Great wyvern clumsily landed, knocking a few trees in the way. Lia and the others almost fell a few times until the beast finally stopped. A dozen if Lia counted the rest of the ride as well.

Trying to stay on the beast was a challenge, both now and during the ride but considering who their rider was Lia deemed the group lucky as all the members were still alive. Somehow, even though the wyvern was actually a shapeshifter, someone had to hold the reins and fly him, and Lad was the worst rider she had seen.

Seeing the more humane form of the shifter when she met Lad and Vir’ni, Lia could guess the reason why he needed someone. The lack of arms and eyes would explain the situation pretty well. Still, Lia had questions. Vir’ni had no eyes in his wyvern form though he had wings. Loss of upper limbs should be apparent in the shifted form too, right? Just like the eyes, Lia thought.

As they got off and picked their stuff, Vir’ni took his Quati form, armless and blind. He told Lad that he was going to take a nap and jumped on one of the trees without waiting for a response. Lia expected not to have a chance to ask her questions, but she didn’t expect Vir’ni to run away just like how Lad disembarked the dock. The two were quite similar in that aspect.

Vir’ni hopped a few times between some thick branches until he found a comfortable spot and when he found a branch he fancied, he settled like a bird and fell asleep immediately. Soon, they could hear him snoring.

Lia was jealous. Not because the man could transform into a wyvern, but because he could sleep at will. Sleep rarely visited the first few hours she tried. She never went to bed early either, but she was not to blame. After all, there were too many books to read and not enough hours in each day.

“Where do we start?” Yel asked, looking around at the forest with hands on the handles of his swords, both sheathed a hanging around his belt. They all had a few bags and their weapons, except for Lad. He only had a single sword, the one he refused to use in the mock fight. Nothing else.

“I told you already.” Lad started walking north. “And I told you I wouldn’t repeat.”

Inni mischievously glanced at Yel. “You were busy blushing after we left Lia and Naye.” She bumped him with her shoulder. “You were making weird noises too.”

“Oh.” Yel swallowed a gulp of embarrassment. “Of course. You don’t meet your hero every day. I was a little stunned I guess.”

“She’s quite talented. It's natural she has admirers.” Lia joined them as they all followed Lad. She indeed was and deserved every bit of her fame. Other than Naye, there probably weren’t many mages that could perform the treatment without melting her internal organs.

“But Yel’s not alone. I don’t know the plan either. Perhaps he could fill me in. After all, he did the briefing without me.” The last part was especially loud for Lad to hear but Lad ignored it, singing a song Lia couldn’t quite comprehend and shaking his head enthusiastically.

“I don’t think he will,” Inni answered in Lad’s stead. “I told him to wait but he kept talking and told me to remember well or try not to lose his sight. Also, he went on bragging about beating a bear with a stick near the city to a pulp quite a while ago. Though I am not sure if this is something to brag about.”

“Anyways.” Inni continued after wiping the concerned look off her face. “We are meeting a certain lady in the city. A sort of informant I suppose. He didn’t tell much.”

“I see.” What I was even expecting, a plan? Lia thought. “I just hope his informant is more reliable than Lad.”

As they kept marching and slowly left the dense forest, they caught glimpses of a silver city behind the trees that lay over the hill like a carpet. Five layers, the outer one surrounded by white walls and a thousand pillared palace at the zenith of the hill.

The city looked unnatural. To their right and left all they could see were green flatlands and rivers. Two of those rives ran by each side of the forested hill, to the sea. The hill they were on that stretched forward to the north, rose high like a single mountain that plunged into the sea. It almost looked like a single hill shipwrecked the coast.

The whole scene looked separated from nature itself. It was almost an anomaly.

“Is that thing the Whitepeak?” Yel squinted his eyes.

“I wish we had such a city back in Ruizar.” Inni followed Yel. “Looks like a giant snail shell! I just can’t believe a single mage alone created that hill.”

“He was not a mage Inni. He was a saint. A man who was bestowed holy powers by the Lord.” Lia kept watching the city like the rest. “It was a miracle, not magic woven into a spell. A gift from the Lord Vaella himself.”

Every kid in the Empire knew the tale of Saint Rever, the founder of the city and the house that ruled over it for a millennium. He was a close friend to Lord Vaella and one of the greatest mages to ever live. The legends told that before his death, he raised a mountain-like hill on the coast and built a city there with white walls between two rivers for the safety of his people.

Nothing had penetrated those walls for a millennium. Even when the Niphs invaded the empire over four hundred years ago the walls stood tall. Whitepeak was one of the only two cities that didn’t fall to the Niph incursion.

“Yeah.” Lad walked past them, biting the bits and pieces of skin right next to the nail of his thumb. “Of course, he had to give gifts to everyone. Thank you, benevolent Lord. Now we have to climb a mountain just to get a good drink. All the taverns from the hillside sell piss for a beer. Don’t ever get me started about the food. There is one innkeeper I know, and his neighbours' children keep getting lost. He also sells lots of cheap meat. I hope those two things are completely unrelated.”

“We are not here to get a drink, Lad.” Lia continued, trying to ignore the revolting idea Lad just casually spat out. She wasn’t going to eat meat for a while. Especially in the city. “And the city isn’t a great place to have a drink right now.”

“Oh.” Lad gasped. “Little princess knows his politics. How distinguished.” He hummed in a low voice. “How esteemed!”

“Yes.” She agreed briefly. Lia’s short time with Lad only taught her one thing, dismissing Lad was easier than dealing with him. And less annoying. A lot less. “One of the heads to the great houses dying in suspicious circumstances is hard to miss.”

“Yeah. Someone beheaded the House.” Lad giggled. “and now the body is out for blood. They fight over control and… occasionally hang people? Well, good for the innkeeper.”

“Eww.” Inni’s face soured. “One more cannibal joke and I’m going to puke.”

Yel raised an eyebrow and ignored Inni. “Didn’t Lord Nedephir have an heir already?”

“Camelia!” Inni jumped, forgetting her turning stomach. “I saw her the previous Ascension Festival. She was such a cute little girl.”

“Apparently being cute, little or a girl doesn’t really help in succeeding to a throne. Surprisingly. But this isn’t the important part. She hasn’t been seen since the Lord’s death. People say she was injured that day. Or even died. Or…” He raised his index finger as Inni’s face paled, his voice rising along with his finger trying to incite anticipation. “She is simply mourning, and the Elders are ignoring her existence as they scramble for power.”

“I just hope the unrest calms down before the discord goes too out of hand.” Lia continued; brows furrowed slightly with discomfort. She knew that war was an inevitable reality in Empire and peace amongst lords rarely last long but knowing it wasn’t the same as accepting it.

“Why care?” Lad shrugged his shoulders.

“Why? Wouldn’t you want the peace to last? And the Empire to prosper?”

Lad let out a burst of laughter. “There is no such thing as peace. Just think of them as breathers. Only to punch harder the next time.”

“Such a pessimist.” Inni sighed as they approached the long line that eventually led to the city gates. The city was under a lockdown understandably and only merchants and nobles with necessary paperwork could enter or leave the city.

Lad, however, was neither. Yet he skipped the line anyways. The group followed him as the angry eyes watched them, accompanied by occasional swears.

Lad then talked to the guards and the inspectors, and after some handshakes and hugs called the group over.

The higher-ups were paranoid, and they were right to be so as half of Lord Nedephir’s mansion blew up almost a fortnight ago.

Without permission, it was impossible to enter the city, even when you had the privilege of flight. The guards paced on the city walls, with occasionally mages patrolling with them. Staffs and crossbows were ready to shoot down anyone mad enough to infiltrate.

This wasn’t the case for Lia. She didn’t need to infiltrate. The wooden coin Levise gave them before their departure was the greatest of permissions but when you used such an important artefact to get inside people gossiped and the ones hiding in the city would only get only harder and harder to find.

So, even though they had permission, Lad bribed his way into the city. It bothered Lia, they were practically breaking the law, but she knew they had no better way.

***

No matter how many times she went through the gates of the white city, it always sent a shiver down her spine. White marble pillars reaching almost five meters high in the shape of Saint Rever and his companions, holding the city on his back still to this day.

Lad led the group swiftly in the silent streets of Whitepeak from one layer of the city to the other, moving in between the people who walked on their toes.

Climbing the hill that was the whole city, Lia felt like climbing the ladders of social standing. The higher they went the richer the people, the shinier the clothes and the straighter the backs that wore them become. No walls were separating the districts, only the roads and the minds of the people. Even the number of people on the streets increased as they climbed. The turmoil’s effect on the wealthy seemed to be lesser.

After a long walk that felt like an eternity, they reached the city centre, facing the giant statue of Vaella slaying the last of the Dragons. Maesna. A beast with three heads, and Vaella standing on top piercing its heart with his sword.

The last time she was here, she was just a little girl, walking these same streets with her two elder brothers and one sister, listening to the stories of the Lord Vaella from her father, marching from one mountain to another, slaying the enemies of mankind.

It was fun back then, listening to those stories. Her whole family was together, happy, but now seeing the dragon only reminded her encounter in the desert. A monster that still haunts the earth. One that she set free.

She was looking at the statute as the thoughts of the dragon and her siblings overwhelmed her and she realized that she had stopped. Inni was looking at her a few meters away, waiting unlike the other two.

“What’s on your mind?” Inni asked as Lia approached her, touching her arm as Lia reached her.

“It was our fault.” Lia said as she slowly kept her pace in the busy street and got closer to Yel and Lad. Inni walked right beside her.

“We should have been more careful. We dropped an Arachne on top of its face. No wonder it woke up.”

“You couldn’t have woken that thing up even if you wanted.” Lad briefly looked back. “Don’t need to worry.”

“What even was that?” Inni asked. “I have never seen a Wyvern like that. Or an Avran.”

“It was a Dragon I suppose.”

“Aren’t they all supposed to be dead?” Yel asked in a low tone, trying to get closer. I thought Vaella killed them all. That statue is there for a reason, right?”

“Some things just refuse to stay dead. Its corpse must have been drawn to something in the desert. Theoretically, when a soul that powerful dies, it can take centuries for it to disperse into nature like other beasts. Though I have never seen one in flesh, it is quite possible for a corpse to host its soul again.” Lad giggled.

“Though impaired and unholy. Also, had you been the reason you wouldn’t be so lucky to feel guilty.” Lad continued his eyebrows raised, smirking. “You’d be feeling dead.”

To their surprise, a man started to scream behind Lad, begging that he was innocent, but his screams found no answer. Two armed men held him by his arms, dragging him out of a shop a couple of blocks in front.

“Keep your heads down and move on.” Lad crossed the street to the other side as the guards approached them, dragging the poor man. With the spruce moustache he fashioned and the shining bald head he had, he looked like a wealthy merchant. His money, however, didn’t seem to help with his problem with the guards.

“I wasn’t even in town!” The man shouted, looking for someone to help but the crowd ignored him. Guards, however, didn’t. One of them must have been irritated by his screech so he punched the man in the gut, silencing him for a while.

People averted their eyes, looking down and waiting for the guards the tow the man away but Lia reached for her sword, only to be caught by Lad by the wrist.

“No, you are not.”

“They are abusing their power. We both know that man is probably just a scapegoat unlucky enough to be caught in the Regent’s rage. That is no way to take some in.”

“So?” Lad leaned forward, facing Lia. “Did Levise send you here to investigate the abuse of power or did she send you here because a maniac who calls himself Viran loose in the empire?”

“She wouldn’t overlook such cruelty in front of her eyes either.”

Lad smiled, letting go of her wrist. “If you really think so, go do whatever you think is righteous. And make everyone in the city aware that the Emperor’s little daughter is in Whitepeak, on a quest. How would that affect our little hunt, miss?”

Lia loosened the grip on her sword as she felt the hand of Inni on her shoulder. Lia didn’t like him being right, but it didn’t change the fact that he indeed was.

So, she kept his face down and mouth shut. So did the others, as a silver carriage passed by them, led by a single horseman. On the carriage, she saw two V’s interlocked, one upside down and a crown on top of them. It was familiar, it was her house’s sigil.

“I guess your father finally sent someone to figure out the mess.” Inni glanced at the carriage.

“Better late than never.” Lia sighed. How many lives were lost in the turmoil until now, she wondered.

After getting lost a few times and refusing to ask for directions, Lad stopped in front of a shop with a pleased face.

“Ah, we’re already here. I told you I knew how to get here.”

Lia saw a polished wooden door with an engraving of a spider treading on a large web in between two rows of glass showcases full of ornaments and jewels. Other than the door, the whole wall was glass.

Seeing the jewels, Inni touched the glass. “They look quite… unsafe there.”

It was a fairly large building for a jewellery shop, with multiple floors and rows of windows in each. If it were not for the closed sign on the door it would be a crowded place for sure. Lia thought. Even on a day like this.

“It’s reinforced,” Lia replied as she sensed layers and layers of magic circles on the glass. They were quite easy to miss. The spells were woven with mana so similar to the glass’ natural aura that it almost looked invisible. “With very strong magic. I doubt all the jewels here are worth messing with a mage capable of setting these arrays of circles.”

Hearing that Inni immediately pulled his hand from the showcase.

“I sometimes forget you are a mage like us Inni.” Yel raised an eyebrow.

“I am the one who is supposed to say that.” Inni looked at Yel. “Especially when you guys get all worked up for some scribbles when you can always burn your enemies to a crisp instead.” A flame the size of candlelight appeared in her palm, but Lad quickly grasped her hand, killing the fire as soon as it appeared.

“No magic.” He let go of Inni’s hand. Inni was surprised, she didn’t let the fire die. It died nevertheless and Lad showed no signs of a burnt hand. “Not inside, not in front of the door. Don’t accept any food offers. Or drink. Or anything. Don’t agree. Just… don’t talk to anyone. Be careful. We are walking inside the lair of a beast.”