Empress Esmeralda along with her escort party had now reached the battlefield. She led the charge on a shining white horse but she found herself on a battlefield that barely needed help. The majors of the Ivory Tower were already there, the majors were dressed in black robes and covered their heads in black masks. They were relentlessly attacking with basic spells on to the enemy. The majors of Ivory Tower weren’t chanting but simply directing their wands towards the enemy and basic attacks like fireball and wind slashes flew out. They were able to effortlessly repeat these attacks like a archer repeatedly firing bows. Such effortless magic attacks were unknown to the world and the escort knights of Esmeralda and the queen were in awe of such performance. The ground soldiers were advancing fast towards the schwarz castle walls while empress was thinking about what she would contribute to her first battlefield. Then at a distance there was another person who bare a blue flag of Frontera, the man raced towards the empress, one of the escort knights yelled to Esmeralda “your majesty, its marquis Ernst”
Esmeralda was surprised since she did not hear anyone from the noble faction joining the war, the whole noble faction had renounced the war and was coercing a surrender of the kingdom. “Ernst, I did not expect you here” said empress to the marquee. Ernst removed his helmet to reveal a clean shaven but wrinkled face. He then said “the duke of lionheart asked me to go with the ivory tower mages at the front” Esmeralda was in awe of how much she did not know about war while these men who did not gave up on the kingdom were so much ahead of her in strategy. Suddenly a stampede of horses could be heard from behind; when turned the army found duke lionheart running towards the battle on a brown horse. He was dressed in the traditional Armor which had a big lion on its chest, his helmet was like a lion’s jaw and it had many hairs behind to emulate a lion’s mane. The Armor was bright yellow in colour, while Esmeralda wore minimal Armor made of common iron alloy. It was very modest one even when compared to the knights who were escorting her.
“Duke, you are here” Esmeralda shouted
The duke brought the horse to a halt and greeted the empress.
“won’t my husband joining this battle with you” hades was not known to be a swordsman in the kingdom, the whole kingdom thought of him as a handsome sleazebag, even then empress had expected her husband to join the war as was his duty as a noble and successor to duke lionheart.
“He is a good mage; he has been sent to the schwarz capital with the tower masters”
“Why would you send them to the schwarz capital!!!!” the empress ears stood up, she did not expect such news, in her mind the battle was to end here by defending the Frontera kingdom. The idealistic empress did not expect a invasion of their neighbouring kingdom at all. The marquee Ernst however was smiling and approving of this development or maybe he was informed beforehand.
The duke then turned and unsheathed his sword to the sky and declared it to the whole army “you are to stop only at the royal capital of schwarz, advance into the kingdom”
With these three red robe mages started to go up in air, they were wearing red robes instead of their black ones, these were the master mages of the tower. The greatest mages of ivory tower personally taught by Ruben. They started throwing large fireball spells onto the walls and destroy the barrier protecting schwarz boundary castle. It was a signal to advance to the schwarz kingdom.
In the royal capital of schwarz
All nobles of schwarz had gathered in the capital when they hard of the disaster on the battlefield. It was the king’s decision to invade but they didn’t expect such destruction so to garner a peace agreement among the two kingdoms they gathered before the royal capital. There they saw four red robed mages floating in the air. multiple strings made of light emanated from them and restrained the nobles while two masked men and a swarm of ravens killed all soldiers protecting them. The nobles while restrained were bought to the royal castle of schwarz, which was empty, there were some dead soldiers lying here and there but while castle looked fine from outside, from inside it was burned and charred. It was like they were walking through ruins of a fallen castle. The chandeliers fallen down, curtains half burned and fountains broken and dead bodies of soldiers who might have defended the castle once. It was the handiwork of hades and Ruben who arrived in the capital a night before to kidnap the king.
The restrained nobles were brought into the Royal Court, Coloured batches were fixed onto their robes on the chest and they were forced to sit on the table while being restrained. On the end of the table sat a man in white robes and a white mask, beside him stood hades who was also all in white and hid his face behind a white mask. The mage who was sitting was Ruben, the grandmaster of the tower. Ruben extended his arm behind his head towards the wall and the whole wall blew away to reveal the royal city.
The army of Frontera had also reached the capital. The mages in the army continued their destructive spells along the street to allow for convenient passage. In the castle all nobles were handed a paper and asked to put their seal on them. One of the nobles stood up and said “who are you to order me to do anything” the standing Nobel was furious and questioning Ruben. Then hades gave Ruben a orange batch which matched the colour of the batch that noble was wearing and crushed the batch. All of a sudden multiple large fire rose by a side of the city visible to the eyes. It was in the direction of the angry noble’s territory. It was visible to them because Ruben had blown the wall, but Ruben had his back to the destruction. Then Ruben spoke through the mask “surrender your territories or witness them burn, you can be the nobles who serve us, or you can be homeless” the cold voice had a chill run through the spine of all nobles in the room. They never imagined the war with a small kingdom like Frontera would bite them like this. Seeing their silence, Ruben took a green batch from hades and crushed it, explosions were seen near the royal capital and then Ruben said “well….”. all nobles started signing their papers and gave in to the terror sitting behind them.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
After some time, empress Esmeralda and duke lionheart reached the capital castle. Empress was shaken by the explosions and fires in the schwarz kingdom but tried to compose herself. When she went inside the royal castle, in its garden all nobles of schwarz were sitting restrained. Then the duke said to the empress “your majesty these nobles of schwarz have surrendered to Frontera, we now have control of the whole kingdom”
“whattt” the empress was shocked at the revelation. She was unaware of the scheme ran by the duke, Ruben and hades behind the scenes.
“Master mages, take control of the territories of schwarz’s nobles, if you find the region too big, divide it between your students” the duke commanded.
“I was supposing to lead this battle but guess I will have to be content with participation, I don’t hold candle to the strategies of these experienced nobles” the empress was sighing.
“Empress the royal capital will be given to marquee Ernst while Frontera royal family will absorb all the remaining territories.” A masked man in white military uniform and white cape said to her.
“Empress meet my son, ‘hades’” the duke said.
The empress started to blush; she didn’t expect to meet him like this. He was going to be her husband soon so she was also a little embarrassed. Hades removed his mask to reveal himself, he had black hair that covered his forehead in a saw-like pattern, his starry eyes had become even more prominent and the empress couldn’t believe herself. Hades didn’t look like a guy who knew how to fight. The empress who considered herself to be very unladylike due to nobles warped sense, found herself deeply attracted to hades’ charm. She realized she was not much different from inside as she wanted to delve deeper in his starry eyes, all while hades had a faint smile on his face.
“Is everything alright princess?”
“Huh!! Ah yeah! I hope your father told you about our arrangement beforehand”
“Yes, our marriage. I can’t wait” hades sounded excited at the notion.
But the sense of insecurity washed over empress again and she thought to herself ‘could he like me, no what are you thinking, a noble like him would never look at you. This is being done for lionheart to become the king, yes this is a political marriage nothing more.’ The empress had convinced herself that hades would never like her.
Hades on the other hand thought that Esmeralda would not love him outright but married, he had his whole life to convince her and make her his’s. the only reason he pushed for marriage instead of courting was “sorry, Esmi I can’t wait to date you, then marry you that would take too much time and we don’t have that so let’s skip few steps or start in reverse” hades thought to himself.
The army was resting in the ruined capital while mages were being dispatched all along the kingdom of new Frontera. “Duke where is king schwarz” Esmeralda inquired.
“He must be hiding; don’t worry we have control of all nobles he will be killed soon” the duke said in a panicked voice. In reality the king was already buried with his sons in water.
As the day started to descend and evening hit, the resting empress was greeted by the duke “empress Esmeralda it's time for the marriage”
“What!!” the sleepy princess woke up “What’s the rush, I won’t go back on my word duke please wait till we reach the capital, I don’t even have the wedding dress on” the empress said in a panicked voice.
“Empress you can have your dream wedding later, we need to get one now” the duke said in a serious tone.
“But why, tell me that” Esmeralda demanded duke’s explanation of speeding things up suddenly.
“Empress in some days the paladins of holy kingdom will reach your gates, they will want your coordination on a peace meeting held at the holy kingdom.”
“So?”
“This one is different, all eastern and many western kingdoms of Sicaria will join in, I insisted on expanding our kingdom because we need to have weight there.”
“I never heard of such effort.”
“Small kingdoms were kept out of the loop empress, if tomorrow you receive a letter to join a meeting held by the big kingdoms you have no choice but to listen but with our newly acquired landmass, we can have weight in that meeting” the duke told her.
“Even if I believe you why are you rushing marriage duke?” Esmeralda questioned duke.
“No king attending is unmarried, further the big kingdoms would propose marriage to you with prince of their kingdoms for bilateral agreements” the duke said in furious tone, “this is a peace treaty, but any sensible diplomat would further it with trade, they could simply propose marriage as a condition for trade treaty, and you would have to comply. If you marry a price from the big three, the child would be a descendent of those kingdoms and they could simply reduce us to a vassal empress. Think” the empress knew she would have to set up trade with big three kingdoms but never considered such outcome. She was a warrior and hadn’t gotten any training to be a noble. Two months ago, all members of royal family lost their lives in a stampede of a demonic horde and empress had been forced to ascend as the noble faction saw Frontera as dying kingdom.
“Not just that. Now, with schwarz under you the noble would also coerce you into a marriage with you giving up or sharing control with your husband. The Frontera name’s is going to be lost, that is inevitable, even I am no different, but with me your legacy and values can live on further, I will allow you to rule as Emperor Esmeralda Frontera”
“Very well duke, lets prepare” Esmeralda gave in. to her protecting the sovereignty of the kingdom was of priority. She came to the garden in the same clothes she wore before duke first time and found hades staring in the night. Before him stood Ruben dressed up as a priest.
“Priest, the bride is here,” said the duke.
Esmeralda walked up to hades embarrassingly. When standing before hades she realized she was a little taller than him. She put her hand forward and hades out a ring in her finger, she did the same, she received a ring while walking down, by the duke. Then the priest asked for the couple to kiss, Esmeralda looked at hades who looked like the most innocent boy in the world, he was slightly blushing, Esmeralda bent down and was now staring in his starry eyes which had more stars than the sky, hades bent up a little to meet her lips, while she was taller hades only had to bet his neck up to reach her lips. It was a soft kiss on the lips after which everyone started clapping, the nobles who restrained, some of them were slapped by the mages present and they also started clapping loudly. Hades and Esmeralda started walking towards a carriage and all the time hades fashioned a faint smile whereas Esmeralda while proudly facing the people was just embarrassed for this was also her first kiss. then they came before Ruben who was dressed up as a butler and opened the door of carriage. First Esmeralda got in and hades followed after, Ruben could clearly see hades’ inner face laughing manically revealing his sharp teeths. The carriage had a huge escort made up of soldiers and mages on horseback. No soldier in the caravan ever imagined that the empress when going to war would come back to the castle with a husband. but all had happened as the duke, ruben and hades had planned.