The princess sighed. To think Azura would refuse even that. Couldn’t he see that the kingdom would be in better hands with her. Her father was competent, but that was where it ended, the man didn’t truly excel at anything, and he was too weak minded to do some of the things that needed to be done. She would be the superior ruler, and even Azura knew that. Even if he didn’t like her. Although she couldn’t say she really understood his distaste for her either. She was just trying to help him get stronger. It was obvious to her he’d be a major player in the near future. Unfortunately if she couldn’t ascend to queen she wouldn’t be in the right position to make use of him.
Worse yet, she didn’t have anyone else who could kill the king without it being traced back to her. If she was being truly honest, part of her was relieved. She loved her father, even if she couldn’t express it the way most children could, but the thing was she loved the kingdom more, and she knew if it was going to be strong enough to stand against the brewing storm she needed to be at the helm. Her father would too often ignore her counsel if it was even a bit unsavory. At least her father didn’t doubt her when she told him about the signs of conflict that were starting to appear.
Even she hadn’t been able to figure out just what was going on, but she had discovered that some people were working towards dangerous ends, and they were doing a very good job of staying hidden. She was pulled from her thoughts by a sudden chill. It wasn’t cold, but it made her shiver all the same. It was a feeling of abject terror, and one well beyond anything she had felt before. “So this is your choice then?” It took everything she had to stay calm. As blood pooled into her room from under her door. “As menacing as this is, I don’t believe you’ve killed my guards.
“So long as they don’t choke on their blood.” She turned slowly, her attacker seemed surprisingly lax. She hadn’t expected him to let her see his face. Even if he knew she would know either way. He was holding the dagger she had given him, and the jewel glowed a brilliant red. To her surprise the jewel wasn’t the only thing glowing. Eyes of deep crimson fire stared back at her. Energy practically radiating out of them.
“What have you done to yourself?” She was struggling to maintain her composure. It was her understanding that the nature of the dagger was that almost any wound inflicted became a fatal wound, as the dagger would drain the life force of the victim away. Supposedly it could also break through magic defenses under the right circumstances, but she had never figured out that bit.
To her surprise he laughed. Not the light chuckle he might normally allow, but genuine laughter. “More than I expected, but less than I feared.” The laughter stopped as suddenly as it started, and he was dead serious once again. His glowing red eyes made him a lot more intimidating than he had been before, and the menacing aura enveloping him was not helping. “You wanted to see my fangs princess, well here they are. Are they everything you hoped they would be?” He spun the dagger in his hand. Catching it so it was in a reverse grip.
“You won’t kill me. Not unless you unleash the seal again.” Whatever he had done to himself with the dagger shouldn’t have changed his core personality. Or at least not so drastically he’d be willing to kill a child. She may be smarter than most of the adults in the kingdom combined, but she was only 12. “Why even injure my guards? It couldn’t be to get in or to stop me from calling for help. You didn’t come in through the door, and I’m confident you’ve set up some kind of field to prevent noise escaping this room.” Azura was not the kind of person to do things halves.
“I didn’t come here to talk, Alice. I came here to make sure you understood something. You can threaten me all you want, I don't care in the slightest, but if you ever threaten my friends again this will look pleasant.” Her blood ran cold, and she didn’t even have the time to finish processing when an agonizing pain came to life on her left leg. She screamed and reached down to cradle the leg. Despite the unbearable pain she couldn’t find an injury. “I’ll leave it at that this time, if there is a next time, you’ll wish I killed you here.”
She could barely register the words through the pain. She hadn’t seen him move, either when he attacked her or when he left. She knew that was important, but couldn’t nail down why as the wound that didn’t exist felt like it was viciously tearing her leg in 2, yet no blood appeared. Without being able to call for help or walk all she could do was sit and cry out in agony.
***
Azura’s copy wasn’t particularly pleased with his recent decisions, but he reluctantly stood by them. Hopefully the princess would take the lesson to heart. She could mess with him all she wanted, but if she threatened his sister or his friends again he wouldn’t leave it with just some temporary pain next time. He hoped more than anything that there wouldn’t be a next time.
“What are you brooding about now?” Unsurprisingly Lily was the one to call him out on his current behavior. They stood at a nice airfield, waiting for their ride back to the academy. It was running late, but Thankfully they hadn’t asked him where he disappeared to, the first or the second time despite the extra time they currently had. His friends probably knew they didn’t want to know especially given his new eye color, and hadn’t that been an interesting conversation.
*** (Before visiting the princess)
Azura Slowly recovered from the curse he had willingly bonded himself with. To say he felt different was an understatement. He wasn’t any stronger, not really, but he did think he had a few new tricks up his sleeve with the dagger that would hopefully make up for the abilities he currently lacked. If nothing else, he was confident that his new connection to this dagger would help him be intimidating enough to get the princess to back off.
That would have to come later though, his friends would probably have noticed his absence by now. He took a deep breath and centered himself. He took off his scarf and wrapped it around the blade before attaching the bundle to his waist with a quick enchantment. He also made sure to enchant the scarf to hide the cursed nature of the blade it housed. He walked back towards the shop only to sense his friends approaching from that direction. No doubt Luna had found him with clairvoyance once they realized he was missing. It didn’t take long for them to run into each other, but their reaction caught him off guard.
“What the hell happened to your eyes?!” Lily was the first to recover from the shocked state that seeing him had put his friends in, and the others quickly followed her lead. Shock faded and curiosity took its place remarkably quickly.
“What do you mean?” Did the curse leave marks on his eyes? He hadn’t expected there to be any obvious signs, there usually weren’t. He knew 2 people that had been cursed, and While Luna’s was obvious that was less because she was cursed and more because the curse was negatively affecting her body.
“What do you mean? They’re bright red, I’m pretty sure they aren’t normally that color.” He winced. Of all the colors they had to turn red? He wasn’t particularly happy that his eye color changed, but he was even less happy that they turned red. Just 1 more thing he had in common with his father. That realization alone was almost enough to make him reconsider his choice… almost.
“Oh. Weird.” Less than a 2nd later his eyes were blue again. Not really of course, but the spell should at least make them appear that way. “How about now? Are they normal now?” If the curse specifically turned his eyes red and it didn’t just happen to be a side effect then this wouldn’t work, but he figured that was pretty unlikely.
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“You can’t just hide it with a spell and pretend it didn’t happen?” Katy jumped in glaring at him. He sighed he hadn’t really expected them to just let it go, but he’d hoped they might. He figured telling them about the curse and his plan for showing the princess what happens when she pushes too far wouldn’t be a good idea, so he figured a lie was in order.
“It’s a side effect of unsealing myself. I told you before this is the other copy's soul echo, but the body is still the same, so I suppose it’s only natural to assume the side effects would be on me rather than the other one.” Most of that was true, or at least in theory. Except of course that the unsealing has no such side effects. Or at least not any that he had ever noticed.
“Then why are they only turning red now?!” He almost laughed. Leave it to Roran to make his lie a ton more difficult without even doubting it for a second. As far as he could tell Roran was just genuinely curious about the cause and how the unsealing truly worked.
“I honestly don’t know. That’s why I said it was weird. At first I assumed it was because me and the other swapped bodies right after, but as I said it made sense that the effects would be attached to the body, more than the soul.” Although there was a theory that eyes were a window into the soul, and it even had some pretty solid evidence so his eyes changing colors might be a fair bit more concerning than he had thought it would be.
“Can you make them change at will? I think the red makes you look pretty badass.” He rolled his eyes. Why wasn’t he surprised that Lily would say something like that? He supposed there was a reason she was so abrasive given her history, but it was still a bit aggravating at times.
“I think I prefer the blue, the red makes him look really menacing.” He winced, he had to agree with that. He had after all been on the other end of piercing red eyes enough to know how disconcerting they were. Know matter how often he got stared down by them, that feeling of being ill at ease never really went away.
“I don’t think the red suits me very well, but I’ll probably consider letting them change if I’m ever trying to be intimidating.” As much as he didn’t like the similarity with his father, he wasn’t naive enough to waste a tool he had been given. After all that was what changed his eyes in the first place, and it was about time he put his new tools to work for him. “Oh! My apologies, it has come to my attention that I forgot something at the castle, I’ll have to go back for it now or I won’t have time to get it and still make it to the airship in time.” He turned to leave.
“We can come with you, we were about done shopping anyway.” He sighed. The worst part was that it wasn’t even her doubting him. Luna was just genuinely trying to be nice. Unfortunately he didn’t have enough time to try and ditch them at the castle, he needed them not there.
“Can you guys make sure to get to the airship on time instead? I want you guys to make sure it doesn’t leave without me if you can.” He smiled apologetically, and thankfully it seemed like they all bought his excuse because they nodded along. Well except for Katy who had narrowed her eyes at him. She really was getting uncomfortably good at seeing through his deceit. He wondered if it was due to all of her practice with illusions. Either way she didn’t stop him as he ran off.
He dropped the illusion on his eyes. Menacing was exactly what he needed for this next part. Good thing the princess had never figured out how he had gotten away with pranking her last time. Katy may be better at finding secret passages than he was, but he was still the one who taught her the art in the first place. His smile filled with malice.
***
“Nothing in particular, just wondering how late our transport is going to be. I Got here 15 minutes ago, and I was late.” It wasn’t untrue, he really did want to know mostly because he wanted to be out of here as quickly as possible. Especially because he wanted a 2nd opinion on how much the curse was affecting him. It wasn’t as drastic a shift as when he unsealed himself, but he still got the feeling he wasn’t quite himself either. Or at least not his usual self.
“It is weird how late it is, do you think they ran into trouble?” Lily accepted his excuse without any fanfare. Unsurprising, it was hardly out of character for him to be annoyed at being made to wait. Especially when everyone knew how much he didn’t like the princess. It was a shame he hadn’t had many chances to talk to Xander, but they had a few chances to catch up at least.
“Hard to say, there aren’t exactly a lot of things that can force an airship like that to slow down, much less stop.” Then again not many wasn’t the same as none. There were definitely monsters capable of taking down the airship, and that wasn’t even considering the possibility of people being involved.
“Hello students, I apologize for the delay, but it would seem that we’ve run into some trouble. Nothing we can’t handle mind you, but enough to slow us down. We estimate we should arrive within an hour, so please remain patient.” He sighed. There was his luck rearing its ugly head again. The princess would definitely recover her wits by then, so he’d just have to hope she didn’t find out the ship was delayed.
He was confident she wouldn’t threaten his sister again, but he had left himself open there, and the princess definitely wasn’t the type to let something go without getting revenge. Especially not given the fact that he had probably caused her the most pain she had ever had in her life. He really wasn’t happy about that. It had to be done, but that didn’t get rid of the bad taste it left.
“Well that blows. What are we supposed to do for an hour? That’s like the worst frame of time. Too long for quick pointless fun, but too short to do anything meaningful.” He laughed, Lily had a point, but they all knew that it only applied in the city. Mostly since using magic to make yourself faster was pretty heavily frowned upon in the cities, and increasing your perception speed but not your body might as well be torture.
“I’d suggest we simply wait patiently, but I get the feeling you wouldn’t like that response very much.” The glare she gave him in return confirmed his suspicions. He held his hands up in surrender. Honestly he wasn’t sure what she wanted him to say though. She was pretty on point about that frame of time.
“We could play cyvran.” He smiled. He was pretty adept at that game. Katy had never once beaten him at it. Given his terrible luck it was just about the only card game he ever won. He noticed Katy frown, but she didn’t shoot it down. She didn’t dislike the game itself, just playing against him. Which he supposed was fair. He wouldn’t enjoy losing all the time either.
“I’ve never played a game with this many people before, it should be interesting though.” Honestly this particular game had a habit of getting a bit chaotic, but he figured a little noise shouldn’t get them in trouble… probably.
“I’d love to play, but I don’t think I’ve ever actually heard of Cyvran.” He frowned, and considered that perhaps a different game would be better, since explaining the rules of this game would probably take the whole hour anyway.”
“It’s a ton of fun!” Roran stepped in before he had a chance to say anything though. “So basically you make a deck based on certain rules, which I can explain later. There aren’t actually any cards involved, so when I say you make a deck I mean literally! Anyway there are certain rules each card you make has to follow, and certain effects that can be given. Each card represents a spell that you are capable of casting, and you only get to set 50 cards for the deck!”
“Ok so to prevent this from going on forever, you can basically think of the game as a simulated mages duel. It was created as a way for mages to fight without actually injuring themselves. It’s a lot simpler than it sounds, so it would probably be best if we just play a shortened round to give you an idea how the game works.” He hadn’t actually thought to challenge Roran to this kind of game before, but he had been wanting to see if he’d be able to beat the cursed man anyway.
“Oh yeah! That makes sense to me!. So I’ll be your opponent and we cans set our durability to about 1/10th to speed the fight along!” He winced, weakening defense like that worked more in Roran’s favor than his, but he’d have to make do. Most of the party looked rather excited about watching, but Luna just looked curious.
“Alright I’ll watch carefully so I can try and join in on the next game then.” She stared intensely at them. Roran’s summation of the game probably made her a lot more tense about it, but it was actually a lot more simple than the rules would imply. He just hoped that the princess wouldn’t go out looking for him until he was long gone.