The cold, night wind blowing through the canopies and driving strands of tangled hair off his face was Jona's only indication he was still alive. Just the mere presence of the Heiress gripped his limbs to stillness, and if she willed him to stop breathing, he would. He didn't need to lower his sight to the trail dimension to know she radiated power like the godsdamned sun.

"I made all the effort to drop by," the Heiress checked her nails before leveling her gaze at Jona. "Make it count."

Jona jerked his chin at the Natura who scrambled and led the prisoners away. "They will be kept in custody until you and I can come to an agreement," he said, facing the Heiress again.

She scoffed. "Are you so pained you think you are in a position to bargain?" she replied in Ylanenla. Was she counting on Jona not understanding her?

"As the Grand Royal of the Dwanzeigian Court, yes," he answered, dashing the Heiress' hopes. Unfortunately, nature fairies were trained to be polyglots from the moment they could speak. "And be careful about what you are insinuating. One word of slander is enough to land you in Brittlewood."

The Heiress threw her head back and laughed. "Only fools will feel threatened by that, Your Grace," she said. Of course, she believed she was beyond getting imprisoned. She would just break out of it and bring more wreckage to Dwanzeig. "Why have you called me here? Hurry, because I do not have time."

"The treaty," Jona said, switching back to Keijula. What's the point of speaking in the language of the race none of them belonged to? "I've received reports pointing to your people not holding up their end."

Her face remained passive, if not more. She hummed. "Anything else?"

A scoff tore off Jona's lips. "You broke your agreement with Dwanzeig," he waved a hand in the air to dispense his frustration at the impossibility of this conversation. "That means the treaty is revoked. Dwanzeig will be rid of your people the first thing tomorrow. No one will be allowed past the borders and anyone who will attempt to cross would be detained or, depending on the gravity of the situation, killed on sight."

Jona narrowed his eyes at the Heiress who stood unmoving a few steps away. "I impose such regulations as my duty as the Grand Royal."

Instead of falling to her knees and begging for forgiveness, the Heiress chuckled. Chuckled, as if she couldn't believe she was even having this conversation and wasting her oh-so-precious time with it.

"People like you, who prefer hiding behind meaningless concepts such as titles and positions..." her eyes glinted with a darkness Jona only had been in pure stadian ores. "They never cease to amuse me."

Then, before Jona could process what she said, a blur of brown and white lashed out towards him. He scrambled backwards, cursing under his breath. His sword wouldn't inflict a dent on the Heiress, and neither would his flimsy magic. Vines streaked from nowhere and curled in front of him, meeting a burning ball of flame streaking in the air.

A large boom echoed across the clearing. The smell of burning leaves accompanied the sharp ache piercing Jona's gut. Right. Even the plants influenced by his magic, when they die, it hurt him too.

He rolled out of the way just as the Heiress' rapier pierced through the space and landed on where his head had just been. His fingers clawed the soil in an attempt to stagger to his feet. A boot whizzed in his periphery, landing on his gut. Air fled his system as his form went weightless. More pain erupted in his shoulders and neck when he slammed on the ground and skidded across the dusty plain.

A shadow fell over him, and a hand clamped around his throat. His world spun as the Heiress hauled him up as if he weighed no heavier than a bag of parvade feathers. Then, she squeezed.

Jona gasped, his airways tightening not just from the Heiress' hold but from the fear of dying gripping his veins. It couldn't end like this. His father. Nael—

"I can break the agreement because I can afford it," the Heiress cooed over the sounds of Jona's raspy wheezing. She didn't seem to mind the fingers scraping against hers, aiming to weaken her grip. "You just made a mistake of picking on someone who outsizes you enough."

Through the black spots starting to cloud his vision, he recalled something Nyxis Helgase said. They would not take care of the forest. They would just use you. That's what happened, was it? By pledging part of the espionage division and most of the Natura in Acosa's region, he had enabled the Heiress to do exactly that. He only did what was appropriate at the time, not thinking of how it would affect them in the future.

This was the very thing Nyxis had warned him about, and because Jona didn't listen, he's paying the price for it.

The Heiress tightened her grip, her nails digging into Jona's neck. Trails of warm liquid flowed down his skin. "Consider yourself lucky I can't kill you now," she hissed. "But you will pay for this disrespect."

Air flooded back into Jona's lungs in a quick torrent when the Heiress loosened her hold and threw him to the ground. Dark green strands shielded most of his face, but as his consciousness flicked in and out, he saw traces of the Heiress' boots recede in the distance until they're nothing but memories.

2412 Dalfa 4, Reshpe

A snarl ripped off Jona's lips as a more immediate pain stabbed through his flesh. "Sorry," Nael whispered, dabbing a concoction against Jona's wounds. "What in Wikone's name did she hit you with?"

Of course, leave it to Nael to start using the gods' names in vain when flustered. Jona wouldn't put it past him, though. Not when the soldier had to haul him off Ixy, bleeding and barely conscious, and carry him back to his room. Only when the fear of not making it alive after meeting the Heiress subsided and the comfort of the palace registered did Jona felt like talking.

"She didn't need to hit me that hard," Jona noted how his voice still hasn't lost the gritty edge in it. The Heiress had been lenient, leaving him capable of speaking. "I was too weak."

Nael answered by poking at the darkening bruise on his shoulder blades. Jona yelped and whirled to him. "What—"

"Just because she's a witch doesn't mean you're weak," Nael chided. His gaze landed on the cloth Jona pressed against the little crescents on his neck, courtesy of the Heiress' nails. "Let me get that."

Jona conceded and let Nael peer at his wounds. "I just...wish I could do more than throw a bundle of vines at her," he said. "That I could have done more to fight her than spouting nonsense. Better yet, I wish I hadn't agreed to the treaty at all."

Hands cupped his cheeks and tilted his head so that his gaze had nowhere to be but on Nael's face. "You did everything you could to save Dwanzeig. To save us," he said. "The Heiress could be damned. None of this is your fault."

"And you're not weak, Jona," Nael continued. "You're the strongest person I know to have kept on fighting even when nothing seemed to go well."

He squirmed out of Nael's grip, the soldier thankfully moving to patch up the blood staining his neck. After a few minutes, the tightness of the bandage against his throat felt like the Heiress was back to wring the life out of him. Nael examined his work, going back to the shallow scratches lining his arm. More bandages met his skin, and upon slathering his growing bruises with yet another salve, Nael asked him to put on some clothes.

Soon, he settled on the bed, the exhaustion of the night finally catching up to him. Nael leaned over and kissed his temple. "I'll inform the Grand Monarch about this," he said. "I'm sure he'll be fine with you skipping work for the rest of the day."

Jona could only nod, his mind drifting off to sleep. It was only when the vines had resealed his room from the outside world did Jona realize Nael probably meant he'd inform the Grand Monarch about Jona's condition from being connected to nature for too long and with the Heiress' growing abuse of it. His eyes snapped open, but it was too late.

Nael knew enough not to disobey the Grand Royal, right? He wouldn't say anything to anyone unless Jona approved it. Just trust Nael. The soldier wouldn't ever disappoint.

That was, until Jona's eyes wrenched open the second time to the explosions racking the palace and the unbearable, stinging pain ripping through his system. He groaned, pushing his heavy form up. The sheets fell away from him, and for once, it showed no one underneath. With slow but sure steps, he dragged himself towards the doorway, using his magic to make the leaves and branches clear the path.

What greeted him was a cacophony of screams and orders being thrown from across the room. Someone had tripped the felmisais lining the walls, adding more shrieks into the fray. Soldiers dressed in glinting armor ushered most of the servants according to what he knew as the main evacuation protocol. What's...

"Your Grace! There you are!" Nael sifted through the crowd, elbowing people and going against the current. "We must go. The rest of the assets are on their way to safety."

Assets, meaning the Grand Monarch, the nobles making up the court, as well as prized dignitaries who happened to be visiting from other territories. Jona stumbled away from the soldier, traipsing deeper into the palace.

Outside, the roar of the waterfall was overshadowed by the wails of the spells streaking towards the palace with the aim to reduce it to rubble. When he passed through the corridor marked with arches, the sky had brightened to angry streaks of orange, pink, and red.

Jona's throat closed up, and it wasn't from the bandage wrapped around it. He scrambled towards the southern exit where the rest of the gorge around the palace came into full view. The wild wind tore at his hair, his eyes, and any loose flaps of his clothes. The smell of odian, of burning leaves, and of melting stone replaced the comforting petrichor which had once wafted around the palace.

A mass of black moved from all points the bridges connected, shouting at the tops of their lungs a roar of defiance and obedience. Blood drained from Jona's face. There's no way Acosa would be able to hold off all these people. They would raze the palace to the ground, taking everything they deemed useful with them. His eyes widened. The Grand Monarch's archive! That's what they're after.

Containing all of the intelligence the espionage division had gathered over the years, as well as the information they managed to withhold from the Heiress in their brief time of working together—all of them were in the records room.

He craned his neck one last time to the sky still reeling from the influence of the moonslight. There, floating in a haze of gray and black flames was the Heiress. She burned with a kind of fire Jona could only attribute to the divine. She was far from it, though, especially when she raised her hands and pointed them towards Acosa. Thousands of magic rays bled from the clouds, spearing straight into a structure with not a drop of defense.

Rock snapped and crumbled, dousing Jona with debris and bits of fallen branches and ripped leaves. He threw his arm over his head as he scrambled back to the confines of the palace. It's only a matter of time before the roof caved in on them. He had to hurry. Towards the Grand Monarch's office.

He was about to throw himself into a new corridor when strong arms wrapped around his shoulders, whirling him away from a chunk of the wall which swept towards him as if hit by a boulder from the other side.

"Jona, where are you going?!" Nael's confused and urgent tone towered over the roar of chaos around them. "What are you doing?"

He couldn't bring himself to speak. Instead, he pushed himself off Nael's hold and continued sprinting. What merit did the Heiress stand to gain by bombing Acosa? She kept him alive not because she was kind. Eldan had told him the Heiress had been after the throne each territory sheltered, and she needed them active. Meaning, they had to be connected to an heir or the current dynasty.

And that's why she was after the information afforded to her by the espionage division—she didn't know where to find Dwanzeig's throne, or even what it was.

The doorway to the Grand Monarch's office flew by. Jona swung his arm in a wide arc, throwing his frayed magic into the vines separating it from the rest of the world. Rows upon rows of crates, shelves with brimming niches, and desks sporting sheaves of parchment greeted him. Another explosion ripped through the silence, shaking the foundations of the strip of land the palace was built on.

No time.

Nael's shadow fell behind him, followed by the question, "What are you planning, Jona?"

If only he had the time to do that. But as it was, Jona stood in front of the records detailing Dwanzeig's, if not all of Umazure's, history with nothing but half-functional wits and a shaky synnavaim. Then, before anyone could stop him, a slash of flames ignited in his hands, and he threw it inside the room.

Parchment caught the sparks and did its best to pass them along. Within seconds, the entire room was alight, the heat curling off from the flames fanning the hairs on the back of Jona's neck. A tight grip clamped over his throbbing shoulder—barely healed from his interaction with the Heiress—and Nael's voice bled into his ears. "Jona..."

"Let's go," Jona pushed past Nael and began the journey towards real evacuation. The look Jona must have given the soldier shut him up enough to give Jona a quick nod before running after him.

Then, a flash of silver struck from his right. It reminded Jona of the thorns he raised from the ground, only this time, they wouldn't be holding back.