Magus Reborn

The prince who had rejected the peace talk was Alistair.

According to Elias, the middle prince had refused outright. His answer had been simple enough. He believed the meeting was a trap meant to kill him, and he claimed that he could not trust his own two brothers, much less a foreign king.

Honestly, Kai could understand the paranoia.

In Alistair’s position, he might have thought the same. The king and crown prince were dead, the remaining princes were circling one another like wolves, and so many others had already sunk their hands into Vanderfall. Trust was not something anyone in that royal family seemed to have left.

But understanding Alistair didn’t mean Kai intended to let him stay hidden.

The commoners had suffered enough. They had barely survived the plague, and now they were living under the shadow of another war, unsure whether they would soon be forced to wear armour and march because three princes could not decide who deserved a crown. Kai had no interest in letting Vanderfall fall into another conflict if he could stop it.

Unlike during the civil war or the fief war, he had options now.

He had the strength to grab the head of the chicken and let it decide whether it wanted to live or not.

So once he entered Vanderfall, Kai headed straight east, toward the city where Elias had said Prince Alistair was hiding. He flew for nearly an hour before the city came into view beneath him.

He did not remember visiting this place while purging the plague.

Elias had probably handled it himself. The signs of that were still visible around the city. The ground beyond the walls was broken apart, scarred with holes, churned mud, and uneven stretches of earth where spells had clearly torn through the land. The old Magus must have finished the fighting and moved on without bothering to restore the area properly.

Kai could not blame him.

Even after that during the purging by Amyra, Elias would have been keeping up the sandstorm to stop anyone from seeing what was truly happening. Cleaning the land afterward would have been the least of his concerns, especially when the priority had been purging dead mana before it spread further.

Kai circled above the edge of the city for a moment, studying the walls, the roads, and the movement of guards below.

Only after getting a clear look did he rise higher. He couldn’t let the guards see him.

There were still commoners inside the city, and the last thing he wanted was to cause widespread panic by appearing above them like an enemy attack. Alerting the soldiers would ruin what he had come here to do as well. He had not flown all the way to Vanderfall looking for a battle.

He was not always stealthy.

But he could be when the situation required it, and this situation certainly did.

There were men stationed around the walls wherever he looked. Archers, guards, and a few people who looked like low-circle Mages moved along the battlements, watching the roads and the sky with clear tension. Alistair had surrounded himself with protection, which was sensible enough, but Kai had not come for any of them.

His target was only the prince.

Kai’s gaze moved toward the largest building in the city.

It stood near the centre, tall and well-guarded, with enough banners and soldiers around it to make its purpose obvious. If Prince Alistair was hiding anywhere, it would be there.

Kai pushed his mana sense toward the building.

Rather than sending it forcefully, he let it move with the mana already in the air, so that no Mage inside should be able to feel even a hint of it. The sense slipped through the building slowly, passing over walls, corridors, rooms, and the people moving inside them.

Within a minute, he found three stronger signatures of Mages.

Kai marked them in his mind.

If he knew anything about nobles and princes, it was that they were rarely alone. A prince arguing with his siblings over a kingdom would certainly not sit in a room without protection nearby. With that in mind, Kai focused on the fourth floor, where two of those magical signatures remained close together in the same room.

That was most likely where Alistair was.

He formed another wind spell around himself.

Small globs of wind gathered over his body, bending the air just enough to make his outline harder to notice. It was not perfect invisibility, but it would be enough for anyone glancing up from below. For added safety, he kept close to the cover of a tall tree as he circled toward the room he had marked.

A closed window waited there.

He hovered outside it, his eyes narrowing as calculations began moving through his mind.

If he was right, he had no more than ten seconds. Less, if the Mages inside were half-decent.

If either of them used a spell loud enough to alert the guards, Kai would have far less time to get in, grab the prince, and leave before the whole building reacted. At least Prince Alistair himself was not a Mage. That made things slightly easier, though only slightly.

He ran through the plan twice in his mind. Once he was sure, he stopped waiting.

He shot toward the window, wind gathering around his palm as he moved. His fist struck the wooden frame, and the whole thing shattered inward in a burst of splinters and glass. Iron bars blocked the opening behind it, but Kai caught them with a quick twist of mana and bent them apart just enough to slip through.

He landed in the centre of the room.

A meeting had been taking place.

Seven people were inside, including Prince Alistair and the two Mages Kai had sensed. For a breath, they all froze. Their eyes locked onto Kai, shock spreading across their faces as they tried to understand who he was and how he had appeared in the room.

Their first thought was obvious—an assassin.

Kai didn’t give them time to act on it.

A spell structure formed in front of him within a single second, spreading into a sound barrier that sealed the room from the outside. It finished just as one of the men shouted and stumbled away from the table.

The others reacted at once.

Several moved for the door, while Prince Alistair rose from his chair and stepped back from the desk, his face pale with alarm. Kai had no intention of letting any of them leave.

He formed another barrier before the door, followed by one across the broken window behind him.

The first man slammed into the barrier and bounced back, crashing into the two people behind him. Papers scattered from the table, chairs scraped across the floor, and fear finally broke through the room.

Kai barely looked at them. The two Mages, to their credit, were already building spell structures.

A fire-aspected spell structure bloomed in front of one Mage, while a shadow-aspected one formed in front of the other.

Kai didn’t give either of them time to finish.

Instead of dodging away or preparing a spell of his own, he rushed straight toward them. One thing about Mages was almost universal, no matter the era.

They loved distance.

They wanted space to cast, time to shape their spell structures, and enemies kind enough to stand where their attacks could reach.

Someone charging directly at them tended to ruin that.

The Shadow Mage lost his composure first. His spell structure flickered, the lines warping as panic crossed his face. The Fire Mage did better. He forced his spell through and sent a stream of flames roaring toward Kai.

Kai dropped low and slid across the floor.

The flames passed over his head and continued behind him. A scream rang out from somewhere near the table, but he didn’t look back. By then, he had already reached the two Mages.

His fist struck the Shadow Mage first.

The man was thrown off his feet and sent sprawling into the wall hard enough to crack the wood behind him. The Fire Mage took advantage of that opening and swung at Kai, his fist striking his shoulder with all the force he could manage.

Kai barely felt it.

He caught the man’s arm, twisted it sharply, and kicked him away. The Mage hit the floor with a pained grunt, his spell structure collapsing before it could properly form again. Unless the man knew how to dual cast, that should keep him from causing trouble for at least a few seconds.

Kai gave him one last glance before turning away.

Across the room, one of the nobles was trying to climb through the broken window despite the barrier blocking it. He pressed against the invisible wall with growing panic, looking more like a trapped insect than a man of status.

Kai almost chuckled. Instead, he walked toward Prince Alistair.

The prince had backed himself against the wall, his face pale and his eyes wide with fear. He looked at Kai as if death itself had stepped into the room.

“I know my brother sent you to kill me,” Alistair said quickly. “But know that I can pay more—”

Kai raised a hand. “I’m not here to kill you.”

Alistair froze.

“I’m here to take you to a meeting,” he added.

The prince blinked, surprise cutting through his terror.

Before he could ask anything, Kai formed one of his wind hands. It appeared beside Alistair, caught him firmly around the waist, and lifted him off the ground.

The prince yelped.

The Shadow Mage from before tried to push himself up.

“Stay down. You can’t do anything here,” Kai said and gave him a stern glance.

The Mage froze.

Kai didn’t wait to see if he listened. He released the barrier around the broken window, tightened the wind hand around Prince Alistair, and flew out of the room.

By his estimate, the barriers and sound spell would take at least two minutes to dissipate. Only after that would the prince’s men be able to rush out, inform the guards, and start shouting about what had happened. Two minutes was more than enough time for Kai to get clear of the city.

He rose quickly, keeping above the rooftops. The city spread beneath them in a blur of stone walls, narrow streets, and startled birds taking flight from the sudden movement in the air.

By the time anyone below looked up properly, Kai was already beyond the main district and heading toward the meeting point.

Prince Alistair, unfortunately, didn’t stop talking.

“Release me!” he shouted, struggling uselessly against the wind hand. “I know you are taking me to an execution. I don’t know which one of my brothers hired you, but I am telling you, I can pay more! Whatever they promised, I can double it. Triple it! You have no idea what kind of mistake you are making.”

His rambling continued like that for far too long.

The man truly did not know when to stop. He moved from bribery to threats, from threats to accusations, and from accusations back to bribery again. Kai ignored most of it, focusing instead on the path ahead, but by the time they were halfway to the scheduled meeting point, his patience had thinned.

He stopped in the air and turned to look at the prince.

Alistair immediately went pale.

“I am not a hired killer,” Kai said. “Stop acting like a child and understand the situation you are in.”

Alistair licked his lips. “Then who the fuck are you?”

“I’m Arzan Kellius,” Kai said. “King of Lancephil.”

The prince’s expression changed at once. It went from recognition to fear to a little disbelief.

“If you have heard of me, which your expression tells me you have, then keep quiet and let me take you to the negotiations.”

Alistair stared at him for a moment before anger broke through his fear. “No king barges into another country and kidnaps a foreign prince like this.”

“Everything happens once in history,” Kai replied. “Consider this the first case.”

The prince looked almost too stunned to speak.

Kai turned forward again and continued flying. “I am tired of you and your brothers squabbling in my backyard.”

“It is not your backyard,” Alistair snapped. “It is a whole country ruled by my ancestors for—”

“For generations,” Kai finished. “Yes, I know. And right now, that country is one bad decision away from tearing itself apart while my people deal with the consequences. So forgive me if I am not impressed by your bloodline.”

Alistair’s mouth opened, but no words came out immediately.

Kai took the silence as a blessing and kept moving. Kai waved a hand at the ruined land passing beneath them.

“It does not look like much of a kingdom right now,” he said. “And if not for me, you would not have any of it left. You should be thankful I allowed you to return here at all instead of simply taking it over.”

Prince Alistair went silent after that.

When Kai glanced back, he saw that the man was finally thinking with a clearer mind. The fear had not disappeared, and neither had the anger, but something more useful had settled beneath both of them. Realisation, perhaps. Or at least enough awareness to understand that shouting would not change his situation.

That was not a bad sign. After that, they flew in silence.

Kai crossed large distances in under an hour, moving over broken roads, damaged villages, and stretches of land that still carried scars from the plague. Vanderfall looked tired from above. It looked weakened.

Eventually, Kai saw Elias in the distance.

The old Magus sat atop a mound of earth, raised high enough to give him a clear view of the sky. He had probably created it for that exact reason, keeping watch for Kai’s arrival while also making sure no one approached unnoticed.

The moment Elias saw them, he lifted a hand. The mound beneath him collapsed.

No, not collapsed.

It sank back into the ground, the earth folding into itself as if it had only borrowed that shape for a while. By the time Kai descended, the land had become almost flat again, leaving Elias standing calmly where the mound had been.

Only then did Kai get a proper look at the other two princes who had come because of his request.

On the left stood Prince Cassian, the prince Elias was officially supporting. He had arrived with what looked like a small army of Knights and Mages, their formation neat and disciplined around him. With Elias at his side, Cassian looked confident, almost formidable. He carried himself like a man who believed the throne was already within reach.

On the right stood Prince Marcell.

He had come with far fewer people. A dozen Knights, perhaps, and three Mages standing close enough to make it clear they were his personal protection. Compared to Cassian’s force, it should have made him look weaker.

It didn’t. Marcell looked just as confident as his brother.

Kai could guess why.

He had sided with the Maleficia, and that meant he believed he had a weight behind him that no ordinary army could match. Still, as Kai looked over the people gathered around him, he didn’t see anyone who openly looked like a member of the organisation.

At least, not on the surface.

Kai knew it was only a matter of time before they revealed themselves.

For now, they were hidden. Perhaps among Marcell’s men. Perhaps watching from somewhere else entirely. Either way, Kai doubted they would stay quiet forever, not when this meeting threatened whatever plan they had for Vanderfall.

As he lowered himself toward the ground, Prince Alistair scoffed from behind him.

“So you brought me here to be slaughtered by my brothers and their armies.”

Kai glanced back at him. “No. They will not touch you. That much, I promise.”

Alistair’s expression did not change.

“No one is going to fight here,” Kai continued. “And if anyone comes after you, I will kill them.”

Kai had no idea if those words reassured the prince or only made him more nervous. Alistair only grunted, his jaw tight as the wind hand finally lowered him to the ground. Once his feet touched the earth, Kai released him.

Both the waiting princes stared at them.

Prince Marcell was the first to step forward. His eyes moved from Kai to Alistair, and a sharp smile pulled at his mouth.

“You have guts to come here alone, Alistair.”

Alistair threw his hands up. “I was kidnapped here. I never wanted to be part of whatever trap this is.”

Marcell opened his mouth to answer, but Kai raised a hand.

“It is not a trap,” he said. “I called you all here for peace talks. You should all understand that a civil war will not be in anyone’s favour.”

Marcell’s gaze shifted toward him. “And who are you to decide that?”

“A neighbouring king,” Kai said. “And the strongest Mage in the world.”

Cassian scoffed from the other side, his eyes flicking toward Elias. “You say that while Magus Elias is standing right there?”

Elias gave a wry smile.

“It is true, Your Highness,” he said. “Arzan Kellius is a Sixth-Circle Mage, and he is well beyond my current strength.”

Silence fell across the field. Apparently, that was enough to shut them all up. Because it wasn’t just the princes who stared, their Knights, Mages, and attendants all looked as if they had just heard something ridiculous enough to belong in a tavern story.

But the words had come from Elias himself, and that made it impossible to dismiss.

Kai used that silence.

His gaze moved over the three princes of Vanderfall, one after another. Cassian, ambitious and calculating. Alistair, paranoid and angry. Marcell, confident for reasons that had nothing to do with the men around him.

“Now,” Kai said, “why don’t we begin?”

The wind shifted around him as he looked at them all.

“I, Arzan Killian, the strongest Mage in the world, will be your peacemaker.”

***

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