The Fragile Peace and the Council of Eight (Part 1)
The cheers still echoed in Mildern's ears. The balcony had been a dream and a nightmare all at once—cheers thunderous enough to shake the marble beneath his feet, faces lit with hope he didn't think he deserved. All he'd done was lift his hand. Just a wave. But to the city, that single gesture had been salvation incarnate.
Behind the balcony's velvet curtains, Mildern had nearly collapsed, legs trembling. His chest had throbbed, every cheer a hammer pounding against the walls he'd spent years building inside himself. He had looked down at the child, clutching his hand with that same innocent smile, and thought: I'm not who they think I am.
That night, silence returned. Mildern sat by the window, sleepless, moonlight painting his pale face. The kid stirred on the bed behind him, muttering something softly. Then came the whisper that cracked Mildern's heart open:
"Mildern... when can I go home?"
The words were small, unknowing. But to Mildern they were daggers. Home. A world beyond this one. The question he had no answer for. His hands clenched until his nails dug into his palms. His heart felt hollow. The cheers of the city twisted into chains.
And then came the knock.
A messenger cloaked in violet robes stood at the door at dawn, bearing a scroll sealed in gold. Mildern's fingers trembled as he broke it open. His eyes widened.
The Council of Eight Wizards.
The child blinked sleepily, rubbing his eyes. "What's that?"
Mildern whispered, voice shaking. "An invitation... to the highest court of magic in the world."
The kid tilted his head. "Thater good... right?"
Mildern could not answer. His stomach churned with dread. For no one, no one, was summoned unless one of the Eight had offered respect. And the thought that he had earned such a thing left his heart both burning and hollow.
The Magic Council Palace rose like a dream carved into reality. Its spires reached into the clouds, crystalline walls glittering as if stars themselves had been trapped inside. The great gates groaned open with a sound like thunder, spilling rainbow light across the marble floors.
Mildern's breath caught. His shy nature pressed him small against the child, though the kid tugged his cloak with wonder.
"It's so big!" the child gasped, running ahead before Mildern's hand caught his shoulder.
Inside the Grand Hall, silence reigned. A crescent-shaped table of obsidian stood at the center, etched with runes older than kingdoms. Around it sat the Eight, each throne crafted from the material of their homeland—ice, steel, living wood, bone-white stone.
The kid froze, clutching Mildern's cloak tightly. Mildern's knees nearly buckled under the sheer pressure in the air. It wasn't magic alone—it was history. Authority. Each presence was like a tidal wave, drowning him where he stood.
"Prince Mildern Yazukaze," a herald boomed. "Summoned before the Council of Eight."
The air grew heavier. Eight pairs of eyes bore into him.
He felt like a worm crawling beneath the gaze of gods.
It was Patrix Whoguard who first moved. His presence was calm, his aura cool as falling snow. White hair shimmered with crystalline light, eyes carrying both kindness and calculation. He gestured with a hand adorned in rings of frost.
"Come, Mildern. Sit by me."
Mildern stumbled forward. Each step was agony. The kid followed, eyes wide.
He sat. The throne beside Patrix felt too large, too radiant for someone like him.
The silence that followed cut like a blade.
The introductions began. Not by choice—but because Patrix commanded them.
"Let him know who judges him," he said softly.
One by one, they revealed themselves, their personalities flaring in every word:
Majiro Hukinake, the muscular dwarf, slammed his fist against the table. The marble cracked beneath the blow. His voice was a growl, deep as avalanches. "I fought the darkest mage this world has ever seen. I crushed him with these hands. And now I must share a table with this... trembling worm?" His glare burned holes into Mildern's soul.
The Devil of Yozu leaned forward, skeletal arms folded like spider legs. His lips twisted into a cruel smile. "Princes fall. Kingdoms rot. Yet here sits another child of ashes, pretending the crown still fits." His aura leaked like poison, staining the air.
Mildred Valdguard, elf princess of the forest, looked down her nose. Her voice was honey and venom entwined. "Humans always demand sympathy. Always demand saving. Yet when the trees burned, where were you? Where was your bloodline? Do not expect kindness from me."
Jura Dalhavu, queen of the dark empire, crossed her arms. Shadows curled at her feet. Her words were a knife. "Weakness disgusts me. If you cannot carry the weight of your title, you deserve only scorn."
Jerry Ino said nothing at first. His gaunt face looked carved from sorrow, his aura cold enough to frost the air. At last, he whispered, "You remind me of me. And I hate it." His voice was softer than a sigh, but it cut deeper than screams.
Yujiro Chickengaurd leaned back with a strange grin. "Ah, so the forest prince crawls into light at last. Do you like birds, kid? Chickens, doves, hawks?" His voice was maddened playfulness, yet when the others snapped at him to be serious, he simply laughed. "I'll roast you like a chicken if you mock me too, don't forget that." His aura was wild, unpredictable.
Finally, Akuno Miske. His calm voice flowed like still water, but it carried venom beneath. Half-elf, half-human—his features too perfect, his eyes holding secrets unspoken. He smiled faintly. "A fallen prince before us. How nostalgic. I too carry ruins. But I do not cling to them." His aura rippled faintly, almost peaceful, but hiding storm.
Mildern sat frozen. Every word lashed him. Every look crushed his chest tighter.
The boy, too innocent to feel their venom fully, tugged Mildern's sleeve and whispered too loudly:
"Why are they all so mean?"
The silence cracked. Yujiro barked a laugh. Jura scowled. Mildred rolled her eyes. Majiro slammed the table again.
But Patrix smiled. He leaned close, whispering so only Mildern could hear.
"Do not mistake disdain for truth. You've earned your place here—for strength, or for spirit. At least one of us believes in you."
Mildern's throat tightened. He wanted to shrink into the shadows. Yet something sparked in him, fragile but real.
This was not admiration. This was not kindness.
This was judgment.
And it was only the beginning.
The Council Convenes (Part II)
The obsidian table glimmered faintly, the runes along its edge burning to life as the Council gathered in silence. A low hum filled the chamber, like a thousand whispers bound into stone.
Patrix raised a hand. Instantly, the room quieted. His eyes, still kind but sharp, swept across the assembly.
"We begin with the Hollow Prince."
The name alone made the hall tremble. The kid flinched, not knowing why, but Mildern stiffened. That name carried too much weight. Too much blood.
Majiro Hukinake leaned forward, his massive hands gripping the edge of the table until it groaned. His voice thundered:
"He is gone. Crushed beneath Mildern's blade. The darkness he spread will not crawl again. The incident is ended."
But Jura Dalhavu shook her head, lips curling. Shadows coiled tighter at her feet.
"Ended? Fool. Darkness does not end. It lingers. Even ash carries heat. I smell it still."
Mildred Valdguard's laugh was sharp and cruel.
"Perhaps you smell yourself, Jura. The Hollow Prince is finished. Our people cry for peace. We would be wise to stop conjuring phantoms just to justify our power."
"Peace?" Jerry Ino muttered. His voice was like frost cracking over stone. He stared at nothing, eyes sunken. "Peace is just a pause between screams. You should know better, elf."
The table erupted into murmurs, arguments layered upon arguments. The air itself seemed to boil with their magic, clashing invisible currents sparking at the chamber's edges. The child pressed closer into Mildern's side, whispering, "Why are they fighting if they're friends?"
Mildern swallowed hard. "They... aren't friends."
Then Yujiro Chickengaurd slammed his hand on the table, his grin wild, voice ringing like a cracked bell.
"Enough about ashes and corpses! A Hollow Prince cooked is still just meat. What matters—what truly matters—are the new feathers on the wind!" He barked out a laugh, startling the child. "You've all felt it, haven't you? Essences not of this world. A stench that doesn't belong."
The chamber fell silent.
Mildern's heart tightened. The words stirred something in him—a shiver he couldn't name.
Akuno Miske finally spoke, his calm voice cutting like a blade through mist.
"Yes. Strange currents ripple at the edges of our reality. Mana signatures no archive records. Powers that smell... foreign." He glanced sideways at Mildern, his gaze piercing. "As if another world's pulse has begun to seep into ours."
Patrix's expression, so often serene, flickered with unease.
"It is true. Reports have reached me. A village in the northern ice fields. A lake boiled overnight. Not by fire, not by lightning—but by energy no scholar can name. Another city—children vanishing, only to return hours later speaking languages no tongue has ever heard."
The child stiffened. His fingers dug into Mildern's cloak. His breathing hitched.
Mildern looked down at him, heart lurching.
The child whispered, so softly no one else could hear:
"They're talking about... me."
The Council continued, oblivious.
Majiro spat across the table.
"Foreign essences? Nonsense. Trickery of rogue mages. I will hunt them down myself."
Jerry shook his head, the sorrow in his eyes abyssness.
"No... these are not tricks. They are tears. Tears in the weave of existence. Something is trying to cross."
"Something?" Jura's lips twisted into a cruel smile. "Or someone?"
Every eye turned toward Mildern.
His stomach dropped. His throat burned. He felt as though the ground itself had betrayed him.
"Tell us, Prince," Mildred sneered, voice dripping venom. "You, who sheltered in forests. You, who wave to peasants like a painted doll. You, who walk with a child who appeared from nowhere. What do you know of these 'foreign essences'?"
The child gasped. Mildern's hands clenched, his shy soul screaming to shrink, to vanish. But every gaze pinned him, dragging him into light he did not want.
His voice broke when he finally spoke:
"I... I don't know."
A lie. His heart throbbed with guilt. The kid trembled at his side, eyes wide and wet.
Yujiro leaned back, grin widening. "Ohhh, he lies. The bird flutters, but his wings are broken. Delicious."
Patrix's hand came down gently on Mildern's shoulder, halting the spiral. His voice carried calm authority.
"Enough. The kid is not our quarry tonight. The discussion will remain with the phenomena. But make no mistake—if these are signs of worlds bleeding together, then something darker than the Hollow Prince is stirring."
Mildern froze at those words. His heart pounded.
Another world. Another power. Someone who dares to leap the boundary itself...
And in that moment, a shadow stirred in the corner of his memory. A face he had once known. A name he had once whispered.
A mentor. A traitor.
The one who called himself... the World Leaper.
Trial by Council (Part III)
The chamber grew colder after Patrix's words. The light from the rune-lined ceiling dimmed, shadows stretching long across the obsidian table.
No one spoke for a heartbeat. Then Mildred Valdguard leaned forward, her emerald eyes gleaming like knives.
"So the prince of ruins doesn't know," she said, voice rich with disdain. "How fitting. You never knew. Not when your kingdom fell. Not when whispers nearly turned to war. And not now, when something far greater stalks our world."
Her words carved into him. The boy beside him shifted uncomfortably, glaring at her with a child's unfiltered courage. "Stop being mean to him!" he shouted, voice echoing in the chamber.
Several members chuckled darkly. Jura's lips twisted into a cruel smirk.
"Ah... the child defends him. How touching. Shall we all bow to the prince's shield, then?"
Mildern's throat burned. His hand twitched as if to reach for the child, but he froze. Speaking here was like stepping onto a battlefield where every blade pointed at his heart.
Then Majiro Hukinake slammed his fist on the table, the force cracking the runes beneath his knuckles.
"Words are smoke. Let us see if this prince is worthy of even sitting among us."
Without warning, a wave of raw force surged across the chamber—a test of strength, invisible yet crushing. The kind of aura only a Council mage could wield.
Mildern staggered back in his chair, gasping, his chest compressed as if iron bands bound his ribs. The child cried out, reaching for him.
But then Patrix's hand lifted. His magic flared like a gentle tide, breaking Majiro's force.
"Enough," Patrix said softly, though steel edged his tone. "We are not here to crush him."
Majiro growled. "If he cannot withstand even that, he will never survive what comes."
Akuno Miske spoke for the first time in a long while, his calm voice cutting across the storm.
"Majiro is correct, though crude. This prince sits at the center of events larger than himself. If foreign essences stir, if barriers are weakening, then his weakness endangers not only himself, but all of us."
He leaned forward, eyes narrowing on Mildern. "So tell me, Prince. When the Hollow Prince threatened to burn peace to ash—why did you fight him? Was it for the people? For glory? Or was it just... rage?"
Mildern's lips trembled. The question cut too close. Rage. Shame. Protecting the child. He couldn't sort the truth even in his own heart.
The chamber pressed in around him, every gaze drilling deeper.
Jerry Ino's voice came next, flat and mournful. "I see it in your eyes. You fought because you were cornered. Because fear and anger left you no other choice. That is not strength. That is desperation."
A heavy silence followed.
The child squeezed Mildern's hand under the table, whispering so only he could hear. "You did it for me. Don't let them say otherwise."
The words pierced him deeper than any accusation. His heart tightened—because the boy was right. And wrong. He had fought for him. But it hadn't felt noble. It had felt like claws tearing open an old wound he could never close.
Then Yujiro Chickengaurd suddenly rose, laughter spilling out like broken bells.
"Ohhh, I like this dance. Press the prince, watch him squirm! But let me add a note of music."
He raised a hand. A hum filled the air, vibrating in Mildern's bones. The sound shaped itself into words not his own—mocking whispers, twisted echoes of his deepest fears:
"Coward prince."
"Failed kingdom."
"Hide behind the child."
Mildern's breath hitched. His vision swam. The whispers weren't real—but they felt real. They dug into scars that never healed.
The chidl clapped his hands over his ears, whimpering. "Stop it! You're hurting him!"
Yujiro grinned, unrepentant. "Good! Let the child see what weakness smells like. Let him see the cracks in his hero."
"ENOUGH."
The word boomed like thunder. It came not from Patrix this time, but from Jura Dalhavu. Her shadows lashed outward, snuffing Yujiro's magic in a hiss of black smoke.
She turned her gaze on Mildern, eyes glowing like coals.
"You crumble too easily, prince. I would see you shatter. And yet..." Her voice dropped, cruel and low. "And yet there is a thread of steel in your silence. You hide it. Even from yourself."
Her stare burned through him. He couldn't breathe.
Then, unexpectedly, Akuno Miske leaned forward again, his tone almost casual.
"Perhaps we should speak of the reports. Of the figure wandering ruins. Of the eyes of silver."
The room shifted. The air grew heavier.
Patrix's expression darkened. "Not yet, Akuno."
But Akuno smiled faintly, cruel in its calm. "Why not? We speak of foreign essences, of tears between worlds. Shall we not name the one whose shadow we all feel?"
Majiro's fists clenched. Mildred's smirk faltered. Even Yujiro fell silent.
Jerry whispered, barely audible: "The Leaper."
The child blinked. "The... what?"
And Mildern's heart froze. His blood turned to ice. Memories surged unbidden—memories of a person who had once promised hope, who had taught him to look to the stars when despair closed in... only to abandon everything in a storm of madness.
The World Leaper.
Akuno's eyes glittered as he spoke the name aloud, savoring the effect:
"The one who dares to step between worlds. The one who was forgotten by history, but not by those who lived it."
Every gaze turned to Mildern again. His hands trembled violently in his lap. The kid stared at him, wide-eyed.
"You know him, don't you?" Jura asked, her voice like poison honey.
Mildern couldn't answer. His lips parted, but no words came.
Patrix finally rose, his cloak flowing like light over the table.
"That is enough. This council will not hound him tonight. But let us mark this truth—if the World Leaper walks again, then all we have done, all the peace we fought for, trembles on the edge of ruin."
The runes dimmed. The meeting adjourned.
But as Mildern rose to leave, his knees weak, his heart in shreds, he knew one thing with certainty:
This was only the beginning.
And the shadow of the World Leaper had already fallen across his path.
Whispers in the Streets (Part IV)
The palace doors shut behind him like a judgment. The echo carried down the marble steps into the sprawling Noble City, where night had already drawn its velvet cloak. Torches lined the streets, their flames bending in the wind. Somewhere, bells chimed the hour.
The child held his hand tightly, glancing up with wide eyes. "Mildern... what's a World Leaper?"
He didn't answer. His throat ached with the weight of it. Instead, he stepped forward, his boots echoing against the cobblestone.
The city was alive even at night. Merchants barked the last of their wares in the bazaar, children darted between stalls with sticky sweets in hand, and nobles moved in cloaked clusters. Yet beneath the noise, there was a tension, a tremor in the air. It rippled in every whispered word.
"Eyes of silver."
"Walking ruins."
"Not of this world."
The kid tugged at Mildern's cloak. "They're talking about him again."
Mildern nodded. His heart pounded. Each whisper was like a drumbeat against his ribs. He forced himself to move toward a group of villagers standing near the fountain, their faces pale under the lanternlight.
"Excuse me," he said, his voice too soft at first. No one turned. He swallowed, then tried again, sharper—though the sharpness trembled. "Tell me about this... figure. The one you call the World Leaper."
The villagers exchanged uneasy looks. One finally spoke: an older person with cracked hands and eyes that had seen too much.
"They say he walks in places that should be silent. Old halls. Broken temples. He doesn't steal, doesn't kill—he... watches. Always watches."
Another person spat into the fountain. "He's not right. I saw the air bend around him. Like the world didn't want him in it."
Mildern stiffened. That description cut too close to what he remembered: the unstable aura, the dark experiments, the way his mentor's very presence seemed to warp reality.
The kid pressed closer to his leg. "Mildern... you're shaking."
He forced his hands still, bowing his head slightly to the villagers in thanks. Then he turned away, but every step felt heavier.
Deeper into the city, near a row of taverns, the whispers grew louder. A bard sang in hushed tones, not with lute or drum but a voice heavy with dread:
"A prince forgotten, a mage unbound,
He tears the sky, he splits the ground.
The Leaper comes, with silver eyes,
To trade the peace for endless lies."
The tavern-goers shuddered at the words, some crossing themselves, others slamming their mugs down as if to drown the fear with drink.
Mildern froze in the doorway. The song was too pointed. Too familiar. He remembered nights as a child, listening to his mentor—the very person who now bore that cursed title—speak of "stepping beyond the chains of one world." Back then it had seemed like ambition, like brilliance. Now it was poison.
The bard's eyes found him in the crowd, and for a moment, Mildern swore the song faltered. Did the person recognize him? No. He pushed past, his face hidden beneath his hood, and slipped back into the street.
Hours passed like that. Asking. Listening. Hearing the same words reshaped in different mouths. A cloaked figure with silver eyes. A presence that bent the world. A whisperer who promised escape from a stagnant age.
By the time the streets had quieted, Mildern stood at the edge of the city where lanterns gave way to shadow. The kid leaned against him, half-asleep, his small hand still curled in Mildern's cloak.
And in the silence, the truth pressed against him like a blade:
The World Leaper was not myth. He was not rumor. He was the shadow of Mildern's own past. A figure he had once admired. A figure he had failed to stop. A figure who had perhaps been the reason a child from another world had fallen here at all.
His chest tightened, a sob clawing up unbidden. He turned his face away so the kid would not see. But even in his silence, tears burned his cheeks.
The kid stirred, mumbling drowsily, "It's okay, Mi...der... you fix it. Always fix things."
The words broke him further. He was no fixer. He was a failure—a prince who couldn't save a kingdom, a person who couldn't stop a friend from becoming a monster.
But the child's weight against his arm was real. The warmth was real. And for that alone, he could not crumble here.
He knelt, brushing the kids hair back gently, whispering into the night:
"I couldn't stop him then. But I will now. For you."
The wind stirred, carrying faint echoes of silver laughter—whether memory or omen, he couldn't tell.
But Mildern knew one thing: the path ahead would lead him not only through ruins and danger, but into the heart of his own past.
And somewhere in that past... the World Leaper was waiting.
TO BE CONTINUED...