The new day had already slipped into the afternoon.

Lucian remained locked inside his room, eyes bloodshot and heavy with exhaustion. He hadn’t slept at all. The book the Witch gave him open on the desk, surrounded by notes, diagrams, and the book Gothi had once gifted him.

He had decided to pursue the Heart Nexus theory, but he wasn’t foolish enough to rush it. All night he studied, cross-referencing theories, looking for safe methods, and trying to adapt the dangerous process. Instead of attempting to create a new mana core, he focused on directing the faint traces of ambient mana toward his heart.

Every attempt hurt.

It felt like thousands of red-hot needles stabbing into his heart at once. He gritted his teeth and kept going, meditating again and again. Each failure sent waves of agony through his chest, but he refused to stop.

Then, just before dawn, something changed.

A tiny, almost imperceptible thread of mana finally settled inside his heart. It didn’t slip away. It stayed there, minuscule, fragile, but real. If he didn’t focus intensely, he wouldn’t even feel it. Still, it was progress.

A knock on the door pulled him out of his trance.

"Lucian, let’s go eat," Astrid’s voice called from the other side.

Lucian shook his head hard, trying to chase away the drowsiness. He stood up, stretched his stiff body, and opened the door.

Astrid raised an eyebrow at his disheveled appearance and the dark bags under his eyes.

"Good morning...?"

"It’s already afternoon," she said, folding her arms. "Looks like you didn’t sleep well, huh?"

"Not really," Lucian replied, rubbing the back of his neck. "How’s the search going? Any progress?"

Astrid shook her head. "Nothing. We still can’t find them and you ditched us for a whole day, asshole." She punched his arm lightly.

Lucian chuckled. "Sorry about that."

____

When they reached the main hall of the castle, absolute chaos greeted them.

Tables had been overturned to create makeshift barricades. Clansmen from DunBroch, Macintosh, MacGuffin, Dingwall, and even some Hooligans were shouting at each other, throwing food, and shoving one another. It looked less like a royal castle and more like a battlefield of egos.

Lucian blinked. "What... is this?"

"After the Queen and Princess disappeared, the four clans got agitated," Astrid explained. "They’re now demanding to know who Merida will marry. Some are even claiming the alliance should be canceled if they can’t decide who the princess will marry."

"But she’s not even here. Shouldn’t they be searching for her?" Lucian asked, genuinely confused.

Astrid shrugged. "This morning, a guard delivered a letter from Merida to the King. It said she and the Queen are on a short mother-daughter vacation in the woods. That’s why they stopped the search... and started this instead."

Lucian could only shake his head at the absurdity.

They then eventually moved to a quieter side chamber to eat in peace. After finishing their meal, Lucian excused himself and wandered the castle corridors, still thinking about the Heart Nexus theory.

As he passed near the kitchens, he heard strange noises, rustling, chewing, and the clatter of pots.

Curious, he pushed open the side door.

The sight that greeted him made him freeze.

Three small bear cubs were inside the pantry, stuffing their mouths with bread, honey, and whatever food they could reach. One cub had honey smeared all over its snout. Another was trying and failing to carry an entire ham. The third noticed Lucian, paused mid-bite, and gave him a cheerful little wave with its paw.

"Oh shit..." Lucian muttered under his breath. "They’re already bears..."

The three cubs, Merida’s younger brothers stared at him with wide, innocent eyes, completely unbothered by the fact that they were no longer human.

Lucian quickly closed the door behind him and stood there, listening as the three small figures spoke among themselves, but not a single word made sense to him. Their voices were high, sharp, and laced with strange, rolling tones that belonged to no language he had ever heard. 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

Then he remembered his other skill, The Voice of All Things.

It was a skill he had long kept turned off, a power he had learned to suppress rather than leave active like a natural ability. In the beginning, he had treated it as a passive gift, always on, always translating everything around him... and that had been unbearable.

With it active, he could understand anything that made sound: the chittering of insects, the quiet rustle of worms moving through soil, the cries of every beast and bird within range. Hearing all of them at once was a maddening, chaotic noise that never stopped, a flood of voices and thoughts that drove him to the edge of madness. So he had learned to control it, to switch it on only when he truly needed it, and shut it tight the rest of the time.

Now, he focused and deliberately activated it, filtering out the background noise until only the cubs’ voices came through clearly.

"Hey, aren’t you the one from that market?" one of the cubs said excitedly.

"Yeah, I think it’s him!" said another.

"Do you know where Merida is?" the third asked, tilting his head while still chewing on a piece of bread.

Lucian stared at the three talking bear cubs, momentarily speechless.

This situation had just become a lot more complicated.