Edwin sat across the carriage, legs bouncing in anticipation of my answer.

I could tell what he wanted to hear. “Yes, I do have communication with demons.” His face said it all. At face value, that’s the kind of confession that got idiots killed by the enemy.

However, I truly doubted that Edwin had the ruthlessness to try to kill me. At most, he’d banished me like my father before. Royals had a niche habit of doing that.

If anyone would kill me, it would be Serlon. He was practically itching at an excuse to cut my human head off before it was too late. And by the time that Edwin lets him, it will be.

But where would that leave me? On trial to consider my betrayal to the race that I only stayed with for benefit.

I didn’t know what would await me at Trane. Maybe Lars and Daniel were sent to ambush me with light magic with mages? Or they told the King that he’d have a new war ‘pet’ at his usage.

Nowadays, I couldn’t be too surprised. Which meant that I could only watch my hide right now.

“If I had communications with the demonic race, do you think I’d be here?” I said plainly, clicking my tongue, “Are you stupid?”

“You must know why I’m asking you this, correct?” Edwin sighed into his hands, “You know that I need to know.”

“For what?” I questioned.

Edwin remained silent, staring at the ground, “It’s just…”

Oh. So, he wasn’t completely dumb.

“I didn’t know that Florence would fall that soon. Nor did I have any part of the plan in this war,” I clarified, already realizing the nature of this questioning.

My statement wasn’t a complete lie. But most of it was. Truth is, I knew without asking about Florence’s condition. It wasn’t a matter of knowing the plans of the demonic forces but being raised in how war tactics worked.

Before Trane, this was my entire reason for existence. My father wanted a symbol of fear, explaining my birth down to the political side of it.

A demon was scary to most races. But a dragon? Not one of those noble dragons that you see in those bullshit tales. No. I was a result of my father’s desire to evoke fear in his enemies. That was my only worth as a son.

The demon king’s dragon. A symbol of victory and death. Used to be.

Classical conditioning to live up to those expectations. Till I didn’t. Then he tossed me out like a body in a graveyard.

Once my usage was up, I did not doubt I'd be tossed away again. As empathic as Edwin was, morals had a limit in ruling positions. They had no choice not to. Being a good ruler meant that you couldn’t be a good person.

Morals depend on the best option for your citizens. You couldn’t change this fact.

Edwin gulped, visibly relaxing at my comment. Still, it was obvious from his expression that he was on edge. And he was smart for that. After all, I was lying to his face.

I had a conversation with Dagon. I guess Abdeel would count too, but I haven’t heard from him.

“Regardless of the events that occurred, my staying here holds beneficial to both our parties,” I tried to reason, watching his reactions, “I’ll remain passive till I have reason otherwise.”

“I didn’t want to question you like this,” Edwin confessed, eyeing around the carriage, “But asking you at Trane would bring unwanted attention. I’m aware that you’re presence here brings mutual benefits to both of us.”

“I’m sure the Trane Royal family has done worse,” I noted.

“Not my estate. My father’s castle. Sure. But I try to keep my floors clean of blood, if possible,” He was quick to correct, looking almost offended at my comment, “You’re posing as a sixteen-year-old kid. I’m not so cruel to have it public that I questioned you.”

“I’m technically over 300 years old,” I offered.

“You don’t act like it,” He mumbled under his breath. I rolled my eyes, ignoring what I had just heard. It wasn’t worth my energy to deal with that.

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“I’m sure that’s not all you wanted to ask me,” I ignored his snarky remark, “And I’m sure that you don’t fully believe me either. But there’s nothing I can do about that.”

There’s nothing I can do because I am lying. If he used his brain, he’d be able to infer that already. There’s nothing I can do for stupidity – that was on him.

“Actually,” He began, “I don’t think you’d betray anyone. You may be a demon, but you’re a soldier at heart. And I doubt you’d put the effort to protect an enemy as well as you have.” He glanced at my hand at the fully healed wound from the ogre attack.

That was an optimistic thing to trust. He shouldn’t hold too much weight in that condition. I was a soldier, but I was also raised to be cruel.

Edwin was very naïve. Too much. Still, it worked for me.

“It healed already?” He perked.

“Unlike humans, my body isn’t as fragile.” I countered. This wound means nothing. There is no meaning of unyielding loyalty.

Let’s ignore the fact that half my wing was probably still missing. And that I couldn’t fly. Or the fact that my mana was constantly being drained every second I stayed in human form.

Let’s just forget about that completely.

“Of course, I don’t trust you completely. But that feeling is mutual, isn’t it?” He replied with a tired grin, “I planned on using your communication to gather more information…”

He trailed off, his grin turning into a frown.

“But now that I think about it, you wouldn’t turn against the demons either. So, it’s a lost cause…” He sighed, covering a yawn that escaped from his mouth.

He paused, raising a brow, “Unless…”

“No.”

My father cast me aside, but I’m not a traitor.

“Ok.” He frowned.

“I don’t think I understand what you could be getting at?” I quipped, “If you wanted to talk about playground politics then this sound barrier was unnecessary.”

Yes, playground politics. This handling of political dealings was so extremely amateur that a fledgling could do it better. Humans were younger than what I’d consider a fledgling in all fairness.

I was dealing with an infant. Edwin already checked the whining off that list of things I shouldn’t have to deal with at my ripe age.

“…Playground politics?” He brushed off that comment, “No, I did have a reason for asking you to set this up.”

“Okay. And when do I get to know this reason?”

“Well, I wanted to call you by your real name. It’s important as a ruler to acknowledge your soldiers by their name. And Asta isn’t your real name! Arslym is!” He cheered, fumbling to get to the point.

“Uh yeah. Right.” I nodded.

“And I wanted to be able to freely talk about demons and your relationship to them…. had you said yes.” He rambled on, “That was actually what Serlon warned me about.”

“What? What if I were and you asked, I’d kill you?” I deadpanned.

“…You are correct,” Edwin confirmed.

Sigh.

“Well, Serlon would have been right,” I affirmed.

“But you’re not!” Edwin cheered.

“And I should rethink that,” I sighed. However, at this point, I wondered how far I had truly fallen.

“Excuse me?”

“Don’t worry about it, blonde bitch.” I sighed.

“…Blonde Bitch?” His mouth gapped a little, “You know that you can be executed for…” He trailed off, “Never mind.”

I sighed, leaning back into the seat, “Well since that wrapped up sooner than I expected, I’ll take this moment to relax.”

Edwin couldn’t argue, even if he wanted to. Instead, he let out a heavy sigh and leaned back in the carriage seat. His eyes gazed out of the small opening in the window, expression gazed over.

“Hey Arslym,” His voice was smaller, almost too small for the tone of a royal.

I didn’t answer. I was supposed to be relaxing or trying to.

“Arslym…” He said a little louder.

Silence.

He exhaled, undoing a clip from his outfit, and throwing it at my face. My hand reacted before my attitude could. I rolled my eyes, staring at the pointed edge of the pin that rested in my palm.

“This is probably worth more than the lower village combined,” I rolled it around in my palm, noticing the small gems embedded in the golden carving.

You know, I may keep this. I didn’t care to acknowledge his perturbed glances, as I shoved it into my pocket.

“Do I have your attention now?” He brushed my thievery off, offering a defeated stare.

“You had it before, but I didn’t want to acknowledge you.” I admitted with a little smirk, “Hurry up though.”

At this point the barrier was still up, we were safe to talk about anything right now.

“What would you have done differently in Leton? Could I have salvaged that situation?” He asked, “You’re more experienced in war.”

Hm. For starters, my connection with Leton would have been flipped. I would have been the one attacking it. But I had grown up on the battlefield to know tactics front and back.

So, to put myself in Edwin’s situation meant to insert empathy that dragons didn’t have in the first place. Edwin looked distraught over the events. That much was obvious from the second it was decided that we’d return.

But I could theoretically analyze what logically could have been – if that made sense. And I knew my brothers well enough to know what my father had drilled into us from day one.

“Right now, Leton is no match to manage an attack. They don’t have enough resources and their troops are unfit for that scale of war.” I began. Edwin peered over intently.

I continued, “The best course is sending over resources as soon as possible. That’s all I can say. But don’t get hung over because I’ll tell you one thing. Leton will fall. If you waste your resources on a kingdom that’s doomed, you’ll ruin yourself.”

War was ugly. Morals on the battlefield were discarded, even from the human side of things. I’ve seen human soldiers use comrades as shields, bodies used as firewood, and the body-filled floor trampled under the soles of others.

Sure, humans were empathetic creatures. But they could be demon-like too. I knew that from the start.

It was almost comical because you expect that from demons. Our nature meant that it was expected to be stabbed in the back if you showed weakness.

Humans, however? It came out of nowhere. The fates were amusing like that.

“Was it a mistake to go?” He asked.

“Orders are orders.” I rehashed, reminding myself of Trane’s King to my own father’s orders. They were absolute.

“I hope Daniel and Lars were able to oversee supplies at least. They won’t have the authority to assign extra troops. I’ll have to go to my father for that.” He voiced more for himself.

“They may be dumb, but they know how to follow orders,” I reassured him to get him to stop muttering.

There was a knock on the carriage door. I spared a glance to Edwin, who quickly nodded, and seemed to understand. I took the barrier down.

“Asta, are you alive?” Gunnar paused, rephrasing, “…Is the prince, okay?”

“For now,” I answered him, amused at Edwin’s quick response to cover for me.

“Yes, we are good. No worries, Gunnar.” Edwin voiced over, sending a glare towards me.

I shrugged.

There was a loud exhale, “That’s a relief. We’re thinking about switching positions and Serlon wants Asta in front of him. Only if you are done though.”

It didn’t matter if Edwin was done with whatever this was. I was already up, opening the door, and hopping out.

I raised my hand to Edwin before shutting the door again, “Till next time my liege, your highness, the highest one, all mighty ruler of all.”

“Asta- “, Edwin began before I slammed the door shut – to Gunnar’s amusement and horror.

“So, were you in trouble?’ He whispered, escorting me towards the front of the carriage.

“I wonder.” I whistled, “We didn’t talk about anything important. It was a pointless waste of time.”

“Ah… is that so?” We got close enough to the front of the carriage for Serlon to venture towards us. He looked up at Gunnar, who returned to his position.

“He’s alive, right?” Serlon glared.

“Unfortunately, so.” I sighed, bumping him on the shoulder, “But you were right…”

Serlon paused, his head turned towards me in shock, “Did you just say I was right about something?”

“Don’t act too cocky, ass crack. I just mean that you were right when you said it was a bad idea.” I clarified.

“At least we can agree on one thing.” At this point, Serlon seemed to grow used to my disrespect.

“Yes, the prince is dumb.”

“Stop.”