The canvas flap of the command tent fell shut behind them, leaving the muted din of the camp to rush back in: clattering armor, strained orders, the wet scrape of blood being wiped from steel. Torches hissed in their brackets, throwing shaky light over the churned ground and the last traces of the fight.

  Cilian stepped out first. His jaw was tight, his eyes narrowed—not in anger, but in that rigid, controlled way he held himself whenever he was overthinking. He should have turned immediately, should have walked away to issue orders and oversee the aftermath.

  He didn’t.

  Instead, he lingered. One step, then nothing. His gaze cut to the side toward Xulian, as if dragged by instinct rather than will. She caught the flicker of hesitation, the half-formed words sitting behind his teeth. For a man so precise, so disciplined, the indecision was shockingly loud.

  Xulian shifted her weight. Her fingers brushed the hem of her sleeve as if to anchor herself. She wasn’t used to… this. Whatever this was. She had never in her life been on the receiving end of someone’s concern—not real concern. Not from family. Not from strangers. Certainly not from a man.

  And he didn’t even seem to realize what he was doing.

  Cilian opened his mouth—closed it again. A different tension passed over his face, something almost reluctant.

  “I—” he started, then stopped, scraping a hand along the edge of his gauntlet as though adjusting it.

  Xulian blinked. He kept doing this—starting sentences he didn’t finish. Hovering. Watching her in short, confused bursts like a man trying to solve a puzzle with missing pieces.

  You should leave, Xulian thought. You have duties. Why are you looking at me like that?

  He seemed to reach the same conclusion after a long, awkward moment. His jaw locked back into place, shoulders squaring as discipline reasserted itself.

  “I need to oversee the final sweep and the march preparations,” he said at last. Even then, the words sounded forced—like he was pushing them out against his own instincts. “You… handled things well inside.” His voice dipped, quieter. “Better than most commanders I’ve seen.”

  The compliment hit her like a physical blow.

  She had no defense for praise. No practice. No reference for how to absorb it without feeling like she was doing something wrong.

  “Oh. Um. Thanks,” she managed, which—considering her brain was rapidly dissolving—was a miracle.

  Cilian stood there another moment too long.

  Then—almost reluctantly, as though physically tearing himself away—he finally turned. “I’ll return once the regiments are sorted. If anything happens, send for me.”

  “Nothing will happen,” she replied automatically on instinct.

  He paused again at that. Looked back. And for a brief instant—just one—his expression softened, as if the barriers he lived behind faltered.

  Then he nodded and strode off into the camp, soldiers snapping to attention as he passed.

  Xulian let out a slow breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

  What… what was that supposed to be?

  Why was he hovering?

  Why did he look at me like that?

  Was he like this with others?

  No. Definitely not. She had seen him tear into captains for less on the road since they met.

  She rubbed her temple, unsure whether irritation, confusion, or a dangerous flutter of something unfamiliar was winning.

  “Ohhh, that was interesting.”

  Vel leaned against a supply crate, arms folded, her expression the picture of smug amusement. Her long braids were pulled back, leaves caught between strands like forest ornaments, and her eyes were far too bright for someone who had just survived a massacre.

  Xulian narrowed her eyes. “What?”

  Vel pushed off the crate and circled her like a wolf scenting a wounded deer. “I haven’t seen Cilian act like that since—gods—his academy days. Even then, he wasn’t that bad.”

  “That bad?” Xulian echoed, indignation pushing away her confusion. “He was hovering around like a lost child. What are you suggesting?”

  Vel grinned. “That he’s acting strange. And by strange, I mean ‘strange around you.’ Back in the academy, he was sharp, focused, terrifyingly talented—but never soft. Not even when he should’ve been. He didn’t hover over people, and he definitely didn’t linger like someone’s worried husband.”

  Xulian sputtered. “He—what—Vel!”

  Vel laughed, delighted. “Ah, there it is. The scandalized squeak. Worth it.”

  “I did not squeak.”

  “Keep telling yourself that.”

  Xulian crossed her arms, scowling. “Fine. Explain then. You mentioned the academy. How do you even know him?”

  Vel’s expression softened—not the teasing kind, but the warm recollecting kind. “Yes. The Royal Academy of Belgrúim—where Cilian and I both enrolled in the Combat Department.”

  Xulian tilted her head. Vel continued.

  “That’s where I met my husband, too—Arvan. He enrolled in the Magic Department.” Her grin widened. “And caused explosions. So many explosions.”

  Xulian blinked. “Explosions?”

  “Oh yes.” Vel held up a hand, ticking off on her fingers. “Blew up a classroom. Blew up a training yard. Blew up the east courtyard—twice. Eventually, the faculty begged me to keep him from detonating himself. Arvan treated every assignment like an experiment in enthusiastic combustion.” She snorted. “I was responsible for keeping the very bright man intact.”

  Xulian let out a reluctant laugh. “Sounds catastrophic.”

  Vel’s smile faded into something warmer. “Meanwhile, Cilian was the other story. Perfect form, the kind of student who made instructors breathe easier because he didn’t give them reason to nag. Precise, severe, and with a blade that solved problems before he spoke. He was… contained. Too contained, sometimes. Like a sheathed sword that would dull itself if never used right.”

  “That is till he gets angry.” Then she ticked off her fingers again. “Blew up his sparring partners. Blew up his seniors. Blew up his instructors. Then they begged me to stop him from blowing up the principal.”

  “Doesn’t sound like he’s changed much,” Xulian muttered.

  “Which is why this—” Vel tilted her head toward the direction Cilian had gone, “—is new. You don’t bow to him, you don’t flinch, and you don’t need his permission to exist. That rattles a man who prefers the world to do what he expects.”

  Heat prickled under Xulian’s skin. “I don’t understand him,” she said.

  “Welcome,” Vel said with mock solemnity, “to Belgrúim’s eternal club of ‘Not Understanding Cilian.’ Membership is free, but the benefits are tragic.”

  Xulian snorted despite herself.

  Vel’s voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “And between you and me? He took this investigation partly to get away from marriage proposals at the capital.”

  Xulian went cold. “He—what?”

  Vel nodded like she’d just confirmed dinner plans. “Yes. Officially? Recon for goblin nesting, possible new dungeon activity, curious war-band behavior in the ruins. Unofficially? He needed three months away from over-eager noble houses and a dozen well-meaning matrons showing him daughters with dowries and titles. He wanted a mission he couldn’t be recalled from.”

  She folded her arms, processing: prince, commander, reluctant fugitive from social obligation—Xulian’s mental list of plot-armor tropes added another row.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  “Besides,” she said, “I’m hardly one to judge him for running from the capital. I’ve done my share of escaping expectations.”

  Xulian raised a brow. “What do you mean?”

  Vel offered a small, proud smile. “I’m not just some elf with a bow, you know. I’m a commander of the Royal Knights of Aulin.”

  Xulian blinked. “Wait—you’re a commander?”

  “Mm-hm.” Vel puffed her chest lightly with mock self-importance. “Commander Vel Auilinwood, Royal Forest Guardian of the Aulin Court, Forest Sentinel, Blight-Hunter of the Western Veil. Though admittedly, I’ve stopped using half those titles. Too many syllables.”

  Xulian stared. “I thought you were… well… Cilian’s friend.”

  “I am,” Vel agreed, “but Aulin is a vasal state under Belgrúim and has been a close ally for generations. Aulin is southwest of Belgrúim’s border, and our forests stretch all the way across the southern region—touching Surille as well. A natural barrier between all three nations.” She gestured broadly as she spoke, drawing invisible maps in the air.

  “Belgrúim sits north of the forest belt; Aulin is deep within the heartwood to the southwest; Surille is to the southeast of Belgrúim. And further south, beyond the forest… the mountains split Surille and Belgrúim cleanly. That’s the real border.”

  Xulian absorbed the geography, the politics like wind shifting in her head. “So Aulin came because of the ruins and the goblins.”

  “Yes.” Vel glanced at the dark mouths of cleared hallways and the piles of bodies being moved. “Goblins sparked the mission. The expeditions started because goblin activity here is… abnormal. That alone justified a reconnaissance task force. Then we found the dungeon core and the rest unraveled.”

  Xulian’s brow drew. “Goblins started all this?”

  Vel nodded. “Goblins are usually small and local. They don’t form organized hordes this deep unless something’s pushed them—disease, manipulation, a new predator, or someone driving them together. We were sent to see why a nest this large existed. It became… more than that.”

  Xulian looked at the close-meshed ranks of soldiers moving through the corridor, the way commanders barked, and medics knelt in practiced rhythms, and felt the weight of it: a simple pest problem turned investigation, then turned into a giant political problem. The thing made sense in a cold sort of way, and it made her chest tighten.

  For a moment, the two stood in the shifting torchlight, the gravity of political tension settling around them.

  But then Vel nudged Xulian’s side with her elbow again, her smirk returning. “Still doesn’t change the fact that Cilian ran from marriage proposals straight into a dungeon. Honestly? That part will never not be funny.”

  Xulian covered her face with both hands. “I want a reset button. Is there a reset button for my life?”

  “Don’t know what a reset button is, but nope,” Vel said cheerfully. “But there is a dungeon exit, and hopefully a bath in Gilium if we survive the next few days.”

  “Vel.”

  “Hmm?”

  “Please stop talking.”

  “Not a chance.”

  A horn call sounded, and Vel patted Xulian’s shoulder.

  “Come on, Miss Ghost. Let’s go make sure your prince doesn’t blow up the entire command line without supervision.”

  “Vel!”

  “What? It’s happened before.”

  As they moved, Vel added quietly, almost as an afterthought, “Also—if you ever want to see him fluster properly, tell him he missed a step in his forms. He’ll die politely and be thankful for the correction.”

  Xulian gave a sound that could have been a laugh or could have been a groan. Either way, the horns kept calling, and the camp pulled itself together again, more alive than dead, more weary than defeated — and Xulian walked forward with them.

  A few hours after the horns blew, the wheels of the supply wagon groaned as they rolled over uneven stone, the lantern hanging off the side swaying in a slow, tired rhythm. The camp had finally begun its retreat from the ruins—organized, watchful, still tense—leaving behind only ash, broken walls, and what remained of the dead and its conspiracy.

  Inside the wagon, Xulian sat cross-legged, eyes closed, breath drawn thin and deliberate. Threads of cool, soft-green and blue energy spiraled along her limbs, weaving themselves into looping, delicate patterns that rose and fell with her pulse.

  Ninefold Verdant Lotus Circulation Sutra.

  She hadn’t realized how… beautiful it would feel. Like dew sliding over lotus leaves at dawn. Like water curling around roots and feeding them. It wasn’t a violent rush she’d expected. It was patient. Refining. Intricate.

  And painfully slow.

  Xulian’s brow twitched as she pressed deeper into the circulation, coaxing another coil of Qi upward through her meridians. It resisted her—slippery, stubborn—like trying to thread a needle using her toes while blindfolded.

  Her diaphragm tightened. Her shoulders trembled.

  Then—

  Ping.

  A soft internal chime. A warm pulse in her core. A flicker of her system panel blooming behind her closed eyelids:

  [Body +1]

  Xulian exhaled a shaky breath and opened her eyes.

  “That,” she muttered under her breath, “took days… for one point.” She pressed a palm to her forehead. “At this rate, I’ll probably get another point by the time the Empire collapses.”

  Across from her in the wagon, Lilian looked up from her lap with a distracted hum. The saintess sat surrounded by velvet-wrapped bundles and crystalline fragments, the dungeon core fragments hovering between her small palms. Its black surface reflected the lantern light in oily swirls, like ink suspended under glass.

  Xulian lowered her hands. “Lilian… you’re fussing again.”

  Lilian didn’t deny it. She frowned at the core as though it had personally offended her lineage. “Because this shouldn’t be possible.”

  Xulian leaned forward, elbows on her knees. “You’ve been staring at that thing for hours. What’s wrong with it?”

  Lilian hesitated—a rare, careful kind of pause. “It was tampered with.”

  Xulian sat up straighter.

  “And,” Lilian continued, forcing the words out, “at first I suspected you.”

  Xulian’s heart kicked. “Me?”

  “You were found with it.” Lilian’s voice remained soft but honest. “Holding a black core would normally be evidence enough. But the energies don’t match you at all. Whoever altered this used a method far beyond anything you show signs of.”

  Relief—and unease—settled into Xulian’s chest.

  Lilian lifted a core fragment slightly. “Dungeon cores fall from the sky like meteors. Pure white at first. When they root into the land, their color shifts—blue, green, red, brown, gold. The color tells us what kind of monsters gather and what the dungeon becomes.”

  Xulian nodded. “Elemental?”

  “Elemental,” Lilian confirmed. “A blue core produces aquatic or frost monsters. Red for demonic or flame-oriented beasts. Brown—earth types or constructs. The usual.”

  Then she tapped the black surface. “But this one was forcibly altered. Black means corruption. It doesn’t happen naturally.”

  “Corruption?” Xulian asked.

  “Corruption,” Lilian confirmed. “Black cores don’t appear naturally. Ever. They only exist through interference—or sabotage. Hundreds of years ago, mages discovered they could gather cores and manually construct artificial dungeons. These were called labyrinths. The Royal Academy has one. Belgrúim uses it to train knights and mages, Aulin uses smaller ones for scouting specialists, even Surille keeps a coastal labyrinth for naval battlemages.”

  Xulian blinked. “People just… make dungeons?”

  “With a captured core, yes. But only with rigorous safeguards.” Lilian turned the core over. “Because tampering with a core can turn it into this. A black labyrinth core is a disaster waiting to happen.”

  Xulian stared at the swirling void-like surface. “So this one belonged to a labyrinth once?”

  “It did.” Lilian’s voice softened into something grim. “And this isn’t the first time this dungeon has seen such corruption.”

  The wagon creaked, the lantern swaying shadows across Lilian’s face.

  “Hundreds of years ago,” Lilian continued, “the Marlow Ruins weren’t ruins. They were the jewel of dwarven cities on this side of the continent. A major trade nexus. They had a thriving population of dark elves, too—artisans, scholars, smiths. It was one of the richest mixed-culture strongholds in the south.”

  Xulian blinked. “This place? Prosperous?”

  Lilian nodded. “Until a court mage tampered with a captured dungeon core and turned it black. It infected the land… and Marlow fell into a necropolis filled with undead. Entire families, whole districts—everything twisted. The war lasted decades before the Empire retook it.”

  Xulian’s stomach tightened. “And now we’re standing in the same place. Facing a similar core.”

  Lilian’s gaze hardened. “Yes. But this time the corruption is… different. Finer. Almost surgical. Whoever tampered with this core knew exactly what they were doing, and they didn’t intend for it to immediately explode the area into something like a necropolis. They wanted something more controlled. More intentional.”

  A cold ripple worked down Xulian’s spine.

  “Does Cilian know?” she asked.

  “Not yet,” Lilian murmured. “I want to be certain before I bring this to him.” She held the core fragment closer, eyes narrowing. “Something… or someone… has corrupted and placed this core here.”

  Xulian exhaled, staring at the ruins outside the wagon. Her skin prickled with unease.

  “Fantastic,” she muttered. “First goblins, now ancient dungeon corruption. Anything else we should expect?”

  Lilian hummed. “Yes, actually.”

  Xulian froze. “…Lilian. That was a joke.”

  “Oh. Well.” Lilian blinked. “It’s still yes.”

  Xulian groaned and flopped back onto the wagon wall. “I hate it here.”

  Lilian patted her knee absently, eyes never leaving the core fragments. “Welcome to adventuring.”

  It was a lot. Heavy. Dangerous.

  But one detail stuck.

  And suddenly something in Xulian’s mind clicked—sharper than a spark.

  “…Wait.”

  Lilian looked up. “What is it?”

  Xulian stared at the fragments spread across the wagon floor—blue, green, red, brown, gold.

  That wasn’t right. Not with what she knew now.

  “These colors,” Xulian said slowly, “don’t match the elements in arcane magic.”

  Lilian blinked. “They do. Blue for water or ice, red for fire, brown for earth—”

  “That’s the four-element system,” Xulian cut in. “Wind, water, fire, earth. The standard arcane elements.”

  She pointed at the fragments.

  “But these aren’t that. These match something else.”

  Her heart beat faster as she reached for one. The moment her fingers touched it, a subtle vibration shivered up her arm, like a resonance meeting another resonance.

  Inside her lower abdomen—

  Inside her dantian—

  Her dual spirit roots flickered in response.

  And the shard vibrated with the same quiet rhythm as her dantian.

  Xulian’s breath caught.

  Her pupils contracted.

  “Lilian,” she whispered, “these colors… they’re not arcane elemental colors. They’re the five elements used in Qi cultivation.”

  Lilian tilted her head. “…What?”

  “Water, wood, fire, earth, metal.”

  Xulian held up the shard. “Green isn’t wind. It’s wood. Blue is water. Red is fire. Brown is earth. Gold is metal.”

  Her voice trembled—not with fear, but with revelation.

  “And dungeons—they’re responding to the same elemental pattern that Qi cultivators use. Not the four-element arcane system.”

  Lilian stared at her as though she’d spoken a forbidden truth.

  Xulian pressed the shard against her palm, feeling the faint pulse that echoed her sutra’s pattern.

  “It… resonates with me. With my dantian.”

  She swallowed. “Lilian, dungeon cores aren’t just arcane objects. They’re… something else. Something that follows the same elemental cycle as Qi cultivation.”

  Lilian’s eyes widened in a slow, dawning horror.

  “Xulian,” she whispered, “do you understand what you’re implying?”

  Xulian’s pulse thudded.

  “I’m implying,” she said softly, “that dungeon cores might not be magical in nature even though they manipulate mana in their surroundings.”

  She closed her fingers around the shard.

  “They might be… cultivation artifacts.

  Or worse—

  The remnants of cultivators themselves.”

  The wagon rolled on, but the air inside felt still and heavy—

  as if the world had just shifted beneath them.