You don’t really believe that the name of the volcano has anything to do with this?

There is only one way to find out.

“Do you know how that name came into being?”

“I do, but why does it matter? You haven’t spoken to me all day, and now you spew riddles and strange questions.”

“I have an idea, but I need answers in order for it to grow.”

“You tell me where you found the riddle, and I will tell you where the name originated.”

Ana sensed the formation of magic around the queen, and she recognized the complex pattern of the truth detecting spell she had seen many times before. The month she had spent with the queen had taught her much, and she was getting better at working around that spell. While Ana was bad at solving riddles, but she was good at preparing and anticipating events.

She knew that the queen would wonder where she got the first riddle from, so she prepared her answer in advance. “Often will I spin a tale, never will I charge a fee. I'll entertain you an entire eve, but alas, you won't remember me.”

“A dream huh? At least you are getting better at dodging questions. The name for the volcano comes from an old dialect that died out when the empire did. At that time, the vampire orders and the empire were on good terms, mostly thanks to Sutus. But who named it I am not sure. But if we find the library, you might get your answer.”

“We’ve been going south for days now, are you going to elaborate on our destination now?”

“I would think our destination would be obvious by now.”

“The capital?” The queen grunted with a bored tone.

“You know the last time I was there I had to leave in a hurry. Many people were after me.”

“A perfect place for you to train in controlling the minds of others.”

I do not like where this is going.

Why not? I mean with that kind of power you can do whatever you want.

Precisely. I have so much power now, that I’m afraid as to what I will do with it.

Stop overthinking. Doesn’t matter what you have, but how you use it. And you always have a choice.

I know, but I’m afraid that my decision-making will be influenced by that power.

Then stop complaining and work to stop that from happening,

You alright Lia?

Yeah, I’m fine.

All the time she had spent with Lia had made Ana grow to be used to the ever-present spirit there to comfort her. It was easy for Ana to forget that Lia was for all intent and purpose trapped within their body. Even allowing the spirit control of her body wasn’t much, as she felt that the spirit missed her own body, which made Ana wonder how to get them separated.

But that idea didn’t sit with her well. She was used to Lia, and she had no idea what to do without the spirit’s presence. It was selfish to do that, but since there wasn’t any way to separate the two, Ana didn’t focus much on that. Feeling bad and guilty about Lia being trapped was better than having to live alone once more.

But the guilt kept eating at her. Maybe the library will have something to help us separate.

You are one of a kind little silver. I told you not to stress about that. It’s my choice to be here, and in time that might change, but for now, don’t overthink it.

Then why are you so moody?

Because I’m focusing on something and you keep interrupting me. Focus on flying, we’ll talk later.

Ana shrugged and shifted in her seat. This wasn’t flying but just sitting, and it was quite boring to do. They were flying by day, and resting in houses built by the queen at night. At first, Ana was surprised at how much they were resting as the first time they flew it was for several days and nights. She didn’t complain that it was easier, not wanting to change pace.

While it was boring, it was better than walking such a long distance. The speed they traveled gave Ana the idea on how to make money in the future, if she ever was in a desperate situation and in need of money, she could always move cargo from city to city for a fee. The free time she now enjoyed gave her the opportunity to work on her theories more.

Theories on what was happening in the north, and on something more personally interesting to her. So far she was always too busy with other more impending matters to focus on what she wanted to do. So now she was making a list of the things she wanted to do, and what she would need to do it. Without magic, it might have been impossible, but with the help of the primordial force, she could do previously impossible feats.

But still, all she could do for now was to make lists, dreaming of a time when she could do things the way she wanted. Only a few decades, that is all it took. It was still unreal to Ana that she could just wait out that kind of time without a problem. It also brought into question her ideas of returning home.

At first, she would have given anything to return, but now the opportunities she had in this world outshined a possible return. Back home she would most likely have spent the coming years glued to her work, but then what. Was that everything that an everyday human gets? And now that she knew she could have a better option, that didn’t seem to be a fair deal. Yes, she missed her old life, but the very core of her being was that of a nomad.

Moving from her hometown, from her country, and across an ocean, we're just small steps for her, and it was more her guilt at not missing her life that was bothering her. Sometimes she wished she was a robot, with no emotions. Life would have been a lot easier if it was made from ones and zeroes.

She focused back on her list. While physics and mathematics were her bread a butter, Ana had a good understanding of chemistry, biology, and a few other subjects. It was all a result of her academic upbringing. The only thing she lacked to work as an electrician was a toolbox, and, well, actual electronics.

After two days their roles switched, and Ana was no longer the pilot. So far they flew high in the cloud cover, but now the queen had them moving slower and at a lower altitude. That gave Ana the opportunity to do a bit of sightseeing of the nearby countryside. With Ana as the compass, they spotted the capital city a few days later.

It took them longer to locate the city than to get there from the mountains in the north. It was a funny notion, but it drove in how important air traffic control in her old world was. It was one thing to fly, and a whole other to navigate properly. Thankfully the queen didn’t fly them directly into the city, but some distance away.

“Illusions from here on.”

“Anything in particular?” After receiving an annoying stare from the queen, Ana shrugged and started working her spell. Lorelai was about ten times quicker with implementing the spell when compared to Ana, and the illusion she conjured was a lot more believable. Ana, on the other hand, had to cover herself in a cloak, only leaving her face exposed.

The illusion she conjured changed the shape of the cloak so that she would appear human, while also altering her face so that no one could recognize her. She doubted anyone would remember her from so long ago, but it was better to be safe than sorry. Both of them had gear prepared to look like travelers, and to Ana, it was surprising just how good at it the queen was.

She imagined that switching from lavish and ornate clothes, to rags and basic wool would have been difficult for the powerful queen, but the opposite turned out to be true. Lorelai had a really pragmatic line of thinking. There was something she wanted, and she would go about getting that in the best possible way. If that called for hiding, so be it. But that also meant that she wouldn’t blink at annihilating the whole city if it would serve some goal.

It took some time for Ana to understand that her new boss wasn’t a sadist, as much as she wanted Ana to think that. Every punishment and cruel thing that the queen ordered had a reason behind it. Maybe she went overboard on some things, but then Ana was comparing her own relatively small experience with the queen's millennia-long reign.

Dressed as two poor travelers, the pair of immensely powerful beings started heading towards the capital city of the Sutus Kingdom. Returning to the place she started this odd journey. For a moment Ana missed her glasses, missing the weight on her ears but not the blurriness caused by their absence.

Her body was improved to a degree that even her new tattoo had set in without the need for her to treat the skin like she had to before. With the regeneration she now had, all of them had started to slowly fade. It took her some time to notice, but there wasn’t much she could do about it.

They were such a defining feature of her personality, as she got her first one when she was eighteen. But now it felt like a part of her was disappearing. Instead of wallowing, she took that as an opportunity, as when they disappear she could get new ones. She had to look to the positive side from now on, as every depressing thought reminded her of the shame that had caused all of these problems.

After a brief walk, the city came into view. It was the same as she remembered, and when comparing it with the queen's domain it felt short, and remarkably so. She couldn’t put a finger to it exactly, but there was something grander and better about the northern capital of the Bloody Rose.

Entering the city was even quicker than with Nathaniel, as all it took was a quick spell from Lorelai, and they were let in without a single question. Having to blend in meant that they had to travel slowly throughout the city, steering clear of larger crowds. They were going as nonthreatening travelers, and if they got into a fight it would have been impossible to keep that cover intact.

The experience made Ana feel like a spook in a thriller movie. While it was fun to pretend and imagine such things, actually experiencing it caused no end of anxiety. Ana kept the queen in front of her as they walked, doing her best to blend in until Lorelai took a sharp turn to the right, entering a building.

Panicking Ana picked up the pace, as she rushed to follow the queen’s path, and almost ended up knocking down the second most powerful being she had ever met. The first being a goddess. Ana found herself in a familiar local, with tables and benches filled with patrons enjoying plentiful food and drink.

The inn was fairly close to the gate, and Ana assumed that it was intended for travelers by the outfits worn inside. No one seemed to have noticed Ana’s clumsiness, and barely anyone spared them a glance as the two of them entered the establishment. Lorelai took off her hood and the slight sense of panic turned into wonder as Ana saw a normal human instead of the regal queen.

She had seen before what illusion magic could do, but this illusion felt so real that she would have never thought it possible. While Ana kept her eyes on the main room, the queen did a quick exchange, after which she left for a back room. Lorelai was nothing if not quick and efficient, but Ana was used to her new boss, so she quickly followed and found herself in a small room with a window overlooking the street below.

“Nice room.”

“It should be, it’s where you will be spending the next two days in.”

“What?!”

“I need to go beyond the Hinderwan, and you are too clumsy for such a mission.”

“Woah. Yeah, that’s not a place I want to visit. Good luck.”

“So you are not as dense as it seems sometimes.”

“Yeah, most of the Divenii have some magic in them, and there are a few like Nathaniel that are full-blown wizards. No way I sneak in a place like that. Good luck.”

“Oh please. The old farts are too dull to catch up on my magic. Try sneaking into a lair of a dragon.”

“D-Dragon?”

“You are wise to fear them, although they migrated to the West several centuries ago.”

“So there are no dragons here?”

“Maybe. They are highly individualistic, but in times of great change they are known to work together.” As they talked the queen was changing outfits and getting her gear ready.

“So two days?”

“More or less. If you get discovered, run and wait for me at the craft.” This was going to prove an interesting task. While the queen went off, Ana had both the money and the freedom to do what she wanted for several days. A voraciously evil grin appeared on her face as the queen left the room to do her own thing. It was time for Ana to shine.

But where to start was the question. Freedom, while nice, only lasted for a few days. The only thing she could do was to get drunk. All the other projects she wanted to start took more time than just two days. She chose to start on the first step, for which she needed sand. The port was only a few hours away, and with her flight, she had the necessary silica sand in less than half an hour.

Thankfully it didn’t take her long to find a sandy beach and some finely grounded sand with it. Everyone one of her projects required glass, and since she had magic and was able to make the necessary heat without trouble, it should have been easy enough to make glass. So she started experimenting with making glass.

The queen had taught her how to use psychokinesis, and she used it to fly to the beach. It was a lot more draining than her own magnetic manipulation spell, but it gave her more control as she could fly with just her body. She tried using the same spell in her attempt to make glass, but that proved to be too much.

She had to concentrate on the heat, meaning she needed a furnace or a kiln to hold the sand she was working on. After a brief round of experimentation, she left for the city once more. She had no experience with glass making, so she planned to talk to the craftsman who did when they returned. It was one thing to know what materials are turned into glass in what way, but a whole other to do it herself.

Back in her room, she started pacing, with little to do. It was still the first day and Ana didn’t know what to do. Walking around the city would only increase the chances of someone discovering her, and the queen could return at any moment. She hated waiting. Before in times like these, she had her phone, music, and audiobooks.

Now she only had a grumpy spirit who was being uncharacteristically silent. Deciding not to bother Lia with her own boredom, Ana waited for nightfall, leaving the room then. At least she had time to send a report back, and a lengthy one at that. She reported where she was and why, how long they traveled and how, and all other important details she thought would be important.

Sending a report that big, one letter at the time took hours, and left Ana exhausted. There would be hell to pay with the queen once she learned that Ana reported back without her approval, but Ana had hoped that the search for the library would be a big enough distraction. She returned to the city a few hours before dawn, with the expended magic leaving a small headache in its place.

The next day she spent lazing around while playing with magic, testing small ideas while theorizing on new spells. All the traveling and waiting had sparked her interest in teleportation. There were plenty of mages who worked on that type of magic, from all the stories she had heard. But she didn’t have any records or journals to help her, so she decided to tackle this idea by herself.

There were two main ideas on how to approach this topic, and Ana decided to work with the possibility of creating a wormhole instead of the more famous teleportation. Dematerialization and rematerialization with a transfer of information was too bizarre to Ana, as she couldn’t wrap her head around the uncertainty principle.

Even with magic, it was impossible to measure both the momentum and the position of each particle in order to get the information necessary. Wormholes on the other hand were theoretically possible, and if she went around the whole causality breaking issue, she might be able to get somewhere.

To make such a thing possible, she needed two things. A negative mass to hold the bridge open, as gravity would work hard to collapse it. And the second thing was to make the travel subluminal, so the travel would need to be slower than 300 000 km/s, which wouldn’t break causality and would make for what feels like instantaneous travel on relatively short distances.

With the fires lit and her mind set, Ana dived deep into research, trying to see in what way she could make the impossible, possible. And so days passed quickly as Ana found herself busy, only leaving the room to get more paper and occasionally food. She offered to let Lia take the reins for a while, but the spirit wasn’t interested.

After four days, Ana started to get worried as there was no sign of the queen, but she kept working on her theory. The queen would come when she does, and there wasn’t much Ana could do to speed that up. After a week, in the middle of the night, shouts from the street woke Ana up.

It took Ana a few moments to come to, but when she looked out of the window she noticed a large fire in the distance. And it was coming from the direction of the Hinderwan. In a panic, Ana got all of her stuff packed as she used a spell the queen had taught her. By releasing magic to detect other sources of it, something similar to radar, she sensed a trail of magic in the skies above her, leading to outside of the city.

She knew the feeling of that magic well, and with her gear packed she rushed out, following the trail that the queen had left.