“That went easier than I expected. Is wearing a uniform really enough to stop the guards from bothering you?” Shouldn’t they have at least checked whether I was actually a student?
“It’s not the uniform itself, but the royal crest on it. It shows that you are either of royal blood, or serving royalty. Moreover, you have an actual royal standing beside you. They wouldn’t dare bother you unless they were here about a matter like a murder of another one of royal blood.” Nothing beats having connections.
“I wish this worked for every situation. Hey, can I get a free room at an inn if I bring you with me?”
“My presence can’t help with that, but it doesn’t mean I’m not willing to actually pay for your room. I can’t just bring an undead into the castle, so that’s the least I can do for you.”
Finally leaving the school grounds, I spotted an Alnamir girl waving at us, with a dark elf – I mean demon – boy standing next to her.
“Hey, Keith, are those your sister and her fiancé?” I poked the Alnamir prince’s shoulder.
“Sure they ar– How exactly do you know about them?” His expression changed to plain confusion.
“My hearing came back sooner than any of my other senses. I could hear your conversation before you sent the others away. That’s how I knew about the guards too.”
“Right, that makes sense. I should make sure I don’t blab about anything confidential near skeletons from now on.”
“I’m not a skeleton though. Your sister is pretty short compared to Clara and you.”
“She might be shorter than me, but compared to y–” It felt like my elbow struck something. Must have been my imagination.
“Hi there, Princess Kathleen, Alan!” I… just really wanted to see their confused faces, okay?
“W–what? Who are you? Do we know each other?” One Alan down. One Kathleen to go.
Kathleen stepped right in front of me, and sniffed me just once. “Why are you wearing my uniform, skeleton-girl?”
“Sk–skeleton? What are you talking about?” He was so adorable. Can I mess with him a bit more? I looked back at Keith, but he seemed busy, facepalming with one hand while holding his side with another. Don’t worry, your reaction to me eavesdropping on you was just as adorable.
“As the princess has said, I’m the skeleton you saw inside. Name’s Hilde. I was an Ilehoria while alive. Right now, I’m a lich. Prince Keith lent me the uniform so that I could avoid trouble with the guards.”
“She said she knew the Founding Queen, so I thought we could ask her some questions about history,” added Keith, one of his hands still holding his side. Didn’t look like any of his ribs broke, so I was probably safe. “We could learn way more that way than by going to Professor Robert’s classes. The lifespan of Sangeets is shorter than ours. Even the guard captain’s stories hold more credit.”
“That sounds like an idea you would come up with, brother. How about we hit up the bar you frequent with that old Demon friend of yours?”
“Sure thing. Maestro Lucius has been alive since around the Sealing, so maybe he could join us too. You might even know each other.”
“Lucius? Doesn’t ring a bell. Oh, and before I forget, drinks are on you, Keith.” The only things that landed in this era were my bones. Even if I still had my pouch, there was no guarantee anyone would have accepted coins from three millennia ago.
“I know, I know. The inn is on me too, like we agreed.” Hey, Lux. I know I always called you Prince Charming, but Keith played the role of a prince way better than you. Not to mention he was an actual prince.
“D–did the undead lady charm Keith already?” Did I? Did I? I really wanted to hear the prince calling me a lady too. Maybe Alan wasn’t completely hopeless either.
“If brother was that easy to charm, he would have got himself a couple of brides way before you got me. Unlike you he is actually popular with both the girls our age and the older ladies. Why am I even your bride? Did your idiocy infect me?”
“They are a great match, aren’t they?” I looked at Keith who finally managed to straighten up.
“Neither of them is easy to deal with, that’s for sure. No wonder mother was relieved they could actually tolerate each other. Since then she stopped urging me to give her a grandchild.”
“At least they don’t seem to be bad kids.”
“Being called kids by someone who looks our age feels strange.”
“I might be forever nineteen, but it wasn’t yesterday that I became an undead.”
“Forget I said anything. But that means your body is technically our age. Sister is eighteen and we are one year her senior.”
“My body not aging won’t magically erase those eight extra years. For the other three millennia… It probably does? I couldn’t exactly tell whether I was away for minutes or a few millennia. Being locked in some kind of void for that long just doesn’t feel real.”
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“Not being able to see your friends again sounds pretty sad,” commented the princess. I didn’t even notice when they stopped arguing.
“I was actually prepared for that. Probably all of us were. We were fighting a foe we were not confident we could beat. We already lost one of ours by the time I was pulled into the void.”
“If it was a fight recorded in history, we could check the records to see whether the others survived.”
“Isn't this Demon a lot brighter than he normally lets show?”
“He is the second ranked student of our Academy, right after sister. Personality aside, he’s definitely a genius.”
“Are all geniuses like this? Reminds me of my crazy friends. Not like I’m one to speak. I was supposedly the worst of us.”
“Sorry to drop this on you suddenly, but it shows.” Pot calling the kettle black, princess?
“I’m starting to think it’s not a good idea to let you three drink together…”
***
We walked for about 10 minutes on the mana-lit streets of Crater before arriving at the bar the prince supposedly frequented. Seeing mana lamps in Evernight wasn’t anything unusual. People needed some kind of light on the dark hemisphere. Makes one appreciate planets like Earth. The strange thing was having this many of them. Seriously, how are they keeping this amount of mana lamps powered?
The bar’s owner was a snow fox lady of the Qar species. Other than her, I could also see a Demon man and two girls, one Telinga bunny and one black cat. Was she an Alnamir too, or maybe an Ilishwa? Could not tell by only looking at her back. Were they the Demon’s companions? That guy definitely knew how to live.
“Good evening, Lady Olivia! Good evening, Maestro Lucius! Good evening, ladies!”
“Good evening, Prince Keith, Princess Kathleen, Lord Alan! And you too, young lady!” The owner greeted us in a cheery voice.
“If it isn’t Keith. Haven’t seen you in a few weeks. It’s also pretty rare for you to bring others with you, even more so when it comes to your sister and my nephew. There is also a face I–”
“If it isn’t Lucius. Haven’t seen you in a few millennia. Can you still remember your old pal Hilde?” I presented the best smile I could muster.
The guy broke into a cold sweat. Could not blame him, seeing how he definitely recognized me. Why did I previously say I did not know anyone called Lucius then? Because that wasn’t his name. This was Lux, a Demon I knew pretty well. The very guy I dated three millennia ago. My Prince Charming who had the annoying habit of not keeping his distance from brothels, no matter where we went. I was pretty sure I could guess the identity of these 2 girls with him too.
“Good seeing that you haven’t changed one bit. You are still surrounded by girls wherever you go, are you not?”
“Sorry girls, seems like I have other matters to attend to this evening. Can you get back without me?”
“Sure thing, Maestro Lucius!” the girls said in unison, then left the bar.
“Mistress, two bottles of your strongest Fox Spirit please. Also I’m paying for all their drinks.”
“I agreed to pay for Hilde’s drinks though.”
“I. Said. I. Am. Paying. Was that clear? Or do you want to let her make the royal family go bankrupt?”
“U–understood, Maestro.”
The owner put two expensive-looking bottles in front of Lux, one of which he instantly pushed to me. “Want a glass, or is the bottle enough, like usual?”
“First time I’m here, so let’s go with the glass for now.” With that Lux stood up and took two glasses that looked pretty small from the shelf above the counter. They seemed to be about 2 cls each. What exactly was he trying to make me drink?
“Owner, three glasses of World Tree on the rock, please,” ordered Kathleen while Lux poured a glass of the Fox Spirit for each of us.
We both downed our first glass, before he asked me the most important question: “Where in the hell have you been for the last 3065 years? Why did you only show up after this long? Do you have any idea how much it hurt us to lose both Lucia and you?” The Academy trio practically froze with their glasses in hand.
“I saw Lucia die, so I can somewhat guess what you must have felt. For where I was until now, the best description I can give is ‘in the void’. I can’t say why I haven’t shown up sooner, nor why I did today. Keith here said I popped out of a rift that appeared at the Academy. That’s all I can tell you.” Down the hatch another glass went.
“If you only lost Lucia and me, that must mean the plan succeeded, right? I doubt you would still be alive if my sister got away.”
Lux downed another glass too. “Yes, the plan succeeded. Or more like both plans did. Both ours, and hers. You definitely managed to catch her with the seal, and Clara even got a fatal hit in. The problem is that she pulled the same shit she did when you were killed.” I did not like where this was going. “She managed to add another layer to your seal's magic circle. She hijacked the mana flow of the seal and used it to turn herself into a lich.” This was the worst possible scenario.
“Wait wait wait,” a confused Kathleen interjected. “You are talking about THE Sealing, are you not? The one where the Hero of Flames, Lucia, sealed the Collateral Queen, Colette, away.”
It was time for us to be confused. “Hey, Lu…cius, wasn’t Hero of Flames one of Colette’s monikers before people realized she was a walking disaster?”
“No mistake there, that was definitely one of your sister’s monikers. I have never heard anyone calling Hotheaded Lucia the Hero of anything. Her magic was powerful, but not on the level of a hero.”
It was Alan who gave us the next question: “Doesn’t the two of you having been there mean there were more people taking part in the Sealing than passed down in the Founding Queen’s stories? According to them, other than Queen Clara and the He–I mean Lady Lucia, the only ones present were the Saint, Lord Gabriel, and Prince Consort Lux.”
This time it was my turn to freeze. Actually Keith was also frozen, with his face white as a sheet. Lux was quite pale too. He definitely felt his demise rapidly approaching.
Out of the three of us the prince was fastest to act. He ripped the bottle out of Lux’s hand and downed it in one go. I had no clue what might have gotten into him. This surprised Lux enough to give me time to get behind him, bottle still in hand. “Would you be kind enough to tell me” I started before a large sip of the strong spirit “what Alan meant by Prince Consort, dear Lux?” The rest of the bottle's contents soon followed.
“Did you dare lay your hands” Did he use illusion magic to make me see two of him? “on my sweet Clara too?”
“Lady Hilde!?” I heard the princess’ panicked voice. The next moment someone caught me.
“Lady Hilde, I suggest you rest for today. I’ll get you an inn room, like I promised.” Was this Keith? I was pretty sure that was the first time he called me ‘lady’.
“Alan, go help brother!”
“No need. You two should make sure Maes–Lord Lux gets home safely.”
***
Keith was carrying me to the inn when I finally lost consciousness. However, just before that I still heard his last question: “You are Lich Demon Lord Hanna, are you not?”