"Matheas?" Elias and Caelum shouted in unison as they burst into Alexander's office, only to find it empty. Neither Matheas nor Alexander was there.
"Perhaps the dungeon?" Caelum suggested, reaching out and taking Elias' hand. Elias immediately teleported them to the dungeon level of the castle.
"Elias?" Matheas called out, his voice tinged with surprise, as they materialized nearby.
"Is Father with you?" Elias asked, quickening his pace toward them.
"Yes," Matheas confirmed with a solemn nod. "He requires rest," he added, his voice sounding subdued and heavy.
"What exactly happened?" Elias pressed, his gaze scanning Matheas for answers.
"Aurelius, he…" Matheas began, but the words seemed to catch in his throat and he trailed off, unable to complete the sentence.
"Did he pass away?" Caelum asked directly, his tone grave.
Matheas immediately shook his head. "No, he didn't die," he clarified.
"Did the sealer ring begin draining his life force?" Caelum questioned, his eyes searching Matheas' face.
Matheas shook his head once more.
"Did you administer the antidote for the mind control potion?" Caelum asked, and he observed both Matheas and Alexander visibly flinch at the mention. "That…" He abruptly stopped himself, refraining from cursing a prince right in the presence of the king.
He turned his attention to Elias. "That one theory I had, the one we both dismissed as utterly impossible, do you recall it?" he inquired.
Elias nodded slowly. "The one suggesting he knew the truth about the manipulation and didn't require the potion to intentionally harm me?" he responded.
Caelum nodded grimly. "It appears we were mistaken to believe it was beyond the realm of possibility," he said, his expression darkening into a deep scowl.
Elias gasped, a sharp, choked sound, and immediately ran toward the prison cell where Aurelius and Aristotle were incarcerated.
"How?" Alexander asked, stepping forward. "How did you even conceive of that theory?" he questioned, looking bewildered.
"Your Majesty, please forgive my bluntness, but I never fully trusted that a potion could genuinely control a royal, even if consumed," Caelum explained. "Based on my readings about teleportation magic, it only activates in royals because of the unique bloodline they inherited from Ingris, the legendary dragon slayer who originally gained magic after being accepted by the dragons. There are ancient texts that explicitly state Ingris blessed all his descendants with a trace of dragon blood within them."
"We are all well aware of that historical fact," Matheas stated, his tone slightly impatient.
"That logically implies that potions designed to alter the mind, control thoughts, or tamper with the blood would be completely ineffective on any royal," Elias concluded, walking slowly out of the immediate vicinity of the prison cell.
"But wouldn't that magical immunity only take effect after we reached Level 200?" Alexander pondered aloud.
"Father, what is my brother's current level?" Elias asked.
"Seventy-five," Alexander replied promptly.
"And what is mine?" Elias followed up.
"One hundred five," Alexander confirmed.
"The combined total is one hundred eighty. Now, if you include Caelum's magic, which is constantly flowing through me because of the sheer number of times he has channeled it to me, our combined level would easily exceed Level 200," Elias stated, a calculating look in his eyes.
"But that synergy shouldn't have happened before the academy, should it?" Matheas questioned, furrowing his brow. "You two had not met prior to that," he pointed out.
Caelum nodded, acknowledging the common knowledge. "Have either of you heard of something called resonance magic?" he asked, looking intently at Alexander and Matheas. Both men stared back at him with expressions that suggested he was speaking a completely foreign language.
"From the books he has been immersed in at the royal library, he learned that even without physically meeting, the magic of two people destined to resonate with each other will spontaneously activate the precise moment both individuals reach the age of fourteen," Elias explained for them. "Caelum and I, we realized that our magic resonates powerfully with the other," he finished.
"That is precisely why we have been able to gain levels at an exceptionally rapid pace," Caelum continued, expanding on the thought. "Gaining thirty and forty levels in a single year sounds utterly impossible without this resonance phenomenon," he declared.
"But that particular theory was written by the first emperor, the son of Ingris the First," Alexander recalled. "He could resonate with his appointed knight and mage. That is the established reason why every royal is expected to formally appoint one of each for themselves when they reach nineteen years old," he said.
"However, he did write, somewhere within that same volume, that there might potentially be a second pairing like them in the future," Matheas added, looking thoughtfully at Elias and Caelum.
Elias nodded. "When we successfully combine our magic, our effective levels instantly jump to Level 300," he informed them.
Caelum confirmed this with a nod of agreement when Alexander and Matheas looked to him for absolute verification.
"Why?" Aurelius shrieked suddenly from inside the confines of the prison cell. "Why isn't it me?" he screamed, his voice raw with bitter envy. "I should have been the one resonating with that Valtheron low life. It should have been mine," he wailed hysterically.
"Low life?" Elias echoed, his voice dropping dangerously low, laced with an unsettling stillness. "Is that truly how you and that absolute idiot Aristotle perceive my Caelum?" he asked, taking slow, deliberate steps back toward Aurelius' cell.
Caelum positioned himself just a single step behind Elias. He made an internal decision: if Elias intended to resort to physical violence, he would intervene and stop him.
Elias crouched down, bringing his face level with Aurelius, who was pressed against the bars. He deliberately released a controlled surge of his ice magic, allowing the intense cold to seep into the immediate area. "Cold?" he asked rhetorically, his voice chilling.
Caelum was the only one entirely unaffected by the sudden, profound drop in temperature. He was thoroughly accustomed to the cold. In fact, every single time they had been intimate, Elias had been as cold as the surrounding air in the room. Moreover, the Sky Manor had been perpetually cold ever since Artemisia's death. He wasn't exaggerating when he told Elias he had grown used to the extreme cold.
"This icy chill is a fragment of what I become when you intentionally cause my magic to go completely berserk," Elias explained, his breath visible in the air. "This is the agonizing cold he willingly endured for almost an entire year, yet he still consistently rescued me from the machinations of my own family. And you dared to refer to such a man as a 'low life'?" he demanded, standing up slowly.
He turned and looked directly at Caelum. "Carve the specific rune you told me about onto the prison wall," he instructed.
"It requires your father's explicit permission," Caelum reminded him calmly, utterly unfazed by the intense cold or the tangible murderous aura radiating from Elias.
Elias looked sharply at his father. "I formally request that Caelum be allowed to carve a sealing rune onto the prison wall immediately," he stated. "It will only permit this idiot to use the most basic level of magic. Specifically, he will only be able to use simple heating magic to keep himself warm during the brutal winter months," he specified.
Alexander visibly hesitated, his expression conflicted.
"We genuinely believed he was being mind-controlled. We thought he might be an unwitting victim in the Ravenlofts' scheme," Elias roared, his composure finally breaking. "Now you know the truth! Now you know he has been fully aware of this deception from the very beginning. He knew he would be inflicting pain on me. Yet, he did not hesitate for a second to proceed with his actions."
"Elias," Caelum called out softly, immediately wrapping his arms around Elias from behind in a tight hug. "You must calm down right now," he whispered urgently into Elias' ear. "Your magic is actively freezing the entire dungeon prison level," he warned him.
Elias looked around, taking in his surroundings, and realized Caelum was absolutely correct. A thick layer of ice had already formed on the stone walls and the floor. He let out a long, ragged sigh and forcefully wrestled his emotions and magic back under his rigid control.
Caelum channeled a wave of fire magic into him, the warmth instantly comforting Elias. He looked past Elias to Alexander. "Your Majesty, you have already suffered the loss of one son," he said with quiet intensity. "Do not lose another one as well," he implored, gently pulling Elias away by the hand and leading him out of the dungeon.