Where is Asher?

Tyrion carefully places Eston on his bed.

"Maybe I should stay here to watch over him?"

Tyrion looks at Aluxio, contemplating whether he should look for Estoria or stay with Eston.

"I'm going to look for her; you can stay here if you want."

Aluxio makes a swift exit before Tyrion can even answer him.

"How long?" Eston speaks out, half-awake.

Tyrion turns back to Eston. "Stay in bed; it hasn't been that long, and Estoria is probably okay."

"Probably?" Eston quickly gets back on his feet and looks out his bedroom balcony.

"I'll go look for her too; you just stay in bed." Tyrion follows him closely.

"Mother..."

"What about Ria? She's fine."

"I have to go; the guests are all here, and Mother has to handle the situation all on her own."

Eston, worried for Ria, gets ready for the banquet to help her with the situation at hand.

***

Aluxio finds Ria in the mess of a room, and his first thought is, 'she's also insane.' He enters the room to ask her about Estoria's whereabouts.

"Any information about Estoria?" he asks.

"No, I forgot about her for a second. How's Eston? Is he okay?" Ria panics for a bit.

"Don't worry; he's absolutely fine, lying in his bed, and Tyrion is still with him." Aluxio tries to calm Ria down.

"Issac should be here soon; can you look for Estoria? Someone has to explain the situation to him and handle all the guests in the—" Ria gets cut off in the middle of her explanation.

"I will handle the guests, Mom. You can relax; everything is fine." Eston says, coming into the office and noticing the trashed place.

Eston knew that Ria, although capable of managing a whole kingdom on her own if she wanted to, could go into a panic if Issac wasn't by her side during situations like these.

Knowing all this, he couldn't stay in bed for even a mere second and pushed himself through the excruciating pain to help Ria stabilize a bit.

"Aren't you in pain? I was bedridden for a week before being able to move again, Eston; don't push yourself. Issac is going to be here soon; I'll handle it all; you go back." Ria immediately rejects him.

Ria also knew that Eston would do anything to help his family, even if he was on his last breath because he's just like her. Eston's personality was almost exactly like Ria's; she knew that and had an easy time raising him.

But Estoria was just about the opposite; she was hard to understand, which would lead to Ria worrying over her constantly.

"I'm in no pain, Mother. I'll be going down there. You go and find Estoria; she doesn't have to come for the banquet. I can manage it all on my own. Trust me for once, please." Eston pleads with confidence.

If they're both just about the same, that meant that Eston understood Ria just as much as she understood him. If Eston said that he can do it, he can. And both were worried for Estoria just the same.

Ria hesitated for a while. "Alright, but stay with him. Tyrion, could you please look over him and drag him out of there the moment you sense a bit of discomfort from him?"

"I was going to before you even requested." Tyrion holds onto Eston's hand tightly.

Eston and Tyrion move out instantly after gaining permission.

"Do you know of any places she might be at? This mansion is too big; at this rate, we will never find her." Aluxio was also worried for Estoria just about the same.

"I don't know of any places. If I knew, I would have looked for her myself." Ria thinks of any place that Estoria could be at.

Just then, the doorway of the room glows in a red light, and Issac makes his entrance, trying not to look down at the floor which had his years of work in the dirt.

"Is everything alright, Ria..." Issac's voice cracks as he tries not to shed tears.

"I'm going to look for Estoria." Aluxio leaves the scene, afraid of what was about to go down in there.

***

It's went dark outside, and Estoria was still nowhere to be seen.

"Where are you, Estoria?" Aluxio grabs his coat before going outside to look for her.

Aluxio and the others searched almost everywhere inside the mansion; the only place left to look was outside in the garden.

So Aluxio ran outside, wandering in the garden full of fog, to look for her.

Estoria opens her eyes and sees a redhead looking down on her face with a worried expression, his labored breath on her face.

"Now isn't this scene familiar," Estoria speaks first.

"I don't know if my heart is beating this fast because I ran here or if it's because—"

Estoria speaks before Aluxio finishes speaking. "Aren't you scared of me?"

"No."

"I am scared, though, and it's not because of these strange powers."

Aluxio looks at Estoria for a while before asking, "Are you scared of—"

"Estoria!" Ria and Issac yell out; Aluxio seems to be getting cut off a lot today, or maybe it was always like this?

Estoria sits back up. "I'm here," she shouts in a low voice.

Aluxio notices Estoria shivering in her black net dress and throws his coat over her shoulders.

"Let me see your hand." Aluxio holds out his hand and waits for Estoria to place her hand on his hand.

Estoria gently places her hand on his. "It healed on its own."

Estoria didn't even notice her injured hand, and in the midst of that, it was healed somewhere in between.

"Estoria," Ria gets down on her knees to hug her immediately.

Issac also gets on his knees and takes her hand from Aluxio's, putting a bracelet on her wrist.

"What's this?" Estoria asks.

"It's a bracelet that can contain my mana so I can locate you if anything like this happens again," Issac explains.

Estoria was going to reject the bracelet, but as soon as she saw Issac's face, she shut her mouth, not uttering a single word as her heart throbbed seeing his tears rolling down his face.

Estoria might have been old enough to live her life on her own, but to Issac and Ria, she was a child that needed their utmost attention and care.

"Issac, are you crying again?" Ria wiped the tears off his face with her hand.

"Can you walk, Estoria?" Issac asks her.

"Yes."

"Let's go inside, then." Issac smiles, holding onto her cold hand.

'Where did he go? I took my eyes off for just a second.' Tyrion searches for Eston among all the guests in the hall. 'It's all my fault, but this ballroom is way too big.' Tyrion notices Eston going up the stairs and runs to him.

'Did I push myself too much?' Eston tries to walk to Estoria's room with shaky legs, but his knees give out from walking up the stairs.

Tyrion catches Eston by the shoulders before he could fall to the ground. Eston wanted to say thank you but couldn't due to weakness coming all over him.

"I knew this was bound to happen, but you're overly stubborn." Tyrion gently holds the back of Eston's neck and transfers his pure mana to Eston's body.

"What?"

"Don't worry; it's a spell to help with pain."

"I thought you didn't know any spells since you're not a mage."

"I have a few tricks up my sleeve."

Pure mana was similar to one's life essence. Only a selected few mages would transfer their pure mana to someone else. It wasn't a spell that needed to be taught; anyone with mana could do it if they learned to manage their mana.

The reason only a few would surrender to it was that if they put even a little bit more of their pure mana into the other party than needed, their own life would be in danger. It was an unspoken life-threatening trick that could ultimately save a dying person's life, although at the cost of their own life. But Tyrion could care less about all this.

"I feel so much better. It's like I have just woken up fresh." Eston feels the pure mana settling in his body.

"Wait, Tyrion, this isn't a healing spell, is it?" Eston, a renowned mage himself, noticed the feeling instantly.

"It's better than any healing spell, Eston Stallion." Tyrion takes his hand off Eston's neck.

"I should have known this when you touched my neck. Are you dumb? Why would you do that? I wasn't even in my last breath; even then, you should've hesitated before pouring your pure mana into me!" Eston yells quietly.

"Seems like you're full of energy now." Tyrion feels his head getting heavy, and everything is spinning around him.

"Your kind of half-baked for a prince, your highness." Eston stands on his toes and holds Tyrion's neck to transfer back the pure mana.

"I hope that was a compliment—what are you doing?" Tyrion takes Eston's hand off his neck.

"Just try to stand straight, would you?" Eston grabs his neck by his other hand and transfers some of the pure mana back to him.

"Why would you do that now?" Tyrion regains his senses and asks.

"I don't know; you started it." Eston puts his heels back on the ground.

"Did you at least take some of it?"

"Yes, I kept some inside; I'll keep it safe and return it to you later." Eston starts walking again.

"You don't have to." Tyrion follows him blindly.

Meanwhile, in Estoria's bedroom...

"Has Eston heard about Estoria? He was quite distressed himself," Aluxio speaks.

"I think so; Natasha must have told him a while ago," Ria answers the question.

Natasha is one of the five butlers of the Stallions, personally hired by Issac for Ria.

Issac tucks Estoria into bed like a patient. Estoria was just feeling a little cold; besides that, she felt like all the energy of her days spent being tired was returned all at once. But she let them do whatever they wanted if it put them at ease even a little.

Eston and Tyrion also enter the room. Now with everyone in the room, Estoria could only think of one thing.

"Where's Asher?" Estoria asks.