Seated within the carriage, the first few moments passed in an awkward stillness. The prince before us sat and simply watched, a perfect smile plastered to his nigh-emotionless face. The boy looked molded by the opulence he’d grown up with, with a flawless face and perfect brown hair styled atop it. His clothing was of the highest quality, I could tell from a glance. An elegant suit of blacks and reds tailored perfectly for him clung to his body – a body more fit than I’d expected from a boy of his age and status. He wasn’t stronger than me, I was sure of that, but he wasn’t weak, either. Nothing like the captain and his guards; that much was obvious.
Seems Dryon wasn’t completely lying about his lord having some kind of strength, I thought to myself, just as the boy shook himself out of his silence.
“Ah, my apologies,” he said suddenly, shaking his head. “I don’t know what came over me. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I am Prince Zayr von Silverson Atratius II, third son of the Blood Palace, child of the Luminous Queen. And who are the two of you?”
The title was about as grand as I’d expected, though I didn’t have a clue what the Blood Palace was, so I wasn’t quite as impressed as the boy seemed to be expecting. Ren and I answered with as truthful of an introduction as we could manage without promoting too many questions. We'd settled on a backstory in the Fiercewater Village, but I didn't want to test it for the first time on a prince.
I noticed that our lack of reaction to the boy's title caught him slightly off guard, as if it was beyond his expectations that his two guests wouldn't already be aware of the grandess of his identity, but he breezed past it with the social tact I'd expect from someone who'd probably been tutored for it.
“I’m here on a tour of the countryside,” the boy started, gazing out the window with a smile I thought was just a touch too theatrical. “A birthday present from my father, you see. Though, I was supposed to be in Downy by now, for the celebration of the actual day, but it seems that won’t be possible anymore. I may end up having to conduct the celebrations in Wolfhaven now.”
Ren and I shared a discreet look of amusement before we nodded solemnly. “I see,” I said. “That sounds unfortunate.”
The boy sighed in defeat and acceptance. “Indeed, but it seems it is written. Though, perhaps it may not be all bad, now that I’ve met the two of you. I was afraid I’d be spending the days bored out of my mind, with only fawning small-town aristocrats for company. But things should be much more interesting with the two of you around.”
I didn’t quite like how the boy assumed that we were now his companions for good, but I didn’t show it. I figured that keeping a good relationship with someone of such obvious wealth and status could hardly be harmful, and in the meanwhile, I could glean some much-needed information off him.
“Say, Your Highness, how much do you know about Wolfhaven, as a city?” I asked, as politely as I could. “See, we’re travelers from very far away, so we really don’t know much about the place.”
The boy brightened at my question, happily jumping into an explanation. “Ahh, I see; you are travelers. That solves the mystery. You must be from very far away for you two not to know of the name of my Blood Palace.”
I cringed slightly there, fearing he would question further into our origin, but the boy mercifully veered to the topic I’d given him.
“Wolfhaven is a small border city, not really significant on the broader scale of the kingdom, but the people within take it very seriously,” the boy continued. “As for its structure, it has one ruling family, and – now, I forget the exact number, and I believe four noble ones just under it. There are a few more families and some guilds under them, who own whatever the top five don’t, but they are irrelevant – I mean, more so than the entire city, of course.”
I nodded in understanding. “I see. And is there an Adventurer Guild branch there?
The boy nodded, almost seeming confused at the question. “Of course there is. Any place big enough to be called a city would have one, at least, but more than that, border cities like Wolfhaven absolutely have them. After all, they’re adventurer hotspots throughout the year, and even more so around this time of year. ”
“Ah, that makes sense,” I said, nodding to myself. It was an obvious question, I knew, but I wanted confirmation. It would be great if Ren and I could get ourselves registered as adventurers as soon as possible, since I was hoping to be able to participate in the Beast Tide. I wasn’t really sure what to expect from it, but the idea of it excited me. And I wasn’t afraid in the least. With how long I’d spent in the forest, I was confident in my ability to handle anything it could throw at me.
The boy kept talking after my question, hopping from one topic to another with a relentless energy for conversation that was unmatched by anyone else I’d ever met. Despite his grand position, the boy didn’t stand on ceremony, hardly holding up the image of a graceful prince for long, trading it in for that of a boy happy to chat with people his age.
I found the boy’s choice of interests to be mind-numbingly boring, but I tried not to fault him for it. Politics was his field, I figured, so it made sense that most of what he wanted to talk about related in some way to it.
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Still, he was charming, in an innocent, wide-eyed kind of way. And he knew gossip that I was sure would shock any actual citizen of the kingdom, rumors that he leaked to us with all the reticence of an open dam. And while I didn’t understand the significance of many of the details, the stories were entertaining to hear, at the least. And they gave me a better understanding of the society I was headed to, something I very much needed.
Not to mention, I wasn’t going to complain about getting a ride – and an immensely comfortable one at that – for the last leg of my journey.
The hours passed with surprising swiftness as the luxurious carriage rolled its way down the road, the three of us getting more and more comfortable in our conversation until I found myself actually enjoying it. And that surprised me, since I’d walked into it with quite a large bias against the boy, simply because of his title. But the boy was not so much a spoiled brat with a superiority complex as I’d expected. His condescension for people he didn’t deem important – essentially ‘commoners’ and weak people – was only subtle, and less malicious, more genuine. Almost as if he actually believed that people of a lower class or weaker than him were inherently of less worth than him, and that it was a simple fact of the universe, not his own opinion.
I disliked that bit, of course, but I wasn’t in the mood to try and disprove something the boy had undoubtedly spent his life hearing. And he treated Ren and me with enough respect, having acknowledged our strength from defeating the gorillas.
And aside from that, he was good company, enough that I ended up accepting his offer to drop us off at the Adventurer Guild branch, and his invitation for the birthday banquet that was going to be held soon.
The city soon appeared on the horizon, a gray beast of stone and mortar. A towering wall painted a great gray streak against the blue of the sky behind it, a streak that only grew and grew as we approached. Not long after, just as the sun was beginning to dip below the horizon, painting the sky in brilliant pinks and reds, we arrived at the gate of the stone behemoth.
The giant doors had been pulled open long before we arrived, the thick traffic clogging the way having been shoved aside, forced to stand off the side of the road.
The guards didn’t bother our carriage either, so our entrance was entirely unimpeded. We entered into the main road of the city, forcing the citizens to stand aside as we passed, just the same as the others. Prince Zayr’s importance was clear as day, and the people in the city understood it well. I studied the faces of the people as I passed and didn't find the resentment I’d expected to find. As if it was the natural course of things, they simply stood with – at worst – a slight impatience, most eyeing the opulence of the carriage with shining eyes.
Like Zayr had said, I spotted quite a few people who were obviously adventurers, judging by their assorted armor and weaponry. Most I didn’t find very threatening, but I spotted a total of five that I figured would pose some difficulty for me to deal with, and a total of two that I knew immediately were far beyond my ability.
The first of the two was a hooded figure I spotted sipping tea in a restaurant’s open patio, sitting all alone at a table. He was wrapped up in a plain brown cloak, his face obscured by his hood, utterly forgettable to the average eye. But I knew with a glance that the man was an immensely dangerous one.
The second was a giant of a man, eye-catching in every sense of the word. Clad in golden shining armor, the man stood at a towering seven feet, an ax taller than I was strung to his back. Of all the people in the town, he was the only one brave enough to stop the carriage, stepping in the way for just a second and greeting Sir Dryon like an old friend.
“Who’s that?” I asked as the carriage came to a halt for a moment, wondering who'd have the guts to stop a prince’s convoy just to chat with an old friend.
Zayr smiled at my question. “That is the only A-ranked adventurer in the city, Goldwing’s Hot Ax. A fire elemental mage who fights frontline, which is a rare thing to see, but he’s managed exceptionally well. He’s got quite the reputation around these parts, and is one of the strangest of the mages around. Of common birth though, unfortunately, so he likely won’t go much further than he’s already gotten, but what he has achieved is amazing.”
“Wait, what’s Goldwing?” Ren asked.
“It’s a guild, one of middling to upper tier. They own a few dungeons around the city, but they aren’t large players in the politics of this city. They’re headquartered in another border city, a little further down south.”
By then, the Goldwing adventurer had wrapped up his conversation, and the carriage had resumed its journey. Not long after, we came to a stop again, this time at the foot of a grand building, one of the biggest I’d seen so far in the city. A wide set of stairs led up to an open, tiled courtyard with a roof held up by two rows of white pillars. Behind the courtyard was a massive building, all white stone in construction.
“Well,” Zayr said, “I suppose this is where we part ways. For the moment, at least.”
I nodded, a small smile on my face. “Yeah. It was a pleasure to meet you, Your Highness,” I said, with more truth than I’d expected to feel. “Thanks for the ride – and the info. It helped a bunch.”
The boy waved my thanks away. “The pleasure was mine, Miss Ruby. And I’m glad to have been of help. It’s not often I get to speak to those of my age, and those that I respect, at that. Your presence itself was a gift – a little information was the least I could give.”
His reply was far more elquont than mine, of course, but that had been the norm for most of the conversation, so it didn't faze me. Instead, I gave the boy one last nod and made my way out of the carriage, taking in a deep breath as I stepped out into the warm sun, it's presence on my skin tingling with new promise. Ren joined me at my side as the convoy resumed its journey behind us, the two of us staring up at the logo on the grand roof in a moment of pensive silence. Two strange symbols made up the logo, carved out of the white stone that made up the pillars. They weren't runic characters, but were also unlike anything I’d ever seen before.
“Well then,” I said after a moment of taking in the sight, feeling the now-familar buzz of rising anticipation within me. “Let’s get registered, shall we?”