The entrance to the cave was hidden under bushes and a curtain of tangled vines.

"It looks scary, Clade, and so dark." Eiden shifted from one foot to another standing up in front of the cave entrance.

"Don't need to go deep, there's a large room near here." Clade parted bushes and looked at Eiden who was still looking at the cave mouth suspiciously.

"Come on. Want to stay somewhere outside and let them get you?"

"No, nope,"

Following Clade into a completely dark space, Eiden hastily conjured a small fire in his hand for Clade to light the candle he took out before entering the cave. The space they were standing up in was not large or spacious, but it had a smaller opening on a wall. They walked through the opening to another smaller cave which housed a lot of stalactites with water dripping from them, and the next larger cave looked like an entrance to a labyrinth.

“Come on, we go from this opening. Leads us further up." They entered into a smooth tunnel-like cave that went winding up, and Clade took another turn which led them to a large room with clearer air and a high ceiling.

Only near the innermost area of the cave had the water seeping along the walls, but closer to the large opening, the floor was fairly dry, and Eiden heard the sound of a waterfall coming through the opening. Eiden wasn't prepared for what he saw as he stepped out to a wide space that opened up outside through a narrow gorge high above the far end of the cave.

A small waterfall resembled a thin gray veil, cascaded down to a shallow pool the gorge. A rivulet formed from the pool, vanished into the darkness through a small cave opening, undoubtedly to join a vast subterranean river, the stories talk about. The soft glow of the small candlelight sparkling on the pool surface was a mystical sight to behold.

"It's nice, isn't it? Thought..." Clade’s words were cut off by Eiden suddenly throwing himself on Clade embracing him tight.

"It's perfect here, thank you, thank you Clade," Eiden didn't expect such a beautiful sight.

"What's now?" Clade looked pleased with himself.

"I think I should set all the protections in the dry area of the other room.”

Eiden started marking boundaries of the outer circle by placing rune stones accordingly and writing protective runes in between to attach the warding spells. Then, he marked an inner circle where he planned to do meditation. Creating the protective circle took some time but after finishing it Eiden felt lighter, as if a heavy burden lifted off his shoulders.

Clade went out and returned with wild yams and herbs. Inside the protective boundary, they were able to cook the food by fire. They had a hearty meal of roasted meat and yam and fresh fruits for dessert, with Clade telling him about his explorations of different caves and valuables he found. Exhausted from the day's march and casting multiple complex spells, he soon settled for a well-earned sleep.

Eiden woke up feeling more refreshed than he ever was in his long journey and couldn't wait to take a dip in the pool. The view was breathtaking as the sunlight streaming through the narrow rocky opening shone the pool in crystal blue, and the grayish mystical-looking cascade had transformed into a merry sparkling white curtain of water. Every step to the pool was heavenly. He closed his eyes and relished the cool embrace of water.

"Hey,"

Eiden was startled and saw Clade had come back.

"Where did you go?"

"Got some food. You sleep late."

"I guess I was really tired." Eiden put on new clothes.

They prepared a meal with the rabbit that Clade hunted and sat down to eat.

"So, what's the plan?" Clade asked.

"I'm going to unpack my books and other magical items. And prepare runic stones with protective wards that I can carry around. I need to plan a route to go North, avoiding villages and people.” Eiden jumped to a long speech, and after a while paused, thinking he was being whiney.

"Sorry for all the complaints," he added moodily.

"So what's going to happen with all the complaints then?" Clade chuckled.

"I hope Ierma can locate someone knowledgeable who doesn't want to kill me or hand me over to my uncle." Eiden sighed.

"Mm..Clade," Eiden looked at him.

"You said, there's crystals and things from the jungle. err..can you..help me to gather up some stuff?” Eiden stopped his stammering and looked at the floor. He can't just ask Clade these things, he's not Eiden's butler.

"Okay." Aa. Did Clade say okay?

"I'm not your royal servant, know that?" Clade snickered. Eiden got embarrassed red and mumbled sorry.

"But, will help to get you some supplies, because already people came here looking for you. Don't want Palace guards to come after us, cazards." Clade's reasoning was bitter. Eiden was uncomfortably guilty and must have shown that in his face.

"Hey, not your fault, Start your work. Need my help?" Clade asked and Eiden was happy to accept. They started with Eiden's books, papers, etc., and other magical items including his weapons. His weapons, devastatingly his most prized blade too, were lost during the run with his parents. Eiden was surprised to see Clade recognize a lot of crystals in his collection.

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"Why use so many crystals? Many creature people collect them to sell. Get a lot of money sometimes.” Clade asked, browsing through the various cut and uncut crystals.

"There are many uses. For us, the most important purpose is our crystal bracelets, we call them ‘cryslet’. Every child when they first start magical training, gets one of these, with five crystals depending on your main magical strengths."

"How to know what's strong magic before learning?" Clade questioned, stroking along Eiden's crystal bracelet.

"Oh, it's usually attributed to your parents. You see, there's always a high probability that a child inherits a parent's magical abilities. Plus we undergo an affinity test to select what crystals match most. For children, this one is worn by everyone. It's for calming chaotic magic. The untrained magic of children has a destructive power,” Eiden explained.

"Why don't you use something like that?" He was curious about the magical development of creature people.

"Mm.. don't know exactly. When our race was massacred by humans, many shamans in our clans died, I heard. Now, people don't use magic much," Clade said. Eiden felt very sad.

"Have the Sangona for us now. People live quietly. What's in your cryslet?” Eiden felt that Clade avoided the topic, but started to describe his cryslet.

The clear deep blue sapphire indicated the water elemental powers and the clear quartz was for healing. The orange mixed red sun ruby depicted the fire element and the greenish-red bloodstone was his selected crystal for battle magic. The black tourmaline crystal which held calming properties was temporary until he came of age. Eiden closed the collection adding it to the items he needed to take with him.

"Well, no offense Eiden. Aren't you sort of too young to marry and have an heir?" Clade remarked. Eiden felt that blush creeping along his cheeks.

"Err..that's a requirement you know. For the throne," he squirmed, shyly combing his fingers through the hair.

"I'm getting taller," he added self-consciously.

"Hey. Not talking about your size, but actually how old are you?" Clade smirked.

"We come of age at 21. I'm 18 now. Uncle said that dark magic must have affected my growth." Eiden looked up and down at Clade.

"How old are you? I never asked," Eiden exclaimed.

"I'm 19. An adult after 16 as in our reckoning." Clade straightened to his height of 6 feet and 5 inches, towering over Eiden who was only 5 feet and 9 inches tall.

"That doesn't make you a boss." Eiden put his hands on his hips and stood in a challenging pose.

"Get on with your work, Tiny." Clade tapped Eiden's forehead making him yell aww. Eiden sent a nasty look at Clade and stuffed the selected books in the satchel.

"Eiden," Clade let out an exasperated sigh.

"Never seen humans in the village near here wear clothes like this," he said, staring at Eiden's dark blue robe which had a beautifully embroidered shiny silver-colored serpent on the chest.

"Mark my tail, never seen anything like this at all." He looked at Eiden who was wearing another tailored suit made of high-quality spider silk. It had a fire lynx in a jumping pose, embroidered in red and golden threads on the chest. Eiden must have looked completely out of place in a dimly lit earthen cave.

"Ohh,”

Eiden had to omit the clothes with the coat of arms of his family, and left with only his casual clothes, which usually had animals or flowers embroidered on them. Eiden had nothing else to wear.

"Well. Let's think about clothes later,” Clade helped Eiden to put clothes away. Inside the cave, it was hard to tell morning from evening. Eiden was feeling tired and found it was late evening. They dined on meat and fruits and decided to call it a day.

Eiden woke up earlier than the previous day and started a deep magical meditation session to clear his mind. Clade came back from his early morning hunt and saw Eiden sitting cross-legged in a circle with his eyes closed and only his hands were smoothly tracing patterns in the air. Tendrils of water and fire, which must have come from the bowl and the candle placed at the sides of the circle, were dancing around him.

"Amazing how you control elements." Clade admired his skills, as they sat down to eat.

"Thank you, but I'm not that skilled compared with the highly trained. Having the ability to manipulate elements doesn't aid you if you can't use it correctly." Eiden's grandfather always said so, when he helped Eiden to train.

"Eiden, I'm curious. In the villages outside the jungle, I know a lot of humans. But, haven't seen many humans control elements like you," Clade said.

It seemed like Clade didn't know many Nesols.

"Mm.., you see, usually it's the Nesols, who can do elemental manipulation because you have to have much higher magical levels for that. Craigs don't have that ability." Eiden felt like he was bragging.

"I'm not bragging," he stated. Clade shrugged and continued.

"Heard of the higher and lesser magicals. In the village close to ours, no higher magicals. But people still do a lot of magic.”

"Yes of course. Even if you are born with a lower magical level, you can still practice magic. Especially, earth magic like crystal work, and farming, gardening like that, even moderate level healing," Eiden agreed.

"So, only some families and only higher magicals can do elemental magic?" Clade asked.

"Yes, I think so. Actually, I never bothered to think that. I mean I was surrounded by powerful people. I know a lot of Craig people, you know, workers in the Palace, never mixed with them." Eiden bit a fingernail and looked unsure of what to say.

"Clade," Eiden gripped Clade's hand.

"What if Ierma or her people don't approve of me, or they don't like me? I know that Evan or I guess even my uncle doesn't care much about Craigs. What if it's the same other way around? They will send me back to the Palace."

There was nothing to hide the fact that Eiden was scared, suddenly everything and everyone seemed to be against him. Was his uncle really plotting his death or he just misunderstood everything?

"Clade, why am I going to trust an old Craig woman more than my uncle? What if I'm wrong about my uncle?" Eiden stood up and started to pace back and forth.

"I mean he's my uncle and my guardian. He found me hurt and he was there when I woke up in the hospital. And then..." Eiden stopped and faced Clade, with trembling hands clenched together and holding to the chest.

"Look, Eiden. Just sit," Clade made Eiden sit.

“You felt the danger, right? Didn't even wait and ran away at night."

Eiden nodded.

"Look, we, creature people, trust our instincts. If you feel danger somewhere, then avoid that place. Want to go there and search, then don't go there blind. If I want to search a den, there can be snakes. They may bite. Venom can kill you. Then I take herbs with me, and a club, a weapon. Do you get that?" Clade explained in a measured tone. Pushing his panic aside, Eiden tried to process Clade's words.

"Err..like if I go back to the Palace, then I need to be prepared." Eiden thought it was good advice. So he had a good reason why he fled in the first place. His instincts.

"Was planning to meet some friends. You don't mind staying alone, right?" Clade stood up. What. Eiden's panic returned with tenfold strength. He jumped up.

"You are leaving?" he asked.

"Just going out to meet a friend. Don't worry. Be back tomorrow. You have enough food. Don't go outside. Okay?" Clade dressed and prepared to leave. Eiden was upset because he didn't want Clade to leave. But he couldn't ask him to stay all day cooped up here.

"You are coming back, right?" Eiden clung to his cloak.

Clade laughed and called him a scaredy cat.