They walked the depths of the trench inside Ewan’s Ryvia, the deprivation of light even failing his eyes as he strained and squinted to confirm the surroundings. The distance they’d trekked and the direction they took put them under the island, but the tunneled chasm still led a path without an end in sight. And only her irrelevant words yet comforting voice echoed in here.

  “Tell me honestly,” she said, clutching his hand and sticking close. “How many girls did you have in school? Did you do it with all of them?”

  “None, not a single one. You know how I spent those years,” Ewan replied, shooing away a Step-0 eyeless fish with fangs that came to nibble on their bubble. “And I already had a fiancée, why would I look for any other girl.”

  “You seemed quite used to it when we first….” She sulked and stopped amidst her words.

  “We what?” Ewan chuckled playfully, relishing the fresh memory of the euphoric night with full moons, when he became a man and she a woman.

  “I told you to go easy, it hurt,” she said, poking and drilling his side.

  “It was hard to control myself,” Ewan said, suppressing his volume. “And didn’t I heat up your navel? I read that in a book, it helped right?”

  “You could’ve just used a healing spell,” she said, and Ewan fumbled for a step, halting for a second.

  “You could’ve told me that then,” he said.

  “I couldn’t think straight,” Nana said, looking away as her ears reddened.

  “And you expect me to stay level-headed in that situation,” he retorted.

  …

  …

  The trench sloped upwards as they squabbled and walked. The water of the ocean soon bade its farewell, and they stepped on a damp path, the gentle glow from a lantern greeting them from the corner up ahead. A monstrous shadow of an old man blemished the light’s flawless span and flickered on the wall, his trembling cane barely holding his hunched back.

  “Hello, sir, may I know what place this is?” Ewan asked and neared the corner when he confirmed a lack of threat from the old man, keeping Nana several steps behind him.

  The old man groaned, and the shadow turned his head. “I haven’t had any guests in a long while,” he said, and his raspy voice echoed in the tunnel. “What brings you two kids here?”

  “A trench collapsed nearby, and we followed it here,” Ewan said, turning the corner, but there was no old man there, just the lantern hung from a nail, the flame flickering with the draught, and the shadow stretched from beneath it. He froze for a second then turned to the shadow on the wall with a deep breath and bowed. “Sir, I’m Ewan Ayres and she’s Havanna Elsworth. We’re guests of Sir Abelard. May I know what place this is?” he asked again, keeping Nana away with a gesture.

  “You’re the Potioneer? I must apologize then, Lord Ayres, I was rude before,” the shadow of the old man said. “I had a name long ago, but everyone just calls me Shadowfarer now; I’m the watchguard of this place. This is a restricted area of our island; the hall up ahead records the Seroyotes’ history of origin and growth.”

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  “Forgive us for intruding, Sir Shadowfarer, it was not our intention” Ewan said.

  “You’re the savior of our species, you could never intrude,” Shadowfarer said. “Please feel free to tour the hall if you want. Of course, Lady Elsworth can go in too.”

  Even with the absurdity of the circumstances, the shadow of the old man posed a severe lack of threat to Ewan—his quiet instincts deemed it so. And thus…

  “I’ll take you up on your offer then,” Ewan said and accepted the invitation, holding Nana’s hand who bowed to the shadow and leading her to the hall. The first half of the trench could accommodate Stefan’s rite, they’d already confirmed that. The exploration now was for their leisure, for Nana after her trying rite and for Ewan after the taxing minutes he waited in that silence for her success.

  …..

  The lanterns inside lit up one after another with their steps, and the entrance corridor of the hall welcomed them with a well-looked-after mural of the olden ages. A much larger Clinmere than now sheltered a peaceful tribe back then, a tribe of humans who had no wings. They lived with nature, harvested what it gave them, survived and thrived on its gifts, and dreaded its rage.

  They worshiped the forest, revered the ocean, and venerated the earth. They cheered when bouts of rain soaked their dry soil and gave them fresh water, and they holed up in their caves, trembling in terror, when the whip of lightning cracked on their heads, the sky manifesting its wrath with a roar.

  The mural didn’t specify any timeline, but the lack of Ashevas in the tribe pointed to an approximate part of Airadia’s history. When this world had but one moon, when its horizon actually traced a curve, when the first of the Cerades walked the earth, and when they came together to create an immature defense force called Ceradate—it meant the sage’s cove.

  It was a time of vulnerability and exposure, when Airadia was the destination for invaders. Even though the Ceradate warred to protect its home, it could not shoulder the reach of a world. And from one of the gaps its ineptitude left behind, a small warship crashed on Clinmere. It seated only one Staron, and the paintings endeavored to draw him as a perfect being. When he climbed out, when the sun’s corona became his halo, when the natives kneeled before him, his impeccable wings unfurled.

  . And it has 40+ chapters ahead of the Royal Road release on it!

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