I turned to Ren as we approached the door of the hall, the grand doors stretching up high above us. Behind us lay the dead or unconscious bodies of the guards, all of which had been dealt with fast enough to ensure they couldn’t get a message to the people inside.
Ren turned to me, too, as we stopped, his arms crossed and an impatient expression on his face. But I was undeterred; this was an important moment, and I wanted to make it clear.
“Ren, behind these doors is by far the most dangerous enemy we’ve ever faced. As it is, you don’t have much of a target on you, but you will the moment you go through with this." I breathed out deeply, levelling the boy with a serious look. "Are you sure you want to do this?”
Ren, his face serious for once, nodded at me. “Ruby, this bastard killed Maya. For that alone, I would kill him, even if you didn’t want to. But beyond that, my loyalty is not contingent on the danger you face. I stated one condition, and one condition only, when I joined you, and so far, you’ve fulfilled it wonderfully. I meant what I said at the auction house, Ruby. For this, and for whatever happens after this, just focus on doing what you want to do. I’ll have your back the whole way." The boy broke into a sudden grin then. "Now come on,” he said, nodding at the door, “we’ve got a birthday party to crash.”
I smiled at the boy, feeling the first spark of warmth in me since I’d laid eyes on Maya’s dead body. “You’re a good man, Ren,” I said, meaning every word, before turning to the door. “Now, step back a little, please.”
Ren grinned and obliged. I closed my eyes and breathed out, focusing myself as I gathered all the Flux I could manage. The waves of Flux were so dense I could feel them brushing against my skin, swirling around my fist as I prepared to punch the door.
My eyes opened just as deep scarlet flames leapt to life around my fist. With a huff, I let loose the most powerful punch I could, forcing the Flux I’d gathered to rush out as I did.
The door shattered under the force of the punch, the pressure of the Flux rending the thick wood before the flames could even reach it. The flames travelled through as a stream of scorching heat, an eye-catching display of scarlet fire lighting up the luxurious ballroom.
Panicked shouts rang out as the bedazzled guests scurried away from the door. I stepped into the room behind them, hands in my pockets as I studied the room. The hall was about as fancy as I’d expected it to be, with an absolutely massive chandelier hanging from the center of the domed ceiling. Everything that could be gilded was, and what couldn’t was decorated to the max to compensate. Round tables were set up sporadically around the room, around which the guests had been talking and drinking.
But all of that was standard, so I noticed little of it. What my eyes snagged on immediately was the boy tied to the wall on the left, and the sight made me feel sick. The boy’s limbs were spread apart on the wall, his wrists and ankles bound in thick cuffs attached to iron chains. His head was lowered, his hair hanging around his face like a curtain. He wore simple cotton clothes, but they were ripped and tattered, like he’d been in a fight not long ago. Blood stained the wall he was bound to, though it seemed all his wounds had scabbed over somewhat already.
My breath hitched as I took in the poor state of the boy, but I forced my face to remain neutral as I swept my gaze over the rest of the hushed room. Showing empathy right now would only put the boy in more danger, especially with Zayr around, and I didn’t want to involve yet another innocent person in our mess.
And speaking of which, the star of the show, the prince himself, sat at the far end of the room. Sitting on a throne-like seat worthy of royalty, he was dressed up in the most fancy clothes I’d ever seen, his outfit easily worth its weight in gold. The bored look on his face was wiped off at my entrance, a new glimmer in his eyes as he watched me.
“Ah, Ruby!” the boy called out from where he sat. “I was wondering when you’d finally decide to show up. I heard you were busy all morning at the auction house.” A cruel smile curved his lips then. “I left you a little present there, I hope you liked it.” His smile morphed into a laugh then. “What can I say, darling, I’m a jealous man. You should know the consequences for prioritizing someone else over me now.”
My face was a stone mask, my mind forcefully shut off to keep the boy from messing with my head. I didn’t utter a word, simply starting to walk forward, slowly making my way down the center of the room.
By then, guards had already appeared, having gathered all the nobles in the corners before forming a protective barrier between me and them. All of them seemed ready to charge at the drop of a dime, but I paid them no heed. They were all weak, after all.
The only one worth any attention was Sir Dryon, who leaned comfortably against the wall to my left. He made for a lowkey figure, clad in his all-black armor and his eyes shut like he was sleeping. But I knew better; the man was undoubtedly monitoring my every move, watching for the slightest sign of violent intent from me.
But I wasn’t very worried about him either. Ren, who’d vanished from behind me the moment I’d blown open the door, was somewhere near him, I knew, though I couldn’t quite find him in the crowd of huddled nobles. He’d managed to completely erase his presence in a way that defied common sense, but I was confident he was where he said he’d be, and I had faith in his ability to handle the only A Rank in the room – at least, for as long as I needed him to.
Zayr eyed me with interest as he watched me approach him with fearless, confident steps. There was a mask of smug calm on his face that infuriated me, but I ignored the feeling, focusing on my only job for the moment.
“That defiance in your eyes is amazing, Ruby,” Zayr said after a moment, finally breaking the tense hush that had fallen over the room. “I suppose you may still not understand the situation you’re in, but the courage you have is something I haven’t seen in another person my age ever. It’s…interesting. Unique. I quite like it. You’re the best-”
“Shut up,” I cut in, my voice quiet but firm enough to silence the boy for a moment. I hadn’t intended to speak, but the words had slipped out of my mouth anyway.
Zayr’s face darkened as he stopped talking, a sudden, intense hatred twisting his face. He pushed himself up to his feet with force, never taking his eyes off mine for a moment. He found none of the fear he hoped to see in me, and that only enraged the boy further.
“I hadn’t intended to discipline you here, in public," the boy forced out in hissed words, "but you’ve forced my hand, Ruby. I’ve suffered under your disrespect far too long, and now that you’ve done it in front of these people, I’ll have to cleanse my name before them all.” The boy waved his hand in front of him, a blood whip forming in his hand as he did, the ominous-looking weapon already coiled neatly.
“Now, then, Ruby. Kneel,” the boy ordered.
I gave him a cocky smile. “Or what, your highness?”
Zayr’s eyes narrowed at me. “I swear on my life, Ruby, you will know despair,” he spat at me, clearly not used to being disobeyed to this extent. For all his posturing about being drawn to my defiance, it was obvious he couldn’t really handle it.
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“Dryon!” the boy suddenly called out, his eyes still not leaving mine. “Show them.”
Curious, I turned to the knight, who was now clearly awake and sporting a twisted grin – and entirely unaware of the assassin that lurked in the huddle of nobles next to him. I could see Ren now, though it seemed no one else had the presence of mind to clock his existence. He looked nothing like the nobles, but his dark figure was deceptively easy to miss. The boy himself, though, seemed to have an unerring focus on the knight less than a meter from him, his entire being primed for the one goal on his mind. Ren was in his prime state at the moment, doing what he did best, and I had utter confidence in his abilities.
Dryon, oblivious to the danger he was in, followed his liege’s orders and confidently procured a blue-tinged crystal ball from his pocket, holding up the baseball-sized object with triumph.
Confused, I turned back to Zayr, finding the boy grinning to himself with that same triumph on his face. “You see that, Ruby?” he said, pointing at the ball. “That right there is your death sentence. That is why you’ve already lost, why you lost the moment you stupidly stepped foot in this building. Because the moment Dryon crushes that Spell Orb, it’ll trigger a binding Arte set around this building, one that is locked on your signature. Only by my permission will you ever be able to step out of this building. Do you understand, now, dumb girl? I own you.”
I grinned confidently at the boy. The entirety of my fate was in Ren’s hands at the moment, but I'd expected something like this, and I felt not a flicker of doubt. “Not yet you don’t, idiot,” I responded simply.
Zayr and Dryon were confused for a moment, neither of them expecting my lack of despair at the revelation. And in that moment of confusion, Ren finally struck.
“Dryon! NOW!” Zayr shouted, eyes widening in panic as Ren’s dark figure pounced out of the crowd like a crouched lion finally going for the kill. Time slowed as the moment stretched, the movements of everyone slowing to a crawl. Ren was a good meter away from Dryon, moving in slow motion to my eyes, yet the confidence in me was unshaken. Dryon’s thick fingers closed around the crystal orb as Ren closed in on him, the boy’s dagger glinting silver in the light as it started to move out of its sheath.
Cracks zigzagged across the smooth surface of the ball as Dryon’s fingers squeezed, while Ren was still about half a meter away from the man’s throat. I watched on still, unfazed even as it seemed that Ren would be too late, that in the end Zayr would succeed in trapping me here.
Then, just as it seemed a single breath would be enough to shatter the ball, Ren performed a miracle. The boy’s arm, which was still unsheathing his dagger, suddenly crossed the space between him and the orb in an instant, speeding up beyond what should have been humanly possible. In one moment, he had been taking his dagger out, and in the next, the blade was already bloody, Dryon’s wrist spurting blood as his hand separated from his arm.
But Ren wasn’t quite done yet. In the next moment, both of the boy’s arms teleported again. One appeared above the falling orb, gently plucking it out of the severed hand’s grip. The other, in the same instant, attacked the knight himself. The dagger, which had been hanging in the air a moment before, was suddenly buried hilt-deep in the older man’s chest, moving so fast not a single person present had the time to process what had happened, much less react.
Within a fraction of a second, Zayr had gone from having the complete upper hand to losing his strongest knight. An A Rank knight was a powerful trump card, especially one as seasoned as Dryon had been. But, seasoned as he was, a dagger now sat through his heart, and no man could survive that.
The big man slumped to his knees as Ren let go of the dagger. The boy stood above the knight with a great big grin on his face, holding up the almost-shattered orb with triumph.
Pride blossomed in my chest as I let a breath loose, letting go of the tension that had seeped into me.
Turning back to Zayr, I gave the boy the most smug grin I could manage, relishing the panic and fear settling onto his face.
“Looks like my lieutenant’s better than yours,” I said, taking a step towards the boy.
“What do you think-” the boy began, but I cut him off with an explosion at my feet, the force pushing me across the distance between me and the boy before he could react. My hand clamped down on his throat, shutting off whatever he had prepared as I pinned him against the back of his throne.
Before I even said a word, I gave the boy a solid punch to the face, indulging myself in the satisfaction of the moment. The feeling was incredible, like scratching an itch I’d been waiting my whole life to scratch.
The boy, for his part, seemed more in disbelief than in pain at the punch, though. “You…you hit me…” he stammered out, as if he couldn’t quite believe that it had happened.
I nodded at the boy. “I did. And you know what, I liked it. I think I’m gonna do it again.” And I did, striking the boy on his cheek with enough force to whip his head sideways.
“Stop it, you madwoman!” A shout came from behind me, likely from one of the guards. “You’ll doom us all if you keep this up!”
The man was probably right, but I ignored him entirely. As much as he and the rest of the guards wanted to try and stop me, Ren would be more than enough to keep them all at bay.
Instead, I kept my focus on Zayr. The boy breathed in and out as he recoiled from the attack, desperately trying to control himself and the rage that was boiling within him. I was hoping he would try and fight back, but he had better instincts than I'd given him credit for. He seemed to understand that I was much stronger than him, and his intelligence told him that his only chance of getting out of this situation – as painlessly as possible, anyway – was by relying on his background, not his own strength.
“Look, Ruby,” the boy started, none of the smugness of earlier in his tone. “I know you come from some backward village in the mountains, so you don’t really understand what’s happening here, but trust me, you do not want to do this. Running away from me is one thing, but humiliating me is entirely different. I am the third son of the Blood Palace; any humiliation I face is a humiliation to the entire Palace. I may not be able to mobilize a lot of the Palace’s strength for my own interests, but if you go through with this, you will force my father to react – even if he doesn’t want to. You’ll bring down the entire strength of the Palace down on yourself, and the forces of the Palace are beyond what you could comprehend. They’ll chase you to the ends of the world, Ruby. A single word from my father will turn every city in the kingdom against you. Nowhere will be safe. My father will ensure you face a fate far worse than what I had planned.”
He paused for a breath there, and I could see the sincerity in his eyes. He really wasn’t bluffing with his threats, but I’d known that before I’d even stepped into the hall.
“But, if you stop right now,” the boy continued, “I can make this whole thing disappear. I’ll make sure no one ever knows what happened here, even if I have to kill off the town for it.”
I studied the boy for a moment, before punching him again, just for the fun of it. “You know what," I said as the boy reeled from the blow, "you’re probably right. The power of the Blood Palace really is something. If I had a choice in the matter, I probably wouldn’t have chosen to pick a fight with you lot.” I levelled the boy with a look then, rage flickering to life in my eyes. “But I made a promise to Maya, you know? On the first day I met her. Do you know what that promise was?” Before the boy could respond, I punched him again, drawing blood this time as his lip split slightly.
“Ruby!! STOP!” the boy yelled, his body tensing as he struggled to escape my grasp.
“I promised her that if anyone dared to hurt her, I’d burn their face off. And I am a woman of my word.”
“RUBY!!” the boy yelled, finally losing all semblance of composure he’d been hanging on to. In a desperate movement, the boy formed a dagger of blood in his hands and swung it at my abdomen.
He was quick, worthy of a B Rank mage, but I was quicker. With one hand, I grabbed his face and lifted him up as high as I could, his weight a trivial matter for my Flux-strengthened muscles. With the other, I caught his wrist before it could reach me, squeezing hard enough for something to crack.
The boy screamed in pain as his wrist broke, the sound muffled with my hand gripping his face.
“This was always bound to happen, Zayr,” I said, feeling that ice-cold calm flowing through my blood. “If not by my hand, then by someone else’s. The way you were living your life, it was only a matter of time.”
“RUBYYYY!!!! STOP!!!!!!!” the boy screamed at the top of his lungs as my palm heated up. I looked into his eyes, taking in the crazed, wild look in them, and felt nothing. The satisfaction of earlier had evaporated, replaced by a hollowness in my chest. There was nothing but a small sadness in my eyes; what I was doing wouldn’t right all the wrongs the boy had committed, wouldn’t bring back all the innocents he’d killed, nor undo the unimaginable amount of pain he’d surely caused to so many people.
And if all of that was true, why was I even doing what I was doing?
“RUBYYY!!!!”
With a sigh, I let loose the Flux I’d been holding back, and a stream of deep scarlet flame burst forth from my palm, enveloping the boy’s entire head and travelling high into the air.
“AHHHH!!-” the boy screamed into the flames, screaming like I’d never heard anyone scream, before being ominously cut off.