“Thank you so much, the food was lovely,” I said.

“No, please, it was an honor hosting a real elf. My daughter could hardly believe it. Heck, I couldn’t believe it myself! We thought you weren’t real. Stories conjured up by bards and fortunetellers. And yet, you showed up right on my doorstep!” said the burly old man wearing an apron.

“And I appreciate you keeping this a secret for me,” I said as I paid him for the night’s meal, “we left the human country with the intention of meeting the king. I wouldn’t want the king’s current bout of illness to ruin the occasion.”

“Of course, of course,” said the innkeeper as he pocketed the coins, “our poor demon king has been sick for so long, my children have only ever known him as a sick old man. Only old geezers like myself remember how he was in his youth. Handsome, charming, and braver than any young upstart general. You can still see the fire burning in his eyes, but his body just can’t keep up with his spirit. He’s usually only sick for a week or so. I’d say give it a couple of days and he’ll be taking audiences again. You can re-enter through the gates as an official delegation. They might even hold a grand celebration in your honor!”

I thanked the innkeeper and went back up to my room. The inn was mostly deserted, since this was the season for traders and merchants to leave the capital in search of goods from other places. This place would be bustling once the caravans returned to the capital with their wares. There was another inn near the center of the city, which usually housed foreign traders, diplomats, and other such parties willing to spend a little extra for proximity to the royal court, but since our party wanted to keep a low profile for a few days, we chose this inn at the outskirts instead.

I walked up the creaking wooden stairs. To my right, a small wooden balcony overlooked the bustling, narrow streets below. Although the trade caravans were away right now, there were still many merchants and stalls down below, trying to sell off excess goods from previous years or peddling goods from places that were closer to the capital. It was harvesting season for many cultivated fruits and vegetables, so there were many carts full of fresh produce. Domesticated monsters were peppered throughout the street, docilely munching on dried grasses. They were connected to the carts by loosened harnesses.

I stopped by the window. This country was several centuries, if not millennia ahead of the human tribes of the double river basin. The near impassable mountains were keeping the humans safe from foreign conquest, but they also stopped the flow of goods, ideas, and people from reaching the humans’ homeland. Being able to bring back some seeds and domesticated animals would propel the humans ahead by countless generations, especially because of the potential they could unlock by applying magic in creative ways to these otherwise mundane objects. Selective crop cultivation, animal husbandry, and distributed settlements connected via trade routes, just think of what the magic using humans could do with these advancements.

I climbed the staircase and walked down the hall. I knocked on the door twice, then opened it. Kelser was lounging on a bed and staring at a wall. Kol was reading a scroll spread over a wooden table. Candlelight filled the room, flickering shadows everywhere. Kol squinted, trying to read in the dim light. Frustrated, she took a deep breath, and brought the candle over the scroll. She squinted harder, and took a deep breath. The flame on the candle became larger, melting droplets of wax over the sides and pooling in the metal pan underneath.

Kelser saw me come in and stood up. “Finally! Can we go already?”

“In a bit,” I said as I walked over to Kol. “Any luck?”

Kol shook her head. “No. It’s useless. Just a bunch of pointless orders and calls for supplies. Was this the last scroll?”

I nodded. “I searched everywhere. You’ve already been through the ones from your brother’s office in the palace, his personal rooms at his house, and all the personal and official rooms of your brother’s allied generals. The scroll in your hand should have been the most promising. It was in a secret hole in the wall right behind your brother’s bed. Are you sure they aren’t using some kind of secret code?”

“If they are, it isn’t one I can crack. You’ve been through the scrolls too. Do you think there’s a code?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “I think we can assume your brother’s treachery isn’t meeting any ink. Maybe it’s word of mouth only, which is smart of him, but very frustrating for us. But sneaking into the palace while invisible has been just as useless. I haven’t overheard any useful whispers or dropping into any secret meetings.”

“And there wasn’t anything at the generals’ houses either?” asked Kol.

“Most of them are up north with your brother,” I said. “The few that are here aren’t even talking to each other. None of their workers or servants are meeting with each other either, at least as far as I can tell. I can’t be everywhere at once. But still, I think I should have seen something suspicious by now.”

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“But then how is my brother still controlling the capital and the royal court? My father is too sick to run the country, and his ministers can’t resist my brother’s pressure on their own. My mother died long ago, and the new queen disappeared with my younger sister in the East,” said Kol.

“Maybe it really is what it looks like,” I said.

“What do you mean?” asked Kol.

“Maybe your brother really isn’t doing anything. You said so yourself. Your father’s ministers can’t resist the prince on their own. If your brother wanted to take over, or at least declare himself the heir, he could do so. But he isn’t doing it,” I said.

Kol frowned. “Why not?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe he wants to gather his support in the North first. Or he wants to wait for your father to die before making a move. He might even be trying to bait out rebels or rivals by leaving the political space open for them for a little bit. Who knows. But this is your opportunity. The capital is empty and all of your brother’s enemies and rivals are clinging to the sick king for protection. If we plan this properly, we can make a great show of your return, and use the support of a legendary, magical elf, to shore up your own situation. Trade with a mysterious species across the mountains could be the icing on top!”

“Icing?” said the princess.

“Nevermind that,” I said, “I overheard some servants say the king was feeling better and would take visitors tomorrow. You should rest tonight. We have a big day tomorrow!”

Kol nodded, her eyes drifting over the words on the scroll as she began to close it. Her hands stopped. She squinted. Her eyes widened. She laid the scroll back on the table with a thump and stared at the lower left corner.

I followed her gaze and my own eyes widened as well. “That’s—”

“Code!” said the princess. “A secret message!”

A garbled set of letters sat on the edge of the scroll. The letters made no sense together. Finding such a blatant secret code after searching for cryptic messages and riddles within boringly mundane letters, was a little jarring, but at least we had something to work with.

“This isn’t a type of code I’ve seen before,” said the princess. “He must’ve learned it from the Lux Republic. How are we going to find out what it says?”

I moved the scroll closer to myself. “I’ll need your help since I only learned your language recently. I haven’t learned all of these logograms yet. Like this one, what does it mean?”

“It means constellation,” said Kol.

“And this one?” I asked.

“It means to point to one’s heart,” she said.

Oddly specific, I thought to myself. “Is that a kind of saying or a figure of speech?”

The princess nodded. “It means to feel a desire to do something, quickly.”

Huh. Languages are fascinated. “And what kind of code does your kingdom usually use.”

“We only have one type of code,” she said, “it’s when we take one word and put it inside another. The reader knows to take out the larger word and only use the smaller word inside.”

Right, because it was a logographic language like Chinese. You could put one logogram inside another to form another word. “That isn’t a very difficult code to crack.”

The princess nodded. “That’s why we stopped using it hundreds of years ago.”

Kelser, who had been making faces and twiddling his thumbs while we were talking, finally walked over and looked at the scroll. “If you can’t break the code, why don’t we just walk over to the palace already?”

“You didn’t even know what a code was until we came to the city,” said princess.

“That isn’t a bad idea,” I said.

“Wait, what?” said Kol.

“Going to the palace,” I said, “that isn’t a bad idea.” I lifted my gaze from the scroll and looked at my companions.

“Alright! Finally!” said Kelser with a smile.

“No, wait, weren’t we going to meet my father tomorrow? You know, entering through the great doors, declaring my survival and your arrival, making a huge spectacle with magic and stuff? You know, to make a reputation for myself? That was all your idea, wasn’t it?” said Kol.

I nodded. “We couldn’t risk jumping into the palace when we didn’t know if it was being controlled by your brother already. We had to collect information, especially about the past few years when you were away, or we could’ve been caught in a trap. The most dangerous possibility would’ve been your brother marching to the capital with his allied generals as soon as he heard about your return.”

“And all of that is still possible, isn’t it? What happened? Why did you change your mind?” she asked.

I swirled the scroll in front of the princess and pointed at the coded message. “I figured if your country was using such a basic system of encryption, this code couldn’t be that much more advanced. Turns out, all you have to do is rearrange the words a little and ignore all repetitions. Then, you can read the secret message.”

The princess frowned and looked at the code again. Even Kelser peered over her shoulder and stared at the scroll. After a few moments, the princess looked up at me, with her eyes wide. “That’s—”

“There is no reason to worry about your brother marching on the capital after hearing about your return,” I said, “if he’s going to do it anyway!”