[Kliss Eliza Cessna / Elisabeth Johannes Kepler]

As our trio headed back to the Alanian tower, we stopped at the edge of the Cascadia river to admire the rapids caused by the Spring snow melt.

Now that I was no longer suffering from soul-decay, I found it very easy to simply take time to appreciate the view.

Compared to my first day here as its Imperial Overseer a year ago, without Equality's Vow binding my emotions, the valley itself looked... completely different.

From the colourful wild flowers blooming all over the valley, to the quaint, cosy cottages covered in green moss, to the white dragonettes gliding over the rushing water to catch orange-gold scaled salmon... everything now looked bewilderingly picturesque.

As I stared at the white waterfall curtains cascading down from the glaciers I suddenly realised that I was actually... falling in love with the place I once saw as bland, dreary and backwards in its provincial appearance.

My fingers curled into fists as I inhaled the crisp air coming down from the glaciers.

This... this was everything I was missing my entire adult life since I sacrificed Love to the Inquisitor of Equality.

"Enjoying the delightful view of your new domain, Baroness?" Delta whispered conspiratorially, invading my personal space.

Her words struck some deep chord in me and I suddenly discovered that I was blinking fat tears out of my eyes.

The Imperial Citadel of Cessna was orderly and clean, but not naturally untamed, wild or beautiful like Skyisle. The city I once considered perfect was merely a prison where people were kept pacified, blind, bound by their Vows.

I was blind no more. My parent's estate, my old home, was gone, burned away by Aradria's cursed flames.

Home. I suddenly realised. This entire, perfect valley belonged to me now. It was my new home, one that I could actually appreciate and love.

I quickly wiped my eyes and glanced at Slava who was standing a bit off from us. I had no idea how I could ever repay him for what he did for me. Buying Skyisle to give it to him seemed... insufficient, silly. I didn't even earn the money to do that, since it belonged to my parents' estate.

Unlike me, Slava had earned his position as Administrator of Skyisle, bamboozled Overseer Ignatius into giving up the job and entrenched himself into the local bureaucracy. In just a year, he and his sister did more for Skyisle than any Imperial Overseers had in decades!

I had always tried my hardest to understand what Slava was saying and yet I constantly felt like a dummy while speaking to him. Possibly it was because he used too many strange, foreign words. I did well at the Academy and yet none of my Instructors there seemed to understand the inner workings of reality like Slava did.

"Shall we head home and get dinner going?" Slava asked, noticing that I was staring at him.

I nodded.

We walked across the forest, reaching the ancient Almn-Inian tower. The tree nestled in its centre looked a lot bigger than a year ago. I wasn’t sure if it grew bigger because of Slava’s Agromancy wands or it simply looked bigger because I was now shorter.

"Let's make with the treentroductions!" Delta grinned, pulling me into the half-derelict structure.

. . .

I couldn't understand what Leemy was saying, but she really spoke to the Alan twins! Slava and Delta really had a thousand-year old dryad from before the age of darkness on their side!

I shuddered ever so slightly as I listened to the languid, song-like replies of the gargantuan tree, the violet-orange leaves of which fluttered across the ruined tower.

“Leemy says 'Hi',” Delta commented.

“H-hi... Leemy,” I muttered awkwardly, looking up at the fluttering, sparkling leaves.

“She says that she was scared of you, but now that you’re more than a mere pawn of the Gregarius Empire, she is happy to have you as a new friend,” Delta added. She was holding tightly onto my hand as it kept her from feeling the constant soul-decaying chill of the Astral Ocean.

I let her cling to me for the warmth my dragonheart provided. Even though I didn’t show it on my face, I felt really bad for Delta and Slava. I knew what it was like to be almost dead, personally felt the icy grip of the void when the two conflicting Vows had nearly torn apart my soul.

Slava didn’t direct me to any rocks, instead he told me to relax, get some rest and level up.

After a hearty breakfast of blood-elk steak, Delta dragged me to a cosy bedroom beneath the roots of the Mystic-Willow-Oak.

I caught Slava on his way out of the bathroom, my mind refusing to let go of our previous conversation.

“So, um,” I said. “Slava… can you really cast a single spell across the entire valley?”

“Give me a lever big enough and I will move the world,” the white-haired teenager smiled, repeating the words of a scholar from his magic-less home world.

“I still don’t understand how this is possible,” I insisted, thinking back to what my Cessna instructors at the Academy taught me. “Magic is finite, limited to the power level of a wizard’s Soul-Song. Spells decay away to nothing the further away you are from the spell you cast. You can’t just… cast a spell that big repeatedly. Even a High Archmage would struggle to cast something that big once!"

I looked at Slava’s thirteen-year-old, scrawny body.

“A single human soul can only cast so much magic, yes. However, with enough crystalline matrices of a certain type, one can cast a spell as big as all of Skyisle. Without Leemy’s cooperation, or her roots permeating the entire valley, or the precision of my Infoscopes, I would not be able to construct a functional hexagram anywhere as big,” he explained.

I pursed my lips, mulling over his words. The very concept of casting a valley-wide spell via a bunch of trees seemed absurd, nonsensical, insane.

“In fact, I suspect that the planet-sized rings on the surface of Inaria are truly gargantuan crystalline matrices,” Slava said. He glanced out the window at the glowing silver-blue-violet rings in the night sky. “Hell, our ability to do magic might be because of those rings. Someone had to build those things for a purpose. If they’re indeed infinite megastructures then…”

“Then what?” I asked.

“Then they exist to rewrite the rules for a multitude of planets or perhaps an entire universe on a fundamental level,” Slava said, his expression darkening. “At the cost of anything remaining alive being down there. Inaria is a dead world, yes?”

“Y-yes,” I nodded, stammering ever so slightly at his words.

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

I never liked thinking about how big or how dead Inaria was. No Imperial scholar could wrap their mind around something that was broken enough to become physically infinite.

“That much magical radiance would disassemble a person on a subatomic level,” he added.

I sputtered in response.

“I’m just glad that we’re precisely far enough away from Inaria to be able to cast spells,” he said. “If the orbit of Novazem was unstable, then the magrad projected by those vast megastructures could gradually disassemble absolutely everything living here.”

I simply stared at him, trying to wrap my mind around his words.

“Like I told you earlier, the fifth fundamental force, our ability to bend the universe to our will, comes from the interaction of a human soul with the Astral Ocean,” he said after a deep pause in our conversation. “Magic doesn’t merely sink into the Astral, it is pulled from it!"

“I find this very hard to believe,” I frowned. “I’ve been taught my entire life that the void filled with Astral Phantoms devours, steals our magic. That the Wheel of Death consumes all souls and grinds all of our works to naught, unless we dedicate ourselves to Goddess Equality.”

"We'll reserve our discussion about Arxtruria to another time," Slava said. "As for human magic - most spells cast by people are negatively-charged. The Astral current they produce flows in one direction and thus they sink into the Astral Ocean very quickly. But, a certain type of a magical creature can produce what I would label as ‘positively-charged magic’.”

His finger pointed at my chest.

“Dragonhearts are used by both the Basq and your people as anti-gravity engines because they are a persistent type of magical radiance expressed within a crystalline matrix,” he explained. “The magic dragons produce does NOT decay away, it gets stronger with time."

“Are you certain of this?” I demanded.

“Of course,” he nodded. “I’ve been monitoring the local forest for thirteen years now. The mountainside burned by Aradria’s fire didn’t heal in the slightest. In fact, the persistent spell cast by the dragon became more magically potent, more dangerous to the local wildlife and plants.”

I opened and closed my mouth, trying to find a rebuttal.

“Wait a heartbeat,” I said. “How could you monitor the effects of dragonfire thirteen years ago? You were just a newborn babe back then!”

“A newborn who could cast high level identify spells,” Slava pointed out. “Spells that could attach themselves to nearly anything. I attached one of my [Identify] to a common dandelion seed.”

I squinted at him.

“Dandelion seeds carried by the wind from the glaciers in the spring are a common occurrence in Skyisle,” he added. “Within them is a stable organic matrix of [Green-Vitality] magic. Thirteen years ago, it took the [Death] curse produced by dragonfire one minute, five seconds and sixteen microseconds to completely decay away the matrix of a dandelion seed. Now, the very same dandelion seed decays away in one minute, five seconds and twelve microseconds when it lands onto the dragonfire-impacted mountainside.”

“Huh,” I murmured.

“Dragon’s don’t just set stuff on fire - they also spray a very fine mist of microscopic crystals. Crystals which are aligned with [Death], which targets everything living except for the dragon,” he said. “Because Aradria’s heart now resides in you, you should be able to walk through the cursed forest without any issues whatsoever. With your help we can even collect the [Death] crystals from the mountainside to do further study on them!”

“Digging for cursed sand sounds marginally better than lugging rocks,” I couldn’t help but smile. “Also, were you… seriously constantly monitoring dandelions when you were just a newborn?”

“I was monitoring a lot of things,” Slava shrugged, leaning on a door frame. “I monitor a lot of things all the time. Right now, one of my Infoscopes is constantly monitoring the crystalline matrix within your heart to understand precisely how a living dragonheart functions.”

“I… see,” I couldn’t keep down a blush at his comment.

When Slava spoke, there was absurd complexity and logic within his words, completely at odds with his teenage face and frame. I simply couldn’t help but picture the other, far more adult, taller version of him that I met within the dream-world a year ago.

“Science is all about meticulous observation and precise measurement, systematically analysing data to uncover truths about the nature of everything,” he added. “It is a painstaking process of forming hypotheses, designing controlled experiments, gathering quantitative evidence, and interpreting the implications of findings with an open yet critical mindset.”

There it was again! The long shadow of a vast, great something behind his eyes. The power and knowledge of a world without magic, the experience of an old mage held within the body of a teenager.

“Science requires patience, skepticism, and a willingness to be proven wrong as new discoveries challenge existing theories and reshape our understanding over time,” Slava ranted on. “Experiment by experiment, insight by insight, science chips away at the vast unknowns to reveal underlying patterns and processes that give rise to the diversity and complexity of our universe.”

“Quit chattering about the universe and go to bed… both of you!” Delta manifested behind us with a soft patter of feet across the wooden floorboards. She grabbed onto my hand to ferry me away from Slava. I refused to budge, leveraging my far denser bones against her pull.

Slava stepped away from the bathroom door with a yawn, intent on heading to bed.

“Wait,” I told him.

“Yes?” He asked.

“I… erm… could you do the dream-walking spell on me again, please?” I asked. “I’ve been dreaming about being a dragon for two weeks non-stop now.”

“You have?” Slava’s eyebrows went up.

“Yeah,” I nodded. “It’s… umm... getting worse. The dreams are becoming more defined, dangerously vibrant. There’s a certain weight to them, like a new reality that I cannot escape from. In them, I seek gold and artifacts… to hunt both men and beasts in equal measure, decimating and devouring all to magnify my ever-growing hoard. It is… very unpleasant.” I shuddered. “Whenever I wake up, I feel like I am missing something extremely vital.”

“Oh?” Slava squinted at me.

“I feel like… I need, no, have to... rush off into the forest to chase blood-elks to rip out their hearts and feast upon them!” I added with an irate tone.

The platinum-haired boy frowned.

“This morning I felt like burning down Skyisle to dig gold and artifacts from the ashes of the village with my claws,” I confessed with a sigh, showing him my ruby fingernails. “Claws which I do not have! The urge to burn down and to collect everything of value is getting worse.”

“Hrm,” Delta commented. “Guess we’re lucky that you can’t cast dragonfire yet!”

I sent her an annoyed glare.

“Very well,” Slava said, a shadow of concern for me creeping onto his features. “I’ll tether all three of us to my Neuro-Vista tonight.”

“Thank you,” I nodded. “I would really prefer it if I didn’t feel these vile urges.”

“Dreaming with us might not rid you of the desire to hoard,” Slava said.

“It won’t?” I frowned.

“The dragon's hoarding behavior is most likely an expression of an innate biological drive rooted in evolution. Over countless generations, an instinctual motivation to collect and protect treasures enhanced ancestral dragons' survival and reproductive success.” Slava switched back to lecture mode. “Perhaps it serves as a dominance display to attract mates. Or perhaps, in the case of Aradria, a female dragon having access to a larger hoard means better protection and resources to raise a stronger offspring.”

“What?” I sputtered.

“Stop asking questions, damn it!” Delta hissed at me, still trying to ineffectually pull me to bed. “He’ll never shut up at this rate!"

“Hoarding desire activates reward pathways in a dragon's nervous system, releasing dopamine and opioids that reinforce the pleasurable, comforting aspects of accumulating crystalline matrices present within gold coins, artifacts and heart-cores of wild beasts,” Slava ranted. “The full neurological underpinnings of hoarding are still unclear to me. The hoarding impulse is likely deeply tied to survival and species propagation. It is now one of your key biological functions, an instinctual desire, which must…”

“Are you saying that I’m freaking permanently addicted to hoarding gold?!” I interrupted him with a loud snarl.

Gold. I wanted... needed gold. Thinking about gold made my desire for it much worse!

“Yes,” Slava rubbed the back of his head. “You’re addicted to hoarding gold on an instinctual level due to your current biology. It’s not something that can be simply magicked away."

“Equality damn it!” I growled, advancing towards him. “I didn’t ask for this!”

Kill him, break his neck with your claws, ignite all and turn him to ashes. Something deep, primal sang, echoed from the back of my skull as I grabbed onto the boy’s white linen shirt, lifting him from the floor.

“You!” I growled, shaking him.

He felt weightless in my arms as fire of rage danced in my veins like a rising firestorm. “Fix it, damn it! I’m not a freaking dragon! Fix me, right now, or…”

“No,” he rejected my order.

The frail, human spawn didn’t try to defend himself, didn’t even move his scrawny body as my left claw raised him and my right claw wrapped itself tightly around his neck to snap it like a twig.

His ancient, silver-blue eyes simply stared back at me, the expression as cold as the azure mountain glaciers.

“I will not,” he said simply.

The ever-burning furnace in my heart demanded retribution, vengeance, power. It blinded me, filled me with absolute rage at the impudence of this mortal critter, and ordered me to destroy this pathetic prey at once.