I let loose a deep sigh, feeling nothing but pity as I held up the scorched skull of the prince who’d welcomed me to the city. The act was done, the boy as dead as he could be – for the moment, anyway – and yet I felt none of the triumph I had every right to feel.
With a breath, I dropped the boy’s dead body, the pungent smell of burning flesh stinging my nostrils. The headless prince slumped down on his throne, the royal gold of his gown a stark contrast to the scorched black of his skull. My gaze lingered on him for a moment longer, taking in my second kill in all its grotesque glory, before I pushed it all out of my mind and refocused myself on the present.
Ren currently stood between me and the rest of the guards, a few dead knights lying at his feet as he stared down the men. His blade was sheathed, but that hardly made him any less threatening of a sight. After all, the boy had dispatched an A Rank knight right before their eyes. I was surprised there had been any guards at all brave enough to try their luck with him.
“Alright, Ren. I’m done here,” I called out to him. “Let’s get moving.”
Ren nodded without looking back, simply pulling his sword out of its sheath as he got ready. The guards in front of him tensed as well, the fear on their faces obvious as they faced the demon of a boy.
But before the fight could begin, a voice cut through the tension, old and weighty with authority. “Leave it, guards.”
A man stepped forward then, out of the crowd of nobles. He looked like he was in his mid-sixties, with greying hair and a goatee. He carried himself with the confidence of a man used to being obeyed, and I knew why. I recognized him as the father of one of the nobles who’d stuck as close as possible to Zayr, the head of the family second only to the city lord’s.
He stepped out of the crowd fearlessly, levelling me with a glare that probably worked wonders on his underlings. Unfortunately for him, I’d just killed a prince of the country, so his displeasure was hardly intimidating.
“You’ve doomed us all, you damn Devil,” the man spat out as he stepped past the line of guards. “Are you proud of yourself now? Has this satiated your savage ego? Thanks to your insane pride, all the good, civilized people of this town are going to end up dead, you understand? No one can escape the wrath of the Blood Palace now, and you will suffer the worst fate of all. You should have just submitted to the prince. What more are you people good for any-”
“Tell me, old man,” I cut in, cold anger seeping into me as I stepped forward. “Do you own slaves?”
The man was taken aback at my question, but he regained his composure quickly. “What does that have to do with anything, you brute?”
I shook my head at the man. “And you have the audacity to call me the savage.” With a sigh, I forced myself to let go of my anger, knowing it was pointless. “Whatever, I don’t have time to deal with you.” As I spoke, a flame bullet formed over my shoulder and shot at the man, whizzing through the air in an instant.
It caught the unsuspecting man in the thigh, wrenching out a pained scream that destroyed the man’s refined image immediately. As he stumbled backwards, the guards behind him caught him and helped him down to the ground, but I’d already stopped paying any attention to them.
“For the rest of you, especially you guards,” I continued, addressing the crowd at large, “you should all probably just run. I’m gonna be honest: I don’t really know what kind of grudge these Palace people are gonna hold, but most likely, they’ll be focusing on me. So if you’re smart, you should be able to make it out. Unfortunately, as much as I didn’t want to involve innocents in this, there’s not much more I can do for you all. Now, you can stay and fight me, if you’re that loyal to your people, but I’d hope you’re all smarter than that.”
The guards seemed conflicted at my words, lowering their spears and swords slightly as they weighed their options. The nobles didn’t care to deliberate much, though, and immediately rampaged out of the ballroom.
Ignoring them, I turned to Ren and nodded at the boy who’d been chained to the wall. Ren had freed him at some point, and he now sat slumped against the wall, head hung limp as he rested. “What are we gonna do with him?” I asked. Logically, I knew I didn’t have the luxury of being worried about random people at the moment, but it felt wrong to simply leave the wounded boy in the state he was in. Not to mention, there was something oddly familiar about him, and I wanted to know why.
Ren grinned at my question. “That’s Leafstream,” he answered simply.
“Leafstream?” I parroted, the name ringing a bell, though I couldn’t quite place the sound.
Ren nodded. “Evelyn’s nephew, remember? We met him at that Arte place.”
“Ohh, yeah, I remember now. You said he was strong, right?”
Ren nodded, walking over to the boy. His footsteps echoed in the now deserted hall, and I couldn’t help but take a moment to soak in the tranquillity of the scene. Before long, Ren and I would be fighting for our lives every day once again, and I wanted to savor the moment before it evaporated.
Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.
“So, Leafstream, you wanna tell us how you got here?” Ren asked Leafstream as he sat beside him, the blind boy totally at ease despite the looming danger that awaited us. Although the immediate threat of Zayr had passed, we now undoubtedly faced a much greater danger from the Palace, and the coming days looked perilous for the two of us. But I wasn’t particularly in the mood to rush into that future, either, so I made myself at home on the floor with the two boys, leaning against a fallen chair as I stretched my legs out.
Leafstream, hearing Ren’s question, started to chuckle to himself. The laughter had an incredulous note to it, and it continued for a long moment, as if the boy had been holding it in for days.
“You two are mad,” he said finally, a smile tinging his voice. “Madder than anyone I’ve ever met.”
Ren and I shared an amused look, the boy’s relaxed gaiety contagious.
“Though I suppose I have that madness to thank for my freedom now,” Leafstream continued. “You asked how I got here? It’s not a long story, really. I fought to protect the Clan when the Blood Palace knights arrived, and I brought down quite a few of them, enough for Sir Dryon here,” the boy gestured with his head to the corpse of the A Rank knight, “to decide he wanted to take me back and turn me into one of them. Or kill me, depending on how stubborn I would be. But anyway, what you guys barged in on was part of their conversion strategy.”
The nonchalant way the boy talked about the Palace’s cruelty surprised me for a moment, but after considering how similar he was to Ren in attitude, I realized it really wasn’t all that surprising. Still, it was telling of the boy’s mental fortitude, which meant that he’d had no easy life himself.
“But anyway, enough of that,” Leafstream went on. “We should get moving. Zayr’s forces have probably already received word of his death. Most likely they’re surrounding this area as we speak. As grateful as I am to the two of you for doing what you did, you guys really kicked the hornet’s nest this time. You two really need to get to Karmore, as soon as you can.”
“We were actually planning on going there,” Ren told the boy, “before this whole mess. But are you sure we can still go now, now that we have the Palace as our enemies?”
Leafstream nodded earnestly. “That’s exactly why you should go to Karmore. It’s one of the only places in the kingdom that can protect you now, especially if you show them how much potential you two have. Of course, the Blood Palace will do everything they can to make sure they stop you before you get to Karmore, so getting there alive might be a little tricky, but if you guys can manage it, you’ll be good.”
“But Zayr told me that there wouldn’t be anywhere in the entire kingdom that would be safe for me,” I said.
Leafstream huffed a laugh. “I mean, technically, he’s right. Karmore isn’t actually a part of any one kingdom. The land it’s on is recognized as a separate area not under the jurisdiction of any other power. But that’s exactly why they’re one of the few powers on the continent that could stand against the Blood Palace.”
“Huh, that’s good to know,” I said, genuinely pleased at the information the boy shared. I’d really been looking forward to going to Karmore, and it was beyond relief to hear that option was still available. “Karmore sounds like a more interesting place than I was expecting, huh?”
“Oh, yeah,” Leafstream agreed readily, “it really is. And it’ll be the best place for the two of you. I’m sure you guys will be able to reach amazing heights there. As long as the Palace doesn’t get to you guys first, of course. I don’t want to discourage you guys, but you two are really in for a tough few months, unfortunately.”
I smiled wryly at his ending, knowing it was the truth. But I was more focused on the first part of what he said; everything he said about Karmore only made me want to go there as soon as possible.
“What about you, though?” I asked. “Where are you gonna go? Are you gonna follow after the Clan? Because they’ve probably already left the city by now.”
Leafstream shook his head. “Nah, I’ve got a mission from Karmore to complete at the moment. I was only with the Clan because I was in the area, and I’d hit a snag on my journey, so I was just passing the time. But I think I’ve picked up on a lead, courtesy of our dead knight here, so I’m gonna be following up on that now. Unfortunately, due to the…uh, let’s say sensitive nature of the mission, that’s about all I can tell you guys for the moment. But hey, who knows, once you get to Karmore, you guys might be able to help me out with the mission someday. For now, though, we really should get going,” Turning to Ren, the boy nodded at Dryon’s dead body. “Ren, can you grab my rune sack from Dryon? I think he was carrying it on him. It’s a red one with a phoenix on it.”
“Sure,” Ren said. A bit of poking and prodding later, he found the thing and brought it back, handing it to Leafstream. The boy thanked Ren and reached in, rooting around for a moment before retrieving a Flux Potion and downing the entire bottle in one go.
The boy let out a burp as he finished the bottle, letting out a blissful groan as the countless wounds on his body healed at a rapid rate. Within moments, the boy was as good as new, save for the tattered clothing. Next, he reached in again and produced a set of two curved daggers. They were unique, unlike anything I’d ever seen before. They were made entirely of wood – even the blades – but they still looked lethal, not fragile in the least.
Leafstream popped up to his feet after he’d armed himself, slipping the two weapons into their sheathes and clipping them to his belt. “I’ll head west,” the boy said, “you two head east. Hopefully, that’ll split Zayr’s forces somewhat, which should make things easier for you guys. Do you know how to get to Karmore from here?”
I looked at Ren, and the boy grinned at my expectant look. “What, do I have to do everything?” he asked, but I could tell by the teasing note to his voice that the boy already knew.
Ignoring him, I turned back to Leafstream and nodded. “Yeah, we should be good.”
Leafstream smiled. “Good. Then, I suppose we’ll be parting ways here, for now. I wish you two the best of luck on your journey. I truly hope to see you both at Karmore.”
“Oh, you’ll see us there, alright,” I responded, utterly confident in my promise. It was a promise to myself as much as it was one to Leafstream, and I had every intention of making good on it.
Leafstream gave me a grin. “I’m sure I will, Ruby.” With those words, the boy leapt from where he stood, crossing the distance of the hall and landing on the sill of one of the grand windows embedded into the walls. He turned and gave us one last parting wave before kicking through the glass and jumping out.