(Author's Note: I mentioned in one of the previous chapters that Rhun had a elf half-sister so I decided in this chapter to sort of elaborate on that...mainly because once I made her up, I needed to use her. So anyway, hope you like this chapter! 😉)
Theodosia was bored, restless even. From her window, she watched the sun sink lower in the sky as it gradually darkened, and she knew it was only a matter of time before the moon rose. And then her father would set with his group on the mission to take King Harrow's head.
But why was everyone set on letting her help? She was a princess, for heaven's sake, daughter of King Draven of the Moonshadow elves. Daughter of a Moonshadow assassin king and a Startouch Archmage. Theodosia was supposed to lead her people if something happened to her father, but how could she if none seemed believed in her? True, she may not be like her father, and she might not quite have the regal poise or magical abilities of her mother, but she was well on her way to become a mage like she, and could prove herself if they would just let her.
Moonshadow elves, though, weren't precisely the friendly type; there were the few odd ones but most were a cold, hardened bunch, changed by the humans' destruction of everything that mattered to them. Not many Moonshadow elves chose to be soldiers like Sunfire elves; most, however, chose the profession that was most suited to their talents: stealth, discretion, their strong sense of justice. An eye for an eye. A life for a life.
And maybe that was why there are those that thought her weak for being how she was. Theodosia was meant to be perfect, and many took it to heart. To be a perfect Moonshadow elf, you had to master the art of illusions. Show no fear. Emotion is weakness. She wishes so, so, badly to be perfect, but she couldn't cover herself up in layers and let the illusion set her features like her father had: calm, cold, threatening. The Moon is not warm, he told once, so why should he, a perfect Moonshadow elf, appear so?
She herself has not mastered that same art, not even remotely. She could produce them, weave spells for them, but use it for herself, no. She was an open book. Her expressions and body language gave away how she felt in an instant. She wasn't able to seal her heart in layers and create an illusion that she felt nothing. Emotions fueled her actions in a way her mother described as recklessness, they fueled every spell and incantation she weaved, which impacted her magic in ways that were both better and worse depending but were labeled the latter constantly for using emotions within her magic at all.
There was nothing wrong with it, she'd argue each time. By using her heart rather than just her head for spells, she found her magic intensified from its usual standards; without, they all felt flat and not quite as effective. She was chastised for letting them influence her decisions rather than duty or with the majority in mind rather than the minority. The same went for any time, really, when she did things the right way, even better sometimes, just not how everyone else would or had done it. But what was so wrong with doing things her way if it produced about the same and just as effective results, simply because it went slightly against tradition? Sometimes she wonders if the price for perfection was too high or if she can pay it at all.
Theodosia knows better than most about illusions as she studies the magic of them, and how they can interchange with reality. Her father's face and heart appeared cold when he looked at her, and she seemed unable to accomplish anything their way but let him down. Below the layers, though, he's wondering if the crown's burden is too large a burden his daughter to pay for if she can hardly master the illusion of perfection- but he covers the worrying up in illusions of disappointment before others, and she knows it. And she's not sure which hurts more, his feigned judgment or his true lack of faith in her.
Then again, she wasn't sure why she had to abide their exact ways. Her father might have been Moonshadow elf, but her mother was the more rarer sort. Startouch elves were a secluded sort, those that were left, and even fewer chose to live among others either with their own kind or other elves. But her mother, Desdemona, had, because she desired more than what was given to her; that same ambition led her to obtain the throne today as queen. After all, it was open to all since the goal was to produce a powerful heir.
Yet Theodosia wasn't like either of them in her ways, and that people had problems with. They all expected her to be exactly like them and got mad when she wasn't. It wasn't her fault! How was one expected to live up to their legacy? She wasn't a fighter, she wasn't an assassin, and she was nowhere near her mother's level as a mage, not when she was doing it their way rather than her own. The most she had succeeded in by their standards were her etiquette lessons (her mother could never say she wasn't a proper lady). So how was she supposed to even hope of being like them? Especially when to do so she might have to lose herself.
When tasked with great burdens, your personal wishes can't always come first. That doesn't mean you have to ignore them.
If she could just prove herself, maybe her personal wishes and her duty could come to a compromise... Theodosia tapped her bottom lip with the end of her pencil as she thought. Well, she might as well see the human kingdoms at some point. And they say the teenage years aren't complete without some teenage rebellion.
She could help. If only they'd let her. When she initially volunteered, her father immediately denied it, though he had no problem volunteering himself. Said she was more valuable here than there, that she could never take a life. Well, she could help more out there than be stuck useless here. What if something went wrong? In fact, she knew something would go wrong.
Startouch elves were so rare, their magic was little understood, only how it drew on the vast and timeless power of the cosmos, and how it involved divination and the ability to see into the great beyond. Theodosia was of two arcanums, but she recognized the pull of both, and knew a vision when one came to her. After her first when she was ten, she began to read and memorize every piece of knowledge she can find. It's not much, many scrolls come in languages she hadn't understood, and when she tried to read of one particular Startouch elf, the language kept changing, and so she ended up learning the languages too. Stories say that the visions will bring her knowledge of the future, let her see the allies, friends and lovers, those who will play an important role in her future. And so she had, getting many visions over the years. Some were simple visions of the coming dinner, and some were distant memories of the people and places, the books she would read and conversations she would hold.
This vision, however, was anything but pleasant. It was fast and sudden and felt like falling, but she never hits the ground. Her father is in front of her, bruised and on his knees in a cold, gray cell, his face wrapped in an illusion of fearlessness and loathing. But in his eyes, she can see past the illusion like she always has and sees he is afraid, and the vision scared her. She'd stumbled into a wall as she'd come to the present, breathing hard and fast.
So it wasn't just about proving herself capable, but helping someone who she knew would be in trouble. The minute she'd recovered, she'd been all but ready to leave.
Unfortunately, her mother had been one step ahead of her plans and knew what was going on within her daughter's head. After the first time her attempt to sneak out had been foiled, she had been locked in her room. Multiple other attempts later, (well, she wasn't going to let a locked door stop her. What type of person did they think she was, like, hello, mage-in-training, and it wasn't like she paid zero attention to lessons when they tried to train her before realizing her talent lied in magic. At the very least, she knew how to pick a lock. She ought to be insulted they thought she was that weak!) Theodosia was stuck locked in her room with over half her personal objects gone, her spell book gone, an enchantment placed on the door, and nearly everything she kept in her room for quick use of a spell was taken or locked away.
So if she was going to try again, she needed to think this one through. One more failed attempt might result in some real consequences if she were caught.
What way wouldn't they expect? That they wouldn't be prepared for...
Instantly, her eyes wandered to the open window where a gentle breeze had blown through. The only reason they hadn't locked that one was because her room was in a tower, a good distance from the ground that even looking down made her head spin. Heights terrified her, and she definitely wouldn't consider it if it wasn't her last resort.
Her bag was on her desk beside her, stuffed with some clothes, a notebook with incantations she'd written down to keep herself from forgetting along with a few she'd made up herself and experimented with, a small bag of ingredients for spells she'd stashed in a floorboard beneath her bed when she realized her mother would have her room checked before leaving her alone again, and magical items she'd stored magic within. One of them she had ready to use in front of her right now.
Theodosia couldn't master the art of illusion herself and use it to mask her heart, but she had just about mastered the magic of them after years of studying and practicing. She planned to study the other primals, but the moon, the moon was her father's primal and had come to her first by second nature, and the stars hadn't been too far behind. Within the stone on the cord before her she'd created in case ages ago was an illusion spell to conceal her features so no one would recognize her and she could practically walk straight to the border once she was out. Another was in her bag for when she passed the border into the human kingdoms. To keep her safe from humans' eyes even if she walked directly among them.
People may think her weak, but they could never think her an idiot. She'd heard of what humans had done to her kind, and what they did with that foul dark magic of theirs.
Still, the very reason she'd created the amulet was if she ever wanted to see the enemy for herself, to see their lands. To see if it truly was what the stories told, a land stripped of all life, nature and beauty, the ground charred and everything a wasteland where humans fought each other for survival.
Well, it seemed now she'd get to find out for herself. The world was rich, full of mystery and wonder. Even if it got her hurt in the end, she wanted to take it all in and learn it with her entire being. And even if it wasn't the result of a good thing, she still planned on doing so.
For most of her life, Theodosia had never gone far from the walls of her home with too much responsibility, too many lessons, too many expectations, and although she wished it had been due to better terms, she couldn't help the rush of exhilaration of finally getting to see it all. All those emotions, which, she wrote down in her letter, and hoped in her journey, she'd learn who her mystery pen pal was.
For a few months now, Theodosia had been sending someone letters by a raven. The first had been a complete accident, meant to be sent to someone else, but they'd become friends over what they found a hilarious incident. Initially, they had bonded over feeling the odd one out of the family and never being able to live up to expectations, of striving to achieve their father's approval. They had both needed someone to talk to about the things they could never say to anyone else (Besides her little contact with the outside world, being the only of her kind made her feel quite lonely), maybe because it was easier to talk of them to a faceless name. She wasn't sure when precisely it had happened—maybe after reading one of many, many jokes that made her laugh when she'd spent half an hour crying, or something he wrote (he apparently wanted to be a poet if not a soldier)—but her heart would race in her chest whenever another letter arrived. Only problem was...she had no idea who he was.
They'd revealed their names to each other, but otherwise, they had never seen each other's faces. Or maybe she had in a vision, she could never tell.
Was it possible to fall in love with someone you never met?
But at the same time, Theodosia felt he was no stranger, and sometimes as she read his handwriting, she'd imagine what he looked and sounded like.
There were times Theodosia worried they would never meet. What if they just stopped sending letters one day? What if she ended up forever pining after him? What if he didn't see her that way as she saw him?
Theodosia was a hopeless romantic; she had never feared rejection because she was more in love with the feeling even if she knew they may never return her affections. She loved being in love, whether returned or unrequited. Even if it had broken her heart, made her cry in the end, and inadvertent destroy her room in her storm of emotions. But star-crossed and unrequited? There was only so much her poor heart could take.
If her father didn't come back and she couldn't save him, she would have to marry and take the throne to rule. And her parents' marriage may have started out as a loveless one, but she couldn't bear that. Not when there was someone else she would much rather be with.
As she finished up her latest letter, probably her last until she came back, she placed a kiss on the parchment when she sealed it, leaving a faint pink lip print, placing an enchantment on the letter to give her mystery friend a small surprise once he opened it. And hopefully a pleasant one. She gave it to the raven on her windowsill to deliver, and once it was out of sight, she continued with her escape plan.
Some thought Theodosia was weak for being the way she was. But she'd show them the moon and stars were a strong force to be reckoned with, and so was she.
Rhun kept his hand along the walls as the path turned or lowered, keeping track of each hall he'd been last. Ezran was still nowhere to be found. Occasionally, Rhun would call out his name, receiving silence in return. Then he heard, "Rhun?" echo down from a set of stairs he'd gotten a bad aura from.
"Yeah, yeah, it's me," Rhun told him, cautiously heading down the steps, every hair on his neck standing up. But Ezran was his priority, he reminded himself, so he needed to keep him talking if he wanted to find him quicker. "You—you really had me worried. I told you you could only hide in your room, remember?"
"I know, but you really need to see this." Ezran's voice sounded small, amazed, and horrified all at once.
Once Rhun got off the last step, he found himself in a room where Ezran stood in the middle, holding a glowing Bait to provide better lighting in the dim setting. "Prince Ezran, I'm sorry about what Callum said, but—"
He froze suddenly as he took a moment to truly take note of his surroundings. There were skulls, various shriveled, dead creatures in jars and vials, and he swore he caught a horn or two from an unfortunate elf who'd met his end here. He was right not to trust Viren nor his children with his secret.
He'd always known dark magic was horrible, but seeing the horror of it made him swallow back the bile rising in his throat.
"Is this what they use for dark magic?" Ezran asked, his eyes widening as he clutched Bait a little tighter after catching what looked suspiciously like a shriveled glow toad floating in a jar filled with a liquid of some sort.
"Yeah...this is what humans do to magical creatures," Rhun mumbled, unsure if it were to himself or the boy.
Ezran took a deep breath to brace himself before continuing onward, trying to keep his eyes straight ahead. "Well, it doesn't look right."
"It isn't. Listen Ezran, we have to go."
"But there's something else in here," Ezran protested though Bait seemed to side with Rhun, whether because of the looming danger or the items in the lair also scared him. "It's not like everything else. It's alive, I think." He walked over to a pedestal where something stood, covered in a black cloth. He extended his ear toward it as if listening to something. "It's definitely alive. What do you think it is?"
"I don't know," Rhun sighed, "and if we don't know, we should probably leave it alone, Prince Ezran."
Once again ignoring him, Ezran set Bait on the floor and peeked under the cloth. His eyes were wide when he came back up. "You've got to see this!"
With a sigh, Rhun did as he was told, bending down and lifting up the cloth enough to peer beneath. And the sight that met him left him breathless. A large blue glowing egg, speckled with bright stars and colors, rested hidden. A gentle glow was in the center, throbbing with each heartbeat of the creature within. He had only seen it in the pictures of books, but he recognized it in an instant.
It was beautiful. It was mystifying. And if Rhun wasn't seeing it for himself, he wouldn't believe it was true.
Because here was the Dragon King's egg. Alive.