Phoenix was flipping the pages of her [Guide Book] as she made it display the information for the Sapphire Rituals book currently sitting in her collection. The twins moved to where she was positioning herself, and both looked worried, but Saiya was the one to say, “I’m not sure your ritual will work here. At least not completely. It’s an Emerald Caste zone.”

  “Yeah, but even if it can’t stop the ambient mana from bleeding through entirely, it should help slow it down a bit at Sapphire,” she explained, still searching her book. She remembered seeing the upgraded version of the Crystal ritual that was imprinted in her mind from the Knowledge Tome that Scholar had given her, but she didn’t remember exactly what page it was on as she had never really needed it before.

  Phoenix was slightly distracted by the sight of Uriel as he leaned over Daze to place a gloved hand on his chest, trying to calm him by saying, “King, I’m going to take some of the mana. I need you to accept it and not fight the ability.”

  Dazien was shuddering as he grabbed onto Uriel’s arm and almost begged, “Any-anything. Just don’t l-leave me again.”

  Uriel sadly smiled and quietly reassured, “Never. I’ll always be with you even if I can’t hold you. You’re my king.” Then in a firmer tone filled with power, the Mage incanted, “Your mana is mine. You are my power.”

  She was relieved when Daze didn’t scream again. Instead, he almost sighed in relief as the mana was drained from him. Phoenix managed to find the ritual she had been searching for and quickly used her [Lunar Dream] to create an illusioned diagram around them all. Luckily, it was a rather simplistic ritual that didn’t call for any esoteric ingredient that she didn’t already have in her collection.

  “What’s going on here?” Emrys surprised them all by asking. “I got an alert that magic was being used in here…” He trailed off as his eyes landed on Dazien and Uriel.

  “Daze’s tattoos activated. We think due to the eclipse, but they were absorbing the ambient mana, so we’re trying to stop it,” Phoenix quickly explained as she moved toward the prince.

  After another moment of analyzing what Uriel was doing, Emrys asked, “Does he have a way to get rid of the excess mana he’s draining without destroying the library?”

  They all winced slightly at the thought. Uriel shook his head and answered, “I could try constructing my [Home’s Hearth] over and over again, but I’m not sure it will keep up with how much Daze needs drained.”

  Emrys nodded and seemed to ponder for another long moment before saying, “We can try moving him to the training grounds. You can cast your more expensive Spells there.”

  Uriel shook his head. “It’ll be too dangerous to move him through the ambient mana. He could die.”

  “You will die if you keep draining him like that,” Emrys pointed out and Phoenix suddenly found herself agreeing with the prince for once.

  “I forgot about the potential mana poisoning,” she muttered. “I’m usually using my mana faster than my own siphon can replenish it, and it’ll stop draining if I’m too full.” She glanced back at her best friend. “Uriel, your ability just does a conversion all at once, doesn’t it?”

  He nodded with a frown. “I can still go a bit without getting too sick from it.”

  Emrys shook his head. “I don’t want either of you to die right now, so pick him up, or I can, and we’ll set him up elsewhere.” The prince looked back at Phoenix before adding quietly, “Will you accept my advice and let me help?”

  She looked around at her friends to get a silent vote via nods before answering, “I accept. Please take him and lead the way.”

  He nodded then offered a small smile as he said, “He’ll be okay, Princess. You’re not going to lose him today.”

  Phoenix nodded but suddenly found herself wondering when the day would come that she did lose her brother and what she might possibly do to stop that from ever happening.

  Uriel had opted for Emrys to carry Dazien as they focused on moving as quickly as possible. The training grounds weren’t far but Dazien instantly started to complain about feeling too hot again even with Uriel doing his best to drain a larger chunk of mana at once without making himself sick.

  Mana poisoning from drains was normally difficult to achieve since the sickness would work itself out of a person’s system eventually unless it was enough to kill them off. A Crystal Caster would likely live from eating a Sapphire Mana Bit, but they’d feel absolutely miserable for a day or two as the status effect couldn’t normally be cleansed through external means. Eating a Ruby Bit however would likely kill them in minutes.

  He had to be careful he didn’t drain more than he mana channels could handle at once, lest it bleed into the rest of his system and cause the annoying status effect. He could sense in the few moments before he cast his [Siphoned Vigor] approximately how much mana Dazien had versus his own reserves and he knew he wouldn’t last much longer without expending it.

  Luckily, by the time they reached the training grounds, he had remembered that his ability didn’t have a cool down and he could use it to transfer that mana to another ally. He turned and asked Phoenix, “Can you empty your mana into your illusions? Then I can siphon off my mana to refill you instead. It’ll slow down my draining of Daze, but at least it won’t kill me or damage anything.”

  “Oh! That’ll work,” Phoenix replied, looking slightly happier. She glanced at Emrys and asked, “Will anyone get mad about some soundless fireworks?”

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  The smile the prince gave her made Uriel’s chest feel tighter for a brief moment as the handsome elf replied, “I think they would be happy for the beautiful art in the sky. If anyone asks, we can come up with some excuse for it, but I doubt you wouldn’t do it even if I said otherwise.”

  “True,” she replied with her own cheeky grin that made Uriel’s cheeks feel warmer. His eyes followed her hands as she raised them over her head and incanted, “Let dreams become reality.”

  Brilliant explosions of color lit up the night sky that made Uriel smile despite feeling like he might vomit after the mana he had just drained again from Daze. He wearily looked back toward Phoenix to target her next and refill the mana she just used when he noticed the look on Emrys’ face.

  The crown prince desired their Princess.

  “That is a lovely incantation that compliments my own powers quite wonderfully,” Emrys softly said to Phoenix, that burning look clearly evident in his ice blue eyes. “Perhaps we have more in common than you believed.”

  “My mana is yours. I am your power,” Uriel said as he focused on dumping a majority of the mana he had built up into Phoenix, interrupting the moment between the two of them.

  Phoenix gasped slightly and looked at him. “Wow, that was a lot more than I was expecting.” With another smile for him this time, she said, “Keep going while I make some chaos in the sky for us.”

  He grinned back and nodded, refocusing on Dazien who was lying next to him and still heaving and sweating like he was already struggling with the sickness of mana poisoning. After a few more minutes of repeating this cycle of draining Dazien, watching fireworks, and refilling Phoenix, the glow of the tattoos had started to stutter and wane.

  Dazien finally managed to open his eyes fully and focus on Uriel’s own concerned gaze. Slipping a hand into his, Daze quietly said, “Thank you, Senesh.”

  He shook his head. “You don’t have to thank me for this. I’m not going to just let you die.”

  “I meant thank you for staying by my side… I—” He broke off with another painful wince, and Uriel cast his drain again. As Dazien relaxed once more, he kept his eyes closed but murmured, “I was worried you would be too afraid of hurting me again to stay.”

  Uriel gave a heavy sigh, and admitted, “I am afraid of that, but I… I don’t want you to fear me abandoning you, Daze. I am yours. For as long as you’ll have me. I know I’m not always making it seem that way… I know I’m not handling this the best.”

  A weak squeeze of his hand made him relax slightly as Dazien looked back up at him. “I just want to help you with that, Senesh. Quit shutting me out for my own good. I don’t want to waste what little time we might have in this world fearing we might hurt each other. You’re my partner. Not my servant or my protector.”

  Uriel glanced over toward Emrys who was watching them with a curious look. He hadn’t been sure Dazien wanted to admit their relationship to the prince who was potentially trying to marry him off to his older sister or mother.

  A soft chuckle tickled his ears and he looked back down at Dazien, who had followed his gaze. “You’re not worried about others knowing?”

  Dazien’s smile felt like warm sunshine as he said, “I’ve never worried about that, Uriel. You were the one who wanted to keep it a secret. I’ve never been ashamed to call you my partner.”

  “I haven’t either,” he retorted, hearing the slight pout in his voice. He then muttered, “I just didn’t want you to be judged even more for being with a mon—”

  “I will carve your name upon this golden torc if I have to—if it’ll make you stop worrying so much,” Dazien interjected, then turned to look at the next round of fireworks high in the sky. “Perhaps I can find an actual tattooist that can add your name to these runes. That way your claim on my heart is obvious, and it will hopefully be disruptful enough that this won’t happen every eclipse.”

  “I think you’re going to be just fine if you’re making jokes like that,” Emrys said, kneeling down opposite Uriel to look closer at the shimmering tattoos. “That said, I can make some inquiries for you if you wish. We have many professional tattooists honing their craft that is in exceptionally high demand here. I’ve had my eye on one recently that I’ve been contemplating using for myself. I’ve long been debating on which tattoos might work well for my particular skill set without revealing too many of my secrets.”

  “If you have someone who knows how to make this one inert at the very least, I would appreciate that,” Dazien replied, offering the elf a pained smile. “I won’t be so delusional as to hope they can actually make them useful to me until I ascend and they ideally vanish.”

  “I’ll ask around then,” Emrys acknowledged with a nod. “Since you seem to be more stable and coherent now, I was also wanting to ask if you were planning to visit the Labyrinth as well during your time here or if the Library was your main interest.”

  “I did hope to visit it, but I haven’t taken the time yet to look into the new access requirements that I’ve heard have been implemented in more recent years.”

  “You all definitely meet the requirements for the outer entrance, possibly the inner one too if you expand your team a bit.”

  “I’m sorry, but what’s a Labyrinth?” Phoenix asked, crouching down to sit next to Uriel after she fired off another set of explosive lights.

  “Living Reality Rifts that have controlled spawns and a sentience that seeks to challenge those who enter,” Emrys explained. “There’s another very well known one in Lona Laress.”

  “Wait, are you telling me that dungeons are actually a thing here?!” she exclaimed, causing Uriel and Dazien to chuckle. He remembered her terrible explanation before about the games she played back in her original world that had made Dazien get so frustrated at her use of the word.

  Emrys just looked confused, and Uriel smiled at the smug satisfaction inside him that reassured him that he knew Phoenix better than this handsome prince did. “Yes, if I remember what you described correctly. They have a much higher spawn rate than most places in the world. This makes them enviable hunting grounds for combat Casters like us.”

  The prince nodded and added, “Yes, it’s one of the premier attractions that bring visitors to our island. Much of our economy revolves around it.” He turned back to Daze and clarified, “Which was much of the impetus for those revised rules a handful of years back. We needed to protect it a bit better than we had done previously.”

  Phoenix’s hand on his arm drew Uriel’s eyes to her as she smiled up at him and excitedly asked “When do we get to go in the dungeon?!”

  They all laughed at her enthusiasm, and Daze teased her, “How about when I’m at least not dying anymore, yes?”

  “So tomorrow?” she teased right back, obviously no longer as concerned now that they knew how to handle the near-death threat. Uriel even felt his own tension leave him—just another monster they had vanquished.

  Saiya chuckled and lightly tapped the top of Phoenix’s head with a tail as she scolded, “Not everyone can bounce back like you can and is so eager to go chasing monsters after almost dying. Plus, we have research still to do.”

  Phoenix rolled her eyes, giving a low whine. “Fiiine, but we’re definitely going before leaving the city.”

  Uriel frowned at the idea, not because he didn’t want to visit it but because he hoped his new anger-calming item from Teal would be done before then. He had mentioned he would likely be fine for a while and could use the earrings for a bit in an emergency since that material seemed a bit tougher, but he also didn’t think they’d be fighting anything again so soon.

  He didn’t say anything, though, instead focusing on draining more mana from his partner again.

  Daze gave a heavy sigh as he closed his eyes again and relaxed more from Uriel’s efforts that actually dipped into Dazien’s own reserves at that point. With a weak smile, Daze finally replied to Phoenix, “As you command, Princess.”