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Description
Agrona sat back in her black obsidian throne. It was tradition, in her kingdom and Ashia's, to sit in the throne room as her subjects stepped up one by one to ask for solutions for their problems. Of course, she loved her subjects and cared about them dearly, even if they were previously subjects of Ashia (and taught by her to hate Agrona), but she wished she could be back in her tower, searching for the prophesied child.

It had been about a month and a half since the Umbra Orbis had shown her her sister. She knew exactly what was going on, and what the Orb was trying to tell her. Her younger sister, a sorceress of Life and Death Spells, was traveling from wherever she had been raised to Agrona's palace to try and hide from Amarantos. She wouldn't go to Ashia's palace, not if she was smart, for Ashia would have her turned over to Anarantos in a heartbeat. But Agrona would shelter her and scare Amarantos away. Little did he know it, but Agrona was no slouch when it came to Spells anymore. She wasn't the scared little girl who'd been tossed around by her torturous father.

But the Orb hadn't shown her a single thing after showing her the girl. She could be anywhere! She could have been captured by Life Knights, or turned over to Anarantos, or already vanquished!

No-wait. Agrona's sister had the ability to perform Life and Death Spells. She probably had figured that out by now, and figured out at least some basic Spells. And whoever had raised her had probably taught her about the old story about her family. She wouldn't be captured without a fight.

"Hello Your Highness, my name is Cordelia," a pretty spirit curtsied.

"Greetings, Cordelia. How may I help you?" Agrona asked emotionlessly. She tried not to sound too cold.

Cordelia pursed her lips and looked sad and angry at the same time.
She started speaking slowly, but ended up speaking quickly and harshly.
"The Duke of Oslignum threw me and my brother out of Oslignum because we aren't skeletons anymore. I only became a spirit a week ago, and besides, the Duke is a spirit!" She bowed her head. "Forgive me for such an outburst, Your Highness." Agrona ground her teeth. She had heard about three other spirits with the same complaint in the same day. The Duke insisted that, as the district was called Oslignum (Bonewood) only skeletons were allowed to become and stay residents. Which was ridiculous, because he himself was a spirit and not a skeleton.

The mortal people of the Lands of Life and Death went through an odd span of existence. First, they lived a Life of usually about seventy to eighty mortal years old, until they died. When they did die, their body was taken by Mortem, Agrona's messenger, also known as Death himself. Mortem and Dead mortals were the only ones allowed to cross the Border. Mortem would restore their dead soul into their body, where they would exist in the Land of the Dead as a corpse, until their body withered away to nothing but bones. When their bones were gone, they would merely be spirits, until their spirit finally withered away into nothingness.

"Do not worry, Cordelia. I will write to the Duke and let him know that he is prohibited from exiling citizens no matter their current state. You will be back at home within a day or so." Cordelia smiled.

"Thank you, Your Highness." She left. A cracked skeleton of a man stepped up.

"Good day, Your Highness."
~*~*~*~
"Mistress, is it time for my lesson yet?" Samuel asked, peeking around the door of Agrona's office for the fifth time.

"No, Samuel," Agrona replied, not even bothering to look up from her letter to the Duke of Oslignum.

"But it's two thirty!" Agrona looked up from her letter.

"Yes, it is, and your lesson begins at two thirty five." Samuel sighed and closed the door. "But that doesn't mean you can't help sort these papers. Here, sort them by the town, city, or district they came from." Samuel came back inside without hesitation, and immediately began sorting papers. Agrona raised an eyebrow. "Why are you so eager to help me and to start your lesson? You do know that your two thirty five lesson is the one you do not enjoy, the one about the history of Spells and essays on Spell uses?" Samuel smiled quietly.

"No, Mistress, remember? You switched the lessons." Agrona suddenly remembered changing the lesson schedules. And assigning a paper on destructive Spells. Her eyes narrowed.

"Samuel, did you finish your paper?" Samuel swallowed hard but didn't say anything.

"What does the paper have to do with anything?"

"Samuel, what would you say if I told you the student of a teacher volunteered to help his teacher because he didn't write his paper, and he thought that his teacher would lessen the penalty for not finishing assignments if he did stay to help?"

"I would say that he knew the punishment would be the same no matter what, but he felt bad so he decided to help his teacher." Agrona chuckled.

"Samuel, you are eighteen. I would think you could come up with better stories than that." Samuel sighed.

"Actually, I did write the paper, but I was practicing Spells and-"

"-and you burned it," Agrona interrupted. "Well, that's all right, as long as you wrote it in the first place."

Samuel blinked. "You believe me?"

"Well, I'm still going to test you. Which destructive Spell creates a twister?"

Samuel smiled. "Turbo Anemoi."

"Good. Who discovered the Spell that creates a bolt of lightning that can be directed on any specific object or person?"

"The Death Spell mage Rosamond the Horrendous."
Samuel waited for the next question, but it wasn't coming.

"Now it is two thirty-five." Samuel dropped the documents and raced out the door. Agrona chuckled. No matter how old he was, Samuel would always act impatient and rash.
~*~*~*~
"Ignis," Samuel said, clenching his hand into a fist and then spreading his fingers wide apart. A tiny orange flame crackled and snapped in his hand. Agrona sighed.

"Samuel, your flames are still too noisy. It would be helpful in a battle, to scare away an enemy, but what will happen if you need a light to sneak around with, and it's crackling away and letting everyone know exactly where you are?" Samuel extinguished the fire and tried again. It was even louder. Agrona held up her own fist.
"Don't clench your fist so tightly, and don't open it so violently. Focus on the gradual blooming of the fire. It will light up immediately, but imagine it happening slower in the back of your mind. After a while, it will become unconscious." Agrona gently opened her hand, and an orange flame appeared in the palm of her hand, spreading into five smaller fires that danced down her fingers to her fingertips, then growing tall and thin and bending together into a point. From the point, it grew into a flickering orange flower. Agrona smiled. She looked down upon arrogance, but she couldn't help taking pride in her ability to mentally cast Spells.

Samuel created his own flame, this time nearly silent, and had it wrap around his hand like a glove.

"Ah, so you have been practicing," Agrona said fondly. Samuel tired (and failed) to suppress a grin. "Sceleta ad proelium!" Agrona shouted suddenly. Skeletons sprouted from the ground, armed with swords. Samuel spread his feet apart and ignited a fire in his hands. This was part of his training: using Spells in combat.

One of the skeletons ripped out its ribcage (making Agrona wince-the skeleton was made of bones that had been buried for years, and wasn't an actual person, but it reminded her too much of Nana) and hurled it at Samuel. He ducked and flicked four small fireballs at its feet, making it stumble and fall. The second charged mindlessly at him, slashing away with its sword. His hand ignited, and he melted the blade in seconds. Agrona stepped through shadows to stand directly behind him, and cast a whirlwind that put out his flames and blew him around in a confused state. Samuel landed under a black, skinny, dead tree with a hollow thump.

"That wasn't fair," he scowled.

"Since when do you decide whether your lessons are fair or unfair?" Agrona asked, smiling in amusement.

"Since when should I be able to defeat three skeletons and deflect a twister Spell all at the same time?" Samuel retorted to the queen. Agrona laughed.

"True enough. But you should still be practicing more." Samuel rolled his eyes. Agrona flicked her finger at him and another wind blew him backwards.

"Apologies, Mistress."
~*~*~*~
"Mistress!" Samuel burst into Agrona's office. "The Umbra Orbis! Again!" She didn't need any other explanation. She set down her quill pen and ran after her student, pausing to walk in a dignified way only when the servants could see.

Up in the tower, the Orb was glowing just as brightly as it had before.

"Ostende mihi qua terreberis videt in umbra," Agrona said in a hurry, placing her hands on the sides of the orb and closing her eyes. In her vision, she saw the girl again. Her younger sister. But this time, she was flying. With wings. And with another girl, nearly exactly her age, with black hair and strikingly dark green eyes, who also had wings. They were joined by a snowy white owl that looked strangely familiar. Then the view broadened, showing a city in the distance, with tall gray buildings with flat roofs, rounded corners, and square windows with no glass. There were also long ropes extending from window to window, and the whole place looked eerie and stiff.

The white-haired girl cast a Spell that made two little white rabbits made of human finger bones dart through the grass and chase each other before falling apart. The other girl's face lit up in delight. She clearly hadn't seen very many Spells cast in her life if she was that surprised.

The vision blurred and went dark. Agrona stepped away.

"So?" Samuel asked anxiously. "What did you see, Mistress?" Agrona turned to him.

"My sister is still alive, and she is traveling to a city. It's clearly not Ashia's City, the capital, but it looks like a larger city. She's with a snowy owl and a girl around her age with black hair and green eyes." Samuel nodded.

"Mistress...forgive me for asking, but do you have any sort of plan at all when the girl gets here? What will you do? The servants know what she looks like from the wanted posters your fath-Amarantos-somehow plastered nearly everywhere." Agrona smiled without humor.

"She will stay in the tower, and once we find out what she can do and what she is like, we can move on from there." Samuel didn't seem too satisfied with that answer, but nodded quietly.

"All right. I will return to studying." He left the tower. Agrona waited until the starry portal was completely still, and went back to look into the Orb again.

"Who would have thought that you would still be alive," she said, chuckling and looking at her sister. "And who knows when that prophecy will unfold."
~*~*~*~

Description
Agrona sat back in her black obsidian throne. It was tradition, in her kingdom and Ashia's, to sit in the throne room as her subjects stepped up one by one to ask for solutions for their problems. Of course, she loved her subjects and cared about them dearly, even if they were previously subjects of Ashia (and taught by her to hate Agrona), but she wished she could be back in her tower, searching for the prophesied child.

It had been about a month and a half since the Umbra Orbis had shown her her sister. She knew exactly what was going on, and what the Orb was trying to tell her. Her younger sister, a sorceress of Life and Death Spells, was traveling from wherever she had been raised to Agrona's palace to try and hide from Amarantos. She wouldn't go to Ashia's palace, not if she was smart, for Ashia would have her turned over to Anarantos in a heartbeat. But Agrona would shelter her and scare Amarantos away. Little did he know it, but Agrona was no slouch when it came to Spells anymore. She wasn't the scared little girl who'd been tossed around by her torturous father.

But the Orb hadn't shown her a single thing after showing her the girl. She could be anywhere! She could have been captured by Life Knights, or turned over to Anarantos, or already vanquished!

No-wait. Agrona's sister had the ability to perform Life and Death Spells. She probably had figured that out by now, and figured out at least some basic Spells. And whoever had raised her had probably taught her about the old story about her family. She wouldn't be captured without a fight.

"Hello Your Highness, my name is Cordelia," a pretty spirit curtsied.

"Greetings, Cordelia. How may I help you?" Agrona asked emotionlessly. She tried not to sound too cold.

Cordelia pursed her lips and looked sad and angry at the same time.
She started speaking slowly, but ended up speaking quickly and harshly.
"The Duke of Oslignum threw me and my brother out of Oslignum because we aren't skeletons anymore. I only became a spirit a week ago, and besides, the Duke is a spirit!" She bowed her head. "Forgive me for such an outburst, Your Highness." Agrona ground her teeth. She had heard about three other spirits with the same complaint in the same day. The Duke insisted that, as the district was called Oslignum (Bonewood) only skeletons were allowed to become and stay residents. Which was ridiculous, because he himself was a spirit and not a skeleton.

The mortal people of the Lands of Life and Death went through an odd span of existence. First, they lived a Life of usually about seventy to eighty mortal years old, until they died. When they did die, their body was taken by Mortem, Agrona's messenger, also known as Death himself. Mortem and Dead mortals were the only ones allowed to cross the Border. Mortem would restore their dead soul into their body, where they would exist in the Land of the Dead as a corpse, until their body withered away to nothing but bones. When their bones were gone, they would merely be spirits, until their spirit finally withered away into nothingness.

"Do not worry, Cordelia. I will write to the Duke and let him know that he is prohibited from exiling citizens no matter their current state. You will be back at home within a day or so." Cordelia smiled.

"Thank you, Your Highness." She left. A cracked skeleton of a man stepped up.

"Good day, Your Highness."
~*~*~*~
"Mistress, is it time for my lesson yet?" Samuel asked, peeking around the door of Agrona's office for the fifth time.

"No, Samuel," Agrona replied, not even bothering to look up from her letter to the Duke of Oslignum.

"But it's two thirty!" Agrona looked up from her letter.

"Yes, it is, and your lesson begins at two thirty five." Samuel sighed and closed the door. "But that doesn't mean you can't help sort these papers. Here, sort them by the town, city, or district they came from." Samuel came back inside without hesitation, and immediately began sorting papers. Agrona raised an eyebrow. "Why are you so eager to help me and to start your lesson? You do know that your two thirty five lesson is the one you do not enjoy, the one about the history of Spells and essays on Spell uses?" Samuel smiled quietly.

"No, Mistress, remember? You switched the lessons." Agrona suddenly remembered changing the lesson schedules. And assigning a paper on destructive Spells. Her eyes narrowed.

"Samuel, did you finish your paper?" Samuel swallowed hard but didn't say anything.

"What does the paper have to do with anything?"

"Samuel, what would you say if I told you the student of a teacher volunteered to help his teacher because he didn't write his paper, and he thought that his teacher would lessen the penalty for not finishing assignments if he did stay to help?"

"I would say that he knew the punishment would be the same no matter what, but he felt bad so he decided to help his teacher." Agrona chuckled.

"Samuel, you are eighteen. I would think you could come up with better stories than that." Samuel sighed.

"Actually, I did write the paper, but I was practicing Spells and-"

"-and you burned it," Agrona interrupted. "Well, that's all right, as long as you wrote it in the first place."

Samuel blinked. "You believe me?"

"Well, I'm still going to test you. Which destructive Spell creates a twister?"

Samuel smiled. "Turbo Anemoi."

"Good. Who discovered the Spell that creates a bolt of lightning that can be directed on any specific object or person?"

"The Death Spell mage Rosamond the Horrendous."
Samuel waited for the next question, but it wasn't coming.

"Now it is two thirty-five." Samuel dropped the documents and raced out the door. Agrona chuckled. No matter how old he was, Samuel would always act impatient and rash.
~*~*~*~
"Ignis," Samuel said, clenching his hand into a fist and then spreading his fingers wide apart. A tiny orange flame crackled and snapped in his hand. Agrona sighed.

"Samuel, your flames are still too noisy. It would be helpful in a battle, to scare away an enemy, but what will happen if you need a light to sneak around with, and it's crackling away and letting everyone know exactly where you are?" Samuel extinguished the fire and tried again. It was even louder. Agrona held up her own fist.
"Don't clench your fist so tightly, and don't open it so violently. Focus on the gradual blooming of the fire. It will light up immediately, but imagine it happening slower in the back of your mind. After a while, it will become unconscious." Agrona gently opened her hand, and an orange flame appeared in the palm of her hand, spreading into five smaller fires that danced down her fingers to her fingertips, then growing tall and thin and bending together into a point. From the point, it grew into a flickering orange flower. Agrona smiled. She looked down upon arrogance, but she couldn't help taking pride in her ability to mentally cast Spells.

Samuel created his own flame, this time nearly silent, and had it wrap around his hand like a glove.

"Ah, so you have been practicing," Agrona said fondly. Samuel tired (and failed) to suppress a grin. "Sceleta ad proelium!" Agrona shouted suddenly. Skeletons sprouted from the ground, armed with swords. Samuel spread his feet apart and ignited a fire in his hands. This was part of his training: using Spells in combat.

One of the skeletons ripped out its ribcage (making Agrona wince-the skeleton was made of bones that had been buried for years, and wasn't an actual person, but it reminded her too much of Nana) and hurled it at Samuel. He ducked and flicked four small fireballs at its feet, making it stumble and fall. The second charged mindlessly at him, slashing away with its sword. His hand ignited, and he melted the blade in seconds. Agrona stepped through shadows to stand directly behind him, and cast a whirlwind that put out his flames and blew him around in a confused state. Samuel landed under a black, skinny, dead tree with a hollow thump.

"That wasn't fair," he scowled.

"Since when do you decide whether your lessons are fair or unfair?" Agrona asked, smiling in amusement.

"Since when should I be able to defeat three skeletons and deflect a twister Spell all at the same time?" Samuel retorted to the queen. Agrona laughed.

"True enough. But you should still be practicing more." Samuel rolled his eyes. Agrona flicked her finger at him and another wind blew him backwards.

"Apologies, Mistress."
~*~*~*~
"Mistress!" Samuel burst into Agrona's office. "The Umbra Orbis! Again!" She didn't need any other explanation. She set down her quill pen and ran after her student, pausing to walk in a dignified way only when the servants could see.

Up in the tower, the Orb was glowing just as brightly as it had before.

"Ostende mihi qua terreberis videt in umbra," Agrona said in a hurry, placing her hands on the sides of the orb and closing her eyes. In her vision, she saw the girl again. Her younger sister. But this time, she was flying. With wings. And with another girl, nearly exactly her age, with black hair and strikingly dark green eyes, who also had wings. They were joined by a snowy white owl that looked strangely familiar. Then the view broadened, showing a city in the distance, with tall gray buildings with flat roofs, rounded corners, and square windows with no glass. There were also long ropes extending from window to window, and the whole place looked eerie and stiff.

The white-haired girl cast a Spell that made two little white rabbits made of human finger bones dart through the grass and chase each other before falling apart. The other girl's face lit up in delight. She clearly hadn't seen very many Spells cast in her life if she was that surprised.

The vision blurred and went dark. Agrona stepped away.

"So?" Samuel asked anxiously. "What did you see, Mistress?" Agrona turned to him.

"My sister is still alive, and she is traveling to a city. It's clearly not Ashia's City, the capital, but it looks like a larger city. She's with a snowy owl and a girl around her age with black hair and green eyes." Samuel nodded.

"Mistress...forgive me for asking, but do you have any sort of plan at all when the girl gets here? What will you do? The servants know what she looks like from the wanted posters your fath-Amarantos-somehow plastered nearly everywhere." Agrona smiled without humor.

"She will stay in the tower, and once we find out what she can do and what she is like, we can move on from there." Samuel didn't seem too satisfied with that answer, but nodded quietly.

"All right. I will return to studying." He left the tower. Agrona waited until the starry portal was completely still, and went back to look into the Orb again.

"Who would have thought that you would still be alive," she said, chuckling and looking at her sister. "And who knows when that prophecy will unfold."
~*~*~*~