“Asher?” Lily asked, finally realizing something was up. Peering at him, the royal guard frowned. “Something wrong?”

  “He’s a wizard,” Asher said bluntly, earning two soft gasps from Samantha and Brian. Immediately, Brian leapt back from the man, all but snarling as he reached for the bow on his back, stopped only at the last second by his older sister, who looked like she was struggling to refrain from doing the exact same. If Asher didn’t like wizards, that was nothing compared to the two siblings who had been trapped within a wizard’s tower and starved for over a week before he’d arrived to help them escape. Brian had been forced to watch Samantha nearly die right in front of him, and the twelve-year-old looked like he wanted nothing more than to take out all those frustrations on the man before them here and now.

  “Woah, calm down,” Lily said, her eyes widening a hair as she took a protective step in front of Richard. “I don’t know why the three of you have such strong feelings tied to wizards, but this man is a national asset. His abilities are critical to the kingdom.”

  “He’s a national asset?” Asher asked, frowning as he looked the unconcerned man from top to bottom. Judgement was showing him that the man’s aura was little more than a lazy grey cloud, drifting about his form without much substance to it. While the man didn’t have any sort of past riddled with murder or treachery, he wasn’t exactly a beacon of light, either. If anything, Asher got the vibe he basically did whatever he wanted, which was often nothing at all.

  “Indeed. So maybe stop looking like you want to bite me, or whatever,” Richard said, sniffing at them as he turned his chin up slightly. “Do the four of you want a ride to the palace or not? I’m only supposed to be called to use my tritessence in emergencies, and last I checked, standing around outside the city gate glaring at one another didn’t exactly constitute an emergency.”

  “We want a ride,” Lily snapped, looking like she wasn’t exactly Richard’s biggest fan herself. “Look, can you four contain yourselves for just a few seconds? I can guarantee you Richard will get out of your hair the moment we’re back at the palace. I have no doubt we interrupted his mid-evening bath, or something just as stupid.”

  “For your information, I was deciding what vintage of wine I should attempt to recreate next,” Richard said, sniffing again. “One of the benefits of being able to access the realm of ages means I can age my own wine however long I’d like in mere moments.”

  “You can access the realm of ages?” Asher asked, the statement enough to snap him out of his own distrust toward wizards. Other than the lich that brought him here or the greater demon itself, he’d yet to meet anyone capable of accessing the other realms. “Seriously?”

  “That is but one of the many things I can do,” Richard said, preening a bit under his stare. “Not just anyone is awarded the status of national asset after all.”

  “He’s about to be, if you’d stop shining your own shards and teleport us to the damn palace,” Lily said, placing a hand on her mace threateningly.

  “Him?!” Richard gasped, recoiling as he returned Asher’s stare. “What could this child possibly have to offer the kingdom?” Before Asher could even answer, Richard muttered a few words under his breath, and Asher felt something lightly press against his chest. Whatever it was, the sensation seemed to slither throughout his body in an instant, before snapping back to his core and vanishing just as quickly as it had come.

  “…What?” Richard asked, his brow furrowing in confusion as he stared at him. The entire experience had taken but a split second, and based on his expression, the wizard didn’t seem to understand what had happened any more than he did. “What the hell kind of element is that?”

  Asher’s blood ran cold, but before he could even do or say anything, Richard snapped his fingers as if he’d just remembered something. “Oh! You’re the one Donvath told me about the other day! Yes, he told me about your curious situation. You and I will need to have a chat later and discuss everything you’ve been through since arriving in this world.”

  “He’s a realm wanderer?” Lily blinked, turning to stare at Asher in a new light.

  “Oh, right, that’s supposed to be a secret,” Richard muttered as he squinted at him, not seeming too concerned about spilling Asher’s many secrets right in front of him. “Eh, Lily’s a royal guard, she would have found out sooner or later. Alright, come on now, chop chop youngins!”

  Brian and Samantha didn’t look like they wanted to go anywhere near the wizard, and Asher couldn’t blame them. But all three of them were caught off guard when what felt like an invisible hand shoved them from behind, causing them all to stumble toward the waiting wizard. Before they could catch themselves, there was another flash of violet, and the world shifted as though Asher had used Recall involuntarily.

  Yet rather than show up at one of his many Eternal Marks, Richard had taken them somewhere else entirely. Asher looked around at the marble room they suddenly found themselves in, blinking at the sudden display of opulence. Brilliant, gleaming gemstone chandeliers dotted the ceiling, and a soft rug stylized to look like a complex star lay under their feet. The room was otherwise empty, but Asher didn’t have a single doubt as to where they’d ended up.

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  “Welcome to the royal palace,” Richard said, yawning as he walked off the rug and snapped his fingers, causing the light in the gemstones to dim down a bit. “Huh, my tritessence stores are higher than I would have expected after teleporting five people. Maybe because one was only a child…”

  “Richard!” Lily snapped, looking like she was ready to whip out her mace and brain the man with it. “You know you can’t use your magic on civilians without their consent unless it’s an emergency! Don’t think I won’t be reporting this to the High Prince!”

  “Bah, look at them, they clearly have wizard-based trauma or something, we would have been there for hours trying to convince them I’m not evil,” he said, waving a hand dismissively. “Damn hedge-wizards ruining things for the rest of us, the lot of them. Far faster to simply show them that not all magic is bad and let them get over their hang-ups on their own time.”

  Asher frowned as he held Samantha and Brian’s hands in his own, doing his best to console the two siblings. Despite how far she’d come, Samantha was still shaking slightly from fear at having been ‘kidnapped’ by a wizard again, and Brian was shaking from what was most likely rage, based on the fire in his eyes and how he kept trying to bring his hand up to his bow.

  Asher decided he didn’t like Richard very much.

  “You are not above the law, Richard,” Lily fumed, her grip tightening on her mace. “There will be consequences for this.”

  “Please. I’m a national asset,” Richard scoffed, turning and walking away without a backwards glance. “I am literally above the law, unless the High Prince wants to lose his only real wizard. Tell Donvath to send for me when he needs my help!”

  Lily actually growled, but even that didn’t stop Richard from walking out of the room. As soon as he was gone, she sighed, her frame drooping slightly as though this was a battle she was used to losing. “My apologies for Richard,” she said, turning and offering them a weak smile. “He is… a lot. I don’t like to call on him when I don’t have to, but he did save us a solid hour or two of travel, and I was instructed to bring you here directly.”

  “We’re fine,” Samantha said, squeezing Asher’s hand before letting go and taking a step toward the royal guard. “We’re here now, and that’s what matters. What now?”

  “Now, we get the three of you something to eat while we wait for the High Prince to call for you,” she said, turning and leading them out of the teleportation chamber. “Don’t forget, I was a member of that caravan as well. I’m aware we arrived before dinner.”

  The palace itself was just as grandiose and elegant as Asher would have expected from a royal palace. Sparkling gemstone light fixtures dotted the walls and ceilings. Beautiful paintings of battlefields and portraits of who Asher assumed were famous figures hung from the walls. Chiseled patterns in the marble making up most of the rooms turned the floors and corridors into grand pieces of art themselves, and Asher found his eyes bouncing from one thing to the next as Lily led them through the building.

  Once they got farther into the palace, the occasional person grew to a near constant trickle. There were people wandering about here and there, many of them in various acts of keeping the giant building in pristine shape as they washed the floors or checked on the glowing gemstones. Asher’s Identify received quite a workout as he pinpointed a handful of specialized classes, many of which he’d never seen before.

  [Enchanter] - 3/3 elements

  [Servant] - 2/3 elements

  [Stonemason] - 2/3 elements

  [Maid] - 2/3 elements

  Identify - Lvl 28

  “Every single person here has more than just their origin element,” he muttered after they’d been walking for a few minutes, having passed at least a hundred or so people hard at work keeping the place running.

  “Of course. The High Prince pays quite lucrative wages to anyone who works within the palace itself, even factoring in the higher cost of living in the capital,” Lily explained, nodding toward another royal guard they passed in the hall. Asher didn’t miss how that royal guard seemed to have fur growing out of the back of his arms and legs, and his eyes widened as he realized the man had to be within the Crossroads that Gran had told him about. Hitting the Stage of Power was almost impossible for anyone who wasn’t royalty, as it cost nearly twenty million shards in total to evolve all of one’s skills to the third tier, but the Crossroads were the term for people who were making their way there. Asher could only assume the man had some sort of beast element, which had begun bleeding into his physical form.

  “That guy needs to shave,” Brian whispered as they walked past, which caused Asher to start snickering despite the glare Samantha shot the two of them. He thought he even caught a slight smile on the royal guard’s face at the innocent comment, but the man didn’t say anything, and they continued on.

  “The dining hall is this way,” Lily said, heading toward a nearby stairwell. “Dinner should have only started a short while ago, so no need to worry about the best foods having been cleared out just yet. Though I will say-”

  “Damn it, Asher!” a tall, striking man said as he popped into existence immediately before them. The stranger stood just a few inches taller than him in height, and had jet black hair with a few silver streaks running through the front. He wore form-fitting clothes that looked almost shiny somehow, and he had a short sword strapped to his waist. While Asher was still reeling in surprise, having barely managed to contain himself from pulling a dagger from his bandolier, the stranger turned to glare at him with shimmering silver eyes of all things that matched his hair.

  “I mean really, you couldn’t even make it an hour within the royal palace without causing me a new headache?” the stranger drawled, running his hand through the silver streaks in his hair. “Do you even understand the concept of restraint? Well? That wasn’t a rhetorical question, for the record, I know your schooling has been a tad lackluster, and I want to make sure I don’t go throwing around large words you don’t understand.”

  Asher could only stare at the stranger in confusion who seemed to be talking to him like they knew each other, despite the fact he’d clearly never met the man before in his life. It wasn’t hard to figure out who he was, however, as Lily immediately lowered her head upon his arrival.

  “It is good to see you again, High Prince.”

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