Chapter 9 - Just in Time

When the servant informed the king, he became enraged. He called Rovshen right away, without wasting time.

Rovshen rushed into King's room and bowed, but King had already begun to give orders.

"You two," he directed at Rovshen and Charles, "go find that idiot before he does something stupid."

"Sir, may we use his map?" the servant asked. "If we want to find him quickly—"

“Why are you still asking? Go and find him in whatever way you want. If he refuses to come back, break a bone or two,” he ordered, then saw that they were still listening to his orders. “What are you waiting for? OUT!” screamed the king, while roughly rubbing his face out of anger.

“Yes, sir!” they both said and left the room.

They first visited King's personal room. Only Charles entered, since the others were not allowed. He lifted a section of the floor in the corner of the room and opened the case beneath it. This case contained personal maps for each royalty member. Of course, the case was locked using a key and a spell. The maps could be accessed as long as you used the correct key, which only the king and Charles had. Otherwise, the spell would burn everything inside the case.

As he took Yareth's map, he returned everything else to its place, closing the floor. He rushed to the carriage that Rovshen had prepared.

"Where is he?" Rovshen inquired as soon as Charles sat down beside him.

"Close to the city center."

"Let us fly now," Rovshen said as the winged horse spread its wings.

The winged horse lifted the carriage, and they headed for the city center. It took them a few minutes, more than ten times faster than riding a regular horse.

As they approached the city center, Rovshen began to lower the carriage, just above the buildings.

The moment they caught a glimpse of Yareth and Tiberius, Charles put the map on Rovshen’s lap.

“Fly over them,” he said.

“Just don’t break your leg,” Rovshen replied with a smirk.

…

Before the fire reached him, Tiberius had already pressed himself against the shop's door, attempting to open it by forcing the handle. As the flame came, he closed his eyes, accepting his fate.

Ground shook in a sudden. Not like an earthquake, but enough to be noticeable. A loud noise was heard, like someone was rubbing big rocks together.

In a few seconds, feeling that he was still alive, Tiberius opened his eyes and saw that he was in the shadow of a large wall made from rock. It had stopped the fire before they even reached him.

Not knowing what happened, he went around the wall carefully, trying to not catch someone’s attention.

Behind the wall, Yareth was standing, his hands still in fire, but only his hands, since he was not attacking. However, he hadn’t fully stopped using magic and was staring in a direction with an annoyed expression. He was looking at Charles.

As soon as Charles landed, he had made a wall from the rocks, pulling them from the ground and stopping the prince’s attack.

“Why are you getting in my way?” Asked the prince with anger.

“Young master, the king is waiting for you in the castle. Please follow us back without causing any problems."

“He can wait. I have unfinished business here.” Yareth said as he walked slowly towards Tiberius, yanking the flames away from his hands. Unfortunately, he had caught everyone's attention.

Charles kneeled and briefly touched the ground. Unlike last time, the ground did not shake, but small holes appeared around the prince. Suddenly, green plants with spikes rose up and surrounded Yareth’s arms, legs, and waist. Spikes caused him to bleed as soon as plants tied him.

He groaned for a second and could not move. He didn't kneel, though, because Charles didn't use spikes large enough to cause him any real harm. He didn't want to harm the young master, even if the king had ordered it.

“You think this will stop me?” Yareth spoke again, forming fire around his fists. He was attempting to increase the flames and burn the plants when a massive splash of water rained down from the sky, soaking him from head to toe and extinguishing his fire.

“Your father said break his arms if needed, so I would be careful.”

Tiberius turned to look in the direction and recognized the face. It was Rovshen. He'd stopped Yareth with water from the nearby fountain.

A scream of anger escaped Yareth's lips.

“Why does he always need to get in my way? That greedy bastard. He could not stand still, could he?” said screaming.

Then his face turned toward Charles, looking at him with anger.

“You know it, don’t you? How this freak ended up—”

A rock's sound was heard under Charles’s feet as he suddenly got closer to the prince, positioned himself behind him, and struck him in the neck, knocking him out.

Seeing this, Tiberius slowly walked toward Charles, both surprised and scared from the events.

“Thank you,” he said. “If it wasn't for you, I could be dead now,” he continued, also facing Rovshen, who was also walking toward them, frowning.

“Do not worry, he can't hurt you anymore. Sorry for the trouble.”

Charles lifted Yareth, using his magic. The prince started to float in the air, but Tiberius was not surprised this time, considering the things he had seen so far.

“I will take the prince's horse. You stay here a bit and make sure there is no problem,” Charles said.

“Sure,” Rovshen replied, still looking confused.

As Charles wanted to go towards the horse while carrying Yareth, Tiberius interrupted him.

“Hey, I have a question.”

He stopped and turned back, waiting for the question.

“What was he saying at the end? It sounded like he was talking about me ending up here. Do you know anything about it?” he asked curiously.

Charles smiled. “I wish I knew, but sadly, we have no information yet.”

“But he—”

“As you saw, the young master does not like to lose, and when he does, he either tries to take revenge or blame others. You just witnessed both,” Charles explained.

Tiberius stood for a second silently, then nodded. Charles nodded back and went ahead to take the prince back.

As they left, Tiberius saw that Rovshen was looking pensive, so he asked what's wrong.

“Well, Charles is right; Prince does not like to lose, and this is not the first time we have come to clean his mess. But like this? I don’t know; I’ve never seen him like this.”

“He told me about losing his chance to pull the sword because of me.”

“I understand that, but why would he want to kill you? It doesn’t make sense. But it is not up to me to investigate. I am here to clean things up,” he said as he went toward the wall Charles made. Then he walked around it and knocked on the shop door.

"Josh," he said, addressing the shopkeeper.

The door opened, and a terrified shopkeeper was waiting behind it.

“Could you put this rock down, please?”

"O-kay, we'll do it." Josh responded before returning to the shop to call for assistance.

His words took Tiberius by surprise. Based on his observations, Rovshen appeared to be quite strong and had a fair amount of magic skills. So he wondered why he did not do it himself.

With this question in mind, he walked toward him. “Why don’t you do it yourself?”

“I am an air mage,” he said simply.

Tiberius frowned. “But you just used water," he said, indicating the soaked ground.

“And? I am not following.”

"It should be possible to use earth if you can use air and water, right?"

Rovshen opened his mouth to speak but then paused as if he remembered something and scratched his head.

“You have no idea how it works, do you?” he said as he looked down, searching for something. He picked up a small rock and drew a big plus sign on the wall. Then I began writing ‘Air,’ ‘Water,’ ‘Earth,’ and ‘Fire’ clockwise from the top.

He explained, "Look, you can learn about this in school, but this is how things work roughly." Then he circled the word ‘Air.’

“When you have learned and mastered air magic, you are 100% proficient with it. Your proficiency drops when you move away from Air to other types, and you cannot master or learn anything beyond Fire or Water if you are an Air mage.”

“Is that why you can’t use Earth?”

“Exactly. It is how nature works; when you are on one side, you can’t switch,” he said with a smile. “Of course, but,” Rovshen raised his tone a bit, seeing Tiberius wanting to ask a question, “I encourage you to ask extra questions to a teacher at magic school. It is paid, but if you want to blend in our society, you better know how to use mana at least. ”

Rovshen's words simply silenced Tiberius, who was about to ask questions. However, he didn't mind him. The topic itself seemed more important, so he tried to focus on it.

This was not the first time Rovshen had mentioned magic and its significance in the world. And after these events, he realized that while he was here, he should at least be able to protect himself. And it appeared that magic was the most effective form of protection.

After a while, the shopkeeper came with a few more people. They all pointed their hands toward the wall Charles had made and pushed it slowly back to the ground, fixing the land.

As he was watching them use magic, Tiberius’s stomach began to growl.

“You haven’t eaten?” said Rovshen, frowning funnily.

“No,” Tiberius smiled, “I went down to the city to buy some groceries and have breakfast, but things did not go the way I wished they would.”

“Good, because I couldn’t either. Since the king called us so suddenly, I couldn’t finish my breakfast. Let me send a letter to the castle, and then we can have a breakfast.”

In addition, he asked Tiberius not to move around too much and said he would return in a few minutes. This cat-and-mouse game annoyed him, and he had no desire to look for someone ever again.

…

Only now, after thirty minutes, was Rovshen visible. His face was irritated as he made his way to the location where he had left Tiberius. However, there was a problem—he wasn't present. Rather, there was a large gathering and a lot of noise.

Rovshen came closer to one of them and asked what’s happening. And it turned out as he expected. Once more, people began to congregate around Tiberius, who had been sitting in front of one of the stores.

“Everyone!” Rovshen yelled, but nobody turned. He tried again, "Hey," but got no response. He wanted to make a few more calls, but then he remembered that he and Charles had heard thunder on their way there. It was most likely how people fled and hid when the prince arrived.

So he did the same after seeing no one was going to listen to him. Raised his hand, and lightning came out of his hand, illuminating the sky with its white color.

Everyone in the crowd fell silent. They turned back without saying anything. Tiberius even got to his feet and was visible. Of course, they all thought the prince was back, and it was the reason why they all seemed scared. But when they saw Rosvhen, they calmed down a bit.

“Could you please clear up? There is nothing interesting here,” he said with a demanding voice, walking toward Tiberius slowly. “You are attracting too much attention.”

“Sorry, but I can’t help it.”

“Anyway, let’s go. We are gonna need to talk.”