The trio blinked at her. Their gazes showed parts scepticism and parts hesitation. When they didn't move fast enough, Elora narrowed her eyes. "What are you standing there for?! The contract clearly state—"

Behind her, Erik chuckled, interrupting her. With one arm wrapped around Emma and the other sipping a drink, he looked quite dashing from the throne. "You forget, my love, we haven't formally introduced you yet. I know you're excited, but they can't exactly follow the contract without knowing who you are. Not to mention that they're probably quite curious…"

He glanced at the trio with an amused cocked eyebrow. "Right…?"

A little sheepishly, the trio nodded as they looked at Elora. Naturally, they had their suspicions, but they had no way of being sure.

"Ugh," the fairy groaned, impatiently rolling her eyes at their gazes. She knew he was right, but she wanted to see what information this city and palace contained, and how it would fit in the picture they were slowly painting of this world's past. The fact that she had to wait for the ignorant masses to be educated on crucial matters like her identity was an annoyance keeping her from her research.

Erik chuckled again at her clear impatience, but then decided to quickly enlighten his newest subordinates. "Elora here is my first wife, and only true Empress, as well as a fairy. Because yes, fairies exist. The universe is far vaster than just our little world, and fairies are just a small part of it. In fact, our enemy is controlled by the strings of a fairy as well."

Erik had no issues revealing this information to them. The contract prevented them from spilling their secrets, but even if it didn't, their primary enemy already knew this much, anyway.

Unsurprisingly, the trio's eyes all widened. Despite having imagined many scenarios, hearing the truth first-hand still came as a shock.

Nasir's eyebrows twitched. "If you're telling me this whole hunter-thing has always been just a power-play between aliens, I'm going to get very cross…" he muttered strangely, unsure how to process this information properly.

Despite the absurdity of what he said, no one laughed. Every Runebound in the room had their own stories of the horrors perpetrated by the hunters, and every Arcanist knew how much it mattered to the others.

But to Erik and his allies, the worst thing was that Nasir's statement wasn't even entirely wrong.

Erik had also lost his amusement. "It's… more complicated than that, and Elora was never involved before a year back, but you're not entirely wrong."

The trio all flinched at Erik's admission. Despite their sombre reaction to Nasir's joke, they hadn't actually expected there to be much truth behind it.

"What the hell does that mean?!" Zohran growled aggressively, clearing showing how little these three knew about their past.

With a small sigh, Erik calmly started telling them about this world's past, and the origins of Runebound. Since he'd already shared this information with Ankhur and Enkai, and there wasn't much reason to keep this a secret, he didn't see a reason not to do the same for these three.

Fortunately, they didn't need any convincing. Although Erik's story was a little out there, there was enough proof around to make it plausible, or even likely. All three of them were part of a family who'd passed down Audumla's medallions over the many years since she'd handed them down, and both Nasir and Zahra had their own family legends that fit with Erik's story.

Zohran had a family legend about it as well, but it was a little different. Apparently, his family used to be desert bandits around the middle-ages, which is when they somehow robbed someone of their medallion and took over the altar.

Exactly how they did so when the holder at the time should have been a first-ranker—albeit likely a very weak one—was unclear.

After Erik's story was done, the trio looked a little uncertainly at him. "Is it alright to just tell us all of this…?" Zahra asked, sceptically. "I know the contract prevents us from spilling your secrets, but…"

Erik shrugged indifferently. "Actually, I don't mind if you spread the word about the basics of what I've told you. There's no real reason to keep the history of this world, knowledge of the outside universe, or the true origins of Runebound to ourselves. Right now, the hunters are hoarding that information, and revealing it to the world can only harm them. There's only a few things I want you to keep secret…"

He rattled off some of the more sensitive information, including the extend of his power, the power of their cities, and finally… anything about fairies.

When he spoke of this last bit, the trio looked at him strangely. "I…" Zahra muttered, seemingly unable to find the right words to express her confusion.

Zohran had far less issue with it, however. "What are you talking about?" he frowned, huffing with arms crossed in front of his chest, before thumbing over his shoulder at the city behind them. "You know how many of our warriors saw Miss Empress here—" he waved at Elora—"flying around out there?"

Though his gesture was a little rude, Elora appreciated his choice of words and smirked mysteriously.

Meanwhile, Nasir backed his friend up. "He's right," he nodded with a frown of his own. "The only thing overshadowing speculation regarding her origins is praise for Miss Emma and her life-saving grace. Most of them are half-sure she's not human, and I've heard the word fairy thrown around."

At this point, Elora giggled in a pleased tone. "Hehe… Good!"

At this point, the trio looked even more confused. They wanted them to not talk about Elora or fairies, yet they were happy about this?

Since Elora didn't seem intend on explaining, Erik took the job with a chuckle. "Don't think too much about it," he smirked, indicating at his beloved fairy. "Elora likes it when her existence mainly circulates in the form of rumours. Giving them a taste of her existence without explanation and then not showing her face again for a while is perfect for her."

Naturally, the trio didn't understand the desire for mystery, but also decided to take Erik's advice and not think too much about it.

"Now… can we finally get a move on?!" Elora grumbled impatiently.

***

A short while later, Elora was staring forward with slumped shouldered and frustrated disappointment, her wings drooping down. "Seriously…? This is all there is?" she complained, listlessly pointing forward at what she was looking at.