Their descent into darkness was, thankfully, not as foreboding as Valen thought it would be. Although Raenelir seemed to be nervous about being so far from the sky, their path was lit and the system they were following not only stayed wide enough to fit the wyvern comfortably, it even felt as though it was getting wider and higher the deeper they went.

Eventually, when Valen would look back, he was able to see past Raen in the direction they had come from. It was at that point he knew that this cave system could not possibly be natural. He sped up a bit, bringing his horse alongside Hedrick. So far, Valen’s impression of the older ranger was that he was someone who knew quite a bit, which to him meant that if anyone knew why these tunnels were so odd, it had to be him.

“Hedrick,” he began, keeping his voice quiet so as not to disturb the near silence of their passage. The others could still hear him clearly, since most of them turned to look at him when he spoke, but Bardus did not tell him to stop so he continued speaking when Hedrick gave him a nod.

“What exactly are these caves? Raenelir was barely able to follow us in back at the entrance and I was worried that the deeper we got the more difficult it would be for him to continue, but… the tunnels just seem to keep getting bigger and bigger. That can’t be natural, can it?” Valen asked. His words lit a spark in Hedrick’s eyes.

The ranger took a moment to consider before he answered and when he did, his question confused him.

“What do you know of magic, and the Fae, Valen?” the man asked. Valen was so thrown by the question that he took too long to answer and Samuel ended up speaking instead.

“That aside from whatever evil the High Lords are capable of, magic isn't real. And neither are the Fae, for that matter - I mean, Elves? Faeries? Dwarves? They’re children’s fancies, told to kids to help them fall asleep at night. The only other thing even close to magic is dragon’s breath, and dragon’s breath has only ever been good for scaring the people of Parovia into submission to the Emperor,” Samuel declared, his face twisted in frustration.

Although the way Samuel put it was harsh, Valen still found himself largely agreeing with the sentiment. Drakes and the Oaths wielded by the High Lords that led the Imperial Orders were the closest thing to magic anyone he knew had ever seen. Beyond that, the Fae could not be real, else why would they allow the Empire to rule over the land for so long? With the powers they were supposed to call upon, they surely could have at least been an equal match for the Empire’s dragon riders.

Which is why Hedrick’s next words took the breath from his lungs.

“Ah, but you’re wrong, you see. These very tunnels are the work of the Fae and their magic, working side by side with human magic back when we could still call upon it, thousands of years ago. They are shelter for the needful, and impassable to those whose hearts seek evil, appearing as only a small cave that ends a few yards in. We’ve been making use of them to avoid Imperial detection in their territory for a very long time, though not even we know how expansive they actually are. Regardless, the path that the Second Ranger is leading us on will eventually bring us out at the base of the Drake’s Tail mountains, where we will then continue on our own roads through the mountains into Manidar. This system is the only reason we felt comfortable enough to risk sending anyone into Trinity. We knew we would be able to flee the Empire’s reach at almost a moment’s notice.”

Valen, Hera, Samuel and Simon were all looking at the man like he was insane, but the other rangers seemed so unaffected by the story that Valen quickly realized that they truly believed it. After everything else he had seen them do, after learning just how capable the Iron Watch really was, he knew they were not fools. So why?

“If that’s true,” Hera said, and their eyes turned in her direction even as Raenelir started to make some sort of deep rumbling sound behind them that would have sounded almost like laughter if Valen did not know better, “then how do you know about these tunnels? How could anyone? The Fae might be real, but that would still mean that no one has seen any of them in a really long time. So why would you know about anything they would have built?”

A good question. Valen found himself looking at his sister approvingly before he even realized it and turned his attention back to Hedrick immediately.

“Well, that’s easy enough to answer. It’s because we have seen one of the Fae. As a matter of fact, we know her quite well. She’s the one who brought these ancient tunnels back to life. You’ve met her yourself, though you didn’t realize she was what she was,” Hedrick said. At that, the four of them nearly came to a stop, forced into movement again as Samorr came up behind Valen and pushed him lightly forward with a chuckle.

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Apparently, he found this entire exchange amusing.

But what in the world could Hedrick possibly mean when he said they had met one of the Fae? That didn't make any sense. He would have known if he had met one of the Fae… right? Then Hera gasped, coming to some sort of realization, and as she spoke Valen and the twins were both looking at her with wide eyes.

“It was Illaya, wasn’t it?!” she exclaimed. Immediately Valen knew she was right. He did not know why he believed it so quickly, but he did. Something about the strangeness of the First Ranger when they had met her outside of Lakevale... her odd, ageless beauty... made it obvious to him now that it had been said.

She was one of the Fae. And considering that she had not been flying around on glittering wings or that she was not short and built like a siege engine, there was only one thing that she could be. He found the words coming out of his mouth before he could stop himself.

“She’s an Elf, isn’t she?” Valen asked.

“Yes, she is,” Hedrick replied, and Valen's mind just went blank for a moment. He might have fallen over if he wasn't on a hose, but he was shaking. From the way the twins and Hera were reacting, he could tell they were having similar reality-shattering moments of their own.

Then Hedrick continued.

“Well, to be specific, Illaya is only half-Elf. She still ages, just much more slowly than the rest of us. She’s looked near enough to how she looks now since I was a child,” he clarified, though it was still a mindboggling addition. There was no question, then, that the First Ranger was not human. If all these people had known her or seen her for any lengthy period of time, it was easy to prove that Hedrick spoke the truth. Never mind that he had no reason to lie about it, anyways.

Valen was so wrapped up in their conversation with Hedrick that when Bardus spoke up he practically jumped out of his skin.

“Alright, that’s far enough for today. We’ll rest here for the night and continue once we’ve all managed to get some sleep. It will be hard to tell how much time is passing down here, but we should still be able to come up with a rough estimate. We’ll skip pitching tents since we’re underground, and we can’t risk a fire down here anyways when the smoke could hurt us while we’re sleeping, but get whatever other sleeping gear you want from your saddlebags.”

The party dissolved into individuals rustling through their saddlebags for blankets and little pillows. Despite his own state of mind, Valen did feel a bit bad as he pulled his blankets from his horse’s saddlebags. None of the horses seemed to appreciate being this far underground, though since they were well trained steeds that had obviously served the Iron Watch for years they did not grow skittish or antsy.

Still, he had not been paying much attention to his own horse beyond just staying saddled. The only animals that he was used to working with were wyverns, so the needs of a horse were new to him. He found himself rubbing the horse along her neck as he pulled his things out and to his surprise the steed whinnied in appreciation. He continued the affection for a few moments longer, until he heard a light growl from the rear of the group and turned to see Raenelir eying the horse like he was suddenly considering it for a meal.

Valen could not believe it, though he supposed that he should stop being surprised by the Highborn’s seemingly higher emotional intelligence. He had never met a wyvern before that seemed to understand social queues and emotional reactions in humans the way that Raen could. Regardless, he started to laugh as he set his things down.

Handing his reins over to Hedrick, who offered to take them with a light smile of his own as he recognized the jealousy in Raenelir’s attitude, Valen walked back to where the wyvern rested far enough behind to avoid frightening the horses.

As soon as Valen reached up towards him, Raen brought his head down so that his eyes were level with those of his flightbrother. Chuckling, he started scratching the wyvern along the bottom of his jaw which elicited a deep, happy rumble from inside the Highborn’s chest that resembled a very large, reptilian version of a cat’s purr.

Behind him, there was the sound of clattering steel and wood. Glancing back, Valen realized that Simon, Samuel and Hera were preparing for their nightly training. In all of the chaos that had led to them fleeing through these tunnels, and in the relative quiet of their descent that had been broken only in the past minutes, he had nearly forgotten about the training.

His mind went to what had transpired in Trinity earlier this very day, how useless he had felt during his escape. Like always, Valen had been forced to rely on everyone else to survive, up until those last few moments as he reached the guard’s door in the city’s wall and whatever it was that had taken over him had allowed him to get through the guards. Though that had been helpful, and he supposed that it had physically been him doing those things, it had felt like he was someone else in those moments, not Valen Galar.

So the point remained that, once again, he had been unable to protect himself without outside help.

Layne’s words the other night still burned and bit at him, even more now than they did before with such a fresh example of the truth in his mind. He was capable of learning to wield the sword, but something inside was holding him back. Valen had not wanted to believe that before, but the realization that he very likely would not be lucky enough to have someone else save him next time he was in danger – his luck was already dangerously spent! – forced a moment of clarity.

He had to grow. He had to do better, or he really would leave Hera alone in the world.

He would not fail his family again.

Dropping a hand to the sword sheathed at his waist, a sense of determination welling up inside of him, he walked straight towards Layne.