Bone Prison

Alchemist's Tower.

The Prince silently repeated the name.

Staring at the ancient, mysterious buildings before him, at the battered yet still faintly recognizable "eye" emblem on the stone pillar, and feeling the pervasive chill, Tales fell into a daze.

He seemed to have returned to six years ago—to that snowbound night in Grand Duke Black Sand's murderous military camp, when that twitchy, big-nosed doctor had drawn three unfamiliar symbols beside the campfire.

The Three Great Magic Towers.

Tales stared blankly at the emblem representing the Alchemist's Tower and let out a soft sigh. Memories of the past slowly surged into his mind.

Ever since the Night of Dragon Blood six years ago, when the former Brotherhood black doctor Ramon had died horribly at the hands of the Blood Elementalist (whenever he thought of this, Tales could not help remembering the brazen expression on the female tailor Kez Ramon's face when she mentioned her long-missing father), Tales had lost an important channel for investigating the magic and mages of legend. Ashida might have been another source of information, but neither his prolonged, erratic whereabouts nor his reservations while teaching could satisfy the Prince's thirst for knowledge.

For six years, Tales had spent as much time as possible in Nekaroo's library. With Thelma's help, he pursued the long-lost forbidden knowledge through books, while doing everything he could to avoid the probing and surveillance of Nikolai, Lisbon, and the others, lest he invite disaster. According to what Ramon had said before his death, since magic and calamity were taboos that this world had tried desperately to forget for centuries, it was better to keep news such as "the Prince of Starfall is obsessed with arcane knowledge" and "Your Highness Tales is addicted to tales of calamity" off the desks of the major intelligence