The Crown Prince In Hiding

Chapter 27

DIABLO

Fury ordered the airship to land so his two students could walk and take in the snowy landscape for about half an hour.

The airship docked against a cliff face jutting out from the valley, revealing the late morning sun casting its light across the pristine white vista.

"It's incredible that a single island can have this many different biomes. How is that even possible?"

"Even I don't know the answer to that, young Miss Rafinya."

Dominic answered her plainly,

"We simply lived our lives as they were, until Prince Fury began wondering about something no one had ever thought to ask. And his grand project is about to begin... I will do my best to assist however I can."

"Mr. Dominic, you know about Mr. Fury's project?"

"I do, young Miss."

He nodded.

"At first, I wasn't entirely on board with it... but then,"

He paused for a moment, glanced over to make sure Dan wasn't listening, then turned back.

"Anything that brings His Grace back to life is worth it."

Nora was about to ask what he meant by that, but Dominic was interrupted first.

"Dominic."

Dan signaled,

"You need to go. The Empress has arrived at the desert."

"Has she now."

He turned back to the two girls.

"Until we meet again. I'm rather busy today."

He gave a courtly bow.

Then the young man with long white hair turned away and leaped off the cliff right before their eyes, followed by a bolt of white lightning in his wake.

But they could not see where his true form had gone.

It was impossibly fast.

By the time they walked over and peered down, he had already vanished.

Leaving behind only silence.

"Come on. Let's go to the last biome."

"Yes, Mr. Fury."

The wind carried the airship through the final narrow pass between towering granite cliffs, before the world ahead opened wide into the majestic grandeur of mountains and valleys that housed the capital and the royal palace of Diablo.

What appeared before Nora and Rafinya's eyes was not the dense, imposing stone fortress they had imagined from human textbooks. Instead, it was a sweeping and breathtaking landscape of a basin valley and semi-cold savanna in a Scandinavian style.

Rolling, low hills stretched endlessly into the distance, blanketed in soft, muted green grass and dense natural moss, resembling the meadows of a Scandinavian fjord valley.

The sky above the valley was wide open, with faint wisps of mist drifting lazily through the mountain ridges, carried over from the snow district. The breeze that swept through brought with it the freshness of earth, the scent of rain, and the cool comfort of lush grasslands against their faces. The outer lands that had been filled with the harshness of desert and ice came to a gentle, graceful end here, in this tranquil meadow.

They could see broad rivers cutting across the land, and ancient trees with towering trunks whose branches spread wide, casting beautiful shade across the entire terrain. What made them extraordinary was that their bark and trunks were not merely dry wood. Instead, natural mana fibers of purple-green ran crisscrossing through them like blood vessels pumping energy.

Tiny seeds and mushroom spores clinging to the bases of the trees and drifting through the air glittered and sparkled, lending the muted green grasslands below a sense of vibrant life.

As the sunlight began to soften, these meadows and forests would gradually transform into an ocean of gentle, dreamlike light, as though a million stars had fallen from the sky and come to rest upon the earth.

Nora stood at the bow. The cool wind sweeping across the grasslands made her hair flutter and dance.

Even Rafinya, hardened as she was, found herself lost in a trance at the sight of the vast green meadows rippling wave after wave in the wind, and the glittering mana spores drifting through the air.

If this place were ever opened to the public, it would be a destination capable of rivaling the number one tourist attraction in the world.

"This is our capital."

Dan said.

"The Diablo who live in this biome are the type that look like me, Everton, Roma, and Father."

Looking down, both girls could see black dots scattered across the grasslands below. Those dots were the Diablo, going about their daily lives.

"Our population used to be much larger than this... before Velmount devastated us."

After the devastation, Diablo's population required more than fifty years to recover to normal levels.

From the various districts they had visited, both girls had picked up on the fact that the population was rather sparse. The capital appeared to have slightly more, but even the distribution they could see here was still thin.

"There."

Dan pointed.

"The palace."

The Royal Palace of Diablo revealed itself in all its towering majesty before Nora and Rafinya.

It was not a blunt, rectangular brick-and-stone castle of the kind human kings built. This palace was architecture sculpted and forged into the face of an enormous dark granite cliff.

The structure extended upward in tiers following the natural height of the cliff face, as though the building had grown and emerged from the very heart of the mountain since the dawn of the world.

It was a palace embedded within the mountain itself.

Slender, pointed Gothic spires blended with the curved, organic forms of inhuman artistry, all carved from solid, living rock. Their tips pierced through the veil of mist and soared into the sky.

A great natural waterfall cascaded down from the towering cliff top, flanking the palace on both sides. The spray that struck the rocks below scattered into a white mist that hung in the air.

The airship descended steadily, drawing closer to the palace.

When it touched down softly on a stone platform jutting from the cliff face, the Things were already waiting below. And there were high-ranking soldiers Nora did not recognize, everywhere she looked.

Dan stepped off the airship and turned, extending his hand.

"Come on."

Princess Nora was the first to reach out. She stepped down, and the moment her shoes touched the dark, blood-red brick of the airship landing,

the high-ranking Diablo soldiers bowed at once in respect to Princess Nora Ophilis. Rafinya received the same courtesy.

Nora looked up at the entrance. It was taller than any human palace. No, to put it properly, everything here was scaled to roughly 2.5 times human proportions.

"Welcome to my home. There are no colorful paintings or fine sculptures like at yours, but I can promise the air is better."

Dan took off his school jacket. A high-ranking Diablo soldier knelt on one knee and took the jacket to hold for him.

"No more than two of you follow. I don't want them feeling pressured."

"Yes, Your Grace."

With a snap of his fingers, the palace soldiers dispersed. Only two remained, along with one Thing, to accompany them.

Fury led them through a massive arched stone doorway into the first level of the palace. What greeted Nora and Rafinya was not a narrow corridor, but a vast natural cavern hall. The cave walls were dark, blood-hued granite, interwoven with the roots of ancient glowing trees as thick as ship hulls, threading their way from the floor all the way up to the ceiling.

The faint echo of footsteps on carved marble. A gentle warmth radiating from the mana fibers within the roots.

Attendant soldiers dropped to one knee as Dan walked past.

"Mr. Fury, you let the trees grow right into the palace without cutting them out?"

Nora asked, looking up at the glowing root veins above.

"If they grow in the way, we trim them. But clearing them out completely like we did at Anfield isn't an option. Otherwise, all the light in this entire palace would disappear."

Dan said,

"I think our trees evolved to feed on mana crystals... which is why they glow. They're not like your trees."

From the lower levels, the three of them climbed stone stairs carved in a spiral around the mountain's core, until they emerged onto an open terrace flanked on both sides by two great waterfalls. The rushing sound of water plunging from the high cliffs became a constant backdrop. Fine mist drifted onto Rafinya's face, making her draw her neck in slightly from the chill.

"From here you can see the defensive line stretching all the way to the desert. You're welcome to lounge around here, but the afternoon sun can be quite harsh."

Nora leaned against the oversized railing. By human standards, this was not a terrace. It was a training ground.

"Sometimes I like to come and lean on this railing. Just stand here and look out over our land."

Dan came to stand beside her.

"And sometimes I count things for fun. Sometimes I count the wild goats on the mountainside... they like to come out in the evening."

The breeze swept gently across Nora's face.

"Why do you count them?"

"To decide how many to catch and eat."

"You go out and hunt them yourself?"

"Sometimes... when I'm bored."

"Is that retirement behavior?"

"I haven't retired yet."