I tell him the Cliff Notes version of the series.
How Alex Prime infiltrates the rebels. How while the royals fruitlessly search for Silverwood Keep’s one survivor, he earns the rebels’ trust and rapidly climbs the ranks as their most talented, most effective, and most ruthless leader. How he steals the Hannu’s secret magical weapon and leaves their land devastated in his wake. How he conquers the Del Mar’s duchy and absorbs their power and resources. How he lays magical siege on Augusta until its people begs surrender, and then kills most everybody once he’s on the throne—the Queen, the baby Crown Prince, most of his rebel allies. Practically everybody but the King, whom he leaves alive to go mad over his family’s deaths instead.
By the time I’m done, my voice is more than a little hoarse.
I glance up at Alex. He’d started fixating on the map instead of looking at me halfway through, and is still doing it. I can’t exactly blame him for being taken aback after hearing about himself, you know, committing genocide, treason, and ruthless pillaging and murder.
I wet my lips. “Uh, the end?”
Alex closes his eyes for a very long moment. When he opens them again, he gives a long, shaky exhale.
“Okay,” he says. He looks again at the map. “With my family’s resources and troops intact, we can improve on that.”
Alex puts his finger on his family’s gold-outlined duchy, and traces a sharp line to Mediusterra’s southernmost tip, where I know the Del Mar’s Duchy of Aquamare is located.
“If the royal family can move against my family, then they can move against any of the royal houses. There may be no love lost between my family and the Del Mars, but they have been out of favor with the King for long enough that they should see the advantage in allying with us—or, if not, then our soldiers can force them to see the advantage.” He jerks his hand all the way up north. “If my other self was able to infiltrate the Hannu and steal this weapon with a small strike team, then we will be as well.” He moves now to Augusta. “Then, with proper planning, we should be well-positioned to strike against Augusta. The only obstruction are these damned rebels. They won’t come to the King’s defense, of course. But if we leave them alone, they might take advantage of the noble uprising and ensnare Silverwood in a two-front war—“
‘Wait, wait.” I lean forward and throw my hands over the map to interrupt this random, if impressive—and frankly, kind of chilling—, monologue. “Since when were we plotting like, world domination?”
I’d told him to just like, lay all the chips out. Share the knowledge, prove my ‘worth’, show him the royals and rebels are dead serious threats to his family,, et cetera. Not help move him along a path of psychopathy.
Alex frowns at me. He seems to be genuinely confused. “If what you’ve told me is true, then the King and Queen pose an unavoidable threat to my family. The only way to keep my family safe is to neutralize them.” He tilts his head. “I’m sure my father would argue that our oath of fealty demands we attempt to re-gain the King’s favor and oust the Queen instead. But the King broke his own oath to us in his cowardly attack, and the Queen has been his closest advisor for longer than I’ve been alive. It won’t work.”
“Well—okay, keeping your family is safe, that’s fine. But you can’t do that by like, planning to do all those terrible things other you did!” I protest. “Didn’t you hear me about how desolate the Hannu territories were afterwards? Or what happened to the Del Mar family?”1
Alex’s lips thin. “Do you think my family will be kept safe by wishing peace and prosperity on all?” he asks. “To survive, we must consolidate power. If not usurp the throne, then declare independence and protect ourselves.”
All this medieval politicking is really, super above my pay grade. But still, there’s such a thing as war crimes. Or at least, there should be. I open my mouth—
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—But Alex shakes his head and cuts me off before I get a word out.
“These matters have nothing to do with you anyway. I’m not even sure why I was speaking my thoughts out loud. If all goes well, I’ll be having these fights with Aurelia, not you,” Alex says, which kind of stings.
I mean, he’s right. If the opinionated and heroic image of Aurelia I’m starting to build in my head is even a little bit real, then Aurelia is infinitely better suited to doing that than me.
It’s not like I want the responsibility of keeping unreal randos alive again anyway. Obviously.
Still stings, though.
Alex moves his hand again, this time to near the center of the map. “It’s an open secret where the Seer covens are. You said the one Future Alexandrius consulted and that you were thinking of head to was in Briar Glen?” Alex taps his fingers on top of the area. “Then we’ll head there. I’ve heard rumors that the coven there is the oldest and most powerful. It’s as good a starting point as we have to bringing Aurelia back.”
“Fine,” I say shortly. “Sounds a plan.” I stand up, and dust off the seat of my shift and my legs.
Here I was starting to like Alex a little. Or trust him, anyway. Why did I tell him and put those ideas into his head again? As if I’d be able to dissuade him from being psychopathic. It's practically his one defining character trait.
I should take his advice and mind my own business.
“Anything else? If we were just going to talk, did you have to drag me all the way here? What, was your family’s own guest quarters not private enough? Or are you just that nostalgic?” I ask.
“No, actually,” Alex says, while also picking himself up from the floor as well. “I actually had something else I wanted to do.”
He reaches towards his belt—and tosses the dagger there at my feet.
Aurelia’s dagger, to be exact. I recognize it from yesterday.
“So you really don’t know how to fight, huh?” Alex asks. His eyes linger on my throat. I hadn’t looked at—had avoided looking at, really—the bathroom mirror this morning, but I had pressed against the skin there and felt an answering ache, so probably it’s nicely bruised from his chokehold yesterday.
I pick it up and tuck it back behind my belt because hey, weapon.
But even though the dagger feels like a peace offering of sorts, I’m still not feeling charitable enough at Alex to moderate my tone. “Where would I have learned? I was a student. Why do you think I was reading about your history? In the future, most of us live peacefully instead of going around plotting murders—“
Alex smirks. “So it’s as I suspected. You’ll be a burden on the road.”
“Excuse me, I can totally take care of—“
Alex rushes towards me, so fast air cuts across my face. His right hand curls into a blurred fist—
I yelp, throwing my arms over my face and head and dropping down to my haunches.
There’s no impact.
I peek out from the protective circle of my arms. Alex is standing a short distance from me and looking down at his right hand.
“Well, you seem to have inherited Aurelia’s fast reflexes at least, though clearly not her training,” he muses as he flexes his palm open and closed. “You realize that if you bend all the way over at the waist like that, you won’t be able to counter-attack?”
I stand up again, with as much dignity as I can muster.
“Sorry I wasn’t properly prepared for almost punched out of nowhere,” I snap. “Even if you wanted to test which of Aurelia’s physical skills I inherited, couldn’t you have warned me?”
Alex approaches and taps my leg with one knee. “Drop from your knees and turn sidewise to minimize how much of a target you present,” he instructs, instead of responding to anything I said. “Take out your dagger as quickly as you can and slash as hard as you can at either the arms or the legs—arms kill, legs chase, so if you take either or both away from an assailant you’ll have more success running away. Or surviving before I can rescue you.” He takes a step back. “Try it.”
I glare.
One of Alex’s eyebrows rise. “Well? Do you need a demonstration?” Alex flicks his eyes up at the sky. “The messenger will likely arrive before midday. We don’t have all day.”
“I don’t remember saying I wanted self-defense lessons from you,” I say. Even though self-defense lessons actually sounds pretty useful. As Alex has so kindly reminded me, this is a savage, bloodthirsty world.
“Well, I’d rather Aurelia’s body not get hurt because you can’t defend yourself,” he points out. “And I assume you do want to not get hurt. You feel pain in her body, don’t you?”
I scrunch up my nose. The way he keeps yo-yoing from sort-of-tolerable to super-intolerable is giving me a headache.
But I guess I won’t have anything more useful to do if I storm out right now and head back to the guest quarters.
“Fine.”I drop down from my knees and turn sideways. “Like this?”
“Lower. But straighten your back.”
At least I get to brandish the dagger at Alex.
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1. Like, to get the prideful Del Mar family to surrender, Alex Prime had to kidnap and torture the Del Mar’s young daughter. They did, eventually. But the girl apparently never recovered.