The moment Cale dropped Palaios' disguise and his dragon form was revealed was already a shock to the Thormod. Unhindered, she cried out and slid back, though she was given no room to do so. But when Palaios gave some of his mana to the outside, the woman almost died. With open mouth and fearful eyes, she stared at the dragon, which flew in front of her and eyed her with interest.

This was one of the first clues Cale had received regarding the Thormods. They were scared to death when it came to dragons. Palaios dominant demeanor caused Nodiavi to let her playfulness go and become very talkative.

She told about the task she had received several years ago. With the help of her ability, she was supposed to infiltrate the royal house of Sylve and regularly report on the king's actions. In some cases, she was to intervene herself to control the course of events at the Thormods' will. One of these orders was to destroy the cohesion of the royal family and, if possible, to kill the royal family.

When Cale heard of this, he immediately thought of William's stories about his family and his difficult relationship with his brothers and father. But most of all, he had to think about how William had come to be an Anuxer in the first place and had been given the mission to kill the Dragon Queen.

Suddenly, a lot of things started to made sense. It had never been his own father who threatened not to return without the dragon's head, but this Thormod. Nodiavi must have hoped that William would die in one of the waves of attacks by the creatures, like it had happened in Cale's past lives. But only now did Cale realize how it had come about that Prince Marion was the only survivor of the royal house of Sylve after the third wave of attacks.

It was a good plan if Altona had been eliminated before that, but that was where their problems had begun. By making the Mage City and the High-Magicians the biggest risk factor in their plans, they wanted to take them first and destroy them a few weeks later with the help of infiltrated allies. But since they never got that far and curfew was imposed, it made their whole situation worse. The chairman, as Nodiavi called him, despite the circumstances, ordered the second attack on the city, which failed miserably. Since that day, the chairman has been busy finding solutions to the problem and Nodiavi was merely to remain undetected during the time.

Nodiavi did not hide the fact that she was dissatisfied with the chairman's decisions. According to her, there was a great deal of discussion among the Thormads as to how they were now going to proceed. After all, not all of them necessarily had the goal of destroying humanity - as Cale had always assumed, until now.

All the centuries of humiliation and hiding had caused a hatred to develop in many for the people who had received all the glory after the revolution. They wanted retribution and they wanted a good life and that at any cost. But the other part was against a revelation, which led to a conflict in their own ranks and with dozens of escape attempts of their own men.

, Aaron finally spoke up after what felt like an eternity, while Cale sat comfortably in front of the kneeling Thormod with the dragon on his lap, looking at him deprecatingly.

"Neyla, damn you, Neyla. All because of you Neyla", Nodiavia had been repeating rhythmically for several minutes by now, staring at the ground as if to offer that name to the demons.

"Who is this Neyla you keep talking about?"

"A freak. An unwanted child. A damned curse. Neyla the great. Neyla the stunning. Neyla our salvation", the Thormod quoted with an ironic undertone. "My little sister, Neyla."

"Your sister?"

"If she were alive, I would kill her with my own hands. That troublesome child, her very existence was my downfall."

"You must really love your family", Cale countered bitingly.

"Everything was fine until she was born. Our saint Neyla", the woman in front of him repeated, but Cale immediately brightened at the word 'saint'.

"Your sister was a saint?"

"A curse she was, a revenge of the gods who brought misfortune to my life. She, of all people, had to be born a saint and then possess such masses of mana. Why me, of all people? Why couldn't Neyla be born in any other family, why me? Miserable Neyla, was worshiped by a god and was dissatisfied with her life, while she of all people should consider herself lucky. It was not her who lived like a servant for her little sister, but me. Beast. Freak. She didn't deserve to live and then she had the nerves to run away. How dare she? Her existence served only one purpose and she was offered everything! Ridiculous that she used her shapeshifting and hid among the humans. Didn't take a decade until we found her, but she let those lowly creatures take her life. If it had been me, I would have let her suffer until her last breath", Nodiavi ranted loudly to herself, each additional word making her seem more and more pathetic and insane.

Yet something in this tale of vengeful, murderous thoughts felt strangely familiar to Cale. Something he hadn't seen coming.

"Was this Neyla hiding in the village of Groka?"

"Groka. Pah. Disgusting name for a disgusting place in which a disgusting person has been hiding. Yes, in Groka she has been hiding, our holy Neyla. She has been safe and even created a family. Laughable! With humans! Disgusting!"

Wordlessly, Cale stared at the Thormod, who was uttering words that sounded insane. But when Palaios turned his head to the mage, Cale knew the dragon was thinking of the same thing he was.

The holy Neyla that she spoke of all the time must have been Olivia Leuen.

Cale could feel it run ice-cold down his spine. That his mother was a Thormod, he had come to terms with that by now. Even with how impossible it was to find out anything about her. But now this?

Nodiavi was his aunt?

A blood relative? Not only was he related to the Thormods who were causing the creature attacks, but his family was at the reason? His aunt had been the murderer of his best friend's older brother and had been the deciding factor in the failure of Sylve?

"What exactly makes a Saint so different from you?", Palaios cautiously spoke up.

"Their mana heart, that's what makes them so special", the Thormad pointed out dismissively. "They are the only ones among us capable of generating their own mana, and our holy Neyla was the first in centuries whose mana exceeded all expectations. They are doomed to die early, our saints. Better that way, she deserved a gruesome death!"

Jerkily, Cale stood up, held his hand in front of his face, and turned away from the captive Thormod. That a Thormod had disguised himself as a 2nd prince was bad enough, but what were these unexpected things?

His mother was a saint and sister of a leader of the Thormods? Not only was she the reason Cale had inherited the ability to shapeshift, but he also owed his enormous mana masses to her? All those years and Cale never knew that two primary dispositions had been received from her?

She had never been just a victim of the attack on Groka, she had been the reason for the attack on Groka!

Mindlessly, Cale stared at his feet, but passively sensed his colleagues approaching, accompanied by Sir Venlan. For a moment he wished that the three men would arrive later, but that was beyond his control. Cale pulled himself together, ran a hand through his hair, and opened the door just before the expected visitor arrived.

"You look terrible. What by the Eldest's beard happened?", Aaron spoke up worriedly, placing a hand on Cale's shoulder before turning to the side and spotting the real target. "Is that him? The Thormod?"

"It's a 'her'. A leader of the Thormod with the ability of shapeshifting. Her name is Nodiavi, if her words are to be believed", Cale reported matter-of-factly, watching Luc enter the room and stand a good meter in front of the Thormod.

"Looks like the Thormod we chased in the plains, if you ask me", he merely commented, which immediately infuriated the woman.

"What did you say, you bastard!"

"What a troublemaker."

"You're in for a treat when I get out of here...", the Thormod cursed, but Luc took possession of her shadow and completely locked her movements.

"Well, would have been nice if it had been that easy with the first Thormod", the 6th seat affirmed triumphantly, turning back to his colleagues. "Are you all right, Caleb? Aaron said you scared the hell out of him when you suddenly jumped out the window and took off."

"All good, yeah. Thanks for getting after it so quickly."

"Always", Luc confirmed nonchalantly, turning his eyes back to the prisoner. "So what are we going to do with it now? He's too precious to execute, isn't he?"

"She", Cale corrected. "For the time being, yes. I want to see if you can get some useful information from it. Having a living Thormod will certainly help us, although we'll have to be really careful."

"Then we should take you to Altona. It is far too dangerous for the residents here if such an unpredictable force remains and there is no one on the ground to control it", Aaron gave voice, glancing at Sir Venlan. However, his statement did not need confirmation, it was rather a fact that they would take the Thormod even if the royal house would refuse.

"That is best. Lock him up in the Magistrat and just keep him alive, and we'll sort out the rest at the next meeting", Cale muttered, thinking of Velence. Was it possible that the leader of the dragon could see her memories?

"Are you going to shoo me back to Altona right now? I just got yanked out of bed and spent two hours permanently traveling a distance with extremely high mana consumption that would take normal humans days, if not weeks", Luc complained, but before Cale could say anything, Aaron beat him to it.

"Luc, this creature has the second prince of Sylve on its conscience. Be careful what you say."

"My apologies", Luc quickly interjected, bowing to the king's left hand, but Julius Venlan took it in stride. He informed them that he also thought it would be better if the Magistrat took care of this matter and merely kept the royal house informed. While he had not received the king's approval, Sir Venlan doubted that he would receive an answer on the subject in the next few days.

In the end, the three men remained so that the High-Magicians would take a break and get something to eat before making their way back in the evening. Most of the staff had been dismissed for the day, so the mages should have no trouble getting the Thormod to Altona.

Cale stayed with his colleagues for a few hours, but then decided to spend the afternoon differently.