“Since I threw a giant tantrum, nearly got myself killed, and then became comatose shortly after?”

Balrus looked at Aldric in shock. “Well... I’m glad to see you moving past it, then. I certainly prefer this version of you over the one that barely even spoke to me.”

“I wouldn’t say I’m over it, exactly,” Aldric said. He looked over at his students, most of whom were still staring at the two of them. “I’m... learning to deal with it. I have a coping mechanism now.”

Balrus gave him one of his trademark radiant smiles, one of true happiness. “Then I am overjoyed beyond words, old friend.” Then his demeanor became suddenly serious. “Though, to be honest, it was not Kedrin’s request that brought me here. Not fully, anyway.”

Aldric raised a brow at that. “What did?”

“His majesty, King Thagrius, has sent me with a two-pronged motive. On paper, this is a political move to secure relations with Kedrin and his associates,” Balrus started. Predictable, but it didn’t answer Aldric’s question.

Then Balrus looked meaningfully at Aldric and said the last thing he wanted to hear. “In reality, I have been tasked with the recovery of the legacy of Rhagia’s Guardian Demon.”

Chapter 10

It was loud, as always, in the guildhall. Aldric preferred it that way. The hustle and bustle of his fellow guildmates was as familiar to him as the sound of his own heartbeat. Nowhere else felt like home more than here.

His closest friends sat around their meeting table, situated right in the middle of the guildhall. None of them, Aldric included, had ever cared much for hierarchy or division of members, and it was unanimously decided that all major guild businesses would be decided at this very table, out in the open for everyone to observe. Even if the other members trusted them and ignored them entirely in favor of their own projects, transparency was important.

Kedrin was trying to conduct the meeting while simultaneously not make it obvious he was trying to read the latest medical text he’d found. To everyone else in the guild, he was the sort-of guild leader, if only because the real one never claimed authority unless strictly necessary. Only his friends knew that his greatest desire was to lock himself away in his library for the rest of the day.

Balrus was always the least active during these meetings, leaving everything to his friends unless they needed a tie breaker. He was serving the latest tea he’d bought in the city, claiming that Aldric would for sure like it this time. Aldric had his doubts based on smell alone, but the honest enthusiasm his friend showed would always break him down in the end.