"I missed you dearly, Ilyrien," Nytherael expressed.

He hugged Ilyrien deeply. The feeling of the reunion was overwhelming to him. It dulled down every other emotion in his heart.

He buried his face into Ilyrien’s frame, his body felt warm, and his heart calmed to the rhythm of the ice fox’s presence. The familiar melody sunk in. Almost as though the two of them had never been parted.

In that moment, all the worries of present time paled in comparison to the reunion with his first love. He lost track of anything outside the thoughts of the ice fox.

"I missed you, too."

The fairy appeared behind them, scratching her chin. "Just as I suspected," she said.

She touched Nytherael’s back, that one touch, the blue light from her fingers awakened Nytherael from what seemed like a dream endlessly dedicated to Ilyrien.

He opened his eyes. He pushed back from Ilyrien and snapped his thoughts awake. He blinked, stepping back from Ilyrien as though stung. He couldn’t understand why he had gotten sidetracked by the sight of Ilyrien.

In that one sweet moment, under the comfort of his embrace, he had even forgotten the truth of Aeltharion’s withering. It made no sense, no matter how hard he thought about it. He turned back to the fairy, "What is happening?"

"You have been charmed!"

The fairy stared at Ilyrien’s figure inside Nytherael’s mind. She pinpointed the source of the charm, so there was no reason to stay in the memory any longer.

As she exited Nytherael’s memories. Nytherael woke up. He found himself hugging Aeltharion’s legs and felt strange.

The strange feeling didn’t come from hugging his beloved’s legs but from the annoyance of the weird incident in his memories.

It was weird how he got lost when he touched Ilyrien. He had forgotten about his mates, his thoughts, his heart and his soul were all ensnared by the sight of the ice fox to the point that all else lost relevance just like the first time that he had lived through that moment. He got so far gone that he went ahead to invoke a divorce from his mates without a second thought.

He blinked. His mind replayed the scene over and over again like a broken record. However, now, it became foggy and impossible to see through as it had been during the hunt. "What did you mean when you said that I’ve been charmed?"

Nytherael’s eyebrows knitted together. He was a fox, a nine-tailed one at that, and it wasn’t easy to charm him. It was in his job to charm others. Plus, with his level of cultivation, he would have noticed if someone had hexed him.

Nytherael ran a hand over hair, massaging his scalp to wade off any headaches and confusions from the fog in his brain. The soothing feeling of the massage permitted his sanity to return.

"As an adjudicator, my experience told me that something wasn’t right when I tried to re-examine the past by looking at things from a different perspective."

He raised his body and plopped lazily next to Aeltharion. Though his outer appearance looked lazy, his mind was slowly catching up with the fairy’s conclusion.

If he indeed he had been hexed, then either the beast responsible was more powerful than him, or they had been clever enough to pull the rug from under his feet. None of those options eased his mind.

"Did you happen to find out how I was charmed?"

The fairy nodded. Instead of rushing to pull apart the conspiracy against him, she approached Aeltharion. She held his hand and transferred her strength to him. With a hidden moonlit technique, she enlarged his sea of consciousness and strengthened the string of fate binding him to Sseraphis

She closed her eyes, her true sight merged with his, and she started to search for Sseraphis herself. With her strength and experience combined with his, she moved through the fog with ease, passed the black energy masking the mate, and caught sight of an ancient oak tree.

The moment she laid eyes on the tree, both of their eyes snapped open. Aeltharion blinked, surprised by her strange presence but a little grateful for the assistance he felt from her.

"You are strong and well taught," she backed away. "Nadine Zhen would be proud to have a descendant like you," she added, her eyes softening with motherly kindness she hadn’t shown Nytherael.

Nytherael sat up. "Nadine Zhen, as in... the Nadine Zhen," he was surprised.

"You are?" Aeltharion asked.

"Zarathia Auryn," she answered.

Aeltharion, without doubting her identity, rose to his feet and gave her a regal salute. He bowed, lowering his head as low as he could manage in his weak state.

Zarathia, pleased by the respect, touched his shoulders and helped him straighten. "You have her grace and her simplicity," she bloomed, seeing the face of her former comrade on Aeltharion’s features. "Because you have reminded me of an old friend, I will grant you a gift," she added.

Nytherael got up, feeling jealous. He had welcomed the fairy and attended to her, not well as he hadn’t offered her anything, not a greeting or some snacks but he had given her face and she didn’t give him a gift.

"What about me? Since I am your descendant, don’t I get a gift?"

"How good," Zarathia rubbed Aeltharion’s temples. The exhaustion in the muscles of his face from the fading and pull of the horns soothed as she moved fingers along. "For her, I’ll find a way to save you and your..." her eyes turned to the side and met Nytherael’s.

Nytherael’s eyes lit up, and he waited to hear her sound as excited to say he’ll save him too. But she just breathed out and didn’t finish her sentence.

"Oh," Nytherael reacted, hurt.

"Until then," Zarathia reached into her space and pulled out a thousand year old crimson coloured essence peach fruit. One bite and the right technique could push any beast two to three levels ahead in cultivation. "Settle for this."

Aeltharion lowered his body in a bow again as though in the presence of a saint. He raises his hands out to receive the gift without breaking his bow and doesn’t look Zarathia directly in the eyes.

Zarathia smiled at his polite nature. It reminded her so much of Nadine Zhen, the dragoness that broke the beastworld back then, by achieving the impossible but still remaining as humble as one can be.

She placed the fruit in his hands. Her smile became even brighter as she watched him rise.

"Thank you, fairy Zarathia," Aeltharion uttered.

"You are welcome, young Zhen," she let out. When she heard herself, she broke into another smile. ’If you were still here now, you’d be old Zhen,’ she joked inwardly.

"I am your director descendant. How can you give him a gift and leave me with nothing," Nytherael stepped between them, demanding justice from his ancestor. "You are clearly playing favourites with a different race and clan. How can you be this unfair for a fairy?"

"I discovered that you’ve been charmed, and I am the only one who knows how they did it, when, and how to break this hex. Isn’t this a better gift than an essence fruit?" Zarathia asked. "But if you’d rather have a fruit..."

"No, no," Nytherael raced to hold her hand before it pulled out a fruit from her space. "The hex...that’s more important."