The Vandera Mountains rose before them like slumbering gods, their ridges draped in morning mist and their peaks lost to low-hanging cloud. Slate-colored crags jutted out at jagged angles, layered in moss and lichen the color of old bronze. The slopes were steep, broken by deep clefts and sudden cliffs, where waterfalls spilled like silver ropes down to dark, fern-choked ravines.
Below, the land fell away into a broad valley, its forests painted in a hundred greens—some bright as spring wheat, others deep as ocean jade. Wind whispered through stunted trees and highland grass, threading between granite outcrops like an unseen spirit, bringing with it the cold breath of altitude and something older. Something wild.
Reiner stared in silence, awed. "They don't look real," he said softly.
"They are," Belanor replied. "Very real. And very old. These mountains have seen the rise and fall of more empires than the Flame Crown has torches."
The trail they followed was narrow and stony, winding along a ridgeline where bracken and twisted pine fought for space. Far below, mist boiled in a sunlit basin, catching the early light in golden flashes. Birds called across the void—brief, lonely cries that vanished into silence.
After a while, Reiner shifted in his saddle, as if deciding whether to speak. Then:
"Back there. The spell you used. The shield. That was the Temporal Drape?"
Belanor gave a quiet nod without turning.
"It was. Though what you saw was just one shape of it."
Reiner's brows pulled together. "It didn't seem like a normal shield. Everything just… slowed down."
"Because it's not a shield," Belanor said. "Not really. It's a field of warped time—a veil I stretch around myself. Inside it, everything still moves... but differently. Speed becomes weight. Motion becomes resistance. Time thickens."
Reiner frowned. "So it's like... what? A net?"
Belanor glanced back. "Closer to syrup," he said. "Imagine a current of thick liquid hung over the air. The harder you push through it, the more it drags you. A sword becomes a whisper. An arrow, a falling leaf."
Reiner nodded slowly, absorbing the image. "Then why did the horses crash? Shouldn't they have just… slowed?"
Belanor exhaled, his voice growing firmer. "That's the danger. The spell doesn't distinguish between a charging beast and a swinging blade. It reacts only to velocity and mass. A man lunging with a sword? He gets pulled down. Slowed. Confused. But a warhorse—charging full tilt, armored and panicked? That's too much mass, too much force. The Drape tries to stop it instantly. And fails cleanly."
He pointed to a cluster of wind-bent trees ahead. "Instead of slowing, the force rebounds. The horse breaks before the spell does."
Reiner winced. "So if I had ridden into it...?"
"You'd be bones and memory," Belanor said flatly. "The Drape is loyal, but it's not kind."
Silence fell again, broken only by the soft clop of hooves on stone and the distant cry of eagles.
"So how do you move through it?" Reiner asked.
Belanor turned his head slightly, dark hair tousled by the wind.
"I trained for it. My body, my reflexes, even my heartbeat—conditioned over years. And more importantly, I keyed the spell to my own magical signature. The Drape knows me. I built it to flow around me like water over stone."
Reiner thought for a moment. "That means no one else can use it?"
Belanor shrugged. "Not without rewriting the laws it's built on. The Drape requires anchor points—threads of fixed time to maintain shape. To teach it to someone else would take years, maybe decades. And if they failed..."
"What happens?"
Belanor didn't answer right away. He gestured toward a high cliff on the far ridge—bare stone where nothing grew, marked by a black scorch like spilled ink.
"They become their own grave."
Reiner stared. "That really happened?"
"I don't speak in metaphors when I talk about time," Belanor said.
They came to a bend where the trail overlooked a basin filled with mist. A waterfall poured from a narrow crevice above, vanishing into the cloud below with a sound like soft thunder. Belanor dismounted, guiding his horse to a flat stone, and motioned for Reiner to do the same.
"Rest the horses," he said. "This path climbs harder ahead."
Reiner tied the Andalusian's reins loosely to a leaning pine, then looked up. "And the explosion? When the Drape collapsed?"
Belanor knelt by the stream running near the path and splashed water on his face before answering.
"That's the last function," he said. "A discharge. The Drape doesn't cancel force—it stores it. Everything it delays still exists, still wants to move. And when the magic breaks… it releases all that stored momentum outward."
Reiner's eyes widened. "So it's like a slingshot. A blast made of stolen motion."
Belanor smirked faintly. "You learn faster than most."
"And if it breaks before you want it to?"
"Then I lose control. The force disperses randomly. Unfocused. Sometimes it protects me. Sometimes it knocks me halfway across a mountain."
Reiner sat on a sun-warmed stone, suddenly aware of the danger behind what had once seemed like elegant magic.
"How long can you keep it up?"
"Ten minutes, under good conditions. Seven if I'm fighting. Less if I'm bleeding."
Reiner looked away, thoughtful.
"It looked like nothing could touch you."
Belanor glanced at him, one brow raised.
"That's the illusion," he said. "And illusion is the first lie any mage tells."
Above them, the mist shifted slightly on the peak. The Vandera Mountains watched—silent and unmoved.
Reiner studied Belanor in silence, his brow furrowed in quiet thought. His eyes narrowed slightly, not in suspicion, but curiosity—like a puzzle piece had just shifted into place. He looked as though he were weighing a dozen thoughts at once, searching the older man's face for cracks that might reveal a truth.
Then, without warning, he asked,
"Did you serve the Empire… once?"
Belanor's jaw stiffened ever so slightly. His gaze, which had been calmly fixed on the trail ahead, faltered—just for a heartbeat. He didn't look back.
"Why do you ask?" he said, but the words came slower than usual, clipped at the edges. His voice was even, yet underneath it was the faint strain of something unspoken. His brow didn't crease, but his shoulders grew still—too still.
Reiner leaned forward in the saddle, fixing him with a look that cut sharper than any blade.
"Cephus called you a decorated commander," he said, voice low, measured. "Said your name used to mean something in the capital. I figure he wasn't lying."
The words hung in the air like a held breath.
And then—
Silence.
The kind of silence that crept into mountains before a storm. No birds. No wind. Only the faint creak of saddle leather and the distant rumble of a waterfall below.
Belanor didn't answer right away. When he did, his voice was quiet, distant—like it belonged to another life.
"I will not answer that."
Reiner blinked. His face twisted into disbelief, his tone tightening with frustration.
"What? Why not?" He frowned, slumping back in the saddle, arms crossing loosely over his chest. He wasn't angry—just disappointed. He looked at Belanor like someone who had just found the edge of a story and been denied the next page.
Belanor exhaled sharply through his nose, barely suppressing a smirk.
"You ask questions like a child with a fevered imagination," he said dryly. "Three hundred before noon, and each more stubborn than the last."
Reiner leaned forward again, a spark flashing in his eyes.
"Alright, fine. But if I'm going to ride beside the Empire's most wanted man, I'd like to know why he's wanted."
He raised a brow, teasing. "What did you do—steal the Emperor's wife? Burn down a palace? Kick his dog?"
Belanor turned, and for the first time since the question was asked, he looked at Reiner fully.
His expression was unreadable. Not cold. Not angry. Just tired—like a man staring at a wound that never truly healed.
He looked as if he were about to speak.
But then, his gaze drifted past Reiner, up toward the towering spires of Vandera. The mountains loomed overhead like sleeping titans cloaked in wind and mist, ancient and unmoved.
"That's a topic for another day," Belanor said at last. His voice was quieter now, almost reluctant.
Then, with a nod toward the trail ahead, he added,
"We'd best keep moving. The mountains don't wait."
The path curved along a windswept ledge, narrow and lined with broken stone. As they climbed, the morning fog thinned, peeling away like old parchment to reveal the world below—vast ridges folding into one another like crumpled linen, their faces sheer and ancient. Valleys opened like scars, veined with silver streams and shadowed hollows where the light dared not reach. Hawks circled in silence above, riding invisible thermals.
Then the mist ahead broke—and Reiner reined in his horse with a soft gasp.
"Is that...?"
Belanor followed his gaze, then smiled faintly, a rare warmth creeping into his weathered face.
"Vandera," he said. "At last."
He spurred his horse forward, hooves striking stone with a clatter, and Reiner followed close behind, breath catching in his chest.
The tower rose like a sentinel from the earth, tall and crowned with a tapering spire. Its walls were aged stone, touched golden by the newborn sun, and wound with climbing ivy that clung like veins of shadow. A long arched bridge stretched from the mountainside to the tower's elevated perch, spanning the chasm with solemn grandeur. Water cascaded below, whispering through moss-slick rocks.
As they approached the final bend, a great gate came into view—iron-banded wood framed in weathered granite, set beneath towering ramparts. A lone figure stood before it, motionless as a statue.
He was broad as a war ox and stood bare-armed in the morning chill, his dark skin glinting faintly with sweat and sun. Muscles coiled like rope beneath his skin, and a scar slashed diagonally across his chest, half-hidden beneath a leather pauldron. His beard was thick and streaked with gray, his eyes watchful but not unkind.
Belanor slowed and looked down from the saddle.
The man's voice boomed across the stone.
"Belanor Thor'don, of the Temporal Drape."
Belanor dipped his head in greeting, his voice calm and respectful.
"Movain, son of Azrien. Still guarding this gate after all these years?"
Movain's face cracked into a grin, a deep, rumbling sound that echoed like distant drums.
"The gates of Vandera are always open to a lion of the old blood. You bring no trouble, I trust?"
"Only questions," Belanor said.
Movain stepped forward, placing a hand against the great door. With a grunt, he pushed, and the ancient gates groaned open, spilling morning light into the shadowed archway beyond.
"Then may your answers find you in peace. Welcome home."
They rode through the gateway, hooves clinking on stone. The courtyard beyond was quiet and still, ringed by mossy walls and the bones of forgotten statuary. Pigeons scattered from a sun-drenched balustrade, wings flashing like silver coins.
Reiner dismounted, landing lightly and brushing dust from his coat. Belanor swung down beside him, handing off the reins to a waiting stablehand who emerged silently from the shadows.
The tower door stood ahead—thick, carved with symbols older than the current age. Belanor stepped up and knocked twice with the brass ring.
The door creaked open on ancient hinges, and a woman stood framed in its arch—tall, poised, and still as polished marble. She wore a pale mantle that caught the light like moonlit linen, its folds clean and precise. Her auburn hair fell in waves over her shoulders, unbound but deliberate, and her skin held the flawless calm of someone rarely surprised.
Her eyes lifted to meet Belanor's first—cool, assessing. A flicker of familiarity passed between them, but no smile came.
Then she looked to Reiner.
Her gaze lingered, direct and unblinking—not hostile, but deeply curious, as if peeling layers with a glance alone.
"Serapha," Belanor said, offering a smile both cautious and warm.
She didn't return it.
"Who's the boy?" she asked, voice low and even. Her expression didn't shift, not even slightly, as her eyes remained locked on Reiner—like he was a strange bird perched on her doorstep.
Belanor's smile faltered, then faded altogether.
"Gold I found on the road," he said. "In Tar."
Reiner shifted under her scrutiny, uncertain whether to bow or speak. He settled for silence.
Serapha tilted her head, just slightly. "Interesting," she said. "The great Belanor, gathering orphans now."
Belanor's brow furrowed, his mouth twitching as if about to protest—but Serapha cut him off before the words could form.
"Get in," she said simply, stepping aside, her eyes never leaving Reiner.
Belanor sighed under his breath, then placed a hand on Reiner's shoulder and nudged him forward.
"Go," he murmured. "Don't take it personally. She studies everything like it's a threat."
They stepped inside, the door closing behind them with a deep, resonant thud.