A suffocating wave of thick, pressurized magic rippled outward from her fingertips, sinking straight into the delicate fibers of the ancestral parchment.
It was only possible because her blood was inside his veins. She only controlled a bit of her powers through that. Though it caused her a bit.
The glowing crimson dot representing Kazimir suddenly flared with a violent, erratic surge of light, vibrating so intensely that the paper beneath it hissed under the sudden thermal spike.
Deep within the central tower of the castle, a muffled, distant crash echoed through the stone walls, followed immediately by the shattered clatter of wine glasses and panicked shouts from the royal guards.
Aefia didn't even look toward the door. Her garnet eyes remained pinned to the map, watching with a dark, intoxicating satisfaction as Kazimir's crimson mark began to bleed into a muddy, erratic purple.
"Aefia! Your nose!" Puppet squeaked frantically, tugging at the edge of her cloak.
Aefia slowly pulled her hand back, wiping a thin trail of blood from her own nose with the back of her sleeve. The exertion had turned her skin ghostly pale, but her eyes burned with a terrifying, absolute clarity. Then returning back to the map.
"If you force your magic through the blood link right now, you will drain your own reserves before we even reach the mountain!"
"My reserves are nearly endless as long as I breathe," Aefia spat out, thought she had a straight face that said she was silently panicking. "He wanted my power? He begged for it? Then let him drown in it."
The chaotic crimson mark on the map finally dimmed into a weak, slow pulse.
"That will buy me four hours," she whispered softly, her breath coming out in a cool, steady rhythm. "The guards will be in complete disarray, the healers will be frantic, and the King is completely paralyzed."
She swept her gaze across the northern forest routes on the map once more, tracing the hidden path up to the mountain cavern where a small village lay completely unguarded.
"Puppet," Aefia murmured, rolling the paper up with a flick of her wrist and tucking it securely under her cloak. "Let's go take the rest of his kingdom apart."
"Are we leaving through the drain channels?" Puppet squeaked, looking up at her with wide button eyes. "Helio is probably racing toward the border right now! Shouldn't we head toward the eastern ridge to meet him?"
Annoyed, she pulled the map back out without breaking eye contract with the levitating red wolf. Then spread it open again.
"Helio is fast, but even he needs time to mobilize an unbranded unit and bypass the imperial checkpoints without raising alarm," Aefia replied smoothly, her fingers sweeping across the map toward the dense, uncharted forest routes stretching along the northern mountainside. "And I have no intention of sitting idle in a damp room waiting for my fiancé to rescue me. Besides... We have a lot of things to do seperately."
Her eyes locked onto a secluded, unmarked cavern hidden deep within the mountain pass—a location completely erased from the official maps Kazimir possessed in his war room. A wicked, sharp smirk spread across her lips, her garnet eyes flashing with predatory delight.
"There," Aefia whispered, tapping the hidden cavern. "That is my target."
A second similar village among, which had the ancient conduit vault—the primary magic reservoir that powered the kingdom's grand defensive barrier.
"If Kazimir wants to play king with my stolen blood," she murmured, rolling the parchment back up with a wave of her hand and sliding it beneath her cloak, "then I am going to tear his playground down from the roots before Helio even sets foot across the river."
She used her index finger to poke Puppet on the nose. "Now did I make myself clear? Does it sound sensical to you?"
"But what are you about to do?" It asked again, holding Aefia's finger in between it's paws.
She only smiled back in return. "You will see clearly later on."
A moment of awkward, sarcastic silence went by. Aefia was kinda sure she saw a small tumbleweed rolling by.
"Clear enough to make my fluff stand on end," Puppet muttered, clinging tightly to her index finger with its plush paws before slipping back into the deep lining of her heavy traveling cloak. "Just... try not to bleed out before we actually get there."
Aefia didn't answer. She merely let the faint, cryptic smile linger on her lips as she adjusted the heavy clasp of her cloak, ensuring the rolled ancestral map was securely tucked against her ribs.
Click.
The subtle, microscopic sound of the brass latch outside the door echoed like a thunderclap in the silent, moonlit room.
Aefia's eyes snapped toward the entrance. Heavy, muffled footsteps were already rushing down the corridor—not the routine patrol, but an urgent, frantic squad dispatched in the wake of Kazimir's sudden collapse.
"Check every room on this floor!" a voice barked from the hallway. "His Majesty's collapse was caused by an external spell surge! Find the source!"
"No time for the door," Aefia whispered under her breath.
Without a second thought, she pivoted on her heel and dashed straight toward the grand arched window overlooking the eastern abyss of the castle walls. She didn't pause to unlatch the glass or scout the drop below. Channeling a microscopic burst of pressurized magic energy into her boots, she threw her shoulder directly into the central wooden frame.
CRASH!
Glass shattered into a brilliant, cascading shower of silver shards as Aefia hurled herself into the freezing night air, just as the heavy oak doors of the room were slammed open from the hallway.
Four heavily armored guards burst into the chamber, weapons drawn, scanning every dark corner with panicked, bloodshot eyes. The moonlight poured through the gaping hole in the window frame, illuminating the scattered dust motes dancing in the cold breeze.
"Is anyone here?!" the leader shouted, sweeping his pike beneath the velvet-draped table.
The guards circled the perimeter, checking behind the heavy curtains, under the desk, and along the shadowed alcoves. The room was completely empty, smelling faintly of stale lavender and old parchment. The glass on the floor looked as though it had succumbed to a sudden structural failure from the sheer shockwave of the King's magical surge.
"Nothing," one guard reported, lowering his sword with a frustrated sigh. "The window frame must have given way from the magic pressure shockwave when His Majesty collapsed. Let's move to the west wing!"
They turned on their heels, heavy iron boots clattering as they rushed back out into the corridor, slamming the broken door shut behind them and leaving the room to the quiet whistling of the wind.
Outside, thirty feet below the window ledge, Aefia crashed heavily into the thick, snow-dusted branches of an ancient fir tree.
Snap! Crack! Oof!
The dense pine needles cushioned her fall, though the impact knocked the air clean out of her lungs with a harsh, suppressed gasp. She hung there upside down for two very long, dignity-destroying seconds, her cloak tangled hopelessly in a clump of pinecones.
"Fascinating entry," Puppet muffled from somewhere crushed under her left sleeve. "Ten out of ten for dramatic flair."
"Silence," Aefia hissed, unhooking her hood from a twig with a sharp yank.
Bending her knees, she slid down the main trunk, hit the damp forest soil with a low, silent roll—mostly silent, barring a sharp wince as a stray twig poked her ankle—and immediately burst into a full-speed sprint toward the shadowy treeline.
The mid-autumn air bit at her face like needles, but the sheer adrenaline coursing through her veins kept the cold at bay. She wove through the towering pines with fluid, practiced agility, her boots sinking lightly into the leaf covered earth as she put distance between herself and the chaos unfolding at the central tower.
"That was far too close!" Puppet squeaked from inside her hood, its tiny paws clutching her collar for dear life as the wind whipped past them. "Where is this portal supposed to be?!"
"Right... here," Aefia panted, coming to a sharp halt before a massive, moss-draped stone archway buried deep within the roots of a hollowed oak.
The stone hummed with an ancient, dormant spatial frequency. Without hesitating, Aefia reached into her inner pocket, pulled out a small, jagged spatial crystal she had retrieved from Cedric's hidden stash, and crushed it directly within her palm.
A flash of blinding, azure light erupted within the archway, twisting the air into a swirling, cracked-glass portal. Aefia stepped straight through the threshold.
The world inverted in a sickening, weightless blur.
In the span of a single heartbeat, the damp, earthy scent of the autumn forest vanished, replaced instantly by the thin, biting chill of high-altitude mountain air.
Aefia stumbled out of the spatial tear, her boots crunching deep into a bed of pristine, powdery snow. She immediately lost her footing on the slick ice, flailing her arms wildly before catching her balance with a awkward, heroic stumble.
"Nailed it," she muttered smoothly, taking a deep, shuddering breath as she looked around, pretending the slip never happened.
Surrounding her were the jagged, snow-capped peaks of the northern range, where the sky hung low and gray with an impending blizzard. Down in the valley below, partially shrouded by drifting clouds, lay the secluded mountain village—a quiet, seemingly unremarkable settlement that served as the outer cover for the kingdom's grand magic reserves.
"We made it," Puppet whispered, shivering violently against the frigid wind. "But you can't walk in there looking like the prisoner Crown Princess of the Empire, Aefia. If word reaches Kazimir's loyalists..."
"I know," Aefia murmured, her voice flat and focused.
She reached up, untying the silk ribbon holding her long hair.
A soft, red shimmer enveloped her form.
Her long, flowing locks shrank into a short, textured cut, dying rapidly into a deep, purple hue.
Her height remained modest, but her posture straightened into the sharp, imperious stance of a high-born young lord.
Finally, her striking garnet eyes bled into a cool, piercing dark purple—the exact, dangerous shade that mirrored her adoptive brother, George.
Looking down at her reflection in a patch of clear ice, a cold, unfamiliar young boy stared back at her.
"How do I look?" she asked, her voice dropping an octave into a smooth, slightly raspy male cadence.
Puppet squinted, tilting its soft head. "You look like a miniature, extremely cranky version of the First Prince. Honestly, if you scowl just a bit more, I will start expecting you to issue imperial decrees."
Aefia scoffed, giving the plush doll a small pinch on its cotton ear before turning toward the snow-dusted trail leading down into the village. "Then the illusion is flawless."
The trek down the mountain pass was short yet demanding, the icy wind howling through the narrow crags. Within twenty minutes, the timber-frame houses of the mountain village loomed out of the whiteout. The streets were quiet, populated only by rugged villagers and discreet, heavily armed sentries wearing unbranded leather armor—guards directly contracted by the Mides royal house to guard the perimeter without drawing public attention.
Aefia walked with an unhurried, arrogant stride, her hands tucked deep into her cloak pockets, completely unbothered by the sharp gazes tracking her movement from the shadows.
As she approached the massive, reinforced iron doors built into the face of the mountain at the edge of the village, two tall, broad-shouldered guards stepped out, crossing their heavy halberds to block the path.
"Halt," the lead guard barked, his eyes narrowing as he took in her youthful appearance and dark purple hair. "This is a restricted zone under royal decree. Turn back, kid."
Aefia didn't stop. She stopped just two paces from the glowing blade edges, tilting her head up to glare at them with cold, supreme boredom—a expression so painfully reminiscent of George that it felt almost natural.
"Step aside," she commanded, her raspy, young male voice carrying an edge of undeniable authority that made the guards twitch.
"On whose authority?" the second guard demanded, his grip tightening on his weapon, though he looked somewhat unsettled by the boy's unnerving glare. "No one enters the vault without the King's personal seal!"
Aefia leaned in slightly, her dark purple eyes flashing with a sharp, dangerous light as she uttered the phrase Cedric had entrusted to her nearly two years ago:
"When the blood rots the crown, the roots still feed the mountain."
The two guards went dead silent. Their faces drained of color as they exchanged a panicked, wide-eyed look. That phrase was known only to the King's innermost circle—the absolute highest tier of royal enforcers tasked with inspecting the kingdom's core magic reserves.
Looking at the boy's dark purple hair, aristocratic posture, and sheer, terrifying arrogance, an utterly, wildly inaccurate assumption clicked in their minds. This wasn't some random intruder.
This was the King's secret, illegitimate shadow-enforcer—sent directly from the capital to oversee the magic reserves during His Majesty's sudden illness.
Which they just came to know because the phase meant that actually.
"V-Very well!" the lead guard stammered, his armor clanking loudly as he practically tripped over his own boots to pull the heavy brass key from his belt. "We... we were not informed of your arrival, Your Grace! Please... forgive the disrespect!"
Aefia offered no response, merely letting out a low, disdainful huff that suggested their incompetence would be noted in a very painful report later.
The second guard frantically unlocked the heavy iron bolts, bowing so low his nose nearly brushed the snow. "Please pass through, My Lord! The magic reserves are completely untouched!"
Aefia stepped smoothly past them into the warmth of the subterranean vault, her chin held high as the heavy iron doors slammed shut behind her, leaving two thoroughly terrified guards shuddering out in the cold.
The inside was nearly as dark as a cave. The walls were dark blue with sparkles that made it look like it was just the galaxy compressed into a wall.
In this world... Everything had to be so peculiar, yet beautiful. I could stare for days and not get tired.
"Your Grace?" A voice jolted her out of her thoughts, as she immediately turned to look at the elderly man in-charge.
Oh, right. I was here for a reason.
"Are you the caretaker?" She asked, her voice coated to make it seem like she was a noble. Though truly she was a royal.
"Yes. Would you like me to lead you to a specific place?"
"No," Aefia shot out. "Take me to the main reserve."