As I woke up, I saw and heard Ren and Nate whispering to each other. I squinted my eyes at them. They haven’t noticed that I have already woken up. “What are you guys talking about?” I was curious why they have such an expression on their faces.By the looks of it, Nate was grabbing Ren’s arm like he was stopping him from doing something. I rubbed my eyes awake and noticed how the sky was still dark. Dawn was still breaking. My brows furrowed as I switched my attention back to them. “What are you guys doing-” Then a thought suddenly occurred to me. Why was I asleep? How long was I asleep?Then I remembered the pain that I experienced and started to hug my stomach and clutch my eye. “Guys, it’s Ace. I think…” I trailed off as I looked at them.

His name is…” Stella hesitated as she glanced at her friend Leo. When the little boy seemed nervous as he exchanged a look with my sister. Viex let out a sound that caught Stella’s attention. I saw Viex nodding at her in encouragement. Stella nodded back and looked at me. “His name is Kellar, and he’s the son of king Ferius.” My body tenses up at the name and I looked at the child. The boy, Leo or Kellar, seemed both ashamed and nervous under my scrutinizing gaze. “But he’s not bad! I swear.” Stella says and waved her hands to catch my attention. “He’s nothing like his brothers and father.” She insisted. My mouth opened and closed like a fish. I badly wanted to point out all the red flags about having the son of King Ferius here and the threat that it would bring. But I stopped myself because I didn’t want to see

“Ace? I think you might have hit your head on something while you were in Tereau, because there’s no way that it’s possible.” I said as I pictured out the size of the bark surrounding Tordis. “There’s no way that you can manage that on your own!”“That’s the reason why I have this thing in the first place.” He says while gesturing at the orb inside the bag. “It will provide me the magic that I lack to fully restore the tree.”I placed my hand on my hips and breathed deeply. “Where the hell did you get this crazy idea? And how sure are you that this is going to work? Don’t tell me reading all those fantasy novels in my realm fueled this idea. Ace, I’m the one who should be coming up with crazy ideas! Not you.” I pointed at him. “You should be the guy who gives o

News of the Elf King’s death spread like wildfire. Every kingdom heard the story and how king Ferius launched a full-on attack on Tordis. How it survived thanks to the king and young prince’s sacrifice that the Kingdom is still standing.Because of this, they started to remember how Gija was annihilated and most kingdoms began to panic. We went back to Thalia along with Stella and Kellar after attending the burial of the Elf King. Stella has been enjoying accompanying King Luke in the greenhouse and sharing her knowledge with him. King Luke was pretty thrilled at the idea and I have this suspicion that he was picturing himself as a father figure to her. I guess, he kind of got that opportunity of becoming a dad seeing as how he treated Stella like his own daughter.

“Hello?” Ace was asking me but I refused to turn around and look at him. I can’t I am not ready yet.“Aha..ha.” I choked on my spit as I laughed. “Thank you. And sorry about that.” I straightened myself up and fixed my shirt consciously. I sure hope that I did not smell since I was still wearing my training uniform. Viex, the traitorous fox, switched to Stella as soon as I fell back. The two of them were now sharing a look as they watched how awkward the situation is.“You seem familiar.” I heard him say. “Your...your presence that is.” I could hear him moving to my front in order to see my face. I began to panic and moved as well just to avoid making eye contact with him.