I Died and Became a Noble's Heir

Chapter 370: White Exile

Rhys sat at the edge of the crater, his gaze locked on to the destroyed garrison around him. His body no longer ached. It was all thanks to Father Caelen’s healing.

It had been thorough, perhaps too thorough. Every broken bone mended, every electrical burn erased, every internal injury reversed as if the fight had never happened.

But the humiliation remained.

Sylph floated beside him.

A figure emerged from the garrison’s damaged entrance. It was his bodyguard.

”Lord Rhys,” the hooded figure spoke in a deep voice. ”You’re alive. That’s... good.”

”Clyde,” Rhys acknowledged without turning. ”I’m fine. Father Caelen’s healing was exceptional.”

The bodyguard stopped at a respectful distance away. ”I watched the fight from the observation platform. You fought well, my lord. Better than I expected against an opponent of that caliber.”

”I lost,” Rhys said flatly.

”You survived,” Clyde corrected. ”Against someone who could have killed you at any moment. That in and of itself is impressive.”

Sylph’s small voice cut through the conversation. ”The philosophical warrior speaks wisdom. How refreshing.”

Clyde’s hooded head turned fractionally toward the tiny wind spirit. ”Spirit Sylph. I’m pleased to see you recovered as well.”

”We were healed,” Sylph replied, her tone shifting to something more serious. ”By the old man who just left. Do you know who that was, Clyde?”

”The priest?” Clyde shrugged beneath his cloak. ”Some healer in service to the Kaiser family, I assumed.”

”You’re brooding,” Sylph observed, returning her attention to Rhys.

”I’m thinking,” Rhys corrected, his voice carrying the exhaustion that healing magic couldn’t touch. ”Trying to understand why he’d heal us. After everything. Why send his healer to restore us?”

Sylph’s small face scrunched in thought. ”Master Jack is... difficult to predict. I’ve existed for centuries, seen countless warriors and leaders, and I can usually read their motivations. But him?” She shook her head. ”He fights like a berserker drunk on violence, but calculates like a master strategist. He shows mercy by healing us, but his eyes when he fought carried nothing but combat hunger.”

”Exactly,” Rhys said quietly. ”So what does he want? Information? Leverage? Is this some political maneuver I’m not seeing?”

”Or,” Sylph suggested, landing on Rhys’s shoulder with surprising weight for her size, ”maybe he’s just curious. You’re the bastard prince of Caeloria and contracted to a mythical spirit. Maybe he wants to talk to someone who isn’t completely beneath his level.”

Rhys’s jaw clenched. ”I am beneath his level. The fight proved that definitively.”

”You survived,” Sylph countered. ”Against a chosen one and a combat style that nearly killed a mythical spirit, you survived long enough to surrender. Most opponents wouldn’t have lasted half that long.”

The words offered little comfort, but Rhys nodded slowly. He stood, brushing dust from his torn clothing.

”The old man who healed us,” Rhys said, changing subjects. ”Father Caelen. You knew him. Called him ’old friend.’ Who is he really?”

Sylph’s expression shifted, her usual playfulness fading to something more serious. ”Watch your tongue when speaking of him, Rhys. That man has earned more respect than most beings walking this realm.”

Rhys’s eyebrows rose. ”I meant no disrespect. I’m just trying to understand.”

”Father Caelen,” Sylph said quietly, her voice carrying weight beyond her tiny form, ”is known among those who remember as The White Exile.”

The name floodwd into Rhys brain as he tried to process that the old man was the White Exile. His eyes widened, and for a moment, he couldn’t speak.

Clyde’s hooded head snapped toward Sylph. ”The White Exile? That’s impossible. He died decades ago, or disappeared into the...”

”He lives,” Sylph interrupted firmly. ”And he just healed your lord with divine magic that few in this world could replicate.”

”The White Exile?” Rhys repeated, his voice barely above a whisper. ”The greatest buffer to ever exist? The human who served the Elf King during the War of Crimson Leaves? That Father Caelen?”

”The same,” Sylph confirmed. ”Though ’greatest buffer’ doesn’t begin to cover what he was. Father Caelen was... is, the only human in recorded history more intoned with spirits, fairies, nymphs, dryads, and elemental beings than the elves themselves. His connection to our kind transcended mere contracts or summons. We answered his call because we wanted to, because his presence felt more natural to us than most of our own contractors.”

Rhys stared at the distant manor with new understanding. ”He served King Maelor directly. The history books mention him. The White Exile who could turn entire battlefields with his buffing magic, who kept the elven armies fighting when exhaustion should have claimed them. But the records say he disappeared after...” Rhys trailed off, his expression darkening. ”After the queen’s ascension.”

”Not disappeared,” Sylph corrected, her voice carrying old anger. ”Exiled. Your stepmother, Queen Morvanna, the ’beloved’ queen. Made it her personal mission to destroy Father Caelen’s reputation. She convinced the court that a human shouldn’t wield such influence, that his power over spirits was unnatural, that his presence near the king was a threat to elven sovereignty.”

”But why?” Rhys asked. ”If he was so valuable, why would she...”

”Because he saved you,” Sylph interrupted, her black-and-green eyes meeting Rhys’s winter-ice gaze. ”When you were born, you were dying. Some curse or poison. No one ever found out the details. But my money is on the queen. But Father Caelen healed you, poured so much of his essence into keeping you alive that he nearly died himself. Spent three days unconscious, and when he woke, Queen Morvanna had already begun her campaign against him.”

Rhys felt ice spreading through his chest. ”She tried to kill me as an infant?”

”Speculation,” Sylph said carefully. ”But the timing was convenient. A bastard prince, born of the king’s affair with a foreign noblewoman, suddenly dying of mysterious illness? And the queen’s closest healer is unable to save you, requiring the intervention of the White Exile? It gave her the perfect excuse to paint Father Caelen as meddling in succession politics.”

”By saving my life, he proved she’d failed to end it,” Rhys said slowly, understanding dawning on him. ”So she made him disappear before he could reveal what really happened.”

”Politics,” Sylph said with disgust. ”The queen turned the court opinion against him. Made nobles hate him, spread rumors about dark magic and human corruption. Within a year, Father Caelen was exiled from Caeloria on pain of death. The greatest buffer to ever serve the elven throne, cast out because he dared to save a child’s life.”

Clyde remained silent, processing the revelation. His hooded head turned toward the manor where Father Caelen had disappeared. ”And now he serves the Kaisers.”

”Serves Jack Kaiser specifically,” Sylph corrected. ”By choice, he claimed. Said the boy, ” Freed him from constraints.”

Rhys was silent for a long moment, processing everything. Throughout his entire life, he’d wondered why the queen hated him so intensely. Now the pieces aligned. He was living proof that Father Caelen had stopped her plans, that someone had cared enough to defy her will.

”And now he serves Jack Kaiser,” Rhys said quietly. ”The White Exile, bound to a human chosen one.”

Footsteps approached across the destroyed garrison floor.