Brandon

I'm angry I'm disappointed, I'm sad I'm in shocked, I hate them, we have to kill every single one of these savages pretending to be human. Having had fought them though I'm not sure how. Throughout the battle I didn't kill or injure a single one of them. Not even by accident.

"Are you alright my prince?" Atticus asks, a loyal retainer who has been with me through this whole debacle.

"How did we do today?" I ask, hallow eyed from today's skirmish.

"We lost sixty today," he says and I nod, that's a reasonable number. Not like the day we lost 72 000 troops in a day.

"How many Barbarians did we kill?"

I ask taking a drink of water as a slave helps me out of my armour. I sorely regret coming here, armour is the most uncomfortable form of dress I have ever had the misfortune of being in. But it saved my life at least four times that day, the day of the big battle.

"It seems that we have killed 12 today," he says as some of my cousins join me at my tent.

I honestly don't know how or even when I got so popular among the other royals but today isn't a day I enjoy it, in fact I don't think I ever enjoyed it. I sigh as Cassius sits and helps himself to my grapes joined by his pretty sister with the conniving eyes and an ever ready sneer. She sneers at me as I sigh at the sight of them.

"What are you even doing here Nasis, we all know you can't fight worth a damn," I speak before I can think and her glare and slowly growing smile gives me the creeps. Why are the pretty ones so crazy?

"You haven't heard have you?" She says to her audience of my cousins and the now arriving triplets. Everyone here is a royal, meaning everyone has a personal guard so it’s getting rather crowded.

"I heard you had an eye on weapon's master Adonis's daughter. A shame what happened to her..." She says then takes a sip of wine.

I try to be nonchalant and not seem interested by Axolile's scowl has my heart pounding. My Induku half siblings are usually very easy going. Even after that massacre they seemed hardly phased. Were the fuck were the mages during that anyways?

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I lose my patience quickly though as I remember what just happened to my new squad. New mainly because most of my previous squad was decimated.

"What has happened to Aaliyah?" I ask, grim faced as I look at my other cousins completely ignoring the crazy bitch Nasis.

"Easy now," Cassius says as Igrus giggles drunkenly.

"The stuck up bitch is dead," he says as he drinks more wine. "Always thought she was better than the rest of us. Can you believe she once kicked me in the balls?" He says affronted, but I hear nothing else.

"Aaliyah is dead?" I ask softly, not sure I heard correctly as blood rushes to my ears.

Axi puts a hand on my shoulder but I shrug it off as I over heat. Nasis sneers that pretty sneer of hers.

"She got her head caved in pretty good. They identified her by her family crest and her amour. I'm glad she's dead, now that stuck up family can be taken down a notch or-"

She is interrupted by my knife in her throat. It all happens in slow motion. One moment she's talking and the next I know I've had enough of all this shit. I pull my blade from a boot sheath and just reach out as easy as can be. Slicing a smile across her throat and sitting back in my chair.

All hell suddenly breaks loose as Masi moves first taking Thands in the eye with her spear as his mouth gapes open. The guards move next as Nasis' guard comes straight for me, intercepted by mine, the blade blocked inches from my face.

Cassius upends the table and kicks it with surprising strength. He then puts his hand on the mangled throat of his still gaggling sister. I've been with this army for months now. Been on three patrols and the cluster fuck of a battle. Two of those patrols saw fighting and I only survived each encounter because of Tigan, my royal guard.

Not once did I kill a single Barbarian. Not once did I even come close. Me, a scion of the royal line, trained since childhood in arms by Weapon's Master Adonis's. A legend in his own right, still approached by Matriarchal Houses to father their children.

Yet I was no match in any of those encounters with a single Barbarian, not one. Most of them killed by mages and magisters, some dying because of bad luck. The frustrating impotence, why are we even in this beautiful gods forsaken place? Yet here I am, killing my cousin. My father's niece, and as the chaos around me intensifies I sit in my chair and think of what I've just done. Besides the fact that I just killed someone. Shit, I will be whipped and banished for this. If I'm not hanged. We are at war, and I kill not just a fellow Sandorians but a royal. Royals killing royals isn't unheard off but not like this. Not this blatantly.

The fighting comes to a stop as three magisters use magic to stun everyone in the vicinity. And more royal guards make themselves known.

"Shit." I say quietly as Cassius glares at me with a palpable hatred. His dead sister in his arms as we are all separated and held down.

I see a magisters casting magic at Thand, whom I'm surprised is alive. Igrus apparently took cover under another table, and no one besides Nasis is dead.

I'm taken away towards the General's tents and am knocked on the head as I attempt to speak.

The weird part is I'm still more angry than scared.