‘It’ll be alright.’ Elrhain pushed down the nauseous fear in his chest. ‘It’s not like we won’t see each other again.’

He then scoffed, slapping his cheeks hard with both palms. The noise rang in the empty cavern like a bronze gong, and servant Thomos almost jumped out of his shoes in fright.

‘Dammit, Elrhain, stop acting like a Romeo. This is ridiculous.’

Elrhain sat down on the damp floor and took a few more minutes to calm down and think about the issue. He then smiled as the exact haunting words he said to Agwyn so long ago bubbled up in his chest just now.

‘I almost threw up after Agwyn went inside, didn’t I? When she left my sights completely….’

He reflected on those split seconds of his guts churning like venom. He could smell the stink of vomit in his throat and the tight pain in his chest. It was suffocating; he could not breathe.

It was weird.

The nausea and pain rapidly retreated after that, as fast as they had come. But they never died out. Even now, he could feel something missing, as if something both physical and spiritual had been ripped from his being.

This violent reaction on both his mind and body was bewildering, to say the least. He had long outgrown high-school lover drama where he would feel physical pain not seeing his girlfriend for five minutes.

Yet here he was, feeling precisely that.

‘Sure, we have seldom ever left each other’s sight the last three cycles. But this is just retarded. There has got to be more to this… ill condition. Wait, could this be what Elder Croneira was talking about?’

Wiping the saliva from the corners of his mouth, he glanced up at Thomos with critical eyes.

The servant stared back at him with an anxious expression, then looked away. The man was half crouched as if to help him up, but his hands had stopped awkwardly in the air. Elrhain beamed at him a smile, and Thomos’s face froze in shock.

“Mister Thomos, I’m ready. Let’s go in.” Elrhain said, noticing the shock morph into surprise across the man’s visage.

Thomos was scrawny and had gills on his neck. His skin was somewhat blue, and Elrhain noticed a thin webbing between his fingers when he let the nervous man hold his hand. But Thomos never held it too tight, as if afraid Elrhain would get hurt.

Elrhain didn’t appreciate that, but he would ponder upon this issue of masters and servants later.

The corridor, like the rest of this underground world, had an ambient blue and green glow. The walls had this metallic sheen, with creaks of luminous water running along cracks.

Elrhain could not see any murals on the surfaces, which he now found out of place in this mural laden underground world.

The repeated thudding of two footsteps, one quiet and the other timid accompanied them as they made their way through. And the boy fell into a trance. The silent steps helped him still his restless heart, but he did not seem to realize the passing of time.

Before he knew it, the passageway opened up into another cavernous room. The light inside was bright as the suns when the boy crossed the threshold, and Elrhain felt his vision go blind in white.

He closed his eyes and covered them with his palms for a few breaths of time, only letting a small groan escape his lips as the sudden deprivation of senses.

When he opened them again, he saw a roof full of spheres that shone like sunlight reaching from the ground below to the very ceilings above, and Thomos nowhere to be seen. He craned his neck back down again and found the servant.

Along with two other men.

Dofnald stood there by the far wall, wearing an elaborate ceremonial attire that fit him like a k-pop idol. He talked respectfully to a hunched figure in blue robes holding a white staff before turning towards the crouching boy at the entrance.

“Rhain.” His father called him, “Come.”

Elrhain obliged. He knew some people might take Dofnald’s short utterances as signs of disinterest or mock. But to him, that was just Dofnald being Dofnald. Everyone had their ticks. Bromwyn was boisterous, Eluned was timid, and Cyra was an air-headed menace. Speaking of which…

‘I hope Agwyn’s met her mother by now. Knowing her, she’s probably sniffing around the cracks in the corridor.’ He chuckled at the image.

“Wait, young master.” Thomos suddenly spoke; tension coloured his meek voice.

The servant pointed towards the wall on the right, saying, “Please walk along this wall, um, as per Elder Croneira’s words. So you don’t stray too far from the princess.”

Elrhain nodded, stepping forward with his hand lightly brushing the bumpy partition that divided him from her.

‘I am willing to bet all my spice patents; that distance has something to do with our malady.’

As he neared the two older Dhionne, he noticed that the shaman’s robes were fashioned out of fish scales, and the staff was made of translucent bone-like cartilage. It even had the skull of some small creature on the top, the jaws clanking up and down as the old man tapped the staff on the stone floor.

The shaman looked only a little less wizened than Elder Croneira but way more than Thundham. He was also antlered, just like Elder Sonora.

But much to Elrhain’s relief, the shaman’s smile gave off a pleasant feeling, not a disdainful sneer like the other antlered man. His eyes were big and blue; even the sclera was light indigo. They looked perfectly in place on his aged face.

Elrhain hopped on the stone stage where his father and the shaman stood and bowed cordially like his mother taught him.

Before he could straighten his back, though, he felt a pat on his head.

It was the shaman.

The old man then plucked a few strands of Elrhain’s hair,

“Ouch!”

…poked his body at the joints with the staff.

“Hey!”

…and finally tugged the robe he was wearing, stretching it up for a closer sniff.

“Stop that, you perverted coon!”

Elrhain’s childlike shout echoed in the chamber. The servant Thomos stumbled on the ground, and Dofnald coughed a few times in embarrassment.

When Elrhain finally stopped huffing and puffing, he saw the old shaman look down at him with a grin on his ugly face.

“Haha, quite spirited, ain’tcha?”

Elrhain clenched his tiny fists and punched, committing the first violent act of this life. But the shaman just hopped away with booming Santa Clause guffaws.

Elrhain, on the other hand, was about to trip over because his fists missed their target. But before his face could hit the ground, his father held him up by the armpits from behind, and he settled down.

“Father, can you let me down? I have to beat up a paedophile.”

“Pe-What?”

Elrhain sighed, “Just let me down.”

Dofnald nodded, and Elrhain felt his feet touch the ground.

He looked up at his father and asked, “Why didn’t you stop that old man when he hit me with a stick?”

Dofnald thought for a while before saying, “Grand Elder ordered the rite.”

“… can you explain more clearly?”

Dofnald scratched his head. A few seconds later, he continued, “Your hair, as a reagent for the rite. The staff pushed… rejuvenating manna in your body’s joints. Your clothes, Eluned, made them with special treasures with Elder Croneira’s teaching. Shaman checked quality.”

That was the most Elrhain heard his father say in one go.

‘Rejuvenating?’

Elrhain patted his body all over and noticed that the fatigue he had felt from the journey—even though he walked little himself, was gone. Then he heard the detested shaman speak again.

“Excellent! Well, the attire could have looked better, but the Azhrite is rubbed in well. This will do perfectly.”

Elrhain looked towards Dofnald, pointing at the deranged old man. “Father?”

“Shaman Maeog.”

“… not his name. But thank you.”

Dofnald looked at him and smiled, “You are welcome.”

Elrhain had seen boy bands and male idols in his past life, with his nieces and especially Miramarja posting their pictures all over their social media, bedrooms, and secret bases. Yet he had never seen such a handsome man, ever.

Elrhain shook his head to get rid of that ridiculous thought and asked another question, “The rite… is it magical?”

“Yes. For heiress’s inaugural and this time, betrothal too.” Dofnald said. “Great honour. It happens once every”

There was another pause as he thought it over, “Every time there is a new heiress who also has a betrothed.”

“Yeah, thank you, captain obvious.”

“… you are welcome?”

Elrhain felt something wet touch his cramping face. The old shaman was finger painting some tattoos there while muttering incoherently before the little boy could scream expletives.

Elrhain considered if it was even worth it to lash out and found the answer to be no. So with dwindling fury in his chest, he turned back towards Dofnald and continued his questioning.

“Why am I getting betrothed to Annie? I heard father and mother were servants before we were born, and she is the chieftain’s daughter.”

Dofnald paused, angling his head towards the far wall. A complicated look flashed past his eyes.

Elrhain followed his gaze to find more murals there. But these ones were more intricate, complete, and had a depth to them that the ruined ones outside didn’t.

‘Huh?’

He suddenly noticed that even Shaman Maeog had slowed down the paint job as he peered at Dofnald with a sharp glint. Elrhain could hear a deep inhale from someplace behind him, too. It was the servant Thomos, who had otherwise been entirely silent this whole time.

‘Should I have not asked that in people’s presence?’ He thought.

“… Can’t tell you. I pledged not to in public. Grand Elder will explain later.” Finally, Dofnald acknowledged with a sigh, casting an apologetic look at Maeog, who just huffed. He then glanced at Elrhain with his five-star smile back on his face.

“Chieftain, Grand Shamanka, and Grand Elder’s arrangement for you two. Secrecy is necessary, but I trust them. They are good folks. They treat us like family. Give us freedom, and let us choose a name.”

Elrhain looked disappointed with the answer but didn’t press further. And a split second after that, the speed of the finger painting, which had slowed a tad, picked up again.

“Rhain, don’t worry. Everything will be ok. Trust us.”

He knew that, and he trusted them. But,

‘Ugh, that makes me even more curious. Even though it’s about us, they can at least trust me in return that my-,’ Elrhain looked at his tiny palms and chubby arms, ‘Oh… right. We still toddlers.’

“There, all finished. Quite an outstanding job, if I say so myself. You look just as our Earthloch ancestor did when he married the lake mother.” Shaman Maeog said after removing his fingers from Elrhain’s face.

The old man put his dry hand on Elrhain’s chin to move the boy’s head left and right for a final one over. “And the lines wonderfully align with all the nodes on your head. Honestly, I would say I was quite unsatisfied with the upper echelon’s choice of heir consort before today. But,”

Maeog pulled away, looking extremely satisfied. “I’ve never seen two Dhionne’s souls match up so thoroughly in all the rites I’ve performed. And believe me, I’ve performed many. Not to mention, this rite is especially complex since you will be betrothed with the magic of Epoch crossing.”

Elrhain’s eyes widened, ignoring the offhand insult and the grand speech of magic, “You can see Annie’s too? She’s not here!”

Shaman Maeog laughed aloud, reaching into the sleeves of his robes. From there, he took out a parchment scroll.

“Of course not, young heir Siaglas. No man can peer into the chamber for the heiress.”

“Then how?” Elrhain looked at the scroll, intrigued.

The elder scrutinized him with a grin, then said to Dofnald, “Eager little one you have got here, Reanakt Siaglas.”

Dofnald smiled proudly.

“But I’ve always appreciated the curious ones. They tend to walk the true path of rites and mages rather than all the muscle flair of warriors like you.”

Dofnald shifted awkwardly.

Shaman Maeog laughed again and looked back towards Elrhain, opening the scroll up with a swipe of his hand. He didn’t stop Elrhain when the boy peered over the drawings on it.

“We, the shamans of the rites, were simply provided with an abstraction of both of your manna nodes, branches, and circles the previous cycle.” He placed his fingers on the numerous rough diagrams and strange anatomical sketches of what could only be two young Dhionne babies.

‘That’s us!’

There were lines of many colours connecting their frames from one point to another on the scroll, with abstract smudges and shapes scribbled all over.

“The grand Shamanka ordered us to not only to establish the flawless patterns for the rite but that it would be for children of barely three cycles. Children uninitiated in the ways of manna no less!”

The shaman stroked his wiry beard. “‘Madness’, I thought at first. Trying to bond two babes like this is suicidal. The recoil of these,” He excitedly pointed out various points on the diagrams, and Elrhain let out some Ahhs and Oohs at the sight.

This animated the old man even more. “uneven nodes will kill you. But after we toiled months and seasons to complete them, the results left us absolutely dumbfounded.”

Shaman Maeog threw his hands up with joy. “The completed sigils of inheritance and union for you two had fallen perfectly into place! Like two halves of the same stone. Yours on hers, and hers on yours. It was as if all that unevenness were made even when we compared you two together and not separately. Yet!”

Shaman Maeog took a deep breath, and Elrhain cursed this world for not having pocket notebooks. He really wanted to jot all of this down.

“Yet now we do. Of course, only me, the finest ritualist of Earthlochs, could have even conceived such magnificent and sophisticated patterns, so quickly, so exquisitely.” The old man concluded his sermon with another round of laughter.

“I thank you.” Dofnald bowed his head, bringing the shaman’s boast to an ideal end.

Maeog just waved his hand, saying, “No need, my young Reanakt. Just doing my duty.”

Elrhain was delighted, adjusting his opinion of the old fellow.

He still hated him for being a pervert and wished to grief him hard.

But he loved braggarts, respected even. They could never keep information to themselves. And that was of much higher priority to Elrhain than some petty vengeance.

He wanted to ask a few more essential questions. For example, what the heck did those diagrams even mean?

But then his dad pulled him towards the far wall, leaving the old shaman laughing there alone.

Dofnald kneeled down to his eye level and pointed towards the murals on the wall, saying with a solemn face,

“Let them dance.”