The city felt different.

Maybe it was because the sign over the front gate that had read The Golden City for the last fourteen years had been removed and replaced by Hepool. The Elves had renamed the city to match their senate after the coup that had taken the lives of my parents and almost killed my five-year-old self.

Maybe it was because I knew what my connection to the city was. I was a prince after all, knowledge that had been suppressed by my adoptive father, the dwarf Garm Irongut. It had been done to protect me as the world believed me to be dead, which allowed for him to teach me in secret and prepare me for when I’d return to free my city.

The different feel to the city could also be from the path of destruction that my uncle, the former king who’d spent the last fourteen years trapped under the debris of the destroyed castle, had carved on his path to the senate where he had killed most of the senators and some of the foreign delegates before I had managed to stop him.

It could also owe its new feel to my cousin, Princess Alessa, now reigning as Queen Alessa Malus. Though it was probably a combination of everything as well as factors that I probably wasn’t even aware of.

From my place at the front gate of the city, I looked up to gauge how high the sun had risen. I had my first mission as part of my cousin’s inner circle and I was ready to start, but it didn’t appear that my travel companions held the same excitement that I did. We had agreed to set out first thing in the morning, which I took to be as soon as the sun was up, though now that I thought about it, I should have known that my adoptive brother would take that to mean after he woke up. Knowing my brother, that could be well after lunch.

No one would assume that the two of us were friends, let alone adoptive brothers. I was a human with black hair and green eyes. I was tanned from spending most of my time in the sun and just over six feet tall. Vin Irongut was a Camadt, a race of magically immune, four armed, over six foot tall, black furred catfolk. The Camadt were a very prideful race, one that had considered themselves to be the strongest, smartest, and most superior race in the universe. Which was why anyone would instantly question why someone as weak as a human could be considered their friend.

The truth was that I wasn’t just a regular human. I was a Sineater and that wasn’t the extent of my ability either. I was also a Singiver. A Sineater had the ability to absorb wounds and injuries from another being and take them on as if they were their own. A singiver could do the opposite, giving wounds or injuries to another being. While the Camadt passively negated magic around them, they weren’t able to stop a Sineater’s ability to transfer wounds. As far as I knew, sineaters were the first race that was able to stand over the Camadt in terms of fighting ability and the shock of not being at the pinnacle had driven them into hiding. Since it was almost impossible to tell a Sineater apart from the rest of humanity, the Camadt had withdrawn to the Nevnua island and rarely ventured out to the main continent, even though there were very few Sineaters left on the planet.

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The other races actually seemed to prefer that the threat of Sineaters kept the Camadt away from the main continent, so the rumor of a secret army of Sineaters waiting in the wings if there was ever a war was something that was widely spread. Though according to my cousin, the opposite was actually true. We were the only two that she was aware of and if the Camadt came at us in earnest, we wouldn’t do much against an entire army.

Which led me to the nature of my mission. Alessa needed allies and the dwarves were her first choice. They needed someone to look at a weird door they’d found and between Vin’s magic negating ability and my sineating, we should be able to handle just about anything.

Speaking of magic, that led me to the last member of our party, Starna Shellock.

I waved at the tanned elf woman walking towards me. Starna had been Alessa's companion and was a fairly capable mage despite her young age. Her knowledge over magic and Alessa’s trust was most of why she was coming with us. The fight with my uncle had left me with a budding magic talent, which was something that Starna was supposed to nurture. Though I had a feeling that it had more to do with her knowledge of diplomacy than anything else. I might be a prince by birth, but I had lived on a ship as a smuggler for most of my life. My method of diplomacy usually involved a sword, which was probably why the two nineteen-year-old men had a babysitter. My cousin didn’t need us to accidentally start a war.

“He’s not here?” The brunette glanced around.

“Probably sleeping in.” I kicked a bit of gravel. “Lazy kitten…”

“I guess we have to leave him.” The elf’s blue eyes sparkled a bit. “Oh well. Where’s our wagon?”

“Vin was supposed to bring it.” I smirked as disappointment crossed her face. “Come on, you knew we couldn’t leave him. What if the barrier is strong enough magic that you can’t break it?”

Starna crossed her arms in front of her. “Are you doubting my ability?”

“You’re proficient rank.” It wasn’t an insult. There were very few her age that would be right under the power level of a master. Given her lifespan, she would probably be able to reach Elder strength, which would earn her a trip off of the prison planet. The anti-projection field that kept us here suppressed anything from below elder level power. Since it was a prison planet, anyone that strong was removed to ensure that there wasn’t a prison break. “There’s plenty that you can’t handle yet.”

She opened her mouth, but her retort was cut off by yelling behind me at the gate.

“TRAITOR!”