**Two Weeks Later**
Felix's pattern became clear after the first week.
He would appear without warning—sometimes in the Council Chamber, sometimes in one of the territorial realms if a ruler was there. He would stay for a few hours, occasionally a full day. He would participate in conversations, meals, even meetings if they were interesting enough. He would deflect personal questions with practiced ease but occasionally drop small pieces of real information—favorite foods, opinions on politics, stories without details.
And then he would leave.
Just... leave. Reality would ripple, and he'd be gone, slipping away before anyone could stop him or even say goodbye properly.
It was maddening.
It was also making the rulers realize just how much they wanted him to stay.
"He's been gone for two days this time," Gale complained, sprawled across an ornate couch in the Council Chamber's attached sitting room—a space they'd been using more frequently now that they had a reason to gather beyond formal councils.
"Three days," Frost corrected from where he stood by the frost-covered window. "He left during the meeting about border negotiations, right in the middle of Verdant's proposal."
"To be fair," Raven drawled from his chair, "Verdant's proposal was extremely boring."
"It was comprehensive," Verdant said mildly, not offended. "And Felix did look ready to fall asleep."
Solaris paced the room, his usual calm demeanor showing cracks of frustration. "It's the not knowing that's difficult. We never know when he'll appear or how long he'll stay. He comes and goes as he pleases, and we just... wait."
"Like eager puppies," Gale agreed cheerfully. "It's embarrassing, honestly. We're the five most powerful beings in existence, and we're pining over someone who vanishes mid-conversation."
"I don't pine," Frost said icily.
"You've checked the Council Chamber six times today," Raven pointed out. "Looking for any trace of his arrival."
Frost's jaw tightened, but he didn't deny it.
"We all want him here," Verdant said quietly, his ancient wisdom cutting through the deflection. "There's no shame in admitting it. Felix is... unusual. Fascinating. And infuriatingly absent."
"He's also hiding something massive," Frost added, his calculating mind unable to let it go. "The power required to break dimensional locks, to teleport at will between realms, to block five-point summoning rituals—that's not standard magic. That's something else entirely."
"Does it matter?" Solaris asked, stopping his pacing. "Whatever he is, whatever power he has, he's chosen to spend time with us. Isn't that enough?"
"No," Frost said bluntly. "Not when we don't know his true intentions."
"His intentions seem pretty clear," Gale said, sitting up. "He's lonely and bored, and we're entertaining. It's not complicated."
"Everything about Felix is complicated," Raven murmured, his red eyes distant. "He shows us pieces of himself—tiny fragments—but never the whole picture. It's like trying to solve a puzzle when most of the pieces are missing."
"And we want to solve him," Verdant acknowledged. "All of us do."
The silence that followed was heavy with unspoken truth.
They wanted more than to solve him, though.
They wanted to keep him.
The realization had been growing over the past two weeks, becoming harder to ignore. Each time Felix appeared, they felt relief. Each time he left, they felt loss. And each period of waiting in between grew more difficult.
"This is problematic," Frost said finally, voicing what they were all thinking.
"Why?" Gale challenged. "So we like having him around. So what?"
"Because we're territorial rulers," Frost replied coldly. "We don't 'like having people around.' We control our domains and maintain power. Getting attached to someone who won't stay, who won't even tell us where he goes—"
"Is exactly what's happening anyway," Solaris finished softly. "Frost, we're past the point of preventing attachment. The question is what we do about it."
"We can't force him to stay," Verdant said, his tone carrying the weight of absolute certainty. "Felix would disappear permanently if we tried. He values his freedom above all else."
"So we just... accept this?" Raven asked, frustration creeping into his usually controlled voice. "Accept that he'll keep coming and going, never fully here, never fully ours?"
"He's not ours at all," Solaris corrected gently. "He's his own. That's the entire point."
"I hate that you're right," Gale muttered.
"We need to know where he goes," Frost said suddenly, his strategic mind shifting to problem-solving mode. "If we understood what he's doing when he's away, we might understand why he keeps leaving."
"You want to follow him," Raven said, a slow smile spreading across his face. "That's your proposal."
"It's risky," Verdant warned. "If Felix discovers we're tracking him—"
"He'll be furious," Solaris finished. "And we'll lose any trust we've built."
"But if we don't," Frost argued, "we'll never know the truth. And I, for one, am tired of accepting 'away' as an answer."
They all were, really.
"If we do this," Gale said slowly, his free-spirited nature warring with his growing obsession, "we all go. Together. If we're going to violate his trust, we at least share the consequences."
"Agreed," Raven said immediately.
Verdant sighed, his ancient wisdom telling him this was a bad idea even as he nodded. "Agreed."
Solaris looked troubled, his noble nature balking at the deception. But finally, he too nodded. "Agreed. But we observe only. We don't interfere, and we don't approach him unless absolutely necessary."
"Agreed," Frost said, satisfaction in his cold voice. "The next time Felix appears, we prepare tracking magic. Something subtle enough that he won't notice immediately."
"And when he leaves," Gale added, excitement creeping into his tone, "we follow."
It was a terrible plan. They all knew it.
But the need to know—to understand—was too strong to resist.
They would follow Felix.
And they would discover his secret.
Whether he wanted them to or not.
---
**Four Days Later**
Felix appeared in the Council Chamber during what would have been a quiet afternoon.
The five rulers were ready.
"Felix!" Gale said, perhaps a bit too enthusiastically. "You're back!"
Felix raised an eyebrow at the Sky ruler's tone. "I said I'd come back. Did you think I was lying?"
"No, we just..." Solaris started, then seemed to realize how desperate that sounded. "We're glad to see you."
"Uh-huh," Felix said, his mismatched eyes narrowing slightly as he looked at each of them in turn. "You all seem tense. What's going on?"
"Nothing," Frost said too quickly.
Felix's expression turned skeptical. "Right. And I'm the Queen of the Ice Territory."
"You'd make a terrible queen," Frost replied, recovering his composure. "Too sarcastic."
"I'll take that as a compliment," Felix said, moving further into the chamber. He was wearing dark clothing today, which made his pale skin and iridescent hair stand out even more dramatically. "So what have you five been up to? Plotting world domination? Arguing over border disputes? Wondering where I disappear to?"
The last question was delivered with such casual accuracy that several of the rulers shifted uncomfortably.
"All of the above," Raven admitted with dark amusement. "We're multitaskers."
Felix actually laughed at that. "At least you're honest about being nosy."
"Curious," Verdant corrected gently. "There's a difference."
"Is there?" Felix asked, but his tone was more amused than annoyed.
They spent the next several hours in surprisingly pleasant company. Felix was more relaxed than usual, telling them a story about a trader he'd encountered who'd tried to sell him "authentic sky-crystal" that was obviously just painted glass. Gale nearly fell out of his chair laughing at Felix's deadpan retelling.
The rulers took turns subtly weaving tracking magic into the ambient energy around Felix. It was delicate work—the spell had to be light enough that Felix wouldn't notice, but strong enough to follow him when he left. Frost handled the anchoring, Raven provided the shadow-threading, Solaris added stabilization, Verdant contributed the life-link component, and Gale wove in the directional element.
Felix, for all his obvious power and perceptiveness, didn't seem to notice.
Or if he did, he gave no indication.
As evening approached, Felix stood with his characteristic fluid grace. "Alright, I should get going."
"Already?" Solaris asked, and the disappointment in his voice was genuine.
"I've been here for six hours," Felix pointed out. "That's practically a record for me."
"Where do you go?" Gale asked, trying to sound casual and failing. "When you leave, I mean."
Felix's smile was enigmatic. "Away."
"Of course," Frost muttered.
"You know, one day you might actually answer that question with a real location," Raven said.
"Maybe," Felix agreed. "But not today."
He looked at each of them, and for a moment, something soft crossed his features. "Thank you. For today. It was... nice."
Before any of them could respond, reality rippled.
And Felix was gone.
The tracking spell activated immediately, a thin thread of combined magic connecting them to wherever Felix had gone.
The five rulers looked at each other.
"Now or never," Gale said.
Without another word, they joined hands—Ice, Dark, Light, Forest, and Sky—and followed the tracking thread.
The sensation of teleportation was disorienting even for beings of their power. Reality twisted and folded, space compressing and expanding simultaneously. They felt themselves pulled through layers of existence, through barriers that shouldn't exist, through wards so powerful they made the rulers' own defenses look like children's toys.
And then, suddenly, they were somewhere else.
The first thing they noticed was the sky.
Except it wasn't really a sky. They were underground—that much was obvious from the massive stone ceiling far above them, covered in luminescent crystals that provided light equivalent to a sunny day. But it was so vast, so impossibly huge, that it created the illusion of open sky.
They stood on a hill overlooking what could only be described as a paradise.
Rolling plains stretched out before them, dotted with forests that looked wild and healthy. In the distance, they could see mountains—actual mountains, underground—with snow-capped peaks that glittered in the crystal-light. Rivers wound through valleys, their water crystal-clear and sparkling. Cities and towns were scattered across the landscape, their architecture a beautiful mix of styles that suggested diverse populations.
And everywhere—everywhere—there were people and creatures.
"By the frozen wastes," Frost breathed, his usual composure shattered.
"This is impossible," Solaris whispered. "The space required for this... the magic to sustain it..."
"Is beyond anything we could manage," Verdant finished, his ancient eyes wide with wonder. "This realm is larger than all five of our territories combined."
A dragon flew overhead—not one of the small, domesticated varieties from Raven's realm, but a massive creature with scales that shifted through rainbow colors. It let out a musical cry that echoed across the valley.
"Was that a prismatic dragon?" Raven asked, his voice uncharacteristically shocked. "Those are extinct. They've been extinct for millennia."
"Apparently not," Gale said faintly, watching as the dragon landed near a crystalline structure in the distance.
As they stood there, trying to process what they were seeing, a group of people passed by on the road below them. The rulers quickly cast concealment spells—they weren't ready to be discovered yet.
The group was diverse in a way that immediately caught their attention. There was a woman with ice-blue skin and frost patterns—clearly from Frost's territory, or descended from his people. Walking beside her was a man whose shadow moved independently—a trait common in Raven's realm. A child with faintly glowing eyes suggesting Light territory heritage skipped between them. And others bore markers of Forest and Sky territories.
But that wasn't what made the rulers' breath catch.
It was the fact that several of these people bore markers of multiple territories.
Mixed heritage.
Which was supposed to be impossible. The five territories had been separate for so long, their peoples so isolated, that mixing simply didn't happen. And when it had happened in the distant past, those individuals had been...
"Outcasts," Solaris said quietly, realization dawning. "Felix said he takes in people who have nowhere else to go."
"People who aren't allowed in the territories," Verdant added, understanding flooding his ancient features. "The ones we reject."
Frost's face had gone carefully blank, but his hands were clenched at his sides. "The ones with wrong magic. Mixed blood. Those who don't fit our carefully ordered societies."
"He's built a sanctuary," Raven murmured, something like awe in his usually menacing voice. "For everyone we've turned away."
The implications of that crashed over them like a wave.
Felix had created an entire world—a paradise larger than all their territories combined—for the people they had rejected.
And they had just discovered his greatest secret.