The heavy doors of bronze and obsidian of the Grand Council Chamber swung open with a solemn groan, echoing against the towering walls decorated with tapestries narrating the founding of Opes. Inside, the air was saturated with magical incense and the dust of centuries of decrees. Seated on floating stone benches, the twelve Sages of the Kingdom the "Elders," as Rhaegalur called them turned their gaze toward the intruder. They were figures wrapped in heavy silk robes, their faces lined with wrinkles that looked like hieroglyphics, their eyes clouded by the cataracts of ancient magic.
As soon as Rhaegalur stepped into the central circle of light, the hum of their whispers died instantly. There was no need for introductions. His aura, though suppressed, weighed in the room like the heat of an underground forge. One by one, with a synchronicity bordering on reverent terror, the Sages rose from their golden thrones.
With a rustle of fabric, the twelve most powerful men in Opes bowed low, almost touching the ground with their foreheads.
"High Lord of the Skies," began the Elder Sage, his voice trembling. "The echo of your wings has not shaken these walls for ages. What honor brings the Dragon God to our humble remnant of a kingdom?"
Rhaegalur responded with a measured nod, a gesture of warrior courtesy that did not diminish his majesty. "Rise, guardians of Opes. I am not here to claim tribute or to rekindle ancient pacts. I am here as Silas, a man who has found peace among your forests. However, I bring with me a 'private matter,' a burden that requires a finesse only the blood of your royal lineage possesses."
The Sages exchanged rapid glances. "Tell us, Lord. All that Opes possesses is at your feet."
"I need young Wren," Rhaegalur said, getting straight to the point. "Her talent with water runes and her magical purity are necessary to protect a guest traveling with me. I need her to apply her arts for a high-level concealment."
The Grand Sage did not hesitate for a second. "If the Dragon God asks for the Princess's help, it would be a crime and a dishonor to deny it. Wren is young, but her soul resonates with the source itself. She will help you with all the fervor of our lineage. Consider it a tribute for the protection your kind guaranteed to Exilia during the Days of the Void."
Rhaegalur was pleasantly surprised. He had expected hours of bureaucratic quibbling, requests for favors in return, or suspicion about the child's nature. Instead, his ancient title had cleared the path like a fire in a dry prairie. "I thank you. Your wisdom exceeds your ambition. It is a rare quality in these times."
As Rhaegalur left the hall, the sound of his heavy footsteps echoed in the corridor leading to the secret garden. When he turned the corner, he stopped to observe the scene before him.
Under the great silver oak, Hayjin and Wren were sitting opposite each other. Hayjin had his hand outstretched, and a small sphere of water danced above his palm, reflecting the light like a liquid diamond. Wren encouraged him with frantic gestures, her face lit by an almost motherly pride.
"Hey, you two!" Rhaegalur exclaimed, approaching with a lighter step. "What are you playing at? It seems my little guest is making lightning progress."
Wren jumped to her feet, wiping her hands on her blue skirt. "Hayjin's dad! I just taught him the basic Fluid Condensation spell! It was incredible, he got it on the first try! He used this thing called... centric pressure... or something like that, and the drop didn't explode!"
Rhaegalur laughed, resting a hand on Hayjin's shoulder. "I saw everything from the shadow of the portico, little princess. I must say I was pleasantly surprised. I didn't think Hayjin had such patience for theory."
Hayjin, trying to hide a shred of embarrassment, made the water drop vanish with a sharp gesture. "Don't bother us, Rhaegalur. We were working. Anyway... how did the meeting go with those Council people or whoever they are? Did they throw you out, or did they decide to do nothing out of an excess of omnipotence?"
"It went better than I hoped, hahaha," Rhaegalur replied, ignoring the playful provocation. "They will help us. Or rather, Wren will help us."
He turned to the girl and, with a solemnity that made Wren startle, placed a hand over his heart. "Princess Wren, allow me to formally introduce myself, since we were previously interrupted by gravity. I am Silas, an old friend of your house and the father of this young and grumpy boy, Hayjin."
Wren composed herself instantly. She performed a perfect curtsy, elegant despite the marble dust in her hair. "It is an honor to meet you, Mr. Silas. And an honor to meet the father of my best friend, Hayjin."
Rhaegalur nodded. "I would need your help, Princess Wren. It concerns Hayjin. He has a mark... a brand that draws the attention of very dangerous people. I need you to use your magic to make it invisible. Not just an optical trick, but a seal that shields its magical scent."
Wren looked at Hayjin, then back at Rhaegalur with a very wide smile. "No problem! I'll gladly help my new friend Hayjin. It would be part of royal duties, but I'm doing it because I like him, even though he's a bit acidic."
Hayjin arched an eyebrow, crossing his arms. "'New friend'? Are we really friends now? We've known each other for about thirty minutes, and half that time you spent laughing in my face because I didn't know how to summon water."
Wren stuck her tongue out at him, putting her hands on her hips. "Of course we are official friends! You saved me from a bad fall, I taught you your first magic, and we destroyed a statue together. These are the foundations of eternal friendship in Opes."
"I don't think you can decide for me, Princess," Hayjin retorted with a mockingly argumentative tone. "Friendship is a bilateral relationship based on years of trust, not a royal decree."
"Oh, but I can decide!" she shot back with a playful glint in her eyes. "I'm the Princess, remember? I've decided you are my new study partner, and therefore you are officially my friend. It's state law ask the Sages if you don't believe me!"
Hayjin shook his head, but couldn't hold back a small huff that sounded very much like a laugh. "You're impossible. You're like... some kind of... miniature tyrant."
Rhaegalur laughed heartily, watching the two bicker. It was a sight that warmed his heart; for a moment, Hayjin didn't look like a harbinger of doom or a man trapped in a child, but just a boy living in the present.
"Well, friends or not," Rhaegalur intervened, turning serious, "Wren, we must move on to the formal business. Can you use a permanent invisibility spell on his mark? It must vanish from everyone's sight, especially those who use occult perception."
Wren became thoughtful. She approached Hayjin and asked him to lower his hood. When she saw the Mark on his neck those black and violet runes that seemed to pulse like a diseased heart her expression changed. The lightheartedness vanished, replaced by deep concentration. She brushed the air near the sign, feeling the magical repulsion it emanated.
"It's... it's very powerful," Wren whispered, almost intimidated. "I've never seen runes like these. They seem written in a language that doesn't belong to this world. Silas... I don't know if I'm capable of applying a permanent invisibility spell on something so... alive. It might be too complicated, even for me. If I get the frequency wrong, the Mark might reject my magic and cause an explosion."
Hayjin felt a cold shiver. "Will it be okay? I don't want the back of my neck exploding because we tried to put a kind of magical band-aid on it."
Rhaegalur placed a reassuring hand on Hayjin's head. "Nothing will explode. Wren, it doesn't necessarily have to be permanent in the eternal sense of the term. It just needs the sign to remain invisible and shielded for a long period, enough to allow us to move without being intercepted every ten kilometers."
Wren clenched her fists, determination shining back in her blue eyes. She looked Hayjin straight in the eye. "You know what? You said I'm a tyrant, so now I'm going to be a tyrant toward destiny. I'll try. I won't settle for a temporary trick. I'll try to anchor the water veil to your very life energy. It will be an enormous effort, and maybe it will tire me out for an entire week, but I'll make it invisible forever or at least until you decide to show it."
Hayjin looked at her, struck by the seriousness of the twelve-year-old. "Are you sure? I don't want you to get hurt because of me."
"We're friends, aren't we?" she replied with a wink, even though her hand trembled slightly as she opened the grimoire. "And friends exchange big favors. You gave me your centripetal pressure or whatever it's called, and I give you your freedom. Seems like a fair trade to me."
The hanging garden of Opes, wrapped in the twilight silence that made the silver leaves shine like myriads of fallen stars, became the stage for a feverish search. Wren, with her heavy grimoire clutched to her chest, ran between the stone shelves of a small open-air library, a sort of private shrine of the royal family where parchment scrolls were protected by vacuum bubbles to keep them from rotting under the humidity of Exilia's sky.
"It must be here... among the concealment chants of the Blue Lineage," the girl murmured, sliding her fingers over the spines of the books.
Rhaegalur and Hayjin followed her, one with the patience of a mountain, the other with the restlessness of someone who feels time slipping like sand through their fingers. Hayjin watched Wren: he saw her leaf through pages written in characters that looked like frozen flames, heard her mutter complex calculations on the density of the required mana.
"Found it!" Wren suddenly exclaimed, lifting a tome bound in cloud-whale leather. The page showed a complex diagram: a circle intertwined with an infinite spiral. "The Silent Veil Spell of Naiad. It's not inherently difficult to pronounce, but the structure requires an immense mana effort. It's like trying to keep a boulder afloat using only your breath. You have to feed the seal constantly during creation, or the Mark will devour it before it can stabilize."
Rhaegalur nodded, his expression becoming solemn. "Hayjin's Mark has incredible energy. But I will be your pillar, Wren. I will use my essence to support your flow. You just focus on the spell so everything doesn't destabilize; I'll handle the brute force."
Rhaegalur took a step back, giving them the necessary space. "Prepare yourselves. This won't be like summoning a drop of water. It will be like trying to hide the sun behind a silk veil."
Hayjin looked at the two, feeling a lump in his throat. "So... tell me. Will I become invisible?"
"Not you, silly," Wren joked, trying to ease the tension. "Just that ugly blotch on your neck. Now, go to the center of the garden, right on the marble star. Sit down and empty your mind. If you think about Doeken, the seal might crack. Think... think of water. Think of the drop you created earlier."
Hayjin walked to the center of the garden. The marble beneath him was cold, but the air around him began to warm. Rhaegalur positioned himself behind him, placing his hands on the shoulders of Wren, who had moved to within a few inches of the boy.
The garden, once silent, began to vibrate. The water from the dry fountain began to float in the air, called by the Princess's power, while Hayjin prepared to undergo what would be the first real step of his new life in Alius.
Wren began to recite. The language she used resembled nothing Hayjin had ever heard in his world. It was a liquid sound, full of glottals that seemed to mimic the flow of a stream over stones.
"Aethelas, undine maris, velum texitur..."
Suddenly, a column of blue light erupted from the ground. Wren turned visibly pale, her arms beginning to shake under the weight of the energy she was calling forth. The Mark on Hayjin's neck reacted violently: it began to burn, emitting short flashes of violet light that tried to tear through the blue veil Wren was weaving.
"Hold on, little one!" Rhaegalur thundered. A warm golden light passed from his hands to Wren's. It was pure divine power, mitigated so as not to incinerate the girl, but sufficient to saturate the air with an ancient power.
Hayjin felt a very strange sensation. It was as if someone were spreading a film of frozen silk over his skin. He felt the Mark pulsing, angry, but the sensation was growing more distant, like a dull noise coming from another room. Slowly, the heat of the Mark vanished, replaced by a flat calm.
"It's... done..." Wren gasped, almost collapsing to the ground as the light faded.
Rhaegalur promptly supported her, while Hayjin brought his hand to his neck. To the touch, the skin felt smooth, normal. He ran toward one of the dry fountains and used a fragment of magical mirror set into the edge to look at himself.
There was nothing. The skin was immaculate. Not just to the sight: even that strange dark vibration that had accompanied him since he arrived in Alius seemed to have been swallowed by nothingness.
"It's gone," Hayjin murmured, incredulous. "It really became invisible."
"To magical pulses as well," Rhaegalur added, visibly relieved. "Not even a Cult seeker could find you now, unless they physically touch you with a detection spell."
"A spell... fine..." said Hayjin, increasingly confused by the world of Alius.
Wren, catching her breath, stood up and ran toward Hayjin. Her face was radiant, despite the dark circles from the effort. "We did it! Did you see? Your centric pressure and my veil! We're an unbeatable team!"
Overcome by enthusiasm and the pure joy of success, Wren wrapped her arms around Hayjin's neck in an extremely tight hug, almost suffocating him. Then, before he could react, she planted a quick kiss on his cheek.
Hayjin remained petrified. His grown-up brain short-circuited in the body of a ten-year-old boy. His cheeks flared with a violent red.
Wren pulled away abruptly, realizing what she had just done. Her face became the same shade as Hayjin's. She turned the other way, frantically fixing her hair. "Uhm... well... that was... a royal thank you! For helping me with the statue! Yes, exactly that!"
Hayjin cleared his throat, trying to regain his cynical composure, but failing miserably. "Thank you, Wren. Really. For the help with the mark... and for teaching me not to be entirely useless with water."
She turned back, this time with a softer expression. "Thank you, Hayjin. I spend almost all my days locked in that library or arguing with Sages who only think about politics. It was... it was nice to spend some time playing. Doing normal things. I felt less alone."
Rhaegalur watched the scene with a fatherly smile. "It is time to go, Hayjin. The road home is long, and Elara will already be preparing dinner."
Hayjin looked at Wren. He thought of his world, the gray mist, the loneliness of his small apartment. Then he looked at this girl who shone with life, the magical garden, and even the imposing figure of Rhaegalur. For the first time, the thought of returning to his world was not the only thing occupying his mind.
"I'll be back," Hayjin told Wren, with a firmness that surprised her. "I'll be back to play again. And to see if you managed to smash any other statues. I'm glad I met you, Princess."
Wren blushed again, but this time she smiled broadly. "I'll wait for you, Hayjin of Doeken. Don't you dare get yourself killed by anyone before coming back here!"
Before leaving the castle, Rhaegalur went to Wren and thanked her with a deep bow, speaking softly to her about things Hayjin couldn't hear, but the girl nodded solemnly. Then, the man headed once more toward the Hall of the Sages. He thanked the Elders of Opes with the dignity of a sovereign, assuring them that the bond between the forest and the city would not be broken.
"You are always welcome within these walls, High Silas," the Sages responded in chorus.
Hayjin, meanwhile, waited outside on the monumental balcony overlooking the main square. He looked up toward the highest spires and saw Wren leaning out of a window, frantically waving a blue handkerchief. Hayjin raised his hand and waved back with a big smile, feeling, perhaps for the first time in that foreign land, truly happy.
When Rhaegalur reached him, the two began the descent toward the city gates. The journey back to their house in the woods would be long, but the weight on the back of Hayjin's neck was gone, and his heart was a little lighter.
"Are we going home?" Hayjin asked as they crossed the walls of Opes.
"Yes," Rhaegalur replied, placing a hand on his shoulder. "Let's go home. I'm starving I can't wait to see what Elara has prepared."
On the highest balcony of the Ivory Tower, the evening wind blew cool, bringing with it the smell of forest resin and the distant tolling of the bells of Opes. Wren stood motionless, her hand still raised mid-air, until the massive silhouette of Rhaegalur and the small but determined one of Hayjin were nothing more than two dark dots vanishing beyond the city's great gates.
Only when they disappeared completely behind the first curve of the main road did the girl lower her arm. She felt the palm of her hand tingling from the residual energy of the spell, but there was another sensation she couldn't shake off.
She slowly brought her fingers to her cheek, exactly where, shortly before, she had felt the warmth of Hayjin's skin.
"What was I thinking?" she thought, and suddenly felt her ears go on fire.
She leaned her back against the cold marble parapet, slowly sliding down until she sat on the floor. Her heart beat at an irregular rhythm, a crazed drum that had nothing to do with magical effort. She closed her eyes and, inevitably, the image of Hayjin became clear again: his serious, almost ancient gaze that clashed so much with that child's face; the way he had corrected her on "centripetal pressure" with that unbearable know-it-all air, and yet so fascinating.
"Hayjin..." she whispered softly, and just saying that name made her blush so intensely that she had to hide her face between her knees, even though there was no one to watch her.
She thought back to the moment of the hug. To the way he had remained rigid, surprised, almost frightened by her impulsiveness. And then that kiss on the cheek... an impulse dictated by joy, sure, but which now, in the silence of the evening, seemed the boldest and most embarrassing gesture of her entire life as a princess.
A small smile, involuntary and dreamy, appeared on her lips. She remembered his promise: "I'll be back to play again." It wasn't a platitude, she was sure of it. There had been a sharp sincerity in his words, the same he put into explaining the physics of water.
Wren sighed, looking toward the dark mountains on the horizon. The loneliness of the royal library suddenly felt much heavier than before. But beneath that melancholy, there was a new spark. She stood up, brushed the dust from her blue skirt, and clutched her grimoire to her chest with renewed energy.
"I'd better study even harder spells," she murmured to herself as she headed back into the castle with a decidedly lighter step. "So the next time he returns, he'll be the one having to ask me how I managed not to destroy the whole garden."
As she walked along the deserted corridors, the young princess couldn't stop smiling, feeling that, somehow, that boy from nowhere had left a mark on her much deeper than the one she had just hidden on him.
Meanwhile, the lights of Opes began to shrink behind them, as the shadows of the forest of Exilia welcomed them back like old friends. The chapter of the city had closed, but the bond between the Dragon God and the boy from another world had just been forged in fire and crystal.