CHAPTER ELEVEN

A Meeting of False Smiles

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CONGRATULATIONS! You have completed the hidden quest [Battle Tutorial]!

QUEST REWARDS: New ability [Last Stand], 200 EXP.

Bram couldn’t help smiling widely at the floating blue window since this was the first time the system had given him the boons he rightly deserved.

ALERT! [Administrator Lv. 1] prevents you from earning job EXP.

It was a happy smile that was quick to vanish. “How will I progress in my job if you deprive me of my experience?”

“Don’t be too discouraged.” Rowan patted him gently on the shoulder. “Perhaps there is another path to your growth you’ve yet to discover.”

ALERT! You can gain rewards from looting the dead.

“Should we check their pockets?” Rowan asked.

Bram glanced down at the nearest body.

The blonde youth’s eyes were devoid of life as they stared up at the sky. His skin was growing paler by the second while dark blood continued to pool underneath his body.

“Better to let the dead lie in peace… We have enough griffins.”

To distract himself from having to think about the recently departed and his role in their demise, Bram checked the status of the ability the system had just rewarded him with.

ABILITY: Last Stand Lv.1 TYPE: Passive DESCRIPTION: One of noble blood should not easily fall. When health drops to zero, you gain a measure of protection from death and regain 1 HP. You are also immune to sorcery that deals instant death to targets so long as Last Stand is still available. COOLDOWN: 24 hours

To survive death’s touch once a day, ‘Last Stand’ was quite a boon for the prince. One that would prove helpful should the worst-case scenario occur.

“It rewards you with what you need to ensure your continued growth while taking into consideration our circumstances…this system is quite intuitive,” Rowan said in an impressed tone.

“Not as intuitive as it should be,” Bram grumbled.

He hadn’t forgotten that the system without a name hadn’t recognized his martial or bardic talents.

“…It didn’t even recognize my singing. I’m great at singing,” he complained.

“I’m sure you are, though I haven’t heard you sing myself,” she replied teasingly, but placatingly added, “You seemed talented enough in combat.”

A curious look flashed on her face.

“To be able to fight well with weapon or fist, to use your body so effectively, it speaks of an exceptional talent, and from one as young as you, ‘tis quite the achievement.”

Bram’s cheeks reddened at being called talented. Not even his masters in the Delightful Troupe had called him this.

“I was so desperate to find something that could match the other royals’ sorcery that I learned whatever I could. Many might claim I wasted my time chasing after my siblings in this way.”

“You didn’t.”

Rowan pointed to the four dead traitors.

“You’ve proven that today.”

“Tell that to the system then.”

“Well,” Rowan’s fingers brushed the back of Bram’s hand, “perhaps it might be more inclined to be supportive if we gave it a name.”

With her slight touch, Bram’s frustration was instantly quelled, though this didn’t stop him from poking fun at his opponent.

“How about… The Fool’s Guide to Sorcery?”

“No.”

“The Better Me Tool?”

“That’s terrible.”

“The Magic Trick?”

“Honestly, are you truly this horrible at naming a thing?”

“They weren’t that bad…” Bram rose from the ground and then offered the trickster his hand. “Go on, you propose one then.”

Rowan’s face turned contemplative while Bram helped her up.

“Well, it seems our fates are now intertwined with this strange sorcery at work inside of you,” she said.

“Sure, one could see it that way,” Bram agreed while he reclaimed his sword from the ground. Once he returned its cracked blade to its sheath, he added, “Not just our fates, but the fates of all the otherworlders we’ll summon to Aarde.”

“Then let us call it the Loom,” Rowan suggested, “for ‘tis a device that will weave the destiny of mortals and immortals alike.”

“The Loom,” Bram repeated.

He didn’t hate the idea of naming the system for the very apparatus that Moira the Goddess of Destiny used whenever a child was born on Aarde so that the Fate Weaver could chart their fates with her weaving.

“It fits rather well,” Bram admitted. “Though ours will be a Loom of Ill Fates where sacrifice and opportunity come hand in hand…”

CONGRATULATIONS! The system has been given the name [Loom of Ill Fates]. This event marks the starting line of your grand undertaking…and the Loom shall watch your progress with great interest.

“‘Tis settled then,” Rowan said, sounding delighted.

She flashed Bram with an impish smile. One that withered quickly as the sound of marching hoofs reached their ears.

Rowan’s gaze drifted to the west. “We have company…”

Both she and Bram stood shoulder-to-shoulder as they watched a group of armed men on hartback appearing from the west. They rode swiftly and with purpose, their banners unfurled and billowing in the wind, the largest of which was a golden griffin on a field of royal blue.

“‘Tis the sigil of House Attilan,” Rowan noticed. “I’m not familiar with the others. Are they enemies?”

The second banner showed a teal yew tree on a field of white, its branches spreading out nearly to the banner’s edges. This was the forest kingdom’s sigil. It was Bram’s sigil now too. While the other two—one of a black stag, and the other, a pair of blue clouds—belonged to noble houses from the north as Bram recalled.

“My seneschal is in the lead, so no.” Bram’s hand rested on the pommel of his sword. “Still, it wouldn’t hurt to be prepared.”

The prince’s gaze drifted down to the blonde youth’s corpse and the teal gambeson he wore. The sight of it set Bram’s teeth on edge.

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“There could be other rats hiding in my household.” Suspicion flashed on his face. “We should remain vigilant.”

Bram felt Rowan’s hand on his shoulder. Her touch calmed the prince, relieving him of the bubbling rage that seemed ever-present underneath the surface of his fool’s disguise.

Speaking of disguises, Bram asked, “Can you do something about my hair?”

“You don’t want them to see how you’ve pretended to be a redhead today?”

“I’d like to keep my tricks hidden for a while longer.”

“Very well.”

She patted his head like one might do to a dog. Then Bram felt heat on his scalp, and a second later, a sticky watery substance slid down the back of his neck.

“‘Tis finished.”

“And now my back’s coated in red dye.”

“There’s enough blood stains on your coat that it will hardly be noticeable.”

Rowan giggled, and Bram couldn’t help chuckling too.

He’d survived a fight to the death. It wasn’t the time to be a sourpuss.

“Are you still able to fight?” Rowan asked.

“Only if I must, but,” Bram eyed her coolly, “I seem to recall you promising to protect me.”

“I should arm myself then.” Rowan walked over to the blonde youth’s corpse. She spent a long moment staring at his lifeless face before chastising words spilled from her lips. “Foolish Boy, you failed your prince in life, but worry not, your blood shall serve him in death.”

She raised her hand, palm facing downward, and bright crimson sparks flared out of her fingers. With her sorcery cast, the blood pooling beneath the blonde youth’s body flew up to her hand, gathering into her palm as a mass of pulsing red matter that then reshaped itself into a crimson sword with a single-edge blade that widened and curved around the tip.

“A blood falchion,” Bram said, sounding impressed.

Before the trickster could comment on the prince’s strange naming sense, the riders who led the teal-clad soldiers arrived by the auto-carriage’s side, with the first of them climbing down from his russet hart so that his head wasn’t above Bram’s when he approached Atlan’s seventh prince. Two others followed him, though, unlike the first man, they seemed less relieved to see Bram in good health.

“Welcome, Ser Anthony,” Bram called in greeting.

At the head of the trio was Ser Anthony Holmes, Bram’s only trusted retainer, protector, and also seneschal of Bastille.

“Your Highness!” he called. “Thank June, you’re safe!”

The sincerity in Ser Anthony’s face, the worry in his voice, these served to reinforce Bram’s belief that his seneschal had not betrayed him to the White Rose or the north.

The prince also noticed that instead of a sword, his seneschal carried a basket of red packets in his hand. These were healing gels, a medicinal salve made with alchemy that healed various wounds and ailments while also granting anesthetic and clotting effects to one’s injuries.

Seeing them caused Bram’s heart to swell with appreciation.

Ser Anthony knelt on one knee about five meters from his liege as if to give Bram time to acknowledge his intentions first.

“Forgive my lateness—”

He was the only one to do so, and the blatant disrespect of his companions raised Ser Anthony’s hackles.

“My Lords,” the seneschal’s gaze narrowed, “you forget your manners!”

His words fell on deaf ears, however, for the two men walked past the kneeling knight without the least bit of respect reflected in their gait. Unperturbed by the carnage around them, they would have stridden over to Bram’s side without pausing if the trickster hadn’t stepped forward and blocked their path to the prince.

“No further.”

Rowan’s ‘Blood Falchion’ was at her side, and ready to be swung at the slightest provocation.

Seeing such confident men shrink before her lithe frame made Bram smile while also instilling him with much-needed confidence to face these nobles who barely hid their contempt for him in their half-hearted greetings.

“Your Highness…” the slight-looking man with sandy hair bowed stiffly at Bram. “…we came once we heard news of your troubles.”

He was Baron Archibald von Galen; an unpleasant man Bram had met twice since he became Lotharin’s governor. In their brief acquaintanceship, the prince likened the baron to a sly rat who ate the crumbs of his betters while sharpening the knife he meant to stab their backs with.

Speaking of betters, the stout bearded man who arrived with Baron Archibald wrinkled his nose at the stench permeating the air. He did not, however, seem too surprised by the scene around him when he asked, “What roguery occurred here… Prince?”

Bram got the feeling that Vicomte Henry Kleist had stopped short of parroting his ‘Ill-Fated’ title. This insight caused the prince’s eyes to narrow, though he didn’t chastise the vicomte. Despite the confidence he gained from Rowan’s actions, Bram had yet to rid himself of past trauma instilled in him by the nobles of the Sovereign’s court. Dealing with these two lords who were quick to feign feeling offended as much as they were swift to subtly challenge his new authority would be challenging for him.

To aid him in this meeting, he recalled the words Ser Anthony had once taught him back during the days when being bullied by other nobles had taken its toll on a younger Bram.

“A noble of the imperium must have three faces,” the old knight had said. “One for the world to see, one for only your closest companions to enjoy, and—”

“One I keep for only me…a face only I can see,” finished a young Bram who’d then asked, “How will I know which face to use?”

“If they show you sincerity, then treat them the same,” Ser Anthony had suggested. “But if their smiles are forced…”

As he recalled his seneschal’s words, Bram noticed it now; the false smiles these nobles presented him with. Knowing which face to show them lent courage to his voice.

“As you can see, My Lords”—He faced the hyenas while inwardly thankful that his legs hadn’t buckled underneath him—“I’ve been attacked by traitors seeking to capture me… For whom and for what purpose, sadly, they never said…”

His gaze drifted from one passive expression to the other, noting how Baron Archibald’s brow was sweating a little too much.

“Thankfully,” the prince’s molten irises drifted to the small back of his new protector, “my companion managed to thwart my assassination.”

It was only right for him to place the recent battle on Rowan’s shoulders to hide the truth of his achievement. For it wasn’t yet the time to reveal his new fangs. Neither did Bram admit that he suspected the north of treachery. Such an accusation required unimpeachable proof which he still lacked.

The two lords’ gazes drifted from the blood on Bram’s clothes to Rowan whose dress and cloak were in an pristine condition. Others might have questioned this obvious contradiction, but not the lords who thought so little of their prince that they didn’t doubt that he couldn’t have slain his enemies himself. Still, they couldn’t believe Rowan had done the deed either.

“This slip of a girl killed these men…?” Vicomte Henry scoffed.

“She did,” Bram reiterated, adding, “Quite easily too.”

It wasn’t technically a complete lie.

If Rowan had fought these men herself, they’d have been dead within seconds.

The two lords looked at Rowan with renewed interest, and Bram couldn’t help noticing the sparkle in their eyes nor the flushing of their cheeks as they beheld her beauty.

Truly, she’s a beautiful butterfly, one that stings like a mighty bee. Bram smiled inwardly. A bee whose stinger I’ll be aiming at your necks eventually.

“You’ve been holding out on us, Your Highness,” Baron Archibald said teasingly. “Where have you been hiding—”

The baron leered at her as if he would devour this redheaded maiden whole with his unveiled lust, but then Rowan lifted her sword a little higher, aiming it at his crotch, and sending him cowering back.

Just like a rat when facing a true predator…

“Behave yourself, Baron!” Ser Anthony chided as he stepped over to stand beside the trickster. “This is Lady Rowan of House Wolfe who has entered into the service of our prince.”

Bram saw trust in the gaze his seneschal gave her, and he assumed the trickster pretending to be a noblewoman had found a way to convince Ser Anthony that she was on the prince’s side.

It wouldn’t have been difficult, he realized. Bringing me back alive would be enough for her to gain his trust.

The others didn’t share Ser Anthony’s confidence, however. Shock, disbelief, and even fear flashed on their faces at hearing her name.

Bram understood their sudden tension because he too recognized the noble name of ‘Wolfe’ and the tragedy which befell that house. So notorious was their downfall five years ago that the bards of the imperium had immortalized it in verse, one he’d sang himself on occasion.

For the Wolfe who stood once strong and tall

Dabbled too keenly with blood magic.

And birthing madness inside their hall

Ensured an ending far too tragic.

“Impossible,” Vicomte Henry sneered. “House Wolfe was left desolate after Eorl Roland’s heir caused the catastrophe that cursed their lands… None of that family survived.”

“I survived,” replied the trickster who’d stolen the identity of a dead girl. “And I remember all that happened afterward…”

Bram wasn’t sure what Rowan meant but he could visibly see the vicomte repressing his discomfort.

In his mind, the prince recalled his recent lessons of Lotharin’s noble houses—their territories and relationships—which he had inscribed to memory so that he might never be ignorant of their dealings and dispositions.

Bram remembered how Vicomte Henry’s territory in Koble and the Wolfe’s former shire of Rhein—now called ‘Bloodhaven’ after the catastrophe that laid waste to it—had been close neighbors in Lotharin’s northern region of Rhyneland. He also remembered that the Koble Shire, the Kleist family, and their allies in the north had profited from the fall of House Wolfe and the loss of Rhein Shire. The rumors of how they seized its remaining unspoiled territory and monopolized the trade of former Rhein goods were riddled with dark whispers as well.

Was this why she chose her new name?

Bram wondered if her new persona was chosen to make the vicomte and his backers nervous or if Rowan chose the name of a dead house for convenience’s sake. With the way the trickster smirked at the vicomte, Bram thought it might be the former, and if so, he couldn’t help but feel elated for choosing a partner skilled in the art of intrigue in a way he wasn’t.

Vicomte Henry cleared his throat. “What proof have you of your claim?”

Rowan kicked the nearest corpse closer to the vicomte’s feet.

It was Baer.

“Surely a sorcerer of your caliber can recognize the condition of this man’s body,” she said teasingly.

Vicomte Henry glanced down, his gaze narrowing at the sight.

“This…” he let out a sharp intake of breath. “This commoner’s been drained of blood.”

Narrowed eyes snapped toward Rowan’s falchion.

“That’s…blood magic,” he deduced.

“Blood magic?!” Baron Archibald’s eyes widened into saucers. “Then she must truly be a damnable Wolfe?!”

Blood magic was a rare art in sorcery, and the fallen House of Wolfe was known to be quite proficient in it. As a house’s brand of sorcery was akin to a badge of recognition, the sight of such potent blood magic in this scene could easily be mistaken as proof that the trickster was indeed the long-lost daughter of the last eorl of Rhein.

With her surprisingly detailed knowledge of House Wolfe, the others who weren’t privy to Rowan’s true origins had no choice but to allow doubt to fill their thoughts. They could only concede the possibility of her outlandish story.

“Her claims will need to be verified,” Vicomte Henry insisted.

“She must also be evaluated”—Baron Archibald turned a knowing gaze on Bram, the prince with supposedly no magic in his veins—“for her aptitude in sorcery.”

“From the state of the dead”—Ser Anthony patted Rowan on the shoulder—“I wouldn’t be surprised if the Sovereign’s court named Lady Rowan the ‘Incomparable’ of this year’s conjuring season.”

He laughed. She giggled. Meanwhile, the two lords stared nervously at each other.

Bram understood their sudden sense of trepidation.

These two representatives of the northern nobles’ faction which resented Bram’s governorship have discovered that the once-weak seventh prince of House Attilan now had fangs he might use to bite them with. If only they knew the depths of Bram’s plans to use the resources of another world against them. These nobles would have felt more than simple trepidation from this meeting.

“I appreciate how you came here out of worry for me, My Lords, but…” Bram grabbed the trickster’s slender hand, their fingers intertwining. “…Lady Rowan and I have business elsewhere.”

Before anyone could protest, he led her past the flustered lords and swiftly toward the auto-carriage’s open door.

“I trust you can see yourselves back to Bastille,” Bram said before he entered the carriage that was now manned by one of his teal-clad soldiers. “And Ser Anthony, please have the new coachman wash my carriage when we return to the bastion. We wouldn’t want the stench”—his gaze drifted to the two lords—“to linger.”

Quickly, the prince’s auto-carriage left the scene of the crime, and with him went the personification of blood, death, and rebellion.