Set floated down, a plush seat appearing beneath him, and another behind Dominic. The walls of the gallery around them faded away, morphing into columns of white marble, their vantage point overlooking a pond. Whether they had been moved to a new location or the gallery had been an illusion to begin with, he couldn’t tell. The entire castle was the king’s dominion. Either option was possible.

“I’m sorry to have to greet you like this,” he said, his small, hare form settling into the seat. “As you can imagine, I am a busy man. This proxy will have to serve as my will.”

Dominic sat down as well and nodded.

“That’s fine,” he replied. “As long as I can talk to you.”

“Tell me what you’ve come here for.”

“I want a way out of Hesia.”

He got straight to the point, regardless of whether or not the king disliked the subject.

“You wish to return to Vaine?” Set asked, unperturbed.

“Temporarily.”

“Do you have unfinished business? Or someone you miss?”

“Neither.”

“Why else would you want to go back?”

“You can think of it as morbid curiosity.”

The hare’s jewel-like eyes scrutinized him.

“Well, the reason matters little to me,” he said. “No matter what it is, I can’t provide you with a way to return.”

“Are you not capable of it, or do you not know how to?” Dominic asked.

“It’s a little bit of both.”

He gestured with a paw, a table appearing between them set with white chinaware, tea already poured.

“I have plenty of hypotheses on ways that might be possible to return,” he said, gingerly picking up his cup. “But they’re impossible to test.”

He glanced up at Dominic as he brought the tea to his mouth.

“I’d die in the fog before getting a chance, you see.”

A heavy silence spread between them as he paused to take a sip. Dominic knew he wasn’t blaming him, but he still felt a little guilty. He could walk through the fog unfazed for reasons completely unknown, while the king had suffered inside its bounds for a thousand years. It would never be a light topic.

“Even if I could make it through,” Set continued, “I’m not sure I could do anything to the barrier. Something of that magnitude might be beyond my power.”

“Even for you?” Dominic asked. The king was by far the strongest mage he had ever met, or ever even heard of.

“Indeed,” he replied. “Even if I could puncture a hole, it would close up quickly. For a barrier to last that long, it has to have a power source feeding it somewhere. And you can imagine that the creators would not have put it in Hesia.”

Dominic frowned. It was logical but cruel. The only way to take down the bars of their cage was to destroy whatever was keeping it sustained. But that very thing was guaranteed to be beyond their reach.

“There is a more reasonable way that might make it possible to return to Vaine,” Set said. “But that, too, is practically impossible.”

“Tell me.”

He took another sip of his tea. Dominic’s cup sat untouched on the table.

“A dragon could do it,” he said.

Dominic stared incredulously.

“What?”

Set raised an eyebrow.

“Don’t tell me the Vainish have forgotten about dragons already,” he remarked.

“No, I know what a dragon is,” Dominic replied. “But we were taught that they’d gone extinct long ago.”

“Well, I suppose that’s not completely incorrect,” Set said, letting out a small sigh. “They’ve disappeared. There’s functionally no difference to call it ‘extinction,’ but I cannot imagine that any of them have actually died.”

He gestured with a paw. An illusory dragon, its shape made of translucent mana, appeared beside them. It had a frill of horns around its neck, three sets of wings, and a surprisingly bird-like form. The figure circled around their seats, eyeing them one by one, then dissipated.

“They were elusive creatures to begin with,” Set said. “That was the only one I ever met. And after the barrier went up, we stopped hearing from them at all. I had thought it was one possibility that they had simply fled to Vaine, but—”

His eyes flicked towards Dominic.

“—it seems they’re not there either.”

“…Could the dragons have anything to do with the creation of the barrier?” Dominic asked tentatively. He knew next to nothing about the creatures, aside from the fact that they were the most powerful mages in the world.

Set shook his head immediately.

“Impossible,” he replied, sure of his answer. “All dragons are Marshals. They would never do such a thing.”

“Marshals?”

The king’s eyes widened.

“Have the Vainish forgotten about Mars too?”

Dominic searched his mind for the word, but came up with nothing.

“Can you repeat that again?”

“Mars.”

He let the mana inside the word wash over him. A feeling of deep nostalgia, but for memories that weren’t his. Olden times, times from before he was born, times from before people even existed. The scent of the ocean beside the scent of the desert beside the highest mountain peak. Oh.

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“Mars, the god of everything,” Dominic murmured.

“The god of all things,” Set corrected. “It seems the knowledge has not quite been lost yet.”

“Did the dragons worship him?” Dominic asked.

“Them. The god of all things would never have a set form. And yes, they did. It’s because of that that we can be sure that they had nothing to do with the barrier. They would never dare to blasphemously alter the perfect world their god created.”

He sipped his tea, taking a moment to calm himself down again.

“It’s also because of that that we might be able to make a way out if we locate a dragon,” Set said. “They will be furious that the Ashans ever dared such a thing. Not only that, they could have the power to change it.”

He put down his cup, the porcelain clinking lightly against the table.

“The problem lies in finding one.”

“They’ve disappeared,” Dominic said.

“Correct. And if a dragon disappears, it usually means they don’t want to be found.”

Dominic leaned back in his seat, turning the thought over in his head. So that’s why Set had called it practically impossible. Even if they knew that a dragon could do something about their predicament, there was absolutely no clue as to where to start looking for one.

“Even if we canvassed the entire continent,” Set said, “I don’t think we’d succeed. There is a higher probability of them being close to Marshal sites, but…”

“I can imagine you’ve already searched them,” Dominic guessed.

“Indeed. However, that might be changing now.”

He glanced up, and their eyes met.

“We have searched before,” he said, “but not with you.”

Dominic tensed as he felt the mana around them thicken.

“You’re a foreigner, someone who has never been here before. The fog has no effect on you either. I searched around, but I am just a regular person. You are not.”

“You’re the king.”

“And even the king will die if he walks into the fog.”

He smiled dryly.

“Dominic, you are something that even the king cannot be.”

Dominic pursed his lips and couldn’t answer.

“I’m going to start asking my questions now,” Set said. “How did you get here?”

He froze, the question unexpected.

“To the capital?” he asked.

“Don’t play dumb,” Set responded, his tone turning heavy. “I mean to Hesia. How did you, out of everyone who has ever sailed through the ocean, end up inside?”

The mana around the king suddenly flickered a bit, like the minute splashing of rain on pavement.

“I know you did not come here accidentally, by just randomly slipping through,” he said. “It cannot be a coincidence that the first foreigner to arrive in Hesia also happens to be immune to the fog that surrounds it.”

“How can you be sure I was the first?” Dominic asked. “It very well could be that others have also come through, but I was the only one who didn’t succumb.”

“You’re not wrong, but you’re evading my question. How did you get here?”

“I—”

Dominic paused, taking a moment to straighten out his thoughts.

“I don’t remember most of it,” he finally replied. “I must have stumbled inland and collapsed. A child from the slums dragged me inside and treated my wounds.”

“What of the ship?”

“It must have sunk.”

That answer did not seem to appease the king. When he glanced warily at Set, the demon was glaring at him, not even slightly convinced.

“You are being untruthful,” Set said. “I know you know more than you pretend to. Dominic, you are a powerful mage and I respect you. But you shouldn’t forget that I am the king.”

The mana surrounding them thickened and rumbled.

“Everything on this continent is under my jurisdiction,” he said, “and I have been monitoring the barrier more closely than anyone. In fact, I know the exact date, time, and second you arrived in our waters.”

His glowing eyes glared straight through him, burning deep gold.

“I felt it happen.”

Dominic’s hands clenched.

“For the first time in a thousand years, that magic flickered,” Set said. “Tell me what you did.”

“…I was part of the Ashan Southern Survey,” he recalled. “We set sail from Redany and were projected to travel through the southern ocean to map the currents along with the rest of the fleet.”

“You were hired as a healer?”

“No, a mercenary.”

“Hm, so you were hiding your strength,” Set remarked. “Keep going.”

Dominic paused for a moment, finding his bearings again.

“We were practically at the midway mark in the journey when we hit the barrier,” he continued. “A hole opened around us, and our ship sailed into it. But it closed almost immediately. It sliced the vessel in half before we could get through.”

“It went down?”

“Yes. We sank in an instant.”

“Then how did you not drown?”

“That…” Dominic shook his head. “I don’t remember.”

“Hmm…”

Set looked dubious.

“You’re not lying,” he said. “But that’s not what you’re hiding from me.”

The mana around him rose, surrounding Dominic, enveloping him like a haze.

“You say a hole just opened up?” he said. “I don’t think that’s what happened. I don’t believe that you came here by accident.”

Its presence was so dense it started to make his skin sting. Dominic was finished with obediently answering questions.

He let his own mana seep out. It was heavier than usual, tense and thick, swirling with unrest. It swept away the king’s mana in eddies, pushing it back by force. Set’s eyes calmly met his, and the hare nodded.

He withdrew his mana, bringing it back towards himself.

“Well, I guess that means you’ll never tell,” he said.

He closed his eyes, and in a split second, everything faded away. The pavilion they had been in flickered and became a simple office, a wooden desk separating them. And in the same instant, Dominic’s senses were assaulted on all sides with sounds and smells that hadn’t been there before. The empty halls of the castle were now filled with servants and administrators, rushing around with the kind of bustle that finally fit the royal capital. Birds sang over each other from the gardens, their collective voices rising into a tangled din. Everywhere was the scent of brick and trees and the saltwater crack in the earth that flowed outside the walls.

This was the real castle. All that he had seen up to now had simply been a creation made by the king.

“Are you surprised?” Set asked. “Very few people get to see the Dream House. You should be proud.”

Dominic looked down at his own hand. He thought about what it had felt like to be there—the empty halls, the imitation of himself, the shifting architecture.

He summoned tiny wisps of mana, the golden lights flickering between his fingers like sparks. They danced around in his palm for a moment, twisting and turning, before disappearing in a flash.

“…What are you doing?” the king asked, watching his movements.

Dominic put down his hand and looked up again.

“I was wondering if I could do that too.”

“You damn monster.”

Set laughed dryly to himself. He reached into his sleeve and pulled out a golden tag inscribed with a couple characters, a bright red tassel attached to it.

“I can’t tell you how to leave Hesia,” he said. “But I can give you what I know. This is the access card to the royal archives.”

Dominic stared at it for a moment.

“I can’t read your language.”

“I know. You’ll be fine.”

The king pushed the tag over the desk to him.

“All of the manuscripts in the archives are written in mana, not ink,” he said. “You will be able to read it like you’re understanding me now.”

Dominic took the tag, feeling the engraved letters under his thumb.

“And what will I find down there?” he asked.

The king laughed again, his deep, booming voice unnerving coming from that tiny hare.

“Probably all the knowledge that has ever existed?” he replied. “I have already gone through all of it in my search, but perhaps things will work out differently for you.”

He had an expression of mixed exasperation and amusement.

“See if you can make any of those dusty old books have use again.”