Riley rubbed the back of his neck, his hands were clenched onto a report he was just given, "Cayden, why do you have to make things so much harder for me?"

Riley stood up, and walked out of his room, he went straight to his father's office, coincidently Onyx was also heading there as well.

Both boys met at the entrance of the office, but neither acknowledged the other's existence. They both entered, only to see their father packing up some personal items.

"Father, are you going somewhere?" Onyx asked.

Their father nodded, "I've been summoned to the main house, there's a crisis going on and everyone above the Caster stage has been told to go to the main house for a few weeks."

"A few weeks? Are you going to miss my birthday?" Onyx sounded worried, Riley rolled his eyes at him.

"I will, but don't worry your mother will still be there." Onyx was silent, he had no response to his father's words.

Their father shifted his attention to Riley whose hands were now shaking, as he mentally went through what his father just said.

Their father frowned, he knew the reason his son was nervous, but he didn't acknowledge it and instead gave him a paper, "This is a list of all the demi-humans to be put down immediately. I don't want another accident like earlier, or like the patriarch in the main house."

There was a dark look in his father's face when he said this, it shook out Riley's previous nervousness about what was mentioned earlier, and he quickly read through the list.

But there was something about their father's words that caught Onyx's attention, "Father, do you have news on what happened to the patriarch?"

Their father looked away, "It's been confirmed to be as we thought, the patriarch has been murdered by our enemies using demi-humans as their assassins."

"That's why you asked us to watch out for suspicious demi-humans." Riley finally understood, but this news only made things harder for him.

"Father, don't worry, we'll execute these demi-humans immediately." Onyx looked resolved to carry out his father's task, but Riley had already come up with a plan.

"Father, I don't think we should kill all these demi-humans at the moment. With all the preparations going into Onyx's birthday party, we're going to need all the help we can get, so killing all these demi-humans would only slow these things down."

Onyx was surprised Riley would bring something like this up, and his words created a good point in his mind.

"That's true, how about we kill them after my birthday?" Onyx offered. Riley didn't really like that option, but he had nothing to say to counter it.

Their father wasn't very interested with this topic, he simply waved his hand and said, "Do what you want, just make sure those animals are dead by the time I get back.

"Yes, father," Onyx snatched the list from Riley's hands, "I'll make sure every guard has this list, and after my birthday we'll immediately start a bloodbath."

Onyx seemed to be getting a bit of pleasure from imagining the death of so many demi-humans, Riley's eyebrows twitched as he searched for any excuses to prevent that from happening, but he couldn't find one that didn't clash with the patriarch's death.

Onyx ran out the room to deliver the list to the guards. If it was normal circumstances, this would've been great to be with his father without Onyx, but Riley wasn't in the mood.

It quickly left the room, and headed in a certain direction, his destination was the slave quarters near the fields.

But he didn't go the full way, instead he asked a servant to call the person he was looking for over to the beer cellar.

...

Cayden, Cronix, and Lapsa were in the bathing facilities created for the slaves.

"Enjoy yourselves boys, this may very well be our last time cleaning ourselves on this planet." Cayden said, his voice somehow contained a type of cheer.

Cronix sank into the water first, his face still pale from the amount of blood he lost, "I need to learn a healing spell."

Lapsa went in after Cronix, "The water's temperature has never bothered me, but I think I want my last bath to at least be warm."

Cayden entered last, "It's fine."

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Cronix listened to their words,

Water gets hot when its molecules vibrate...

Cronix spread out his mental energy and examined the surrounding water, but the weird change in Cronix's mental energy already began messing with the water temperature making it colder.

"Cronix, what are you doing?" Cayden recognized the weird feeling that came upon him to be the energy Cronix used in their fight.

"Just wait." Cronix continued with his plan, he slowly located each individual water particle and using his control of the water elements, he started vibrating them.

The transition started off slow, and neither Lapsa nor Cayden felt anything, after a few minutes the temperature went a degree higher, sweat started to appear on Cronix's face from concentrating too much.

Still nobody noticed the temperature difference, even when Cronix was at his limit, the water never got hot enough for the two to notice, so he stopped.

By this time he was gasping for air.

"What happened?" Cayden asked.

Cronix started to explain between breaths. Lapsa looked at Cronix with amazement when he was done, "You could do that when mental energy and magic worked together?"

Cronix nodded his head before leaning back, and closing his eyes.

This could be a great exercise for training my mental energy...

There was only a short time allowed for bathing, and even if the three thought they were going to die in a short while, they didn't dare break that rule.

"Lapsa, did you manage to convince the laundry demi-humans to wash our clothes?" Cayden asked, Lapsa nodded and gestured to a pile of clothes on the floor.

"Oh, I also got them to repair the old clothes you came with. They may have insulted you for the zippers on the back of your shirt though." Lapsa said, giving Cronix his clean uniform and original clothes.

Cronix took his clothes, he had a slightly sad smile when he looked at the zippers on the back of his original shirt.

"Why did you have zippers on the back of your shirt?" Cayden asked, while buttoning up his dress shirt.

Cronix turned away from his original shirt and began putting on his pants, he casually said, "I used to have wings."

"Like the royals in the capital? I don't believe it." Cayden responded while putting on the rest of his clothes.

Cronix frowned, "I did, I used to have them right here." Cronix turned his back to Cayden and pointed where his wings used to be, which was on the shoulder blade.

Lapsa was quiet during the entire exchange, but when he saw Cronix's back, he frowned, "What's with the gold symbol."

"Gold Symbol?" Both Cayden and Cronix asked at the same time.

"Right here." Lapsa pointed at the two spots Cronix's wings used to be. Cayden had to squint to see what Lapsa was talking about, but he eventually saw a golden pattern on Cronix's shoulder blade.

Cayden outstretched his finger and touched the golden pattern, but the moment he touched it, he quickly withdrew the finger, and made a face, while shaking his hand, he said, "Damn! That hurts."

"What is it? Ah, this is why I should practice the external eyes." Cronix complained.

"It's some kind of power." Cayden replied with the best thing he could.

"Power? Let me try something." While Cronix didn't know how to use the external eyes, he did know another part of the external senses technique.

Cronix brought his mental energy to his shoulder blade, with it he touched the location his wings used to be, and the moment the mental energy touched where the golden energy was, the mental energy was destroyed.

"Crap!" Cronix felt pain throughout his body, and had to use a wall to support himself. This was similar to how his mental energy was destroyed when he touched the red cage in his mental expanse.

However, using his mental energy he was able to find out exactly what was the golden energy, "The golden energy is light magic."

"Light magic? Why would light magic be..." Cayden didn't finish what he was saying, and instead said, "Another demi-human is coming."

Both Lapsa and Cayden looked confused, until the door opened and another servant entered, except they didn't look like they came in to bathe, "Cayden, young master Riley is calling for you."

Lapsa looked worried, and Cronix said, "If you want, I can come with you."

Cayden looked at them and smiled, "I'll be fine, you guys don't have to worry."

Lapsa turned to Cayden, "Don't annoy the young master, or you'll probably be wipe off the face of Uvira."

Cayden laughed while walking to the door, "Sure, whatever, but guys I'm actually going to be fine. See you all later."

With those words, Cayden left the room with the other servant.

Cronix looked at the still worried face Lapsa, "He'll be fine."

Cayden followed his fellow demi-human inside the manor and the servant pointed the way down to the beer cellar, "He's in there."

The servant took a deep look at Cayden, like he was looking at someone on their deathbed, before leaving.

Cayden entered the beer cellar, he briskly walked inside the cellar, there he saw a young man with purple eyes and dark hair leaning against the wall, "Hey Riley."

Riley had a dark expression on his face as he held two cups of alcohol. Cayden smiled, "Does your father know your drinking?"

"I deserved to be able to drink after all that stress you caused me!" Riley snapped.

Cayden's smile only widened, "Do you mean that thing with Antony? Well, I'm sorry about that, but he started it."

Riley rolled his eyes, "You're lucky the guards here aren't part of the Ayuna family." Riley outstretched one of his arms, passing him a cup, "Here, you should drink with me."

Cayden moved his hands up, "You know I can't drink."

Riley nodded, "Yeah, it was something about your father, but considering that in a few weeks you won't be alive to turn 21, you should have a cup."

Cayden's eyebrows lifted up, "What?"

"Well, you probably already expected this, but here you go." Riley said, passing Cayden a paper full of names. Cayden looked through the lists of names, and began searching for a few specific names.

It took awhile, but he managed to find both his and Lapsa's names, and although he didn't find Cronix's name, he did find a phrase at the top of the list that read, 'The animal that killed Tornic'.

Cayden's eyes narrowed, "What is this?"

"What does it look like?" Riley responded, taking a sip of one of the cups.

Cayden leaned against the wall next to Riley, and slowly slid into a sitting position, "You said we have a few weeks, do you know the exact day?"

Riley sat next to Cayden, "It starts immediately after Onyx's birthday party, I couldn't think of a way to move it any further, I'm sorry."

Cayden looked at the roof above him, as he remembered something Cronix told him earlier while they went shopping. He then in one quick motion, took the cup full of beer from Riley's hand, and gulped it down.

"You know, my brother once told me never to let anyone control my life." Cayden told the stunned Riley.