‘You better believe it.’ Protheus patted Ophius’ back and pointed at a girl wearing the Fire Griffon uniform.
She was holding a sphere in her hands. Half of it was fire and the other half was ice. One element flowed into the other, seamlessly switching without producing steam.
The flabbergasted Quetzalcoatl used Life Vision, confirming that the girl wasn’t using two elements at the same time. It was just one element.
“Wow, Tyla. Did you really learn it from the Supreme Magus?”
“In the flesh.” She puffed her chest out with pride. “But that’s not much of a brag since he teaches to the fourth years of all academies. He complimented me, though.”
“He did?” Her friends squealed in enthusiasm.
“Not really.” She admitted. “Verhen just nodded at me. I think.”
The squealing didn’t lessen, with the girls seeing it as a good sign for Tyla to become Lith’s apprentice and the boys asking her to be introduced to him.
‘Fuck!’ Ophius thought.
Thrud’s former vassals spent their time in Ne’sra helping with the repairs and working as healers. They wanted to make up for the destruction they had caused and have the opportunity to talk with as many people as possible.
Two birds with one stone.
Soon it was clear that Faluel hadn’t lied nor exaggerated her words. The Divine Beasts looked for hints of sedition, an oppressive regimen, or propaganda, but all they found were common people living common lives.
After Ne’sra, Faluel brought everyone to Derios, the capital of the Distar Marquisate. The city was untouched by the war and squeaky clean. It offered them another perspective on life after the War of the Griffons and left them floored.
There were Tablets everywhere, with people taking photos, videos, and making calls at every corner of every street.
Faluel even bought one tablet for every one of her guests, to let them see with their eyes how the Tablets worked and what kind of information they offered.
‘This is amazing!’ Protheus said as most of the Doppelgangers were browsing the children’s textbooks and learning what they had missed by fighting on the frontlines since birth. ‘If I were this ingenious and Mother was still alive, I’d ask her to craft something like this.’
‘Can we keep them, please?’ One of the Doppelgangers asked.
‘You can, but they only work near a Mainframe. Sorry.’ Faluel shrugged. ‘Soon there will be one in every city of the Kingdom, but until that moment, Tablets have limited use.’
In Derious, Faluel’s guests could only play tourists. There was nothing to do so they spent their days visiting the city and browsing the Web.
‘I hate to say this, but Verhen is a genius.’ Leari sighed. ‘People don’t talk well about him because they are brainwashed but because the bastard deserves it. I have no idea what a train is, but at this point, I bet my feathery ass it’s something awesome.’
Faluel replied by pointing them to the video about the maiden voyage of the Wayfinder, confirming the Thunderbird’s words and making the rest of the Divine Beasts curse like sailors.
‘Are you telling me stuff like this will be everywhere?’ Protheus and Ophius asked in unison, but one with enthusiasm and the other with frustration.
‘In time, yes. Follow me.’ She brought them to the Kingdom’s very first train station.
It was located in the commercial/working-class district to give commoners easy access to it since only rich people had the means to travel through half the city with ease.
The station already had plenty of benches, luggage stores, and maps that depicted the itinerary of the future Train. Huge banners announced that the Supreme Magus would take part in the maiden voyage that would connect Derios with Lutia.
‘What do you mean, first Train?’ Leari asked. ‘Shouldn’t the first one be inaugurated at Valeron, the capitol of the Kingdom?’
‘The Royals consider to have already received such honor with the Wayfinder.’ Faluel replied. ‘They have decreed that the first civilian train will be the one in the Distar Marquisate to honor Lith’s birthplace.’
After a while, they left Derios and the Hydra brought Thrud’s former vassals back home, to the territories they had once protected. The first city they visited was Zeska, in the heart of Thrud’s domain.
There was much more to rebuild than in the other half of the Kingdom, but everyone noticed that people were still free, healthy, and well-fed.
Too healthy and well-fed, to be precise.
‘What in the gods’ names is going on here?’ Protheus was the most naïve among them yet even he could feel something was eerily wrong. ‘What happened?’
There was little traffic, lots of green areas, and the city was even cleaner than Derios.
‘Thrud happened.’ Faluel’s thoughts held great sadness. ‘You guys happened. That’s what.’
She didn’t blame or spite them but the Divine Beasts could still feel the accusation in her words.
‘What do you mean?’ Protheus asked. ‘We fought for these people. We protected them. We sacrificed our lives over and over to ensure their freedom.’
‘That’s almost true but it’s not the full truth. You didn’t protect all of them.’ Faluel replied. ‘Please, follow me. It’s easier to show than tell.’
She brought everyone to the local cemetery, including the Doppelgangers. The west side of the Kingdom had lost the civil war and reported a great number of casualties so a procession of people visiting the local graveyard was far from an uncommon sight.
Especially for fortresses like Zeska that had been stormed by Lith back when he was trying to rescue Phloria. To its citizens, the Supreme Magus was both a hero and a monster.
After the end of the famine and the start of the distribution of the Tablets, their anger had started to quell but their fear stood unchanged. The people of Zeska had relied on the solid city walls for generations to protect them and Lith had breached them.
They had trusted the defensive arrays until the Tiamat had burned them. During the war, Divine Beasts had stood against the Tiamat, but the city had fallen anyway.
Now that Thrud’s generals were gone and only human soldiers remained, what chances did Zeska have to resist the Supreme Magus were he to attack again?
Such morbid thoughts were hard to dismiss because the cemetery had almost doubled its extension after the war. Its grey walls were a constant reminder of what had happened and might happen again at any moment.
Faluel and her procession joined a bigger one, dozens of people moving together toward the same destination: the area dedicated to the victims of the War of the Griffons.
Thrud’s former vassals swallowed in nervousness several times at the size of the vast field of tombstones upon which was carved the same date. It was then that it hit them. The price of their actions, of their faith in the Mad Queen had been paid by others.
Thousands of people who, unlike Thrud’s chosen, only had one life. One life that had been betted on her army and lost.
Yet Faluel never slowed down. While a few members of the procession stopped at the tombs of their respective loved ones, most of the people walked toward what at first glance looked like a massive black wall.
