Robert’s POV

I chuckled at Jace’s antics with my sister. I was extremely happy that they had met as I knew that my sister would need to have someone strong like that to be able to get through more dungeons while she was younger.

It was unfortunate, but due to the nature of her talent, most would not risk her going in with them. Her ability to locate treasures and make strategic decisions was unparalleled, but her lack of combat skills made her a liability in the deeper, more dangerous parts of dungeons. Teams feared that protecting her would outweigh the benefits of her guidance. Even if she could help them find treasures or was a good leader, her lack of combat ability meant she would hold a team back deeper in.

If she couldn’t find someone to take her deeper, she would die much younger due to the lack of essence she could gather. Which, while not the worst fate, I did not want to lose another family member earlier than was necessary.

“Well, I am sorry to cut this short, and I don’t think that we will be getting any sparring in today Jace. I need to go inform our father of the attempt on my life. Eve, if you can come up with a method of Jace letting us know if our food is poisoned without telling everyone that would be for the best.” I said to the two of them. Evelyn nodded at me and Jace gave me a thumbs up.

With that out of the way, I headed to my room. I made sure to pay attention to my surroundings, as there was already one attempt, I figured more would come. It also made me realize that I probably trusted Jace more than I should have.

He had been able to not only get close to me, but my sister as well. He, just so happened to be there before I was going to eat poisoned food, saving me from possible death. If someone were to look at it from the outside, he is gaining a lot of political clout by hanging out with us. However, Evelyn trusts him, and that has a lot of weight for me. Evelyn has always had an uncanny ability to judge people’s intentions with her talent, and she’s rarely wrong. If she sees something in him that’s worth her trust, it makes me think there’s more to Jace than meets the eye.

Having a twin is like having an extension of your soul. We were completely different people, exact opposites in fact. Which is the reason most people thought she was worthless, I knew differently though. She was brains for my brawn, not that I was dumb in my opinion. Her talent allowed her to read a battlefield and identify weak points in an enemy's defenses, while I had the strength to exploit those openings. Together, we worked like clockwork, her precision guiding my power to maximum effect.

She would be the doctor using a scalpel to make the small incision to my sword lopping off an arm or leg. With all these thoughts racing through my mind I became slightly distracted as I walked to my dorm room. Fortunately, it looked like whoever was after me was not dumb enough to try and stab me or something.

I made my way up to my room and once inside I closed and locked my door. I then went ahead and grabbed a few items for the chest that all students have, to keep more important items locked up.

The first item I pulled out was a small pyramid that, when activated, projected an invisible field around the room, blocking all unauthorized signals and ensuring absolute privacy. It could only be deactivated by the user, making it an indispensable tool for confidential communications or sensitive planning sessions. Allowing only something the user of the pyramid themself activates to send a signal from the room. The second item was the thing that would be sending a signal. It was a communication device that connected directly to my father.

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These communication devices were impossible to intercept and could only be stopped either at the source or the point of reception. As soon as I sent a signal my father would get a response on his device and would answer.

Steeling myself to face what I expected to come, I took a deep breath and activated the communication device. It only took a couple of seconds before my father answered. “Robby my boy, did you miss daddy so much you could not even make it through the second day without calling me?”

For all my father’s faults, caring about his family was not one of them. He could be strict and pretty unbending in his beliefs, but he would lose a limb with a smile if it meant his family was happy.

“No sir, that’s not why I called. I felt you should know about some interesting circumstances that have come up.” I said with a small smirk thinking of my father sitting there ready to tease me some more.

“What happened?” He asked, suddenly all business.

I went on to explain how Instructor Remy had pointed me toward Jace as a sparring partner and everything else that had happened from that point on. He was especially interested when I told him that Evelyn had used her talent to find him as a replacement to me.

Before I was able to get to the assassination attempt, he started grilling me about Jace, and it wasn’t until I told him that his last name was Obexis that he laughed and stopped asking questions.

When I told him how Jace was the one to discover the assassination attempt though I could almost feel his anger through the communication device. “Do you have any ideas? I will make sure to send someone right away to oversee the preparation of your food from this point on.” My father said.

“No, we don’t have any ideas yet. As for sending someone, I think you should hold off on that for the moment. I asked Jace if he would be willing to check for poison in both my and Evelyns food from now on and told him he would be well compensated for it. He actually seemed a little offended that I would try and compensate him for it to be honest, but he would keep an eye out. Evelyn and he are figuring out a way for him to inform us without alerting others.”

“Good. If someone poisons your food again, try to contain it somehow, we might be able to use it to trace the culprit. I’ll have some of the Fate Benders investigate here and see what they uncover. As for compensating Jace, well, it’s like father, like son. His father once saved Duke Aureus from an assassination attempt. When the Duke tried to reward him, he just shook his head and said he was simply doing his job. It wasn’t until I got personally involved that he finally accepted being knighted. Hearing this shows me just how similar Jace is to his father. It’s a quality that inspires both trust and admiration, showing their strength isn’t just physical, but deeply rooted in their integrity,” my father explained.

I had not known Jace for that long, but he definitely made me think that he would do something very similar.

“As for what you should do for this Jace, you do what you want, but you are going to need people you can trust when you become King. Having a friend that’s willing to tell you when you are being a dumbass or stand by you when waves of monsters are coming is a precious thing.”

After that we talked about a few more lighthearted things. It was always relaxing talking to my father, at least after he got over his cringe worthy parental doting. I made sure to have him tell mom that Evelyn and I loved them and that we would be home this weekend.

He did say that I should bring Jace by, but that I should wait a few weeks. He said if I did it too soon his mother would hate us for keeping one of her babies away from her.

After ending the call, I sat for a moment, letting everything sink in. The weight of what had happened, and what was to come, pressed heavily on my mind. Tomorrow marked the start of classes, and I needed to be prepared, especially for combat training.

With that thought, I decided to take a quick shower and get some rest. Tomorrow would be busy, and I didn’t want to be late. If things went as expected, Jace and I would likely end up helping our classmates, letting them take turns trying to land hits on us. Not exactly thrilling, but it was what it was. Sparring with Jace again was something I was looking forward to also; he had a way of pushing me to improve without realizing it. Though we’d likely need to train on our own in the evenings.