The flap lifted and a man entered. He wore plain field armor that showed long use rather than polish. His short hair carried streaks of gray, and his face stayed unreadable.He stopped two steps inside the tent and bowed first. "Your Highness, Third Prince Cameron Ybethan Caro," he said. "Commander Hale of the East Wall garrison. I offer my respects and my apology. Reinforcements should have reached your camp sooner."
For a second, John forgot to breathe. No one had ever bowed to him before. Not a nod, not a handshake, but a full bow. It looked wrong, like something that should have been meant for someone else.
"No worries, Commander," he said.
Hale looked up, polite but puzzled, and John caught the faint shift in his eyes. He had said something a prince probably never would.
He cleared his throat. "I mean it was not your fault," he said, slower now, as if testing each word.
Hale gave a short nod. His eyes stayed on John, calm but searching.
The silence stretched until Gerard spoke. "Why are there even beasts inside the wall."
His voice was calm at first, but it carried weight. He was not asking. He was accusing.
Hale bowed again, lower this time. "It is my failure, Your Highness," he said. "The wall is under my command. I will take full responsibility."
The words were correct, every syllable placed where it should be, but the way he said it was cold, detached.
John watched Gerard's hands tighten at his sides. "Your failure," Gerard said. "The prince was injured and the men who died out there…" His voice stopped, and John heard the tremor in his voice.
Hale did not raise his head. "Their loss will be accounted for," he said.
That made Gerard take a step forward. His tone sharpened. "Accounted for," he repeated. "You speak as if they were numbers."
John stayed still. He looked between them and understood what sat behind Gerard's anger. It was not pride. It was grief.
He saw the men in his head again, the ones who had shouted for him to run, the ones who held their ground while he fell. They had not been nameless soldiers. They had been his knights. Or rather, the knights of the man whose body he now wore.
They probably gave their lives to protect this body. To protect him.
The thought left a tightness in his chest that he did not know how to name. He felt guilty without knowing if he had the right to.
Hale finally lifted his head. "I will see to it their names are given proper honor," he said. "The wall will investigate the breach and report to the capital within two days."
Gerard said nothing. He only turned slightly toward John, waiting for his word.
John met his eyes, unsure what to say. Anything less than anger would sound wrong.
The silence stretched. Neither of them spoke, and the air felt heavier with each second that passed. John could tell they were waiting for him to say something. A prince was supposed to speak first, maybe to give an order or a judgment.
"Give them a proper burial," he said.
The tent went still.
Hale looked up, his composure breaking for the first time. Gerard's eyes widened, disbelief plain on his face.
John frowned. "What?"
Gerard's voice was quiet. "Your Highness… no one buries those who fall to beasts. The church forbids it as their bodies are impure."
John stared at him. "Then what do you do with them?"
Hale answered, his tone even, as if repeating standard procedure. "We took them past the treeline. They are laid there and left to the forest. Nature will reclaim what has been touched."
John blinked, not sure he had heard right. "You left them there to rot?"
Hale's expression did not change. "It is the law."
Something twisted in John's chest. These men had followed him, called him their prince, and died for it. Now they would be left in the dirt like carcasses no one wanted to claim.
There was no taking it back. His pride wouldn't let him.
He looked between them. They expected him to understand, to agree, to say so be it.
"They will have a burial."
The silence that followed pressed against him like weight. Hale looked stunned.
John turned away from their faces, his pulse hard in his ears. "Do you want the palace to know I was attacked before I even reached the camp?" he said. He didn't know what was happening there, but he knew that no one would be happy about a prince injured on his first day.
Hale bowed again, slower this time. "It will be done, Your Highness."
John watched him without speaking. The longer he looked, the more it bothered him. Everyone kept bowing, calling him prince, acting like he belonged here. The man who did was gone, and somehow he had taken his place.
He needed to understand why.
He needed to go back to where it happened. To the place where everything started. Maybe there was something there that could tell him why he was still alive.
"I need to see the place where we were attacked," he said.
"Your Highness, that would be dangerous. We are not certain if other beasts are still inside the wall. The patrols have not finished their sweep," Gerard pleaded.
John's pulse picked up, but he didn't back down. "I still need to see it."
John met his gaze. Whatever Gerard saw there made him hesitate. The protest in his voice died before it formed.
"I understand, Your Highness," Gerard said quietly. "I will ready your horse."
He turned and left.
Hale stayed bowed.
John waited a few seconds, expecting him to move. He didn't.
Why are you still here, John thought. You made your speech. Go. Leave.
But the man remained bent at the waist like a statue, as if waiting for something.
Maybe he is waiting for permission.
"You may go, Commander," he said.
Hale straightened. "Thank you, Your Highness."
He turned toward the flap. Their eyes met for a moment, and John caught something there—quick, thin, and cutting. Maybe contempt. Maybe disappointment. He wasn't sure.
Then Hale left, and the tent fell quiet again.
John let out a breath. He still had no idea what he was doing, but at least now he knew one thing. People in this place didn't move unless he told them to.
They reached the field by midmorning, holding on tight to the horse. But now, with the proper gear, it seemed this body remembered riding, so he knew he looked better than he felt.
John dismounted. The place felt smaller than he remembered. He walked where the boar had fallen, searching for anything that might have been left behind.
Nothing out of the ordinary other than the bloated carcass.
He went to the first spot he awoke and ran his hand across the dirt. It was cold and rough. If something had been there, the soldiers had already scraped it away.
"Did you see anything strange that day?" he asked without looking up.
Gerard stood a few steps behind him. "Strange, Your Highness?"
John glanced at him. "Anything that did not make sense. Light, noise, whatever."
"None, Your Highness. Only beasts."
John exhaled through his nose. Whatever had happened with those cards was gone.
A shout drew his attention to the other end of the field. A group of men stood around the carcass of one of the beasts.
John covered his mouth with the back of his hand as the stench assaulted him. "Who are they?"
"Mana gatherers," Gerard said.
"Mana what?"
"They remove the stone before the body rots."
John frowned. "The stone?"
Gerard nodded toward the carcass. "Beasts are born with it. A shard of what they call mana crystal grows near the heart. It holds the energy that twisted them."
John watched as one of the men cut into the creature's chest, slicing the skin easily now that the beast was rotting.The sound turned his stomach. Thick black fluid spilled onto the mud while the man's gloved hands searched inside. After a moment, he lifted something small and faintly glowing. The light was dull, more smoke than shine.
John muttered under his breath. "Mana. That's like magic, right?"
Gerard looked at him, brows pulling together, the kind of look that said he had not just misheard but could not believe the question existed.
John caught the look and nodded slowly. "Okay. I'll take that as no," he said.
Gerard's gaze lingered, still unreadable. "Magic is banned, Your Highness."
John blinked. "Oh," he said quietly. "So there is magic."
"I know you were never fond of your tutors," Gerard said, "but I did not realize you had tuned them out completely."
John gave him a tired look, half irritation, half curiosity. "Remind me, then."
"As our kingdom does not use magic, we sell the mana stones to others who do. The gatherers keep them sealed until the trade convoys arrive." Gerard gestured for one of the soldiers to come forward.
The soldier stepped closer and handed him a small bundle wrapped in dark cloth. Gerard unrolled it and lifted what rested inside.
The stone was almost clear, shaped smooth as glass, with faint streams of gold swirling within it like liquid light caught in slow motion. It pulsed softly in his palm, as if it had a heartbeat of its own.
John leaned closer, drawn to it despite the smell of rot that still hung in the air. "Beautiful," he murmured, his voice quiet. "That thing would sell for millions back home."
Without thinking, he reached out.
The instant his fingers touched the surface, the light flared, not bright but alive, and a wave of warmth slid beneath his skin. It felt as though liquid had found a crack in his body and poured through, running up his arm in a slow, steady path before it sank deeper into his chest. It wasn't pain, but it wasn't right either.
He jerked back, and the stone slipped from his hand. It hit the ground once, cracked, and shattered with a sound like breaking ice. Thin veins of light crawled across the shards before fading into nothing.
For a moment, something flickered across his vision.
Mana acquired.
He blinked. The words were gone before he could tell if he had imagined them.
Then something else caught his eye. A faint shimmer hovered near his stomach, pale and translucent, and as he focused on it, the shapes grew sharper until he could see them clearly—cards, spread in a loose fan, dark-backed and suspended in the air.
His breath hitched.
One of them turned. The third card of flowers.
3 of Flowers Unlocked.
Across the black surface, pale runes slid into words.
Pain Transfer.Transfers physical damage received to nearby enemy.
John read it once, his lips parting slightly, unsure if what he saw was even meant to make sense. The letters glowed faintly on the black surface, then held their shape.
Two soldiers rushed forward, kneeling to gather the fallen shards from the ground. The noise pulled his eyes from the card. When he looked back, Gerard was already beside him, checking his hands for cuts.
"Your Highness, are you hurt?"
John shook his head, though his attention kept flicking between them and the pieces scattered in the mud. The stone's glow had vanished, leaving only dull, colorless fragments that looked nothing like what had been in Gerard's hand seconds ago.
He tried to focus on them, but something moved at the edge of his sight.
The faint shimmer hovered near his stomach again, so pale he almost thought it was a trick of the light. When he turned his head, it disappeared, but when he looked back from the corner of his eye, the shapes were still there—thin, translucent, and waiting.
Gerard touched his arm, dragging his focus back. "It broke clean," he said, running a hand over the shards. "That should not be possible."
The soldiers murmured quietly among themselves, their unease spreading through the air, but John barely heard them. He kept his eyes low, pretending to follow Gerard's inspection, yet his focus drifted again toward that faint shimmer.
This time, he looked straight at it.
The shapes sharpened. Cards. They hovered just in front of him, the third one turned face up, the words still faintly visible across its surface.
His pulse kicked hard in his chest. He stared, half expecting them to vanish, but they stayed. They looked real.
They were real.