by humans, tired of mixing with the vile and inferior races Enerin the conqueror braved the true north, the white-terrors and freezing cold, he went as far as to fight Garganomr if the tales are to be believed, all to give the humans a place to call home, away from everyone else he and his minions deemed as nature’s aberrations.

Ostara would come to be an extremely belligerent kingdom where being from another race would get you executed, even now when the Ostaran king Damián Nefer Enerin tries and fails to improve relations with the other kingdoms, the hearts of the Ostaran people remain as cold as the white sea of Frost Edge in the middle of winter.

The mere mention of standing in Ostaran soil made her remember every little detail she ever read about the country, the public executions, the treatment of elves, the persecution of the wolf-kin, the list of atrocities just kept popping in her head and an endless tirade of gruesome events that made her feel sick, living in such a place.

What was father thinking?! There is absolutely no way this is safe!

So, as any sane non-human would do, the sole princes of Ezohr Rania Mina Illyria, standing on wobbly legs… ran away.