Upon realizing who they were standing before, Samantha and Brian both gasped, before quickly bowing their heads even lower than Lily did. Asher wasn’t sure if he should be bowing or punching the High Prince in the arm like he was greeting an old friend based on how the man was treating him, so he decided to meet somewhere in the middle.

  “Donvath,” he said, nodding toward the man who was still glaring at him. “…Did I do something wrong?”

  “Not yet, which is why I came to you in the first place,” the High Prince sighed, shaking his head. “Seriously, picking a fight with a visiting noble just because he tried hitting on Samantha and wouldn’t take no for an answer? You see these silver streaks in my hair? These are your fault, I want you to know that!”

  “High Prince,” Lily said, clearing her throat as she stood back up even straighter than she’d been before. “These three do not know of your skills. Perhaps it would be wise to attempt to not go about shouting national secrets?”

  “Eh, all of our neighboring nations already know about most of my base skills by now,” Donvath shrugged, turning and pointing to one of the enchanters inspecting a nearby light fixture and replacing the gemstones with ones of a new color. “Hey you! Do the Eight Crests know how far back I can use Timeline yet, or are they still working on it?”

  “I beg your pardon, High Prince?” the man asked, looking confused.

  “Damn, I forgot how good this guy is!” Donvath chuckled, leaning closer to Asher and fake whispering in his ear. “He’s actually one of the Eight Crests’ spies they have working throughout the palace. I’ll give you a single guess as to how many they have, and spoiler alert, the answer’s more than seven.”

  As if a switch had been flipped, the enchanter threw the glowing gemstones he’d been carrying to the ground before taking off down the hall, running far faster than Asher would have expected. Based on the gust of winds that suddenly came out of nowhere, he had to have an Air element with a movement-based skill helping him out.

  “Foreign threat, get down!” Lily roared, scaring a handful of actual workers as she turned and placed herself between the fleeing enchanter and Donvath, all the while looking around, ready for anything. Pulling out her sending stone, she began speaking rapidly into it. “Christian, we have a foreign spy near the dining hall in corridor four, heading toward the west side!”

  “They always blow these things out of proportion,” Donvath said, shaking his head as if this wasn’t a big deal. “Honestly, they rarely even bother trying to attack me anymore. They understand it’s pretty much pointless by now. Here, want to see something neat? I always find it’s easier to just show rather than tell.”

  With shocking speed, Donvath’s hand shot out and landed on Asher’s shoulder. Before Asher could say or do anything, the world twisted, but not in the way he was used to it moving. Asher’s own Recall skill shifted the world around him, almost like a higher power was moving the different pieces of a puzzle around on a celestial table to place him where he wanted to go.

  Whatever skill Donvath was using felt like that same higher power had now grown frustrated in that puzzle and had decided to throw the pieces in a blender.

  Asher barely stopped himself from throwing up as the world finally righted itself, and he almost missed the next words out of Lily’s mouth. The royal guard was standing beside him once more, looking like the pristine image of a powerful bodyguard.

  “…These three do not know of your skills. Perhaps it would be wise to attempt to not go about shouting national secrets?”

  Blinking, Asher looked around, realizing everything had changed. The enchanter who had revealed a powerful Air skill was calmly replacing gemstones in the nearby light fixture once more, casually glancing their way every so often with what looked like nothing more than simple curiosity. The surrounding workers were going about their usual tasks, not having been startled by Lily’s shout of a foreign threat. Brian and Samantha were still bowing their heads, no longer watching the enchanter run down the hall.

  “You know what, Lily, that’s an excellent idea,” Donvath said, winking at Asher as he stared at the High Prince in shock. “In fact, I think I’ll take these three to my private chambers and have a quick word with them. Would you mind having someone send up plates for them?”

  “Of course, High Prince,” Lily said, bowing once more before continuing on her way toward the dining hall.

  “Asher?” Samantha asked, finally having straightened up and torn her eyes off the High Prince. She had a worried expression on her face, and she seemed to forget who she was standing before as she took his hand and held it. “Are you alright? You look a bit green.”

  “I’m okay,” he said slowly, his mind still reeling at the revelation of what had just happened. I just… time travelled…

  What.

  “He’ll be okay, he’s probably just weary from travel,” Donvath said, causing Samantha to start as she recalled who they were talking to. “Come, follow me. We have a lot to talk about.”

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Only stumbling a little bit with legs that felt like they weren’t moving correctly, Asher allowed Samantha to drag him along as they followed after the High Prince. He was so distracted by the fact that he’d just traveled through time that he barely even noticed where they’d gone, only snapping out of his daze when one of the royal guards closed a large door behind them, sealing them in what appeared to be a rather comfortable lounge.

  “Please, take a seat,” Donvath said, gesturing toward what looked like bean bags of all things. “I call this my thinking room. On account of all the thinking I tend to do in here. And, you know. Because it's a room.”

  “No kidding?” Asher muttered, letting himself collapse in one of the plush bags. “…What was that?”

  “What was what?” Samantha asked, looking at him like she was concerned he’d pass out any moment. “You still don’t look so good.”

  “He’s actually doing fantastic for someone who just experienced their first dip through the Timeline,” Donvath said, picking up what looked like a fancy bowl of nuts and beginning to snack on them as he watched Asher curiously. “I’ve only used it on a select few people over the years, but all the others either threw up or passed out almost immediately. Well, all of them eventually ended up doing both of those two things, I suppose, the only difference was the order they did them in.”

  “Timeline?” Brian asked, finally finding his courage to speak up in front of the ruler of their entire kingdom. “What’s that?”

  “A super cool skill that’s so powerful all the neighboring kingdoms stopped sending assassins after me ages ago,” Donvath said, popping another nut into his mouth as he shot a glance at Asher. “Evolving it to the third tier made it automatic. If I die, it kicks in. Congratulations, I get to be the first immortal you’ve ever met! Or I guess second, if you count the lich that brought you here.”

  “What… Hold on,” Asher begged, still feeling sick to his soul as he held up a hand to try and slow down the High Prince. “Why even show me that?”

  “It wasn’t my first choice, but it helps you trust me far faster than simply talking to you,” Donvath explained with a shrug. “I suppose because we’re even now. I know you have ridiculous skills, you know I have ridiculous skills, et cetera, et cetera. Now we can become best friends!”

  Not knowing how to even react to that, Asher chose to simply ignore it, turning to look at Samantha as his body finally started to feel better. “Did you see that enchanter who was changing out gemstones down in the hall? Donvath called him out as a spy, and the guy went running. Lily was in the middle of putting the whole palace into lockdown, and then Donvath grabbed me and just… undid everything. I feel like my soul was flipped inside out and sucked through a straw.”

  “Yeah, that sounds about right,” Donvath said, chomping down on another nut. “Sorry, by the way. It does get a bit less taxing in time, but I wouldn’t blame you if you’d rather avoid being yanked up the Timeline again.”

  “Wait, we were right about him having a Time element?” Samantha asked, her shocked expression quickly morphing into one of anger as she turned to stare at the High Prince. “If you can travel through time, why didn’t you save Horntho village? Why did you let the demons kill all those people?!”

  “Few things are more complicated than time,” the High Prince said, finally setting down his bowl and giving her a sorrowful look. “I won’t explain all my skills to you, as some of them are true national secrets that will never be spoken of out loud, but rest assured, if I could have prevented that travesty, I would have. The effects greater demons have on the realms around them aren’t just limited to the physical. They also muddle with the flow of time. Similar to how they are capable of locking down Asher’s Spatial skills, they can influence my Time skills as well, presumably due to their access to the realm of ages or their inherent weight. Events involving wizards and Asher himself, for whatever reason, are also harder to make out.”

  “But you can do more than just travel back in time,” Asher argued, still trying to wrap his head around the insanity and intricacies of time travel. “You gave Bordan a letter to deliver to me days before it was time. You mentioned alternate futures, like me befriending Theorn and asking for a ride on his pegasus when you told me to leave Whikoga!”

  “I told you over the sending stone, I can detect certain knots in time that I like to call critical points,” Donvath said, shaking his head. “Trust me, without being able to see them yourself, I could never explain them to the point you’d understand. There are certain large-scale events that, while I won't say are fated to happen, as I can still often shift things around and prevent them entirely, are all but guaranteed to happen unless I put real effort into stopping them. Things like you getting taken out by assassins in Deorer because you weren’t ready, or-”

  The High Prince paused, his expression instantly shifting to one of embarrassment as he shot a quick glance toward Brian. “...or other things we may have talked about in the past.”

  Realizing what must have happened, Asher rolled his eyes. Having learned how carefree the High Prince acted, he could only assume Donvath didn’t stop to think before bringing up the fact that he’d informed Asher that Brian was going to be killed by the Head of the Assassin’s Guild if they went through with their original plan to enroll him in the royal guard academy. Revealing that definitely wouldn’t have gone over well, as they’d never informed Brian about that potential future. Rather than deal with a distraught child, the High Prince must have used the same skill he’d shown Asher downstairs to undo his mistake.

  No wonder Donvath acted so carelessly. If he made any real mistake or spoke of anything he shouldn’t have, he could just undo it.

  “The point is, you’re just going to have to trust me. There are limits to what I can see in the future, and even harsher limits to how far back I can go into the past,” Donvath said, getting to his feet and heading to the door. “Now, your food should be here any minute, and I actually have a handful of things I need to take care of. I wanted to be here to officially welcome you to the palace and explain the bare basics, but I am the High Prince in charge of running this entire kingdom. That means that ironically, despite my element, I don’t exactly have a lot of free time. I’ll leave the three of you to relax in here while you eat so you don’t go picking fights with any aggravating nobles, but I have one last question before I leave.

  “Would you like to fight the assassin that’s going to drop by your room tonight, or should I place you in a different suite?”

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