Alexander was older now, his late teens having brought lean muscles and youthful vigor to his body. He walked with cat-like grace, seeming to dance between the crowded palace halls.

Only his empty eyes betrayed his absent mind.

It was only when he reached his destination, a large set of open bronze doors that his mind seemed to snap back to his body. He pushed the doors open with a quiet breath, hoping to sneak in unnoticed.

Luck was not on his side.

“Well, well, well, look who decided to show up.”

Alexander’s father, Eliezer of Marcenia, was an aging man, the last hints of his once prolific muscle being swallowed by the slow advent of time. His brown hair and beard were speckled with white, and his back was starting to hunch ever so slightly. Still, Alexander knew better than to judge him by his appearance. He was a monster, in battle or on the throne. His pale blue eyes were clear as he glared at Alexander.

Alexander winced at his fathers expression, a quick scan of the other couches and tables in the conference room showing others mirroring the sentiment.

“Sorry. I got distracted.”

“And what could possibly be more important than this? The empire is pressing us harder than ever, the peasants are starving, and I'm aging. You are the heir, Alexander, you must take your duties more seriously.”

Suitably chastened, Alexander hurried to take his seat to the right of his father.

The meeting resumed, and although he tried to pay attention, Alexander quickly found his thoughts slipping away.

Aristotle had left long ago, but Alexander had been dutiful in his practice and exploration. Recently, he had been exploring an idea he had had as a boy, that of assuming the characteristics of another thing to gain authority over it.

It was a novel approach, one that appeared to be paying dividends.

He had found success in a steadily decreasing magnitude of resistance levied against him, but he was looking for something more.

And the night before, he had found it.

He outstretched a hand, gently wagging his fingers, feeling threads of air sneak between them. His eyes closed, draggin him back.

He remembered dancing through the wide plains near the palace, feeling the unbound wind against his skin. He had mimicked its movements, gently shaping it. At first, he had done so via rhetoric, redrawing the flows of the wind in accordance with logic and reason.

But as he sank further into the wind, further from human sensibilities, his alterations had become broader, wilder, more natural.

Then, for a single moment, he had become the wind.

The chains holding him to the earth had vanished, and for a glorious moment he had been free. He no longer needed rhetoric, nor will.

The wind had danced to his whims, even as he had dissolved into it.

It was only upon seeing his arms grow transparent that the animal portion of himself had managed to claw control back, his transformation ending with the reinstatement to his chains.

It was both a triumph and a failure, a proof of concept and revelation of its dangers.

Alexander broke into cold sweat when he considered how close he had been to losing himself.

But he yearned for that sense of freedom.

Perha-

“..der! Alexander!”

Alexander snapped back to the present, finding the attention of the command council once more focused on him.

“What’s wrong with you!” Eliezer snapped. “First, you show up late. Then, you fall asleep!”

Alexander opened his mouth to protest, and closed it just as quickly upon seeing the violent gleam in his fathers eyes.

“How do you expect to rule this kingdom if you can’t even sit through one meeting?”

Alexander didn’t even want to be king, but he knew better to say that to his father. Instead, he hung his head, cheeks burning.

He was 18, and a crown prince to boot, and here he was being scolded by his father in front of the most powerful people in the kingdom.

Eliezer grunted. “Now, as I was saying. What is your opinion of the Empire's demand?”

Alexander seized the question like a lifeline, eyeing the map on the table thoughtfully and affecting a pensive expression.

The Empire was declining, long years of internal squabbling having brought the once mighty nation to its knees. Now, in its death throes, it was a trashing mess, scrambling at whatever could keep it afloat for even a second longer.

It was a simple decision for Alexander.

When someone pressed down upon him, he pressed back.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Simple as that.

“We will not stand for this” he announced. “They’re weak and cannot afford to force us. I say we ignore them, They can take their demands elsewhere.”

Eliezer scrutinized him carefully, before letting out an approving grunt.

“Not totally spineless afterall, huh.”

He turned to the council. “All in favor of the prince's verdict?”

The hall shook with the volume of their approval.

—----------------------------------------------

While Alexander went about his normal schedule, wandering and exploring, Marcenia was preparing for war. Men were being trained and weapons forgeds. Nobody truly expected to use them, confident in the assumption that the empire was too weak to overextend themselves.

But they forgot.

Open battle is not the only medium through which war rages.

Alexander was up late, yawning as he silently picked his way through the dark halls. There was no moon in the black sky, and even the stars seemed dimmer than usual. Despite the lack of light, Alexander glided down the halls with his characteristic grace, soon reaching one of the inner courtyards. He strolled through the wide hedges and dark trees, eventually taking a seat on the bank of the small pond.

He loved this spot, loved the glimmers of starlight across the dark waters, the way the light bent and reflected in its jeweled swirls. His mother too had loved it, and together they had spent many nights bathing in the moon and stars.

Thinking of her spent and stab of pain through him, he quickly turned his thoughts away from her and back to the pond. He observed it for a while, letting the pond’s gentle wrinkles slip into him, letting the current of his mind imitate them.

Soon, he began to sway with it, his skin beginning to catch starlight much in the same way the pond did.

Slowly but surely, he began to slip more and more in tune with the pond, letting the gentle wind join his symphony, soon followed by the rustling grass.

A small portion of himself, tucking in the back of his mind so he wouldn't lose himself, watched with awe as he transformed. Boundaries slipped away, and he felt himself bleeding into the world.

He let the world cycle through him, feeling part of himself evaporate into the air, only to return in the quiet wind. He began to assert himself over, using the parts of himself he let bleed away to wield authority over the world.

The wind began to swirl, picking up droplets of water and sending them twirling around him. Rays of light joined them, bending between droplets in a network of light.

It was difficult at first, like wielding a new limb, but slowly it became natural.

The swirling wind slowly died down, it's only indication the thin streams of water that still danced around Alexander. Starlight began to thread through the streams, transforming them into snakes of light.

They danced around Alexander, extensions of himself.

For hours he practiced wielding them, calling more and more till he was surrounded by a dozen strands of softly glowing strands of water.

He sank deeper and deeper, reaching out for the illusive insight.

He felt so close.

If only-

An arrow passed through his head, ripping out the back of his skull in a deluge of water. He flinched, and before he could even consciously register what had happened his little snake of light streaked forward like a cluster of shooting stars, illuminating a terrified face an instant before it was ripped to shreds.

For a second Alexander struggled with a strange sense of detachment. His human mind screamed at him, trying to rouse him from his quiet mediation. It insisted he was in danger, it demanded he feel fear, he feel anger. It screamed that he had killed another man. The majority of him, however, didn't care. What was an arrow to the winds? To the stars? To the oceans?

And to that point, what was a man to them?

Eventually, it was the realization that he might not be the only target that woke him from his stupor.

He made to assume full control of himself, before hesitating. He could feel his human portion panicking in the back of his mind, its animal fear diluted by the magnitude of what he had become.

Perhaps going back wasn't the wisest move.

Inspiration struck him, and he turned to the wind. He slowly withdrew himself from the gentle pond, the swaying grass and the soft starlight, feeling an acute sense of loss as parts of himself were stripped away. He embraced the wind in turn, feeling himself grow lighter, sharper.

He opened his mount, and spreading his presence to the wind, spoke.

“ASSASSINS IN THE PALACE.”

His words boomed forth, bolstered by far more than his physical body.

Without a second to waste, he rushed back inside the palace. It was uncomfortable, being the wind within closed walls, but he persevered, speeding towards his fathers apartments.

His human side whispered instructions, guiding the capricious winds.

People were beginning to fill the halls as he rushed forward, their confusion and panic forcing him to draw upon the wind to perform preternatural feats of flexibility and strength.

He was halfway to his fathers apartment when the hazy edges of his being finally brushed upon his fathers apartments.

He ground to a halt, nearly stumbling even through the supernatural grace of the wind.

He focused his senses, desperately trying to see if there was some sort of mistake, but no matter how much he felt it, the scene refused to change.

A man, once a king, slumped in a mighty chair, chest riddled with arrows..

His father.

Guards surrounded the corpse solemnly, joined by ministers and aids.

Emotion raged within him, a mixture of grief, anger, pain and sorrow driving the apathetic winds from him.

He walked the rest of the way in silence, more the winds leaving him every moment, leaving him human.

And hurting.

When he finally reached his fathers apartment, he was but Alexander once more.

He pushed open the ridiculously large doors, recalling how his father had loved them, before heading in.

People parted before him, giving him low bows and clearing the way to his father’s corpse. Blood was everywhere, dripping from the half-dozen arrows embedded in Eliezer’s chest, staging his shirt and pants crimson.

His eyes were wide, surprised evident in them.

Alexander reached up and closed them. Emotion surged through him like a storm. “Goddamn it old man.” he whispered. “Why did you have to go now of all times?”

He didn't know how long he stood before his fathers corpse, silently mourning him, but when he turned, an equally unpleasant surprise awaited him.

A small sea of people kneeled before him, one arm crossed across their chests.

As one, they spoke.

“We greet the new king. May his rule be long and prosperous.”