The Crown Prince In Hiding

"This condition... it's remarkably well-preserved."

"Isn't it? I thought the same thing."

"It looks like there's some kind of creature remains trapped inside as well."

"Yes, that's exactly why I thought if I brought it to you, Senior, you might be able to identify it."

"And since we were already heading to Mathema anyway, the timing couldn't be better. You picked the right moment, Dan."

Senior Thomasin drew a pair of gloves from her bag, pulled them on, then raised a magnifying lens and brought it close to the amber.

"Amber really is something that rarely forms at all."

The formation of amber with a living creature preserved inside is not merely a matter of nature — it is, by any measure, a mathematical miracle.

Compared to the already slim odds of fossilization, the difference is an entirely different order of magnitude.

The chance of a living creature — particularly a vertebrate — being entombed in this honey-colored gem is less than one in a million. The resin that seeps from the tree must be present in sufficient volume and at precisely the right viscosity, in the very instant the unfortunate creature makes contact.

After that, it must be buried beneath layers of earth in an oxygen-free environment, compressed under immense pressure and temperature over millions of years, slowly transforming from liquid resin — copal — into the hard, enduring fossil we know as amber.

What makes it truly wondrous is its ability to preserve soft tissue — something no other type of fossil can achieve.

Within a piece of amber no larger than a fist, one might glimpse individual pores on a patch of skin, or even a droplet of blood suspended in place — never replaced by minerals, never turned to stone the way ordinary fossils are.

Discovering an ancient creature preserved in amber is like winning a lottery jackpot, stacked on top of another, and another. It is the passing of a secret from a hundred million years ago into our hands — in a state that looks as though the creature had only just died yesterday.

Looked at from another angle —

If one in a million is the chance of an organism being preserved in amber,

then how vast must the number of living creatures have been, millions of years ago, to have produced this much amber at all? How many ages came and went, how many generations rose and fell, for such abundance to exist?

What is 0.0001% of — how large a number — to yield this much?

"We have a fairly decent collection of amber samples at the lab in Mathema."

"Will I get to see them?"

"Of course you will. You're our sponsor, Dan."

The face Nora saw on Dan in that moment was the face of a child lit up with genuine excitement, eyes gleaming.

"That said, whatever is inside this particular piece is going to be quite difficult to identify."

Thomasin removed the magnifying lens, and the faint light spell she had conjured at her fingertip faded away.

"It will probably need to go to the professors. But if I had to guess... I'd say it's likely some kind of bird."

"A bird?"

"Most things found in amber tend to be small creatures, but this looks like it could be part of a bird. We'll need to run age verification to be sure."

"Senior Thomasin, there's something I..."

"Yes?"

"I have a question I'd like to ask you."

"What kind of question?"

"Are you single?"

Crack.

A fine fracture split along the rim of Thomasin's glasses.

"...Pardon?"

"It's just that I haven't seen you with anyone, and if you had family, I figured you'd have gone to visit them by now, so I was just ask—"

At that very moment, Nora clamped her hand over Dan's mouth.

(Mr. Fury... you can't do that.)

(Why? What did I do wrong?)

(You can't just ask someone that.)

Senior Thomasin seemed to shrink in on herself — deflated, dim, a picture of quiet melancholy.

"I spend every day in the office. Where would I even find the time to meet someone..."

"What about family?"

"...I've been on my own for a long time now."

She smiled — a dry, hollow smile.

"Why do you ask?"

"I was just curious, in case..."

"In case...?"

"In case you ever had the chance to explore territory no human has ever set foot in before — you wouldn't have anything holding you back, right?"

"Somewhere like Diablo?"

"Ah..."

"Transportation links between kingdoms are fairly well established these days."

Thomasin raised an eyebrow.

"Unless it's Diablo or one of those islands out in the middle of the sea, I can't think of any other scenario that would apply."

"I never said where it was."

"You've mentioned Diablo before, Dan."

"If Diablo were to open its borders someday — would you and your team be willing to go in and explore?"

"Diablo? ...Anyone else can go if they want, but not me..."

We'd all end up dead for certain. Who knows whether the people of Diablo would even see us as anything other than food.

"What makes you feel that way?"

Thomasin's face was full of question marks.

Which Nora understood completely. Anyone would be confused.

"What would it take...?"

"Just a hypothetical — we're talking casually, don't take it too seriously."

He said that, but Nora quietly swallowed.

Casually? What does casually even mean here? Does Thomasin have any idea who she's actually talking to?

"From out there, there's no way to contact anyone on this side... you'd have no idea what was happening to you, no help, and completely cut off from the mainland..."

"So the root of the problem is a lack of trust in them."

"...You can't read their intentions."

Thomasin let out a quiet breath.

"But what if someone were to vouch for you?"

"......"

Silence settled over them.

Until one of Thomasin's eyebrows slowly curved.

She glanced to the side.

That was Princess Nora.

And if Rafinya were here, she'd probably be clinging to the other side — and the one backing Dan was Casca, no less.

Or perhaps...

"Has something changed in Diablo?"

Thomasin might be an ordinary person, but she understood that if any shift at the geopolitical level were taking place, the people sitting in front of her — these elite — would certainly know something.

Nora quietly drifted to the edge of the conversation and stayed silent, listening only to what Dan would say.

"Do you remember the day they — Diablo — came to Artheris, Senior?"

"Yes..."

"Word from inside circles is that Diablo is preparing to open its borders."

"...Open its borders? A place like that?"

"Yes. Apparently they're considering restoring relations with us — though we'll have to watch and see what official announcements come out."

"Dan... are you planning to go there and explore?"

"It's fascinating, isn't it? It's been nearly a hundred years since the last time any human set foot in that place for any real purpose."

Even though Luminus had been inside before, the land had never been properly surveyed.

And back then, the science of paleontology didn't even exist yet.

Diablo had never been touched by man-made structures or any chemical presence.

What it looked like a hundred million years ago — it still looks the same today.

And if the hypothesis that the island of Diablo formed from the collision of oceanic plates holds true —

Then there is a very real possibility that evidence of "those who came before us" exists there, waiting.

Thomasin swallowed and looked away, falling into silence.

They would be crossing into the border of Mathema before long.

The rear of the train — outside the carriage.

Dan stood in the open air, letting the wind wash over him.

When he stepped back inside, the rush of wind and the sound of the engine were shut away behind him.

Nora was there.

"It doesn't seem like anyone would dare go, Mr. Fury."

"That's probably how it'll be... The first time is always the hardest. What she said wasn't wrong."

"When will Diablo open its borders?"

"After we return from here."

"Does that mean the people of Diablo will be free to come out into the world?"

"We'll allow others to enter, but we won't be going out yet. Our people need time to grow accustomed to humans first. And we'll need to establish that any crime committed against a human carries the same weight as any crime committed against one of us."

"I would have thought your people were already used to humans."

"I mean the younger generation."

More specifically — the population of Diablo born and raised in the decade following the peace treaty.

They had never seen another human either. Except for Casca.

Nora nodded, folding her hands together.

"Mr. Fury... I heard you ran into Shadow at Tampa Bay?"

"Just Shadow stragglers."

Dan turned,

"Compared to what we encountered in Snowhaven, those ones were far more dangerous."

He continued,

"On that ship, more than two hundred human corpses had been packed into the wooden panels throughout the vessel. The floor itself had bodies embedded in it as well."

"You sent Freya and one other to speak with the ruler of Tampa... just the two of them?"

"They went in my name."

Dan said,

"Diablo had a prior relationship with Tampa Bay — back when the old ruler was still alive. I've heard the new one is a feared bounty hunter of considerable skill. This seemed like a good opportunity to test whether Tampa would still stand as an ally."

"What did you exchange?"

"Sources. Supplies. Channels for hiring mercenary mages."

He answered,

"Invaluable during wartime. Our intelligence network has always maintained a solid relationship with them. The arcane engineering equipment that gave me this body was manufactured by contractors out of Tampa as well."

"I've heard that anything commissioned through Tampa requires no identification from the client — just money as a guarantee, and you get what you want. That's really how it works..."

"Every world needs a place like that, Princess. Snowhaven itself has ties to Tampa. I know it does."

"...That's a matter of state secrets, Mr. Fury. I won't be confirming anything."

"Oh, of course — when it's your own affairs, you ask away, don't you? You troublesome girl. Who told you? Rafinya? I thought there was still some tension between you two. Are you friends now?"

Being teased like that, Nora looked just slightly flustered.

"School break and nowhere to go... we run into each other every day, so naturally we talk a little. What's strange about that, Mr. Fury..."

"I didn't say it was strange."

"..."

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!