—
While on his way to the teleportation hub, Gustave noticed that the First Degree Lyrian Spellweaver who had been accompanying him was being rotated out, replaced by a First Degree Rivian Spellweaver.
Understanding that this was an arrangement made by his mother—allowing the mages time to improve themselves while still fulfilling their duty as distant family members protecting the main branch of House Raven—Gustave nodded, now understanding how they were able to improve their firepower while still serving essentially as soldiers and guards.
This was because, unlike most Northern sorcerers—who were typically drawn from wealthy families with Sources or admitted through the recommendation of other sorcerers—these distant relatives were largely beggars or ordinary people, descendants of House Raven whose ancestors had children out of wedlock in brothels or rural villages.
That was why the sense of superiority so common among Northern sorcerers had not yet taken root in them. In truth, they had simply struck a fortunate turn in life by virtue of being the bastard descendants of House Raven.
Not dwelling on how Alvin had created the detection spell to identify members of House Raven—since Gustave had already reverse-engineered the activation spell—he asked the servants accompanying him for a piece of parchment and a charcoal pencil.
Although he had already given Calanthe and his mother ideas for propaganda to secure the loyalty of these mage-soldiers, he now wanted something more refined, since he was fully awake and thinking clearly.
So, as he walked toward the teleportation hub, he began writing in an advanced version of Morse code that Aurora Tasso used for transmitting sensitive messages.
After finishing the message containing the information his mother needed to further cement their subjects' loyalty, and handing it to a servant for delivery, Gustave suddenly spotted Triss and three of Ortolan's worker-mules walking toward him.
Although he knew they were currently being circled by Alvin's Warden mages, Gustave had no desire to entertain a battle of wits that would only waste his time—especially now that Lyria and Rivia already had Enchantresses, much like Cintra, who could handle such matters for him.
So, before they could say anything, Gustave interjected and walked past them. "I know what you're going to say. And my answer is no. Aretuza and Ban Ard cannot possibly teach me. Calanthe's eyes alone are enough to devise the best curriculum for all the mages of Lyria and Rivia. Now, if you'll excuse me, you may speak with my Enchantress here at length. Good day."
Watching the other Vilgefortz-in-the-making stride past them, Triss Merigold could not help but remark in genuine puzzlement, "What is going on with the Twin Realms and the Cintrian sorcerers? It's like they move as if something is haunting them. Everyone here is too busy doing their own thing."
Biruta Icarti frowned in feigned confusion before adding, her voice carrying a subtle telepathic touch meant to inflame emotions. It was carefully aimed at Gustave's Enchantress, intended to make her more susceptible to spilling secrets.
"No, Triss. The real question is, why are there so many sorcerers and sorceresses here? Popping up like mushrooms, without so much as a peep from our detection. It's as if they suddenly appeared out of nowhere, en masse."
Looking around her, unconcerned with whether the conversation was overheard, Biruta Icarti continued, "You know how difficult it is for us to find Source-active individuals; it's rare to encounter even one. And yet here there are at least dozens, perhaps nearly a hundred. And that isn't even counting Cintra, which houses many more."
Shaking her head, Triss replied, "The Sources of these two countries are not up to standard. If Aretuza allowed all kinds of Source-active individuals, I'm sure we could easily find thousands upon thousands."
"Still, Triss, that doesn't answer why there are so many of them here."
Chuckling to herself, Ana, Gustave's Enchantress for the morning schedule, regarded the sorceresses with quiet contempt as she noticed the subtle emotional manipulations woven into their magic. At last, she realized they were not so different from ordinary folk like herself, despite believing otherwise back when she had still been just another commoner.
If not for the carefully cultivated air of mystery and superiority—which she now knew was nothing more than hollow pretense, after becoming one of them and truly understanding how magic worked—she might have fallen for their manipulative questions.
They were meant to coax out her very distant family origins under the guise of a subtlety they assumed common folk would never notice.
Remembering the advice of her husband, Wirsing, the Tracker of Maribor, who often urged her to wait patiently until others walked into their own traps, Ana decided to dig a little deeper into the wound Prince Gustave had already opened.
Even if the Savant Prince had already spilled enough to leave the Chapter suffocating under rumor and pressure, she saw no reason not to twist the knife just a little further.
"Good sir and lady wise ones… Please refrain from your voyeuristic habits toward our decent Twin Realms. We know that, because magic has been in your hands for all these centuries, it feels as though you've been cuckolded when someone outside your circle wields it just the same. So—"
Angered by being likened to a cheated spouse, Biruta Icarti was the first to interject, cutting in before her colleagues could restrain her emotions.
"For someone who can barely wield the Source, you've got a nerve speaking to me like that, you mongrel peasant. If not for the spell your Arch-Master created, you would still be a plebeian, working muddy fields filled with pus and excrement, scraping by on that filth as your daily meal."
Chuckling as she finally saw Biruta Icarti fall for her prideful sense of superiority, Ana silently thanked her husband for the many pieces of wisdom he had given her. She exaggerated her gestures, spreading her hands as if presenting a pamphlet to the other worker-mules of Ortolan whom the Savant Prince had earlier intercepted.
"Ahh, 'plebeian, working muddy fields filled with pus and excrement, scraping by on that filth as your daily meal'—a very fitting description, indeed, of the decent folk of Lyria and Rivia. Truly, Her Majesty is right: the only one who can be accepted by the people is Lady Merigold."
Seeing the ugly expression twist across Biruta Icarti's face, Ana twisted the knife even deeper.
"Truly, it is my deepest regret that, once again, it seems the only sorceress accepted by the democratic vote of the people of my Twin Realms is Lady Triss. After all, as the three of you surely know, our bureaucratic system is very different now. The ruler is merely a servant of the kingdom, not the other way around."
Through his [Knowledge] abilities, Gustave could see that the Enchantress his mother had cultivated was exceptionally skilled at political maneuvering. It allowed the male Spellweavers to focus on explosive and weaponized spells instead. He nodded quietly, approving of her competence.
All the more so because she spoke those words at the exact moment they passed through a street crowded with former farmers of Lyria and Rivia. These were people who had lost their livelihoods to Kreve and had since become handymen, building the new tourism city. At her words, many of them turned toward the sorceress, deep anger etched across their faces.
With shouts of "What is wrong with a decent job like farming that you plague witches can belittle us like this?" or "We know we are cursed by the gods, but that doesn't mean you can curse us as well!"—or something along those lines—Gustave entered the teleportation hub to find Alvin, leaving the riot to unfold on the streets as the godless sorceress faced the wrath of the people.
—
Arriving at the Isle of Avalon, or more accurately at Alvin's mage tower, Gustave saw through the window beneath the island's massive tree Avallac'h speaking with Alvin about information concerning the lands of the Aen Elle. Some of it he already knew from the Tir ná Lia reports during the Through Time and Space questline.
"Tilath na Viell, Tilath na Lia and Tilath na Crob've provinces are the next regions to be struck by the White Chill. We, the Aen Saevherne, are currently delaying the inevitable advance of the White Frost in Caed na Viell, Lorth na Lia, Vael na Crob've, Shaer na Ithra, and Morath na Cael'thir."
He paused, knowing that the primary bearer of the Elder Blood was needed to prevent the collapse of the universe. A deep anxiety crept into his voice as he struggled to recall anything of Lara, despite possessing detailed knowledge about her. Avallac'h then continued, his tone turning pleading.
"In another twenty years or so, these three, Tilath na Viell, Tilath na Lia and Tilath na Crob've, will become frozen wastelands as well, just like the twenty provinces I mentioned earlier. And in another century or two, it will not only be my world that is affected, but yours as well. So please, I beg of you, tell me how to undo this history-erasing spell."
Shaking his head, Alvin still refused, because Calanthe had said it was not yet time. Even though, after studying the wave patterns little Gustave had created three years earlier, he was now able to partially undo the effect for a single person, Alvin did not want to act.
This was simply because the woman who had taken him in from the slums and become his mother figure had told him no.
So, shaking his head once more, Alvin replied, "No. I am sorry, Avallac'h. Although these past three years have proven that you can be trusted and befriended, I will not do it. If you want the memories of my ancient grandmother so gravely, then I am not the one you need to convince. It is Queen Calanthe."
Sitting on the bench beside the central tree of the island, Avallac'h let out a desperate sigh, knowing all too well that this would not be easy.
Although he knew they had started on the wrong foot before, and that if Alvin had not told him so he would not even remember that they had once been enemies, Avallac'h had already made amends. He had gone so far as to betray his own people, working with and befriending the apes.
Yet it was still not enough. He understood that there was a difference in perspective he had never been able to grasp, the way humans thought and chose.
Here, he had already agreed wholeheartedly to become a slave, just like the many apes he had once captured from countless worlds back home, yet even that was still not enough for them to trust him, not even a little.
There had been numerous assassination attempts on Eredin, the one who had pushed the agenda of immediately capturing the primary carrier and killing the Child of Steam who disrupted destiny, driving Auberon Muircetach into an anxious state.
There had also been infiltrations across countless provinces in Tir ná Lia, along with full disclosures of how his homeworld operated, all merely to transport and free the many monkeys he and his people had captured, turning them into a hidden Cintrian army in the Ddiddiwedht Desert.
He had even gone so far as to completely surrender experimental data on the Elder Blood, something he had guarded both secretly and dearly, as it was connected to someone precious to him according to the records. Yet Queen Calanthe still believed it was not enough.
It frustrated him deeply. Even though he sensed that the issue had something to do with morality, it still made no sense to him that humans could view cows or other species as nothing more than numbers to be butchered, yet deny him, an Aen Elle, the right to treat a different species the same way. This double standard of morality was what maddened him most.
Unable to dwell on the frustration any longer, Avallac'h then saw the Child of Steam emerge from the mage tower.
Seeing the child he had intended to groom from the moment of his birth—much as Caranthir had been—and to guide Ciri toward her destiny, Avallac'h recalled the reports he himself had written about the boy's future, now rendered invalid.
Wanting to probe the boy with questions of his own, he instead watched as the Child of Steam approached Alvin, asked a few simple questions, and then departed without pressing further.
The behavior left Avallac'h stunned and incredulous at how the boy carried himself, finally confirming through his own reports that the boy's Eye of Knowledge was indeed extraordinarily potent. With only scraps of information, the child already seemed able to grasp an entire subject without delving further into the details.
"Brother Alvin, I am just curious. Does Queen Calanthe intend to build something like the Chapter of the Gift and the Art, but for the Southern Continent? A Southern Chapter that includes only mages persecuted by Nilfgaard, not Nilfgaard itself. I ask because I find the laws and regulations of the Northern Chapter very annoying."
Raising an eyebrow, as always struck by how the boy was far too smart for his own good and already able to surmise Queen Calanthe's next moves, Alvin simply nodded. Afterward, he tried to warn him.
"Yes. But do not go about telling everyone this. Calanthe wants to break the news at the next Thanedd Banquet, when we are all invited."
Pausing, and recalling something Calanthe had asked him to pass on, Alvin added, "And also, Calanthe told me to tell you this: 'Do not worry about any repercussions. Just do your own thing and flex your creativity.'"
"Hmm… okay then. Thanks, Brother Alvin. I'll head back now."
Watching little Gustave leave so abruptly after learning this information, Alvin began to better understand how the Eye of Knowledge functioned whenever the boy used it.
When he attempted to weave his hands and reverse-engineer the ability, he failed, realizing that it fell under the category of innate talent, much like Calanthe's Prophetic Eyes or Oneiromancy. Still, he was able to glimpse fragments of its inner workings.
And upon examining those inner workings, a sudden suspicion struck him. Three years ago, the one who had tried to probe the Magika Academia Cintrensis might have been little Gustave after all. Wanting confirmation, Alvin shouted after him, "Gustave! Were you the one who stole useless knowledge from the academy three years ago?!"
"Hehehehe! Yep! And you know what, Brother Alvin? Your counter-spell sucks balls. Even a three-year-old can break it! Goodbye!"
Watching the boy, who reminded him of Ciri but far bolder when it came to mocking people, Alvin felt a headache coming on. Now he had to deal with two mischievous devils.
Massaging his already twitching forehead, remembering the nightmare from two years ago when he had taught Ciri rune magic, he could only hope his thinning hair would not recede even further from dealing with these two cretins.
Shaking his head and choosing not to dwell on it, he turned back to Avallac'h and resumed their discussion about Tir ná Lia. "So, the number of Aen Saevherne in your world is currently seventy. Is that correct?"
"Yes. Some of them are responsible for delaying the White Chill. Others are currently on the battlefield, locked in an endless war against the Unicorns. Another group, led by Eredin, travels from world to world, capturing slaves to serve as experimental subjects and to perform menial labor."
Pausing, still uncomfortable speaking about the deep secret of how his people were able to wield Frost Magic with ease, Avallac'h continued.
"And the rest are researching deep within the White Chill itself, attempting to communicate with and combat the necromantic spirits of Aen Ghele, the Winter Queen's ancient army, in hopes of resolving the cosmic catastrophe by another means."
"Hm. In that case, I wager Calanthe may allow me to restore your memories once your Aen Saevherne numbers reach a more manageable level. And try to treat the humans your people have captured with decency. It would help immensely."
"I will try."
—