Serel sat on his throne, surrounded by the wealth he had accumulated, but his heart felt empty. A half-Grandmaster had lost. The Fae Princess was back. And the Druid girl had grown more powerful. Serel would have tried to attack her himself, but knew that he would fail. That Steward was too powerful, and so was that Empress.

A wind blew through the room, and a man appeared in the room.

"Master." he bowed.

"So, you failed." Master stood there, leaning against the wall, as sweat ran down Serel's face. "I would kill you, but your life is limited as it is. That wife of yours has broken through to the half-Grandmaster stage. And you know what that means."

Serel's eyes widened. Elara had broken through? That was very bad news. No, he had to run.

"Now be a good dog and get the Zun Princess to deal with the Druid. Perhaps I will find you useful enough and save you. I doubt it, but I have been surprised before." Master vanished from his sight as he got up in a hurry, ready to run away.

But he didn't get far. A cough emerged from his lungs, making him cough blood. A few seconds later, he lay there, looking at what he was pretty sure was a part of his lung. The last thing he heard were the Master's words.

"How foolish."

sc

Duke Zerolian

Jon Zerolian sat on his wooden chair, looking at a report in front of him in anger. Why were they even making a report about this? The thing had literally happened less than ten minutes ago. The bastards should have come to inform him themselves! Oh wait, he knew why. The bloody fools were scared that he would be angry and had sent a report through a servant instead.

"Get them here, drag them if you need to." he said, keeping his voice cool. But fire burned deep within him, his core glowing yellow as he tried to keep it in control.

The guardians of the duchy's most useful resource walked in one by one, looking like guilty puppies. Jon observed them with his eyes, staring them down.

"So, tell me, how is it that something eats our entire garden and not one of you noticed?" he asked.

"Well, your grace, it's um." the guardian mumbled his words.

"Speak clearly," he ordered.

"The herbs were there one second, and the next it seemed like someone had eaten every one of them, even their roots. If it wasn't for the bite marks in the soil, I would have thought that they were teleported away." the guardian said, stuttering through his words.

Jon stared at him. The guardian looked at him in fear, and then realized what he had done wrong.

"Oh, your grace. I meant to say that. I just, um, forgot." the guardian bowed. Jon rolled his eyes.

"Call the gardens in other cities and confirm that they are alright," he ordered.

The guardians looked nervous again.

"What is it?" he demanded. This was a waste of time, just spit it out.

"The other gardens are the same…your grace." one of them said. The same one as before. The idiot must have lost a bet. Jon was used to their antics.

But there was a problem with their words.

"Are you telling me that something just ate our entire stock of herbs, and we don't even know what it was?" he asked slowly.

The guardians looked at each other.

"… Yes, your grace." that one said, hesitantly.

Jon slammed the table, splitting it in two. "What are you standing around for? Check on our reserve seeds, our hidden gardens and backups! Call the suppliers, I want to buy our stock back."

The guardians hurried away as quickly as their old legs could take them. Jon massaged his forehead. The second-largest source of income for the duchy had just disappeared.

A knock sounded on the door.

"What is it?" he shouted.

"The Diery county has an announcement, your grace." the voice on the other side answered, not coming in.

"What does that have to do with me? Just throw it in the bin." he said. The county was probably calling for help or something. The crisis should have hit them by now. At least that was good news.

"I think you should see this, your grace." the voice said. Jon looked at the door in irritation.

"How about you step in?" he replied.

The door opened carefully to reveal a teenage girl carrying a little piece of paper. The girl handed him the paper and practically ran away.

The broken table burnt away to dust as he lost control of his powers. That bloody idiotic, nincompoop of a girl-

sc

Nathan leaned against the wall, still reeling from the revelation the Countess had just dropped.

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

"Are you sure, your grace?" he asked again.

"Well, I got this information from the Empress, who got this from your mother. " The Countess paused, her brows scrunching as she seemed to reconsider. "I would say this information is semi-reliable."

Nathan could not say that he had not wondered who his father was. At times, he would even think that his father would appear and save him from. But that did not happen. And then, this happened. The Marshal was his father. A Prince of the Solerian Empire.

"Marshal Keron should be here, any moment now." the Countess said.

"How do you know?" he asked, and then caught himself. "I mean, did he tell you? Or-"

"Oh, he and the Emperor have been sitting in the air for a while now." the Countess said. "And the Empress told me he was coming. So is she, for that matter."

"Oh." Nathan said. "The Empress. If the Marshal is my father, then she is…my aunt."

"Aunt-in-law I suppose. And since she is my aunt, that makes you my cousin. Well, my cousin-in-law. Is there such a thing as a cousin-in-law?" The Countess said, looking thoughtful as she considered if there was a cousin-in-law. At least that was what Nathan thought. For all he knew, she was thinking about something else. Like that cake before her.

The Countess had ordered one, saying that it would help. A chocolate cake. Nathan hadn't eaten a cake before, and he hadn't even heard of chocolate.

"There is indeed a cousin-in-law. But that is an oversimplification of your relationship if it comes down to it." a man said, appearing in the room.

"I greet his majesty, Prince Keron." the Countess said, inclining her head a bit. Nathan's eyebrows crinkled, didn't she use the Marshal title before. The Marshal was there when he first met the Countess, she had used the Marshal title then.

"And I greet her grace, Countess Guarding Diery." his father said, returning the gesture. The word still hadn't sunk in yet. Father. This man was his father. Nathan looked at him. The room was too dark, lit only by a few candles, leaving it too dark to make much out. But he could make out some things.

A clean-shaven face. Brown hair. And yellow eyes. The same eyes he had now. The figure was buff, and tall. Nathan wasn't that tall. Just a bit over one hundred and eighty centimeters. But his father was huge, easily ten centimeters taller than him.

The Marshal stared at him too. Was it nervousness he saw? Was the Marshal of the Empire really nervous to meet him? That…couldn’t be.

"I will excuse myself." the Countess said, getting up to leave.

"No, wait." his father called out. "Lorn needs you to check the inheritance rules."

The Countess' eyebrows rose into her hair. "I don't have any problem in checking it out, once you tell me how to do it, but does the royal family not have its own inheritance method?"

Nathan had a fright. The Countess had just questioned the royal family? To their face? Now, he did not know a lot about Solerian etiquette, but he had traveled a lot with the caravan. And in nearly every nation, that was the rule. If you insulted the royal family in public, or anywhere where their supporters could hear, you were dead. Insulting the royal family was a capital crime.

"Well, we do. Lorn just wants to be sure." the Marshal unfolded a piece of paper. "Nerusia said it is in the golden book. The book should come out as soon as you tell it that you need it?"

The Countess looked doubtful. "Tell the book?"

The Marshal just shrugged. Nathan was wondering what he should do. The two were talking as if he wasn't there, but should he say something? Have an opinion? How did you talk to books?

"Try talking to it? The spell could be vocally activated." he said. "Mother had spells like that."

The Marshal turned to him unnaturally fast. So fast that it left afterimages.

"Don't worry about it, I will figure it out." The Countess waved her hand, as if to dismiss his imaginary worry about how to talk to books. But even he could tell that she was trying to interrupt the Marshal's reaction.

"The book is activated by feeling, don't ask me how it works, it just does." The Empress said, appearing in the room. Nathan had a feeling he would have to get used to people just popping in. How did she know what they were talking about? Had the Empress been spying?

"I expect it has something to do with the emotion element. Mia once told me that you just had to think really hard to activate a lot of the books there. The trick was finding out what to think about."

The Countess nodded. "I will retrieve it." And then she walked away, leaving him alone with the Empress and the Marshal.

"Were you spying?" the Marshal asked the Empress. Nathan wanted to interrupt, say something, but he just couldn't think of anything that was appropriate. What could he say? Hello? What did he have to talk about? Mother? Did he even know enough about her to talk?

"Yes." the Empress admitted. "I don't trust you with kids."

"I-" Nathan wanted to say something, but the words died on his lips. But it was already too late, the Empress' attention was on him, and so was the Marshal's. The Marshal was frowning at him, probably disappointed about something.

"Has Althea not done anything about your face?" the Marshal asked. Nathan felt the burnt part of it itch as he huddled subconsciously. The mask hid his face from view, but he still felt nervous when someone looked at it.

"The Countess mentioned looking for a healer, but then the beast tide came and there was no time," he replied.

The Marshal shook his head, taking out a pill from somewhere. A spacial artifact? "This is one of our many failed attempts at re-inventing Alchemy. Just a bunch of powerful herbs forcefully compressed into a pill, but it should work."

Nathan extended his hand to take the pill, but the Empress stopped it. "Has that been tested for half-Fae? Do we know how the herbs could react with him? For all we know, one of them could be poisonous to him."

Nathan withdrew his hand quickly. Ok, maybe he should be careful what he ate. The thought that a herb that healed humans could be poisonous to him hadn't occurred to him. But it made sense, humans were a different species in the end.

The Empress removed a strange wand-like object and handed it to him. "Here, this should confirm your heritage too. Just channel mana through it."

The Marshal glared at her, but did not object.

Nathan hesitantly poured a little mana into the object. The wand began to glow, golden patterns appearing on its black surface as it drained most of its mana.

"Take off your mask." the Marshal warned. Nathan took it off, cringing as the Empress and Marshal stared at him. Every part of him wanted to put it back on, taking off the mask just made him feel a lot more vulnerable.

But soon golden light emerged from the wand as he held it to his face. A warm burn spread through his face as he closed his eyes. The golden light seeped through his eyelids, turning his vision gold. But it didn't feel uncomfortable at all, in fact, his eyes seemed to relax.

The glow spread from there, through his body, as he felt his wings come out on their own. The process wasn’t painful, for the first time since they had appeared in his body. A strange power spread from them towards the golden light.

The two powers met near his core. And then merged. A golden-black flashed through his body, and he was very sure he glowed for a second.

The glow faded away, leaving him blinking to clear the gold from his vision. The world seemed much more clear, the colors were sharper, mana was much more prominent.

"There is no mistaking it. That is the bloodline of the Fae royal family, and my own. And that means that you are the great-grandson of the King and Queen of Fae, nephew to the Emperor of Soleria, a Prince of both the Solerian Empire and the Fae Empire." the Marshal said, his voice sounding sad.

Nathan would have replied, but dizziness overtook him as he fainted, not even able to process what had happened.