2132 Close but Far (Part 4)

Raaz wasn't checking the dust since the self-cleaning spells of the house had kept it in excellent condition. He was trying to reignite the good memories of his home that made him love it.

While he had been tortured by Orpal first and then exiled in the Desert, Lutia had been all that he could think of. Raaz had convinced himself that his lost house was a magical place that would heal his trauma and protect him from the bad things that haunted him.

He only had to find a way to get there and everything would have been well.

Or so he had thought until he had finally achieved his dream.

The house was just a bunch of stones, mortar, and wood that had no effect on his scarred mind. Raaz felt his hope betrayed, wondering if Lutia had ever had any charm that wasn't just one of Lith's workings.

Finding the air in his ancestral house fresh and the pieces of furniture clean made even his own bedroom feel alien to him, like someone else had lived there in his absence.

Looking at his fields through the window and seeing them in perfect condition made him angry as well.

'I was expecting to find a mess. This whole time I have been worrying so much about how badly things would go without my supervision and instead everything it's fine. No matter how much I suffered, Mogar kept spinning without me and life went on.

'Even if I died on that table, no one would have noticed it.' Raaz's anger grew as he felt insignificant and stupid.

Faluel had told him that his farmhands had never abandoned their jobs, knowing that he would return, and that the Royals had made sure to pay them for their job. Brinja had even left guards around the farm to make sure that no one vandalized the fields.

As a woman, she considered Lith a friend and as the ruler of the Marquisate, she was aware that those crops would save thousands of lives during winter.

Yet all those attentions made Raaz feel robbed of his place on Mogar instead of grateful. He would have preferred to see his life's work destroyed than discover how irrelevant he was.

"I was thinking of inviting my in-laws for dinner, if that's not a problem for you, Kamila. The kids could use seeing their grandparents." Rena said while pointing at Aran and Leria.

The sun was still high enough to see the farm's surroundings clearly and the weather was warm. Yet instead of going out and playing with the magical beasts of the Trawn woods, the kids kept moving from one window to another like sentinels.

They still remembered the chaos and fear of the day when Orpal had exposed Lith's identity as Tiamat. They remembered how their friends and neighbors had turned against them and only Solus' timely intervention had saved them from being lynched.

"It's fine by me. Do you mind if I invite Zin as well?" Kamila replied.

"The more the merrier." Rena said with a sigh. "The kids sure can use some company."

"Where are Lith and Solus?" Kamila had shapeshifted her uniform into a long-sleeved shirt and baggy pants before wearing an apron.

"In the tower." Elina had already arranged the cookware on the stove and was now picking the ingredients for the first cooking lesson. "They got here early to check on the kings of the woods, greet Faluel, and help Tista."

"That's great." Kamila snorted, cutting the vegetables with angry movements. "This is nothing like I had pictured our first day home."

Not only had she seen a lighter mood at most funerals, but it also was the first time that Lith wasn't there to welcome her back.

"Once he gets here, I'm going to kick his ass."

***

At the same time, in Faluel's lair.

"Dammit, dammit, dammit!" Tista yelled as she tried and failed to conjure magic with body casting. "What the heck am I doing wrong?"

Her question was accompanied by a fire magic spell that went awry and exploded in her face, turning her hair into a sorry mess.

"What the fuck? I've been trying for hours and this is the closest thing to success I achieve?" A sudden frost wave covered the floor of the cave and the feet of its occupants, making everyone but Solus shiver with cold.

"Well, since you've already gotten so far on your own, there is no harm in giving you a few pointers." The Hydra said while cranking up the heating system that Lith had built for her.

"As you have learned from my lessons, a violet core can cast magic with simple body movements."

"I know that." Tista emitted her bright blue aura whose edges now emitted bursts of deep violet light. "Just like I now understand that body casting is just the ability to manipulate your own mana flow without the need to focus.

"If true magic is akin to doing with your mind what fake mages do with words and hand signs, reaching the violet core means making the magical runes become part of your muscle memory. Correct?"

"Correct." Faluel nodded, her shoulder-length multi-colored hair glistening like precious gems. "The problem is that the way to become one with magic is different for everyone.

"In my case, I needed to harmonize my mana flow with all of my heads. Otherwise a stray thought or an uncontrolled movement would have messed up with my spells."

"For me, instead, the problem was that I was so focused on the mana flow that I couldn't feel it. I needed to relax." Lith said.

"Well, I can feel my mana flow alright and I have only one head. What's my problem?" Bolts of lightning sparked from Tista's hands and sent her in a seizure.

"I think you've already gotten your answer." Solus kept at a safe distance, floating in mid-air with her human body.

'Maybe I'm the opposite of Lith.' Tista thought while straightening her hair. 'Maybe I need to let my emotions run wild. But if I do, spells keep exploding in my face. How the heck am I supposed to lose control with moderation?'

"Any news from the battlefront?" Lith asked after his sister fell into deep concentration for a few minutes.

"Same old, same old." Faluel sighed. "We win some and we lose some more. The Undead Courts have become a real pain in the ass, but the real problem is that no matter how many times we beat the main core of Thrud's forces, they always come back.

"When one of our allies dies, instead, it's permanent. If we let the war turn into a battle of attrition, we have no way to win. We must either find a way to stop the regeneration chamber of the Golden Griffon or strike so hard that Thrud can't recover.

"According to our intel, she had the Golden Griffon for months, but she wasn't a threat until she conquered many regions of the Kingdom. If her forces are scattered and the lost academy is on the move, we can't stop her.

"If we manage to nail them all in the same place, however, we can seal the Golden Griffon again and then have the time to find a way to destroy it for good."