"What did Klara do?" Lady Peace asked.

  "Before we get into that, there is another piece of information you need to know," Scylla said. "Namely, Immortal Worshippers are created using Elemental Power. A lot of Elemental Power. Typically only Elemental Queens grant immortality. Famously, the Queen of Fire does not grant immortality."

  "So Klara is not immortal?"

  "No. She grows old and dies just like anyone else. She is simply reincarnated later, and all her memories are restored the first time she summons the First of Fire. But I digress. Any High Daughter has enough Elemental Power to create Immortals, but generally this power is forbidden to them. But there is a corollary to this power. Any High Daughter can also remove immortality, provided that the immortality was granted by the same Elemental Power, and subject to the ranking of the High Daughters, with the First being the most powerful. The Queen of Darkness only has one High Daughter, unlike the other Elemental Queens. Can you guess why this is important?"

  "Can the First of Darkness remove Reyndell's immortality?"

  "That's right, among other things. However, the monks at the First Monastery were kept ignorant of this fact, as were the children. Reyndell came and went as he pleased, intimidating the monks and generally running the place with an iron fist. By this time, Reyndell had acquired a new ally, in the form of the First of Life. My brother Kai had gone to the Queen of Light and asked for the bond to be forgiven. He didn't want the First of Life anymore."

  "Why not?"

  "The First of Life is difficult to work with. She likes moving troops around on a map, and she will constantly try to join one battle or another. That's why she earned the name 'War Elemental.' However, she never took another bond after that. She roamed the universe, joining one battle or another by convincing (or bribing) the officers to grant her access to the command tent. She became known also as the 'Wandering Elemental' because she refused to bond another person after Kai."

  "But she found Reyndell."

  "Reyndell was always very war-like. The War Elemental began to follow him around. He named her Felicia, just as he had named his other Elementals, Titania and Erika. Though she never bonded him, she would grant him access to her Elemental Power upon request. However, the Queen of Life forbade Felicia to grant immortality. Reyndell was able to use her power to gain outrageous physical strength, however, and a near limitless capacity to heal himself if injured.

  "So, using Felicia's power, he was able to bully the monks into submission, even though they should have had absolute power over him. You see, the Queen of Darkness is very cruel even to her most faithful followers. Reyndell correctly feared death because it would have caused him to be reincarnated in the Domain of Darkness, and subject to the wrath of a very disappointed Elemental Queen. If the monks had known they could use Erika's Elemental Power to remove his immortality, they would have done so. When Klara returned to the Physical Realm, she informed the monks of this unique capability, thus beginning a long and messy divorce between the Twin Fates Monastery and Reyndell the Paladin."

  "They stopped following his orders," Lady Peace guessed.

  "That's right. They started using the power of the First of Light to gamble and enrich themselves. They used the First of Darkness to humiliate and destroy their enemies, while gleefully gloating at their sudden misfortune. Reyndell was furious, but he couldn't do much about it. He had willingly given up the most powerful and valuable bonds in the universe to a bunch of ignorant children and their elderly caretakers. And if he came to the monastery to bully them, they could simply remove his immortality and wait for him to die of old age."

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  "But the First of Life could heal him."

  "Only traumatic wounds."

  "Okay."

  "The monks, in their arrogance, decided to grant themselves access to the cursed sorcery of the Realms. In fact, they gave access to sorcery to many noble families across Taisia. Reyndell was furious. He promised that he would exterminate all Taisians everywhere in answer to this hubris. The monks thought this outcome unlikely as many Taisians gained access to the same powerful sorcery that was previously available only to Reyndell and his descendants.

  "But Reyndell knew something the monks didn't know. The outrageous luck, and the crippling curse, are not guarantees. The outcomes become more or less probable, but if the outcome is impossible then it will not come to pass. Reyndell tasked his advisor Monroe to develop a plan to attack the monastery, a plan which was impossible to thwart. He said he wanted the attack to succeed even if there was a hurricane and a forest fire and meteors dropping out of the sky.

  "Reyndell was a skilled warrior and an inspiring figure. He easily raised armies from across the world, including some Taisians who had been abused by their new sorcerous overlords. From the safety of the command tent, with the War Elemental at his side, he slowly and methodically invaded the continent. His plans would have succeeded if not for the intervention of Klara. At first, she threatened to destroy the entire continent with Phoenix Elementals if he didn't halt his advance. He seemed to agree this was a good outcome so he ignored her threats.

  "The monks became desperate. They surmised they were about to be slaughtered and they begged Klara for help. She agreed she would help them escape Reyndell's armies but only if they agreed to permanently move to the Domain of Fire, where she could keep an eye on their antics. Without many options, they agreed. As the armies of darkness surrounded the Ashe River Plateau, the monks relocated their entire monastery, using stone-aspect sorcery to move each brick, brick-by-brick through a portal Klara had created using the First of Fire. By the time the armies arrived the First Monastery had simply vanished."

  "They made the Second Monastery," Lady Peace guessed.

  "That's right. The Twin Fates Monastery survived, safely squirreled away in the Domain of Fire, away from Reyndell. But Reyndell still had ambitions to exterminate the Taisians, and once again Klara chose to intervene. She had grown fond of the people in her brief encounters with the monks and their guests. She found the men attractive."

  "That's gross."

  "She was a grown woman."

  "Boys are gross."

  She'll grow out of it, Scylla thought.

  "In any event, Klara sided with the Taisians. True to her promise, she commanded her Phoenix Elementals to attack his armies, though their power was constrained to prevent damage to the continent itself. She rallied the Taisians behind her banner and led them to war. The fighting was fierce, with sorcery raging on both sides, Phoenix Elementals eradicating entire fleets of troop transport ships, and bitter hand-to-hand combat in the forests in the dead of winter. Ultimately, with Klara's help, the Taisians survived the attack, if only barely.

  "Reyndell promised he would not stop trying to exterminate the Taisians for their betrayal, for their uncertified use of sorcery, and for the loss of his two High Daughters. He went to the city of Kanti to lick his wounds and rebuild his armies. In the meantime, Klara split the surviving Taisians into three groups. One group she took with her into the Domain of Fire, where Reyndell could not reach them. These people did not have access to sorcery. The second group was sent to invade a nearby continent, subjugate the locals, and found an empire. This became the Heylin Empire of today. Once again, these Taisians did not have access to sorcery."

  "The last group has sorcery?" Lady Peace asked.

  "And they remained on this continent, what they consider the 'mainland' of Taisia."

  "Why did she split them up like that?"

  "Klara hoped that Reyndell would be satisfied with the destruction of the mainland, because that's where all the sorcerers are. That way at least some Taisians would survive in the newly-founded city of Heyl. Those Taisians weren't given much land to start with, but they were good fighters. If by chance Reyndell decided to attack them as well, there was always the group of Taisians that Klara kept in the Domain of Fire, which could be used to reinforce both groups in this world if needed. Five years ago, that's what Klara did. And thanks to the actions of Old King Varelion and the new Heylin Emperor, the banker's coalition of allied forces has since been smashed to pieces and ejected from both continents."

  "But they will get help from Reyndell now."

  "Yes."

  "And Ingrid is a Taisian and he will want to kill her too."

  "Don't worry about her. Klara will appoint a warrior to keep her safe. And remember, you have the Firstborn. When you are a grown-up, you can stand up to Reyndell by yourself."