Chapter 65

Despite Kosha’s diligence, the work consumed a considerable amount of time. He moved methodically through the West Wing, purging the last ominous traces of foreign energy from the stonework. The remnants had been buried at regular intervals, yet most were so faint that anyone else might have mistaken them for harmless residue left by time and neglect. Only a mage possessed the sensitivity required to detect the lingering pulses of incomplete spells embedded within the walls.

Ancient sorcery followed rigid, meticulous rituals. The prescribed numbers, actions, directions, intervals, and materials had to be observed with absolute precision.

Kosha had barely learned enough magic to justify calling himself a mage, much less unravel the vast intricacies of an ancient spell, so the purpose of the remnants eluded him. Even so, he sensed them vividly. They felt like a direct intrusion into his territory, and their presence stirred a deep, visceral revulsion within him.

Filthy, unpleasant things needed to be cleansed. After all, he had spent his days as a gooseherd scrubbing his home and stables from dawn until dusk.

During his search, he discovered a lizard that had gorged itself on foreign mana. Its round belly had swollen until the poor creature lay helplessly on its back, unable to right itself. Kosha carefully tucked it into the folds of his robe, arranging the fabric around its tiny body so it would remain comfortable while it recovered from what promised to be severe indigestion.

Once he had finished, he went in search of his geese.

No one had told him where the household staff had placed them, but their location hummed unmistakably in his blood. A familiar and its mage could naturally sense one another, even from opposite ends of the continent.

The new goose coop occupied a neat corner of the northern courtyard, in a space previously reserved for the hunting dogs. The moment Kosha approached, a valuable black hound resting in the shade scrambled to its feet. Almost immediately, however, it lowered its head and pressed itself submissively toward the dirt.

Nature favored mages, even when direct communication remained impossible, and animals instinctively responded to that affinity.

A pang of guilt pricked Kosha when he realized the hound had surrendered half its spacious yard to his flock. He knelt beside the animal and stroked the thick fur around its neck. The massive hound released a soft, miserable whine, looking utterly dejected as it went to extraordinary lengths to avoid meeting the geese’s eyes.

“Did something happen?” Kosha murmured.

He approached the coop, where a sturdy fence divided the enclosure from the dog’s remaining territory. A heavy lock secured the gate, but such an obstacle posed no difficulty for a mage. The latch clicked open beneath a subtle pulse of magic, and the geese immediately flapped their wings, crowding around his legs in an excited huddle.

Their feathers looked impeccably soft and fluffy, suggesting that someone had thoughtfully prepared fresh bathwater for them. Kosha took his time greeting the flock, affectionately stroking the long necks of all nine birds in turn.

A familiar was a literal extension of its mage, capable of carrying out its master’s will without a spoken command. Kosha still struggled to believe that these ordinary farm birds had truly become his magical familiars, however, so he decided to explain himself aloud.

“Listen closely.” He crouched until he was level with them. “This is our home now.”

The geese erupted into a flurry of honking and restless wings.

“Even if you don’t like it, nothing can be done. It has already happened.”

Kosha delivered the final statement with as much firmness as he could summon, then loosened his heavy robe. He wore only a thin shirt beneath it, leaving his body saturated with the traces Lucien had imprinted upon him, from the prince’s distinctive scent to the dense residue of his energy.

Every person possessed a unique magical wavelength. It was too faint for most humans to perceive, but sensitive animals noticed such things immediately. The nine geese hovered close to Kosha, detecting the foreign masculine presence that clung to his skin. Several flicked their short tails in obvious displeasure.

After formally designating the new territory as their home, Kosha refastened his robe.

“You know what to do, don’t you?”

Lucien had once mocked him by asking whether just anyone could wander into his home, but the truth was quite the opposite.

“You can guard this house properly, can’t you?”

Geese made far better watchdogs than most people realized. Even Veorn, the man who had tormented Kosha endlessly in his village, had never managed to set foot inside his yard.

The largest goose, the unquestioned leader of the flock, stretched her neck.

Honk, honk, honk!

She spoke for them all. Although she was the most troublesome of the nine and frequently challenged Kosha’s authority, she had always proved flawlessly dependable when it mattered most.

If the geese truly were his familiars, the locked gate would present no obstacle. They shared his power and existed as living extensions of his magic. After giving their leader one final, affectionate hug, Kosha left the enclosure.

He went next to the bathhouse and scrubbed himself clean. The unusual hour ensured complete privacy, leaving the vast stone chamber blessedly empty. Relief washed through him. Lucien had left so many vivid, humiliating marks across his skin that encountering curious eyes would have been unbearable.

After bathing, Kosha secretly procured a fresh shirt from the supply warehouse. Since he merely summoned the garment into his hands with a quiet pulse of magic, he refused to classify the act as stealing. On his way past the kitchens, he levitated a fresh loaf of bread through an open window and devoured it, greedily appeasing the hunger gnawing at his stomach.

His leisurely pace faltered the moment he reached the corridor leading to his quarters.

Distracted by his chores, he had failed to notice the oppressive weight of Lucien’s presence radiating from inside his bedroom.

He seemed completely consumed by urgent matters earlier. Why is he waiting in my room?

Kosha hurried down the corridor and pushed open the door.

“Your Highness? Are you here?”

Only silence answered him.

Lucien sat perfectly still on a wooden chair within the cramped quarters, which were small enough to survey in a single glance. The instant Kosha crossed the threshold, their eyes met, and the prince surged to his feet.

A thick, unmistakably ominous tension smothered the room.

Lucien crossed the distance between them in three long strides. He seized Kosha by the arm and dragged the awkwardly frozen mage fully inside, then kicked the door shut with a resounding thud.

“Where were you?”

Kosha’s gaze darted frantically around the room. His fragile human ego, which had been wandering blissfully free while he completed his chores, scrambled back into his skull with the metaphorical shriek of grinding gears.

“The bathroom,” he stammered.

“The bathroom?”

A crooked, dangerous smile twisted Lucien’s lips, though pure displeasure radiated from every line of his rigid posture.

“You need half a day to use the bathroom? Have you forgotten that I explicitly told you I would send someone to collect you?” His eyes narrowed. “Try again.”

The accusations struck in a rapid, merciless barrage. Kosha hunched his shoulders, desperately trying to make himself smaller.

“I’m sorry. I truly needed to wash.” He swallowed with difficulty. “My body felt much too dirty.”

Lucien merely stared at him, his expression unreadable.

“And I wanted to check on the geese.”

Kosha mumbled the explanation into his collar. He possessed enough survival instinct to omit any mention of the strange man he had encountered earlier. Some primal intuition warned him that volunteering that information without preparation would end in disaster.

Besides, he had already dealt with the urgent magical contamination. He had even begun the arduous process of converting the West Wing into his personal domain.

Lucien released a long, heavy breath.

He stared down at the trembling mage, then covered his eyes with one broad hand and massaged his temples. The naked terror swimming in Kosha’s wide eyes made it almost impossible to sustain the harsh interrogation.

“Don’t lie to me.”

“I won’t. I’m sorry.”

The prince’s voice had softened considerably, drawing an equally gentle and immediate submission from Kosha. Lucien fell silent, studying the young man’s face for a long, searching moment.

Kosha’s features radiated endless innocence, still clinging stubbornly to the faint remnants of youth. His soft, utterly guileless expression made it seem fundamentally impossible that he could commit any treacherous or foolish act.

Yet despite the evidence before Lucien’s eyes, the deeply troubling council meeting from only an hour earlier resurfaced in his mind.

Inside his private office, which had been cleared of every unnecessary attendant, only Gosrick and Lucien’s most trusted aides had remained. Even within that secured chamber, Renata had lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, treating her theory like venom capable of seeping into the walls.

“I strongly advise you to locate the mage’s parents.”

“His parents?”

The unexpected suggestion had caught Lucien entirely off guard.

“We’ve already conducted a search,” Gosrick had replied. “They don’t exist on paper. You know as well as I do that remote villages like Allohen rarely maintain reliable records of their residents.”

“He isn’t from Allohen,” Renata had countered without hesitation.

Eydric, the knight previously dispatched to investigate the mage’s background, had stepped forward. “I personally confirmed that he lived in Allohen during his childhood.”

Renata had firmly shaken her head, dismissing the report.

“Has no one else noticed how strange the details are? Consider the name itself. Kosha. It violates every traditional convention for naming Izelandic men.”

Strict cultural customs governed Izelandic names. Male names invariably ended in hard consonants, while a name ending in a soft vowel was universally considered feminine.

The men gathered within the room demonstrated the rule perfectly: Gosrick, Eydric, Lucien, Felon. Each bore a quintessential Izelandic male name, heavy with consonants.

“No official law governs how peasants name their children,” Gosrick had argued, his brow furrowing. “Names ending in vowels are common enough in the eastern territories. One of my own knights is named Ilensha, and he came directly from the East.”

“I know Sir Ilensha well, and his name follows a familiar regional structure. Kosha does not.” Renata’s expression had tightened. “It violates every phonetic convention. I have never encountered it in a provincial registry, and the syllables themselves sound deliberately incomplete.”

“It hardly seems appropriate to place a grown man under suspicion merely because he has an unusual provincial name,” Gosrick had warned.

“This isn’t mockery.” Renata had offered a curt shrug. “I’m stating plainly that Kosha is probably an alias.”

She had leaned against the mahogany table.

“More precisely, I believe we’re dealing with concealed lineage. I observed the mage closely several days ago. Has no one else realized how profoundly wrong his behavior is?”

Wrong?

The accusation had baffled Lucien. The boy’s etiquette had been impeccable, leaving no discernible flaw for the court vultures to tear apart.

“He bent his knee when he greeted me in the hallway,” Renata had explained, fixing her gaze on Lucien. “That precise degree of deference belongs to an archaic form of etiquette used exclusively among high-ranking court nobles a generation ago. Nearly twenty years have passed since modern protocol replaced it with a simple bow from the waist.”

A heavy silence had settled over the office.

“Naturally, some isolated traditionalists still observe the older customs. Your Highness, your tutors undoubtedly drilled that exact posture into you when you were young. But such aristocratic instruction would never have been given to an impoverished commoner.”

The revelation had struck Lucien with the force of a physical blow.

The mage’s flawless etiquette suddenly seemed impossible for a boy supposedly born in the dirt and raised as a rural gooseherd. In a forgotten cesspit like Allohen, even the local lord remained blissfully ignorant of the customs practiced in the royal capital. Newly recruited palace servants required months of grueling instruction merely to achieve basic competence.

Kosha, by contrast, had moved with natural, effortless grace from the very beginning. The palace’s opulence had never intimidated him. He wielded proper titles and sophisticated vocabulary with instinctive precision.

His refinement had appeared so organic that none of them had recognized how impossible it was.

“I calculate a high probability that he possesses significant noble status and was forced into hiding by severe political circumstances. I know little about the internal politics of magical society, but he may have been expelled from the Magic Tower, or something worse.”

Renata had hesitated, and her voice had dropped to a fearful murmur.

“He may be an exile from Grafen.”

Absolute silence had suffocated the war room.

Grafen was Izeland’s sworn, blood-soaked enemy in both name and deed. Vast stretches of their shared border remained trapped in a tense and fragile ceasefire. Every veteran officer in that office had personally spilled blood along that brutal frontier.

“You are suggesting that my personal mage may be an exiled aristocrat from enemy territory?” Lucien had asked with deadly slowness.

The allegation alone was politically poisonous. If evidence emerged that Kosha carried such treasonous blood, Lucien would be forced to execute him and burn the corpse before rival factions discovered the truth. A Grafen spy in his bedchamber would transform instantly from a private weakness into a catastrophic weapon aimed at his claim to the throne.

Renata, however, had slowly shaken her head.

“I would greatly prefer that he were merely an exiled noble, Your Highness. But if his roots do trace back to Grafen, how can we rule out the possibility that he remains an active spy?”

No one had dared to answer.

“Consider how he arrived,” she had continued. “Have you never questioned the sheer statistical absurdity of a highly trained, impeccably mannered mage becoming entangled in your retinue through an allegedly random encounter in the countryside? What concerns me most is that our entire intelligence apparatus accepted his story without serious doubt until today.”

Her tactical reasoning had been devastatingly sound. Not one of the knights could produce a convincing rebuttal.