Layla POV

“As the Hero and the Saint, you two are potentially humanity's most potent assets.” Princess Amaryllis led Max and me through the royal palace as she spoke. Behind us were two guardswomen and two maids. After spending three days and two nights on the road sitting in a convoy of horse-drawn carriages, we were taken straight to the palace that was centred smack-dab in the middle of a massive city. I was escorted out of a carriage and led to the princess with Max. Without any explanation, she told us to follow her.

“Yeah, I keep hearing that,” I tell her. My patience has long since run thin. “You mind telling me what exactly being a ‘saint’ means?”

“Layla, please!” Max piped up next to me in shock. “There’s really no need to be hostile to a princess, is there?”

“I don’t care,” I bark at him.

“I don’t mind,” the princess said calmly, stopping and turning to face me. As she stops, everyone else does. “To answer your question simply, Saint-”

“It’s Layla.” I glare at her. She gave me a stern look in return.

“...To answer your question simply, Layla,” she corrected, “you have a direct tie to the divine. Historically, Saints are masters of healing and radiant magic, their souls being infused with radiance. They soothe the hurts of the world and bring light that banishes darkness and drives back the forces of death and undeath.”

“Wh… Wha?” I can only mutter, baffled. “You don’t honestly expect me to be able to do all that, do you?”

“I don’t.” The princess responded bluntly. “Your kind are not only heartless, but are also strangers to Mother Gaia and her people. I understand that you don’t care about us.”

“That’s not what I meant, dumbass!” I admonish. The two maids behind me gasp.

“Layla shut the fuck up; you’re gonna get us killed.” Max, that Aryan-looking dog, leans in and hisses at me.

“No!” I raise my voice, wanting everyone to hear me. “Didn’t you hear the part where she called us heartless monsters? Look, Princess Whatever, I’m more than willing to help in any way I can, but I don’t stand for that baseless crap. We’re not cruel, we don’t force others into war, and we certainly don’t just abandon people! We care for people, no exceptions!”

The princess met my glare with an unfeeling stare. Max unwantedly speaks up.

“Y-Your Highness, I know Layla speaks rudely, but she isn’t lying. We want to help however we can.” He tells her, watching his words and trying way too hard to speak in a dignified manner. Max is a lot of things I hate, but I never knew him to be such a suck-up. Max’s words were met with the princess’s blank gaze.

“You care for people without exemption? You never abandon people without exemption? Really?” The doubt in her voice was layered with derision.

"Yes. Really.” Max doubles down. “I know we haven’t had a chance to prove ourselves, but we will. You can trust us.”

The princess falls silent and then looks at me. “What was his name?” She asks.

“My name is Max-”

“I was neither speaking to nor referring to you,” the princess cuts him off, not looking away from me. A sudden pang of guilt stabs my heart as I realise what she’s asking. Whether she notices my shame or not, she drives the stake further. “I’m asking for the name of the boy your people seemed all too eager to be rid of at the first opportunity.” She pauses, waiting for me to answer. I can’t help but avert my eyes to the ground. “You called him Ray, but you didn’t seem too sure about that.”

“I get it,” I snap, my voice quivering. “I’m a hypocrite. You’ve made your point.”

“You misunderstand me, Layla. I’m not asking you this only to prove a point. I’m asking because you seemed to be the only one who cared. Seems like you care more about him now-”

“You shouldn’t care about him at all!” Max forcibly interrupts. Under everyone’s judging gaze, he clears his throat. “Look, it’s beautiful that you have the capacity in your heart to care for him, and I know I’m going back on what I said not even a minute ago, but you shouldn’t care about him. He’s a total freak - an insane, violent freak.”

“Oh, just shut up!” I yell. “You have no right to talk shit-”

“No, I’m serious! He’s literally criminally insane. I guess you wouldn’t know because you didn’t go to primary with him, but he should be in jail. We must have been eight or something. My cousin and his friends were playing around when he just showed up out of nowhere and started beating them up completely unprovoked. When a teacher tried to intervene, he fought him, too. I heard he shattered all the bones in his hands as he just kept beating them. He would’ve killed them all if the police didn’t get him and the ambulance got there late.”

I stare at Max, eyes wide. “You can’t be serious.”

“I am!” Max yelled, getting more emotional. His hands started to shake. “I saw it. I was there. He caved in my cousin's face with a rock. One of his friends has to eat through a hole in his stomach because he can’t chew anymore. I heard a kid cry and scream that he couldn’t feel anything as he was carried into an ambulance on a stretcher. Even the teacher was left with a limp after his hip was broken. He ruined all their lives! The only reason he’s not in jail is because he was judged insane.”

I have no words. I can’t believe Max. He’s a liar. He’s lied plenty before. But… it doesn’t look like he is. He seems genuinely terrified of that boy. But I just can’t imagine it. Granted, I was never really close with Ray or whatever his name was, but I can’t imagine him hurting anyone. I once saw him cry so hard he threw up out a window when watching Shrek 2 in class because a giant gingerbread man who had two minutes of screen time fell into some water. How could someone like that ever have the heart to hurt another soul? Especially unprovoked.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

“So…” The princess spoke after a moment of silence, taking a deep breath through her nose. “You’re saying he can fight?”

Max was stunned. “Um… I guess? As far as I know, he hasn’t gotten into any fights since, but it’s probably because he hides the bodies. But the point is that he’s a ticking time bomb. He’s dangerous, and you shouldn’t care about him.”

The princess ignored him with a sigh and turned to one of her guards. “Annette.”

“You want me to take some people and go find him?” The guard asked. She was tall, almost six feet in height. Her face was as hard to read as the princess’s. She had long, deep red hair styled in a short plait that barely reached her shoulders and a pinned fringe. She seemed mature and authoritative in how she held herself, yet simultaneously childish.

“If you’d please,” the princess requested of her. “I want you back in a week, with or without him.”

“Should we press-gang him?”

The princess lets out a deep breath and thinks for a bit. “...No. Make it clear it’s only a request.”

“Press-gang? Does that mean you’re hunting him down?” Max asked, barely able to hide his excitement. “I’m more than willing to join you. He’s too dangerous to be left alone.”

“No. I obviously want him back.” The princess stated. “If what you’re saying is true, then I gravely misjudged him. It seemed to me would be useless in battle without magic.”

Max was about to explode at the princess, but he seemed to reel himself in before he did. “W-With all due respect, Your Highness, I highly advise against it. He’s too dangerous.”

“And so are the rest of you,” she says. “We are fighting fire with fire by summoning you. I’m not naive enough to trust you because you tell me to. Prove it through your deeds. Now follow. We’re nearly at the throne room.” The princess turned on her heel and started walking, almost gliding, across the floor. Annette leaves as we follow behind the princess.

“The throne room?” Max asked excitedly. “Will we be meeting your father?”

“No.”

“Well… where is he? I want to introduce myself to the ruler of this country as its hero.”

“He is dead to us,” she answered plainly and cryptically. “And even if he wasn’t, you would want a meeting with the queen if you want a meeting with this country’s ruler. The Human Empire is a Matriarchy.”

“A queen? Nice.” Max murmurs quietly to himself, but not quietly enough. I already know what thoughts are going through that disgusting brain of his. “So, we will be meeting your mother?”

“No.” Princess Amaryllis shot him down again.

“Well… where is she?” He asks.

“In here,” she answers, stopping before an unnecessarily large pair of regal and ornate doors, maybe twelve feet high. She grunts as she pushes, and the heavy stone doors rumble as they gradually swing open. The throne room was massive, to put it simply, and ridiculously long. You could fit giants in here. It must’ve been at least three hundred feet from the door to the back end wall covered in stained glass. Colossal stone pillars twenty feet tall line the walls equidistant to one another, with royal purple banners emblazoned with golden emblems giving life to the otherwise freezing dead walls between them. At the end of the empty hall was an elevated platform with five thrones, increasing in size from left to right. Behind those five thrones was another elevated platform. A single throne sat upon it, overseeing all.

As we approached, I could make out a figure sitting atop that throne. The queen? As I stood fifty feet away from the row of thrones, I could feel… something.

A sense of… impiety?

That figure's presence was simply overwhelming. It oozed an aura of majesty that overpowered me. I can’t get any closer. I’m not a religious person, yet I felt I was committing an unforgivable act of sacrilege just for being this close to it.

This had to be the queen.

I can only gaze up at her, awestruck by her presence. She sat on her throne, clad in worn steel armour from the neck down. Her head was slumped. Her black hair flowed down her back and rested by her side. Her eyes were closed. She was unmoving. Unbreathing. It was as if she sat frozen in time.

Princess Amaryllis kept walking forward unaffected, but she stopped and looked back at us when she realised everyone else had stopped. I don’t know if the maids and remaining guard were affected the way I was, but when I looked back, I could see Max certainly was. He stood slack-jawed ten feet behind me, completely enraptured by Her Majesty.

“That…” Princess Amaryllis spoke, a hint of melancholy in her voice, “Is what remains of Guinevere Lyseraphina, Queen of Solaria and Empress of Humanity.” She gazes wistfully up at her. Nobody dares speak. “Three years ago, she was mortally wounded and poisoned by a Demon Prince. She was rescued and teleported away from the war, but it was hopeless. None of our healers were powerful enough to cure her of the poison. The best they could do was keep her in this state of suspension until an antidote was found or a spell powerful enough was made to dispel it.” She let out a despondent laugh. “Can’t believe it’s easier to freeze someone in time than it is to cure a poison…”

She stepped closer, walking up to the thrones below. “These thrones belong to me and my sisters,” she explained. She leaned against the throne in the middle, looking mournfully at the smallest throne on the far left. “That throne there belonged to the youngest, Sunny,” she pointed, reminiscing. “She and Selene were chased out by turncoats when the Empress fell. Oh, Selene was the eldest. That’s her throne, there.” She pointed to the throne on the far right. “Last I heard of them, Selene fell to corruption and that she was the one who flash-froze the country of Seranaterra and herself with it after the turncoats captured her. I doubt Sunny…” she trailed off, the words sticking in her throat. Her lips quiver as she forces herself to move one.

She walked over to the throne second from my right and rested a hand on one of the arms. “This was Zephyra’s. After mother fell, she formed an elite legion of warriors called the Hell Raiders. They’d invade the Hells on a barbaric rampage in the name of vengeance. She said she’d stick to short expeditions… It’s been a year since they last returned… And as for Celestine…” she walks past the centre throne to the second on my left. She stands next to it and only stares at the empty seat. An eternity crawls by before she shakes her head. “I have no idea,” she admits. “She just disappeared one day with her two retainers. She said nothing of leaving and left no clues behind. I don’t know if she’s living peacefully somewhere far away from everything or if she’s lying dead and unburied in a ditch.”

It was faint, but as she finished that sentence, her voice quivered. It was subtle, hardly noticeable, but there. She breathes in and composes herself, walking back down to the rest of us. It seemed to me now that each step she took was burdened by an unimaginably heavy weight but bore it with a grim determination. She looked tired, sure, but more than willing and able to bear the burden. She approaches me, but I cut her off right as she opens her mouth to speak as I force a question out of my throat.

“Can I help her?”

“...I don’t know.”

“I want to try.”

I see the corner of her eye twitch as she stares at me. “You’re volunteering to help?”

“So? If I actually have such powerful healing magic, I want to train it and use it. Is it like a muscle? Will it get more powerful the more I use it?”

The princess quietens again, turning her eyes to her feet. “I don’t know if you alone will be enough, but together with the Hero’s power, I’m almost certain it will.”

“I-I’ll help!” Max shouts out from the back and steps forward. A bead of sweat drips down his forehead. “I-If I can help in any way, just tell me what I need to do. I want to help you.”

Princess Amaryllis shuts her eyes. She breathes in, then out. She looks back up and faces the two of us, as collected as ever. “I know it’s far too early to say, but… thank you. Truly. You both have my deepest gratitude.” She walks between us and back towards the doors, issuing out orders as she leaves. “Gloria, shut the doors when everyone leaves. Lisa, Maye, show Max and Layla to their quarters. They need to rest while they still can.”