If possible, Scarlett would have loved to stay at the Forgotten Tower and truly take her time exploring everything that the ancient Zuverians had once wrought there. She wanted to delve into the depths of its hidden chambers, venture into the interstitial spaces connecting it to the Wandering Realm and the Blazes, loot the secrets she knew were concealed in the abyss beneath it, and maybe even study and understand the phenomenon at its crown that drew in every storm from the surrounding regions.

Much like Beld Thylelion, the Forgotten Tower was a place where one could spend literal days wandering and still have explored only a fraction of what it had to offer. Which was why it was a shame that Scarlett didn’t have days to spare.

The date for the establishment of the Empyreal Barrier in the capital was approaching, and with it came Mistress’ gala. Unless Scarlett wanted to arrive completely unprepared and unequipped, she needed to get there before things started and familiarise herself with the situation while making her own arrangements.

It legitimately was a shame.

If Yamina had contacted them earlier, or if Scarlett had managed to return from the pseudo-Memory just one day sooner, she might at least have been able to explore the places here that intrigued her the most, like its connection to the Wandering Realm. But with almost two weeks having passed since her meeting with Mistress, there wasn’t much to be done about it now. Besides, Scarlett could always return here later, when the opportunity presented itself.

That was some comfort, at least.

The one thing Scarlett did manage to get done before they started preparing to leave the Tower was work with Yamina to ‘expand’ Olgolzkreh’s heart. Yamina had recommended that Scarlett prioritise that over all else if she had any intention of properly utilising the heart’s powers, and since they were talking about the core of an ancient dragon, there were few places better suited to working on it than the Forgotten Tower. This place was steeped in more magical energies and internal arrays for facilitating spellwork than even the most enchanted laboratories on the Rising Isle.

The process of expanding the heart itself hadn’t exactly been easy. Scarlett understood why Yamina had said it would, at a minimum, require the assistance of an arch wizard under normal circumstances. While Olgolzkreh’s heart looked calm enough most of the time, the force contained within it was far too immense for any person to handle, and that had only become more true after the Anomalous power that had tainted Olgolzkreh had been drawn into the heart as well.

Honestly, Scarlett wouldn’t have been surprised if even half a dozen arch wizards on the Rising Isle working together still wouldn’t have been enough to refine it. In the end, she didn’t know anyone besides herself who could control the Anomalous power, nor anyone as familiar as Yamina was with both Zuverian and modern magecraft while also understanding exactly how dangerous beings like Olgolzkreh and the Anomalous One could be. In that sense, the two of them had proven the perfect combination for the task. Especially with Slate helping, since the girl had been instrumental in Scarlett managing to draw all that Anomalous power into the heart in the first place.

Overall, it had been an interesting experience for Scarlett.

For all that she’d had plenty of practice working with arrays at the mansion back in Freybrook, her experience was largely limited to very specific, constrained arrays, and she lacked much of the flexibility a proper wizard could bring. Working with Yamina had helped broaden her horizons, and it had also opened her eyes to several things she had been overlooking, as well as new ways she could apply the legacy’s knowledge.

She wouldn’t have called it easy—she and Yamina had ended up spending more than twenty-four hours at it with only the occasional break and help from Rosa’s charms—but from all appearances, the result had been a success. The phantom dragon guarding the heart still didn’t seem too interested in waking from its slumber, but the remnant Will had opened its eyes at least a few times after the process, and in the very basic experiments they had conducted, the heart’s ability to act as a magical power source was unparalleled.

All that came next was actually employing it to see exactly what sort of effect it might have when combined with the Loci.

Not long after they’d finished their work on the heart, and Scarlett had gotten a few hours of rest, their party stood by the Forgotten Tower’s Kilnstone once more, ready to leave. Yamina wouldn’t be joining them, since she had matters to deal with back on the Rising Isle. Having been MIA for the past few months had probably earned her the ire of half the Isle’s council, and the woman said she would have to confront it at some point.

Scarlett had, however, extracted a promise from her that they would meet again in Elystead as soon as Yamina managed to escape. She fully intended to draw the wizard further into her plans surrounding Mistress’ gala.

They said their goodbyes to Yamina, and then Scarlett brought the rest of her party with her as she activated the Kilnstone. Their first stop was the Whitdown Mountains, where Fynn’s old tribe had once lived. From there, they made their way to Dimfrost, where his siblings were staying, and after a short reunion in which a couple of the younger Grehaldraels got perhaps a little too excited over their eldest brother’s relatively quick return, Fynn took his siblings aside to have a serious talk about whether they wanted to stay in Dimfrost or not.

Scarlett had spoken with him about precisely that before, but in the end, Fynn had wanted his siblings to have a choice, and they’d had several days to think about it while the others were clearing dungeons and staying in the Forgotten Tower. Part of them probably wanted to go with Fynn simply because he was their brother, but at the same time, they’d all practically spent their entire lives in Dimfrost. Leaving the little village might not have been as straightforward a decision as one might have thought.

Despite that, they ended up choosing to do exactly that. Apparently, Franka, their caretaker who had once been very close to their mother, had been the one pushing hardest for them to leave. She didn’t want them tying their whole lives to a place that only held a loose connection to their parents’ past and had little else to offer. With so many of the other villagers having left recently as well, she also didn’t like their chances of staying safe if Dimfrost were to come under attack by monsters.

Fynn and his siblings had tried to convince her to come with them, but she’d refused. Scarlett wasn’t sure whether that was because Dimfrost meant something different to her than it did to them, but she also hadn’t involved herself in the matter.

With everything in Dimfrost settled, Scarlett brought her now even larger party—complete with what felt like an entire squadron of wolf tribe children—back into the mountains to find the Kilnstone again.

While the trek to Dimfrost had gone smoothly enough, the way back did not.

The main reason was the two youngest of Fynn’s siblings. Seven-year-old Kelnorin and ten-year-old Inayra seemed physically incapable of treating the journey as anything other than an adventure, and before long, they’d dragged several others in Scarlett’s group into their games in the snow. Mostly, the culprits for indulging this behaviour were Kat—who Scarlett had always known had a soft spot for children—Allyssa, and Fynn himself.

That said, the sprite also got involved, having previously been endlessly fascinated by the mountain range’s winter landscape since they first arrived. Apparently, the sight of two unnaturally nimble white-haired children darting over snowdrifts and down slopes as if the whole mountain existed for their amusement was an added novelty that simply couldn’t be ignored, and the children found the sprite equally fascinating to play with and chase around.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Scarlett couldn’t deny that the delays annoyed her a little. Still, she tried to let it pass. The children were leaving their home behind, after all, and if there was ever a time they were entitled to a bit of freedom, it was probably now. It helped that they were mountain-born enough not to actually become a problem. It was easy to see that they knew how to move in the terrain and weren’t slowing the group down nearly as much as they could have.

The real disaster would have been if Slate and Nol’viz had decided to join in as well.

Scarlett didn’t have a great deal of faith in that outcome. If the two of them had suddenly decided that the concept of a snowball fight was some intriguing phenomenon that deserved active investigation, their group might seriously have ended up delayed by half a day while someone dug either Slate or Nol’viz out of a snowdrift at the bottom of a ravine.

Thankfully, the pair seemed far too absorbed in their newest shared interest to pay much attention to anything else. Ever since the work on Olgolzkreh’s heart, they’d become strangely invested in quietly observing it and keeping count of how many times the phantom dragon opened its eyes.

Eventually, the group reached the place where Fynn’s tribe had lived, and where the Kilnstone was. Before they headed to the artifact, Fynn brought his siblings to the site of their old home by themselves. They were gone for about half an hour. When they returned, Fynn’s face didn’t reveal much, but there were traces of tears on both Velryrth’s and Themyar’s faces, the older two of his four siblings.

Scarlett gave them a little time after that before guiding everyone to the Kilnstone and using it to travel back to Freybrook.

She felt just the faintest measure of pity for the officials overseeing the Kilnstone there when the artifact activated without warning and spat out nearly a dozen people all at once. It must have been a real shock, especially when half the party looked like children, and the rest included a hulking figure wrapped in heavy cloaks who looked as though he could crush a man’s skull in one hand without much effort.

Really, it was impressive that none of them screamed.

A pair of merchants in embellished clothes standing with a cart just beyond the Kilnstone handled the arrival less gracefully. One let out a startled yelp loud enough to spook his horses, which jerked hard against their harnesses and nearly sent the cart sideways, while the other stumbled and fell on his behind upon seeing Carnwedain.

The nearest official to Scarlett spent a few moments simply staring at her group with wide eyes, but then recognition seemed to dawn on his face as he straightened into something more professional and offered a slight bow.

“Baroness Hartford. Welcome to Freybrook.”

Scarlett gave him a small nod. “Thank you.”

Because of her arrangement with the officials managing the Kilnstone network, there shouldn’t be any immediate issue with her using it for personal travel like this. Even so, she appreciated that they’d taken the time to inform their people in Freybrook who she was, sparing her whatever smaller complications might have followed on occasions like this one. When the time came to repay their generosity in granting her broader access, she fully intended to be as cooperative as circumstances allowed her.

After dealing with a few minor formalities with the officials, Scarlett took the rest of the group to find enough carriages to bring everyone back to the mansion.

That turned out to be its own task.

Fynn’s siblings had never been to a proper imperial city before, and the moment they left the structure housing the Kilnstone, it was like any remaining restraint vanished. It started out manageable enough. They just craned their necks at the buildings surrounding the square, staring up at the taller ones as though they couldn’t quite believe people actually made things like that. The questions started flying soon enough — about how big the city was, why some of the buildings were that large, why some of them looked damaged, why there were so many people waiting around the Kilnstone, where they were going, and whether they’d get to explore any of it.

Scarlett left those answers to the others.

Instead, she glanced towards the lines of people on the square. Most of them were merchants, labourers, and relief workers waiting for access to the Kilnstone, and with few exceptions, they were all staring at Scarlett’s group with some mixture of puzzlement and mild amazement, murmuring to each other as they tried to work out who exactly had just arrived and seemingly caused a slight ruckus.

It didn’t take long before some of them started recognising her.

That seemed especially true among the relief workers, many of whom were tied either to the Followers of Ittar or to her own barony and were helping move supplies through the Kilnstone network to wherever in the Empire they were needed most. Scarlett started hearing her name mentioned, and some of the looks sent her way started shifting into something more respectful. In a few cases, maybe even thankful.

That made her pause for just a moment as her gaze moved across the crowd.

She did pass through Freybrook’s streets from time to time, and she’d seen how some of its people reacted to her before, but that was usually from behind a carriage window or in passing. It was rare for her to be standing out in the open like this with nothing really separating her from everyone else, and having so many people looking at her at once wasn’t something she was particularly used to. At least not in this context.

It caught her a little off guard.

Even more so when, as the whispers spread, there were more and more surprised looks from people who then turned to her with a new kind of regard.

Were they…actually saying good things about her?

Her attention drifted to the far side of the square, where a pair of carriages bearing a noble coat of arms stood waiting. She realised that she recognised the coat from the gatherings of local nobles she had attended at Count Knottley’s estate.

Through one of the carriage windows, she spotted Baron Fulton — a wide man who, from what little interaction she’d had with him, was actually a fairly amiable person. He was looking at her with some faint confusion, as if he couldn’t quite work out why she was standing around on foot in the middle of the square, but after a second, he still gave her a small nod of acknowledgement.

Scarlett hesitated, then returned it.

And, annoyingly enough, felt a tiny flicker of pride.

She had never really put much stock in things like status, appearances, or reputation after arriving in this world. If anything, she’d gone out of her way not to care, almost as a kind of quiet rebellion against the original Scarlett’s obsession with exactly those things. It had also been a long time since she’d had much room in her head for concerns like that when Beld Thylelion, the Cabal, the Undead Council, and every other looming disaster kept taking up space instead.

But…this actually felt a little nice, didn’t it?

To be acknowledged. To be looked at with actual respect that didn’t come from her threatening someone. 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

She wondered…what did these people even see when they looked at her? A respectable noblewoman? Someone worthy of her current standing?

Just as the faintest hint of a smile started to tug at her mouth, things changed for the worse.

The sprite—which Scarlett had kept tucked beneath her travel cloak—suddenly burst free from the folds and zipped around her head in a quick circle, leaving behind a soft scent of lavender and drawing startled noises from the people watching. It had been compliant enough so far whenever Scarlett actually needed it to be, but now it paused just long enough to hover in front of her face and flash her that vaguely humanoid smile of its before turning and shooting off into the square with a buzz of its wings, apparently determined to inspect all the new sights at once.

Scarlett’s almost-smile froze.

Beside her, a gust of wind stirred as Fynn moved after it.

And, as if they’d been waiting for exactly that opportunity, Kelnorin and Inayra made a break for it. The two kids darted towards the nearest row of buildings like tiny white-haired menaces, laughing as they slipped between lines of people, carts, and horses before anyone could properly react.

Scarlett didn’t fully register that they’d gone until they were already well past the closest stretch of the crowd.

By then, the mood in the square had shifted. The looks aimed at her group were now mostly filled with confusion, surprise, and maybe even a trace of amusement. Several people were openly pointing at Fynn’s attempt to chase down the tiny half-translucent blue nuisance while his two remaining siblings stood nearby, looking torn between worry for the younger pair and worry over what Scarlett’s response to any of this was going to be.

It didn’t help that Kat and Rosa both seemed one second away from laughing outright.

Scarlett’s expression went flat as she spotted Baron Fulton still watching through his carriage window, now with another noble leaning forward beside him to get a better look.

…So much for appearing respectable.

After taking a deep breath—cooling her temper and convincing herself that children were cute and not supposed to be turned into kindling—she raised a hand. The [Eternal Flameweaver’s Athame] appeared in her grasp, and she drew a burning line through the air in front of her before snapping her fingers.

Across the square, the sprite was immediately trapped inside a cage of water just before a compact gale slammed it sideways and sent it straight into Fynn’s waiting hands.

Scarlett stepped through the portal she’d opened and came to a stop in front of Kelnorin and Inayra, who had just had their wrists and ankles bound by strands of water and were now hanging awkwardly in place, staring up at her with wide, blinking yellow eyes.

She gave them a cold smile.

“Kelnorin, I believe you once referred to me as ‘the lying queen with cool hair’,” she said. “Do you know what queens do with naughty children who run off?”