Ria was 100% imitating someone she knew.

From her choice of words to the subtle mannerisms, to the way she held Rosa’s hand and coaxed her into a calm state of mind.

Not that Sylver was complaining, he wouldn’t have been capable of doing this.

He didn’t have a soothing voice, or a relaxing appearance, Sylver’s mere presence tended to put people on edge, so much so that he considered leaving Ria and Rosa alone to speed things up. Sadly, that would ruin the blood-boiling spell, so the best Sylver could do was not look menacing.

Rosa’s story wasn’t a good one.

The elven “royal family” was divided.

On the one side, you had the “official” head of household, the “king” of the high elves, who coincidentally controlled the Council.

On the other, you had Rosa’s family, people with fancy titles, but no actual power, or freedom. They were only alive because their great, great, grandfather had some sort of extremely special magic that the Council couldn’t do without, and Rosa’s family’s safety was being used to motivate the old man.

Rosa never met him and didn’t even know what his magic was.

All she knew was that this man’s wish was for his family to be free, but the only way to do that was to detach themselves from the Councils’ Eldar tree. Except the only way to do that without getting killed, was to transfer their attachment from the Council’s Eldar tree to a different one.

Which was easier said than done, given that there was only one Eldar tree currently in existence.

Rosa started to tear up when she tried to talk about her mother, so Ria asked her to skip that portion of the story. Suffice to say, Rosa’s mother did some terrible things to give her daughter permission to leave their home.

Tarragon and all of his elves were all on the side of Rosa’s family since quite literally every single significant sect was part of the Council.

Except for the emperor, or according to Rosa, only the previous emperor.

The new one was allegedly unaware of the deal her family had made with the old cultivator, all those years ago.

The deal had been that they would plant the Eldar sapling here, and in exchange for protection, the emperor’s family would be granted a high elf’s near infinite lifespan, with no strings attached.

But the current emperor was too busy grieving to hear her out, without his silver amulet-wearing advisor’s presence to listen and speak for him.

Sylver leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes for a while.

The good news was that he wasn’t taking anything away from Rosa. The protection the previous emperor had promised was already off the table, so the fact that Sylver would be destroying that protection, was irrelevant and didn’t need to be mentioned.

The bad news was that he still didn’t know what the council was after. What their end goal was, or even why they were going out of their way to control an isolated country full of cultivators. Rosa didn’t know either, all she knew was that the council promised eternal life to those that joined willingly.

Worst of all, Sylver didn’t know how to help the elf woman.

He had planned to handle the Council eventually, but Rosa didn’t have time to wait. Once Tarragons’ reinforcements arrived, she was supposed to return home.

Rosa couldn’t stay here, she would be hunted down and caught, and even if she ran, there was nowhere for her to go. There was Arda, but even if she had Tarragon’s whole team with her, they wouldn’t make it.

Sylver’s [Lesser Perception] informed him that Ria was looking right at him, with an expectant look on her golden mask of a face.

She thankfully had enough sense not to make an offer only Sylver could make, but she hinted at it enough times that Sylver got the message.

Ria wanted Sylver to save Rosa and her family, by offering them the same protection he had given the dark elves. Along with the same promise to help them grow their own Eldar tree.

But Sylver didn’t want to do that.

While it would be nice to have a family of high elves working for him, along with their supporters, Sylver wasn’t trying to build a country.

He didn’t even know where to put the dark elves, let alone what sounded to be thousands of elves. Plus, if the council was as big as Rosa made it sound, it would be a massive effort to destroy it.

Then again, Lola knows where their Eldar tree is…

But telling Rosa about what Lola was currently doing was dangerous. Frankly, doing anything to help her would make the Council focus on him more than they already had.

More importantly, any sort of disruption to the elves would be dangerous, since they are one of the few things standing between Arda and the invading Krists.

As to who “Gorynych” was, he was apparently someone the Council had been searching for as long as they existed.

She had asked if Sylver knew the name on a hunch, and as she explained, she did it in the hopes of getting a reaction out of him. So she could sell him to the Council so her family would have more room to move.

In short, Rosa had nothing to do with the sword and shield prophecy that involved the emperor and Faust’s bride.

She didn’t have a secret weapon to kill the emperor, didn’t know about what the Bucklers were up to, or that they were the ones who hired the witches to create the curse Tarragon’s group was trying to cure, she didn’t even know why the mountains were toppling over.

Sylver sat up straight, opened his eyes, and looked at an oddly unconcerned Rosa. He decided to be honest with the woman.

“Could you wait 10 years?” Sylver asked.

Ria reacted by cocking her head, and Rosa just blinked at him.

“Wait for what?” Rosa asked.

“You’re being held there against your will, but you’re not being tortured. Your great, great, grandfather sounds like he might be, but you and your family aren’t, right?” Sylver asked.

“Yes,” Rosa said coldly.

“You’ve done me the courtesy of being honest. So, I’ll be honest in return. I can help you-”

“We’ll do anything,” Rosa interrupted, as Sylver held up a finger and continued speaking.

“But I can’t help you right now. What I came here to do takes precedence,” Sylver said flatly.

If someone other than him had said that Rosa would have argued with them, and tried to further explain her point, but because Sylver looked and spoke the way he did, the elf woman couldn’t do anything other than slump her shoulders and stare down at her legs.

Ria continued to look at Sylver, as she floated over to him, and placed her hand on top of his.

“Is there anything I could say to change your mind?” Ria tapped out against his hand.

“Ed comes first, you know this,” Sylver answered.

He had initially asked to speak to Rosa with the intention of giving her the red apple to give to the emperor, but now…

“Why 10 years?” Ria asked.

“I don’t know how long it will take Lola to handle everything, so 10 years is just so she has breathing room in case things get complicated,” Sylver answered, as Ria shifted into her staff form.

“Wait, your staff is a golem?” Rose asked.

The sheer absurdity of her statement pulled her out of her depressive mood.

“My main mode of transportation is a seven-legged spider that pretends to be a horse,” Sylver added with a straight face, as Rosa tried to hold back her laughter, but ended up cackling into her hands.

“10 years,” Rosa repeated after she had calmed down.

“I’ll tell you something Rosa, but I want your word you’ll keep this to yourself,” Sylver said, partly because he didn’t want to finish this conversation on a sour note, but mostly to cheer Ria up.

“You have my word,” Rosa swore.

Sylver paused for a moment before he spoke.

“I consider the Council an enemy. And historically speaking, my enemies don’t tend to last long. They will be handled, but after I’m done here,” Sylver explained, as Rosa nodded at him.

“If there’s anything I can do to help, let me know,” Rosa said, as she stood up from Sylver’s shadow and started to clean the snot and tears out of her sleeves.

“You wouldn’t happen to know a secret tunnel that led straight to the emperor’s room, would you?” Sylver asked jokingly, as Rosa shook her head.

“There’s allegedly a passage the previous emperor used to visit his concubines, but it’s more of a rumor than anything else,” Rosa said.

“I see…” Sylver said.

Rosa looked significantly calmer than when Sylver had initially seen her inside her carriage.

She didn’t look happy, but given the circumstances, it would have been stranger if she did.

Rosa made a show of ruffling her hair, pulled her belt out, and redid it the wrong way round, while Sylver worked on undoing the writing on the walls.

With [Dead Dominion] it was as simple as waving his hand, the walls and ceiling would need to be repaired, due to staining, but Faust’s sect had more rooms than members, so it wasn’t that much of an issue.

After Rosa had left, Sylver walked up to the roof and sat down on the ledge facing the Schlagen mountains.

He just stared at the 10 mountain tops, as if he could make the next one fall by force of will alone.

But the 10 tall mountains remained as they were, almost as if they were mocking him.

Sylver pulled the shiny red apple out of his robe, and slowly rotated it in his hand. If not for his ability to perceive primal energy, he wouldn’t have known just how powerful the curse he was holding was.

He remained where he was for the whole night and did nothing other than stare at the apple in his hand, while he digested all the information he had available to him.

If he looked at his situation from a certain angle, he had already won. All he needed to do was wait the emperor out.

Whatever happened to Sylver, didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.

Anastasia was far away from the emperor and was under the protection of a ridiculously experienced, and ridiculously motivated, cultivator. Sylver didn’t like comparing his strength to his allies, because he very rarely liked the outcome, but as long as he was focused, Faust was a force to be reckoned with.

Even the people he had spent a couple of weeks training were no joke.

As long as Sylver didn’t fuck anything up on his end, the dragon was basically free.

Just as he finished this thought, he felt an uncomfortable softness on his skin, and a half second later realized his previously empty hand was now holding an envelope.

Reluctantly, Sylver opened it, and read the contents.

The Buckler’s had apparently decided against waiting for the Blue Tiger sect’s sigil and were instead going to give their prison break a shot right fucking now.

Sylver considered not going, but then Owl would know he didn’t care about Fobur and would get suspicious.

But if Sylver was being completely honest with himself, he wanted to do this. Because at least this way he was doing something.

Even if it was just a simple prison break.