"So this is Mandavorth, huh? Dusty" Arinthal sighed as they rode through the wilderness towards the large city before them.
The city could be considered beautiful due to the number of pleasant buildings built with red brick. The city was well-arranged and, at its center, lay a huge palace spanning a massive estate, with high-rise towers that seemed to want to touch the sky. It looked like a utopia of red hue.
To their surprise, the gates of the city were in ruins, and very few soldiers could be seen guarding them. Even those soldiers were bruised or injured in one way or another.
"What happened here?" Aetheris asked one of the soldiers at the gate.
"Sarvski. We had a ferocious battle just hours ago. Their forces are stronger now. We won't last another attack," the soldier replied, half talking to himself.
Aetheris's face developed a slight frown, but she remained silent and rode past them into the city. Arinthal followed, and the two rode inward, but a reality hit them.
"Why does this place look so deserted?" he asked Aetheris.
"The inhabitants must have evacuated into the inner city. This vicinity is called the outer city. A man-made oxbow separates the inner city from the outer one," Aetheris replied, still riding her horse with increasing speed.
"Why are you in such a rush? Slow down," Arinthal frowned, losing himself to his princely ways with that arrogant command.
He got a glare from Aetheris, followed by her silence. They rode silently until they reached the oxbow Aetheris had mentioned. There were three stone bridges making a passage across the glistening water. They rode over it and entered the inner city. Aetheris rode on silently until Arinthal figured out where she was going: the palace.
The palace gates were majestic, with gold-plated gates, and the beryl statues gave it a refined look.
"Who are you, and what is your mission here?" the palace guards demanded as they reached the gates.
Aetheris drew a bronze badge from her pouch, and after close inspection, the guards gave her passage. As Arinthal was about to enter, he was stopped immediately.
"We need to see your face before you enter. It's our order," one of the guards said, pointing to Arinthal's hood.
Aetheris's eyes immediately flashed with panic, but she gathered herself and cleared her throat.
"This is official business with the King. Won't he be outraged when he finds out that his visitors were stopped at his own palace gate?" Arinthal said calmly before Aetheris could even speak.
The guard immediately froze in shock and quickly gave him passage.
"Didn't know you had it in you," Aetheris smirked.
"You don't know me," Arinthal responded, his face lacking enthusiasm.
"Now, where are we going?" he asked Aetheris.
She got off her horse and handed it to a stable boy in the courtyard to take it to a nearby stable. Arinthal did the same before he heard Aetheris mutter, "We're going to meet my master."
She walked into the innermost part of the palace, whispered something to a guard, who then led them to a hallway with a door at its end. They walked quietly, and when they approached the birch door, Aetheris knocked in a strange pattern. She waited for some time, and the door opened on its own. Both walked in to reveal a long conference table with nine people seated on either side of it. A tenth sat at the end on a throne with an arrogant look on his face, dressed in regal clothes. Aetheris closed the door behind her and bowed in greeting.
"May Ea bless my King."
The man, obviously the King Aetheris referred to, nodded and turned his gaze to Arinthal.
"And you? Don't you bow before your King?" he asked in a cold voice to the standing prince.
"You are not my king, and I don't bow to those below me," Arinthal responded with the same level of coldness and narrowed eyes.
The people around the table started murmuring immediately, shocked. The King gave a low smile and turned to Aetheris.
"My dear, do you watch as an idiot insults your king?"
Immediately, Aetheris drew her sword and thrust it towards Arinthal but stopped before it could cut him.
"My King, he might be our solution to terminating the Sarvski. That is why I did not kill him the instant such outrageous words came out of his mouth," Aetheris said quietly.
Arinthal could see her hand quivering as she tried her best not to follow the King's orders.
"Let her go," Arinthal said.
As he spoke, the temperature in the room plummeted. The air grew heavy, thick with the sudden, metallic tang of an impending lightning strike. Arinthal didn't mean to do it,he couldn't manifest a spell if he tried; but a suffocating, invisible weight began to ripple off him, rattling the chalices on the council table.
The King's laugh died in his throat. His hazel eyes widened slightly, tracking the erratic, violent pressure hummed through the air around the stranger. Realizing this traveler was a warehouse of unrefined power, Igresi raised a hand and casually waved his fingers, silently dissolving the active order just to see what the traveler would do next.
Aetheris finally dropped her sword down, gasping for breath as the oppressive magic lifted from her mind.
"You have to be grateful your head still decorates your useless body," the King said, masking his brief unease as he stood up. "Aetheris mentioned something about you being able to terminate the Sarvski. Is that right?"
"Yes. I will deal with the Sarvski, but only on one condition," Arinthal said boldly, entirely aware that even he wasn't sure he could do it.
"You dare bargain with me? It seems that you do not know who I am," Igresi said, turning to the others around the table. They forced a hearty laugh, trying to break the suffocating tension lingering in the room.
"I am King Igresi Lirael of Mandavorth. I bargain with no one, and I sure as well can handle a bunch of pesky Saruski. Leave my presence," King Igresi ordered.
However, Arinthal didn't move. Instead, he removed his hooded cloak, revealing his face and sharp, elven ears. A wave of sharp gasps immediately washed over the room.
"You're an elf. Now that explains your excessive arrogance. I didn't expect one to visit us so soon after your people were locked up in Aetheria for ages," King Igresi said, his eyes narrowing as he returned to his seat. "What brings an elf to my doorstep?"
"I want a map to Nadindel in exchange for eliminating the Saruski," Arinthal stated boldly.
"Are you an imbecile?" King Igresi sneered.
"I am confident that I am not one, but I can't say the same for you," Arinthal retorted.
"Kill him, Aetheris!" King Igresi ordered.
As Aetheris lunged forward, Arinthal didn't use magic;
He couldn't.
Instead, acting on pure, panicked physical instinct, he ducked beneath her guard and violently drove the heavy hilt of his sword into her vital points. She collapsed instantly, unconscious.
The moment she hit the floor, Arinthal's panic spiked, and his untamed magic reacted like a cornered animal.
A localized shockwave exploded outward from his body. It wasn't a deliberate attack; it was a raw, chaotic burst of kinetic distortion. The heavy birch door behind him splintered into its frame. The massive conference table groaned, cracking down the center as shadows in the room violently stretched and contorted toward the throne.
Arinthal stood in the center of the devastation, breathing heavily, completely oblivious to the fact that his own eyes were momentarily burning with a terrifying, hollow violet light. He just thought the room's structural integrity was failing.
The King and his councilors froze, pinned to their seats by the sheer, unpredictable terror of an entity that felt entirely monstrous. Igresi realized that if he called the guards, this madman might accidentally level the entire tower before anyone could stop him.
"Works every time," Arinthal muttered, brushing off his coat, entirely blind to the havoc his aura had just caused. He looked up at the trembling tyrant. "So, do we have a deal?"
King Igresi swallowed hard, staring at the shattered room, thoroughly convinced he was dealing with a high-level elven calamity playing dumb. "It might seem that I am forced to accept your offer," the King hissed. "By dusk tomorrow, every single one of those wretched Sarvski should be dead. Or else..." King Igresi let his threat hang, though it lacked any real venom now.
The elf turned, picked up Aetheris, and walked out of the room after giving a slight nod of understanding. The door bolted behind them and disappeared, replaced by a solid brick wall.
Aetheris's eyes fluttered open, and after Arinthal helped her steady herself, she asked, "What happened? How did it go?"
"I have a deal with him. No Sarvski for a map to Nadindel," Arinthal responded.
"That man is dangerous, Arinthal. We have to be careful," she sighed.
"How dangerous can a human be?"
"Didn't you realize the men in the room didn't speak after you made those remarks? That's because King Igresi had their tongues cut out after they quarreled at a meeting. That's how dangerous he is," she said with gritted teeth, as she remembered the painful memory.
"Well, it is what it is. Now tell me, who are the Sarvski?"
"Raiders from Thavor, a slummed city in the wilderness. King Igresi made their lives miserable with unpayable taxes and by enslaving their women. They opposed his rule, and now it seems that they are on the brink of killing him," Aetheris explained.
"Is that so? That's not so bad then," Arinthal said with an evil grin painted on his face.