You try your best to hand someone the reins of a kingdom, and yet they all find desperate excuses to avoid taking it. Even when I promised to support the new king for a transition period, no one was willing to step up.

  “What kind of king is that, ruling only by the grace of an outsider?”

  “This is going to end in civil war.”

  “We should divide the country.”

  “No, even starting to talk about dividing it will cause problems. One way or another, it will lead to war.”

  “Fine,” I said, throwing up my hands. “Then maybe we just let K'hordock take over again.”

  The Marquis of the North shook his heavy head.

  “That won’t work, Your Highness. Even if Lord K'hordock recovers, his undead army is destroyed. It would take him years to rebuild it, and I doubt he has the time or strength.”

  “Young Marquis Shui is right, Your Highness,” the old witch croaked, nodding slowly. “Lord K'hordock's best years are behind him. As much as some may not want to see it, our old chieftain needed spells just to move around. His magical capacity is still remarkable, but not enough to face the challenges ahead without the support of his undead army.”

  “If Her Highness is planning to leave us, we must begin thinking about how to minimize the damage,” the young marquis said.

  While they continued discussing ways to soften the blow from what they already called the fall of the kingdom, I started to doubt my own decisions.

  Holding the crown did have its benefits. I had access to a significant amount of magical power, although I was only beginning to understand its full potential. There was still so much to learn from the vast libraries hidden within the castle. Beyond that, I could influence the behavior of the orcs. I could change Drackar’s and his clan's fate.

  I sighed.

  “Alright. Forget what I said. I understand. I’ll stay in charge for now. But I need a clear picture of the current situation and what needs to be done. Prepare a one-page summary for me, just the main problems and urgent tasks, so I know what I’m dealing with. I’ll go check on the divinarch, see what he’s capable of, and then I’ll come back. Hopefully, by then, you’ll have something ready for me, or at least the key points.”

  Pleased with how efficiently I had assigned the task, I turned to the captain of the guard and asked him to assign someone to guide me to the divinarch’s laboratory.

  The guide was a young officer from the army, brisk in manner and easy to talk to.

  Unexpectedly, the walk to the divinarch’s laboratory turned out to be pleasant and even a little informative. When I asked him about his current worries, he confessed that he was mostly concerned about whether a new campaign would be launched. He was set to be married next week, everything already planned and prepared, but if a campaign was announced, he would have to cancel it all.

  His concerns were so simple, so straightforward, that I almost envied him. With all the magic at my fingertips and all the power supposedly in my hands, I still felt worse off. It was as if I were being dragged into a swamp, and every time I thought I had made progress, I realized I was only sinking deeper.

  With those thoughts still swirling in my mind, I stepped into the laboratory. The young officer accompanying me saluted, then asked if I needed anything else.

  I waved him off. “I’ll find my way back,” I said, and he left with a nod.

  The divinarch turned as soon as I entered, wiping sweat from his brow.

  “I’m almost ready, my lady...”

  He froze mid-sentence, eyes widening as the realization hit him. His gaze darted nervously across my face, searching for signs of offense.

  “I... I mean, Your Highness! I meant no disrespect, I assure you. Please forgive me...”

  I chuckled and rolled my eyes. “Relax. I’m not one to cling to formalities.”

  His shoulders eased slightly. “Thank you, Your Highness.”

  “So,” I continued, stepping closer, “what’s your name, actually?”

  “Lorach, Your Highness,” he said with a respectful bow.

  “Well then, Divinarch Lorach, what else do you need before we begin?”

  He dabbed his brow again with a handkerchief, though his stutter was already fading.

  “I need to fill those runes with mana,” he said, pointing to a segment of pale gray markings. “But I’m empty. I just need to find another potion... just a moment…”

  I tilted my head, eyeing the large circular table set low to the ground. It was made of some kind of transparent crystal, resting on six elaborate metallic legs, each shaped with strange arabesque appendages that gave the piece a delicate, almost organic feel.

  On the surface, intricate runes had been painted in careful, swirling patterns. Most glowed faintly, though roughly a quarter of the circle remained dim. It must have taken considerable effort to maintain so many at once.

  “Let me help,” I said and sent mana flowing into the inactive runes.

  “Uh, oh! But, my lady... ayaya! Your Highness!” he corrected himself quickly. “All the runes need to be filled with the same kind of mana and...”

  Oh. True that. To correct the imbalance, I reworked the entire circuit, adding my own mana and taking control of his in the process. His energy had a curious flavor. In my mind, I could only describe it as tasting like lemon, oddly enough.

  “But… but Your Highness,” he murmured, his voice small now, “I’m supposed to be the one in control of the mana…”

  “Of course,” I replied, fully intending to hand it back to him, until I noticed something… off. Subtle, but flawed.

  “Shouldn’t these runes look like this?” I asked, reshaping several of them slightly, adding more intricate appendages.

  He gasped.

  “Those are the old forms,” he said, eyes wide. “The original runes were more elaborate, like that one there, it used to be called 'fetch'. But the runes were simplified in the revised grimoire centuries ago. The older ones were just too complex for most casters to use efficiently.”

  “But I can feel it resonate more deeply now,” I said, watching the pattern respond.

  “It might be,” he admitted, nodding slowly. “Some senior casters and archmages still use the old script. It resonates more strongly, yes—but there’s a reason people stopped using it. The older runes demand much more focus and mental memory to hold in your mind. That limits how many you can combine, and in turn, how complex your spells can be.”

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  Looking at the runes, I could almost hear Flo’s voice: “Runes are just recognized patterns in magic.”

  Something about that line tugged at my thoughts, sparking a connection I couldn’t quite place. Still, this wasn’t the time for a deep dive into magical theory, so I turned to him instead.

  “Can you take over the spell circle now?” I asked.

  “I… I’ll try,” Lorach said.

  I let him ease into control. It took him several seconds to complete the transfer. He lost some of the detail I had added, but managed to keep the circle mostly intact.

  “Okay,” he said at last. “Now I just need to place a few hairs from the comb and complete the divination spell.”

  He gently laid a couple of strands at the center of the crystal table and inscribed the final rune. With a practiced breath, he triggered the spell and let it unfold. Then he looked up at me, a puzzled expression forming.

  “Uhm… Your Highness, it’s pointing at you.”

  I snorted and rolled my eyes. “I may have used the comb myself. Can’t you narrow it down? Her hair is blonde. Can’t you eliminate everything else?”

  He exhaled through his nose, focusing as he added a few refining runes on top of the spell. “Of course, Your Highness. We divinarchs constantly filter out false leads until we isolate the true signal. But…”

  “Yes?” I prompted.

  He was breathing heavily now, clearly straining to maintain the spell.

  “It appears… she’s in a warded location. The spell is being blocked.”

  “Can’t you push the spell further? Maybe get a direction? Or at least how far she is?” I asked.

  He lifted his eyes toward me for a brief moment, then returned his focus to the table. His breathing quickened.

  “It’s possible… but the risk of backlash increases exponentially,” he said. “Still… I’ll try to see how far I can go.”

  He leaned in, concentrating. Sweat trickled down his temple, and his breath came in short, controlled bursts. Tiny arcs of electricity began sparking between the table and his head.

  “Somewhere far…” he managed. “That’s all I can tell… Your Highness…”

  The last words sounded more like a plea than a report.

  Then the spell collapsed.

  He expired sharply, then turned toward me with a look that was half guilty, half afraid.

  I let out a long, frustrated breath. I couldn’t blame him. It was clear he’d pushed himself to the edge. The table still crackled with faint discharges, but they were already fading.

  “Do you think I could try, Divinarch Lorach?” I asked.

  “Your Highness, you were able to sustain the runes earlier, so in theory, yes, you could cast it. But you might get hurt. Badly. The backlash scales with the caster’s power,” he warned.

  At my shrug, he added, “Of course, I could redraw the runes, but that would take time. And I nearly had everything explode in our faces, as you saw. Pushing the spell just a step further could be catastrophic.”

  “What we know so far,” he continued, “is that she’s still in this world, but in a remote location. Which would mean that earlier… she truly wasn’t in this world?” he murmured, trying to wrap his mind around the implications.

  I didn’t need the runes redrawn by hand. I had already seen them. With a flick of my hand, the charred table cleaned itself, and I began to renew the runes.

  Meanwhile, my mind turned over the workings of the spell circle. Runes are just patterns in magic, Flo had said. But that was an oversimplification. Not every pattern becomes a rune. Runes are functional patterns, structures that channel specific effects through magic.

  And looking at the spell circle now, something shifted in me. I realized I had misunderstood magic all along. Perhaps most had.

  Is it possible to use something without truly understanding it?

  Well… yes. Of course. A lot of people use technology all the time without the faintest idea how it works.

  Runes are functional patterns. That one word - functional - changed everything. Runes weren’t just symbols etched in glowing lines. They were more like a programming language for magic. Not static things to memorize, but active constructs, routines and subroutines you could call, shift, and adapt.

  Most people learned spells by rote, remembering the names, chanting the syllables. But magic wasn’t a recited formula, it was intent shaped into structure. The sequence of runes didn’t even need to be perfect, so long as the intent behind them was clear and the connections correct. The spoken word wasn’t a trigger; it was a wrapper for the true structure underneath.

  But once your mind became truly attuned to magic, once it thought in magic, you didn’t need to imagine runes at all. They came naturally, summoned as your thoughts aligned with purpose. That’s where I was now.

  And when I formed the intent to find Julietta - truly focused on her - the runes on the table began to write themselves.

  It was like an epiphany. The entire spell circle clarified, far more intricate, far more precise than anything I had seen before. The logic behind the magic wasn’t being imposed, it was unfolding.

  I placed a fresh strand of hair in the center, what remained of the old ones had been burned, and gently laid down the final rune. As the spell began to take shape, guided by the now clarified runes, I knew I could let the structure evolve to amplify its reach.

  Evolve? What did it mean for a rune to evolve?

  Then it clicked: runes were fractals. That truth had never been clearer. Smaller and smaller runic patterns branched off from the larger ones, self-replicating and layering in intricate detail. The fractals moved, spiraling inward, converging into a tightening web of magical intent.

  I heard Lorach gasp. The spell's power surged by several orders of magnitude, and the air thickened as the room dimmed under the pressure of dark mana.

  Clouds of black vapor swirled above the lower table, coalescing rapidly. From the mist, an image emerged, first blurred, then painfully sharp.

  Ju.

  My Ju!

  She was bound to a massive wooden X, her limbs stretched to the farthest ends. Her body hung limp. Mana-starved. Starved in every way. And she was unconscious.

  My breath caught and my eyes went wide in horror.

  “Ju!” I shouted, as my instincts took over.

  She stirred, her head lifted weakly and then… our eyes met.

  “Lores…” her lips moved, barely forming the word. “Don’t…”

  She couldn’t finish. Her body tensed as a wave of pain wracked her, a soft moan escaping her lips.

  Some kind of backup mechanism must have sensed my intrusion. The moment the wards were overridden, it began tearing her apart. Maybe I shouldn’t have spoken to her. Maybe that was what triggered the alarm.

  I couldn’t explain how I knew all this, but the magic around her told me everything. It was encoded in the flow, in the pattern of the backlash. I severed the connection instantly, hoping that by doing so, I’d spare her. Spare her—for now. At least until her captors chose to act again.

  “That… that was more than divination! What in the name of the stars was that? How could you do that?” Lorach stammered, breathless and so shocked that he forgot to add 'Your Highness'.

  The mumbling old orc’s voice pulled me back to reality. I looked up, eyes still wide. I knew now where she was, or close enough. She was not here. Not in the orc kingdom. I’d attacked them for nothing. They were guilty of many things, but not of kidnapping her.

  She was somewhere to the west, deep in human territory. I hadn’t held the spell long enough to pinpoint her exact location, but I had the direction, and a rough sense of the distance.

  Lorach was still staring between Lores - his new queen - and the crystal table. The runes had all but faded now, leaving behind only scorched traces, blackened scars that looked like paper singed by flame.

  So these were the dancing runes, he thought, the ones whispered about in legends of dragons, archdemons, and angels…

  He gulped, trying to chase the heretical thought from his mind. Those runes... no human, orc, or elf could cast anything like that.

  And yet, he had just witnessed it.