In the end, she could not really get away with storming into her room. There were things to be done, people to meet and an impromptu party to organize. So, five minutes later, she got up and walked right back out, intent on meeting with her two new followers.

Nathan was having breakfast when she found him looking deep in thought as he stared into space.

"How are you doing?" she asked.

"Well enough, your grace." Nathan raised his head, letting mana flow around him. A person couldn't sense another's cultivation too accurately unless they had really powerful senses, but the amount of power one exerted was a sure enough way to check.

And Nathan had just used an Apprentice's worth of mana. But that was not what surprised her. The most eye-catching thing was his eyes. Two glowing amber colored orbs that were definitely not there before. Althea had to say that they looked quite good on his exquisitely cut face, at least the half visible with the mask. The rest of it was…regrettable.

"Did you notice…" Althea let herself trail off.

Nathan nodded gravely. "Yes. That is not the only thing that has changed." Nathan got up, leaving his breakfast only half finished. Althea wanted to protest, but decided against it. There was something distinctly uneasy about how he walked, as if he was afraid of something. There was a nervous air around him that made her take the situation seriously.

As soon as she had entered his room and closed the door, he took his shirt off. Althea averted her gaze, trying not to notice how ripped he was. But there were other things to pay attention to.

A pair of thin amber colored wings emerged from his back, reminding her a bit of the Queen fairy's wings from Tinkerbell. But they were too thin, and membrane-like for that. Althea was sure they wouldn’t let him fly. The wings glowed slightly, mana moving through them as they pulsed slowly.

Steward Ven, who had been silent this entire time, gasped, mana emerging from him and covering the entire room.

Althea looked at him in irritation, the move didn't really put a pressure on her, but it was still quite aggressive. Nathan looked pale at it, turning around as she saw the wings start pulsing faster.

"Did your mother have these too?" the Steward demanded.

Nathan looked a bit…shocked? Afraid? Disappointed? ALthea couldn't place the expression. But it seemed to be a mix of the two.

"Is this truly necessary, Steward Ven?" she asked. Nathan had put trust in them, and it was quite bad if he got attacked for it.

The Steward turned and stared at her.

"Countess, the Fae do not normally have wings. The nobility have four pairs of wings." the Steward replied sternly, warning laced in his tone. "The royal family on the other hand…have two wings. Just like him."

Mana coiled around Nathan as the boy looked around in fear. Althea reacted, trying to shove the mana away, but the Steward was an Adept, and she was not. Not even her talent and relationship with mana could bridge that gap.

"Wh-what? I don't know!" he said, but there was something there making him nervous. Perhaps the mana coiling around him like it wanted to kill him.

"A mind Fae of the royal bloodline." the Steward said. Althea knew she had to stop this now, the mana was coiling too much, she was getting the feeling that the Steward intended to kill Nathan. And she couldn't have that.

"Steward of the Empire, I, Countess Guarding Diery demand that you stop this moment." she commanded. The words felt sour on her tongue. The Steward stopped, turning towards her, his face steely as usual, but there was anger and disappointment there in hordes.

"Now, can we talk about this?" she asked.

"The Fae will not let a royal Fae out of the continent, not unless they were sent as a spy," he said. “And even then it is rare.”

"I haven't been to the Fae continent!" Nathan protested, flexing his arms as he looked at the Steward in fear, and panic.

"Nathan showed his wings to us, we wouldn't know about them if he didn't." Althea began, trying to calm the Steward down and stop this from getting any worse. The Steward’s reaction was a bit much, even with the Fae involved.

Althea had read about the Fae of course, and the library had enhanced her knowledge. There was just one thing not mentioned in her education that the library had. The cultivation of the King and Queen of the Fae. Grandmaster stage. Each of them could destroy the entire Solerian Empire by themselves, but they wouldn’t do that.

The Steward was right when he said that the royal couple made a game of bringing down Empires and talents using their nobles and family as pawns. But there were a few things that did not line up.

The Steward waved her words away. "I would have known it as he got more powerful. Even a royal Fae is not good enough to hide from me.”

Althea continued, ignoring him. "As Nathan just said, he hasn't been to the Fae continent. Even if his mother was a royal sent to harm us, what she did has no bearing on him."

"And the Fae just let one of their princes remain here? In a human continent?" the Steward asked.

"What makes you think she informed them? What do you think her family would have thought of a hybrid?" Althea noted.

Defending Nathan like this was perhaps a bit much, and he really did need to give her an explanation, but she really did not like this 'kill first, ask later' method. The questions would still be asked. And the dejected, given up look on Nathan’s face just made her want to defend him.

The Steward gave her a glare, and then stormed out of the room with some choice words. "I still don't trust him. There is a reason we stay away from the Fae."

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“I-” Nathan tried to protest, but even she could tell that he didn’t have a lot of protest left in him.

Althea turned to him as soon as the Steward left, looking the half naked boy in front of her.

"I think it's time for some harsher questions, your majesty." she said. Nathan flinched at her words, putting on a shirt, as his wings returned to his body. The wince when the wings started to retreat made her wonder. Was the process painful?

"So?" she asked, acting patient as she gestured for Nathan to sit.

Nathan shrugged. "I don't know, ok? I don't know why I have these wings, and I don't know who my mother was. I understand if you want me to leave."

"I will do nothing of that sort,” she said. “The Steward may be content to judge you based on your circumstances, but I will wait till you actually try to rebel. And for the record, I do not think you will.”

Althea stared Nathan in his eyes, trying to show him that she meant it. The boy in front of her had seen her at her worst, and she had to wonder how he felt about that. How much did it factor into his thought process?

“Now, can you tell me your mother’s name?”

Nathan looked embarrassed, lowering his head as he said in a small voice. "No."

Althea was surprised. How the heck did he not know his mother's name? Thankfully, Nathan wasn't done talking.

"Mother changed names every few days, I just called her mother when I met her. And that…wasn't very often." Nathan's voice got meeker as he talked, the words barely audible. But Althea was a mage. The words were still audible to her.

"I think she was embarrassed by me." he finished. "I don't even know how to use my Fae magic. "

Althea sighed. The Steward would probably hate it, but what he said made sense. The Fae royal family clearly did not have good opinions of hybrids. An easy enough guess too. A family that treasured heritage and bloodline would not like it being 'marred' like this. Not to mention they literally relied on the purity and power of their bloodline to keep themselves in power.

"Did you meet any of your uncles? Hear someone refer to her by an unknown name?" she asked.

Nathan shook his head. "The other Fae only called her by the name she chose that week. The leaders seemed very respectful to her. I thought it was because she was powerful, but…"

The unsaid words hung in the air. But if she was a royal, then that would explain why they were so respectful. Althea couldn’t help but remember that the Fae Master had said that a Fae had controlled Nathan’s mother. That she did not even remember her own name. Could this be related? Was he speaking the truth?

"How powerful was she? Do you know?" she asked.

"I think she was the equivalent of an Adept." he said, hesitantly. "I saw her lift a mountain and collapse it on another Fae when we were escaping."

Althea raised an eyebrow. That was certainly one way to prove one's cultivation. Lifting mountains was very much in line with what an Adept could do. A Master would have a very hard time pulling that off.

"How did she die if she was so powerful? Could she not have escaped? " she asked.

"There was more than one Adept in the caravan." he replied, his tone sad. “I do not see how she could have escaped. I felt her power die out, and the battle stop as I left. The feeling was hard to mistake, a silence after a lot of noise.”

Althea sympathized with him. Even if his relationship with his mother was stretched, she was still his mother. A mother that had died letting him escape. Althea was pretty sure hers wouldn't do that.

Now for the final question.

"The mind Fae that came to kill you, you called him uncle. Was he your uncle by blood?" Another royal Fae would really be something.

Nathan shook his head. "I don't know. But it shouldn't be, mother had me call ever Fae as Uncle and Aunt."

Althea sighed, getting up.

"I hope you're not planning anything, Nathan. But I will trust you for now." she headed out, the boy behind her making some kind of strange sound in reply.

Althea paused, saying, "For what it's worth, I think your mother loved you. For all her crimes, she sacrificed herself to save you. I don't think mine would do the same. And please don’t do anything stupid.

The Steward will come around eventually, and he can’t do anything to you even if he doesn’t. I know it might be ambitious, but I hope that this county can be your home someday."

And then she left, not turning back to see Nathan's expression.

sc

Even with the Steward glaring at her, there were a lot of things for her to do. Althea sent out invites, putting out notices for free dinner and entertainment. The musicians from before hadn't left, and were far too eager to come back. There wasn't a lot of other work here.

The party was set to happen. The Elves were coming, the rescued children had been invited, and so had the people of the county. But there were still things for her to do.

The Reh Duke was calling. So was the Duchess of Leria.

The Leria ships were ready to leave for the island, but Althea hadn’t bought it yet. The preparation of the island would take as long as three months, there were a lot of houses to be built after all.

Thankfully, there was plenty of wood and material on the island itself. But it was still a lot of work. The only reason it was happening so fast was because Duchess Leria had deployed two Adept stage mages to the island.

"A million gold." the Reh Duke demanded.

"Why don't you sell me the entire archipelago for that price?" Althea quipped. Haggling like this was a pain. Ask too much, settle somewhere in between, and take hours to get there.

But she was semi serious in her offer. The Empire was ready for tens of thousands of half-Elves. Perhaps a hundred thousand. That was not the number that was coming. Verest had been kind enough to tell her just how many half-Elves were there.

There might be very few half-Elves born every year, but they lived long. And reproduced. There were a few million of them that would be sent here from the three Elven continents. Not every half-Elf would arrive nearby, but there would be many.

This was not Earth. A building was high if it had three stories. The Diery palace was an exception, of course. The island would be too small for farming too. In terms of size, it was the size of a suburb of metropolitan cities.

Ten kilometers in length and seven in breadth. Not a place that could support a million people in this world. And there was little doubt that the Zerolian Duke would find a way to make her deal with the excess Elves. So she planned ahead. The entire archipelago should be enough.

"The island is barren, but it is still land-" the Reh Duke began, sounding like a salesman.

"I am serious, Duke Reh." she replied. "If the Reh duchy is willing to sell the archipelago, the Diery county will buy it. And do not kid me with your words, the Reh duchy has basically ignored the archipelago for centuries. The island is not worth ten thousand gold, let alone a million."

That was an exaggeration. The island was still territory, territory that would give her access to the sea. Not that she lacked it, after all, she controlled every single one of Reh duchy’s ports. And the financial management committee was very good at making profits from that. Althea would have to meet them eventually, but they were in Reh, and she was here. The Empire was huge too.

There was a pause on the other hand, the communication orb catching the Duke's expression splendidly.

"I- Yes." the Reh Duke nodded. "Yes, the Reh duchy is willing."

Althea smiled, guessing that the Duke’s agreement had something to do with the financial crisis going around. Having money to throw around was a nice feeling. "I look forward to more cooperation in the future."

The communication orb shut off, ending this part of the deal. Now she had to talk with the Duchess and arrange stuff. And then there was still the party. The day was bound to be long.