"So, you can't threaten me," Rui coldly stated. "You shouldn't have bothered with this at all."

"You seem rather impatient," Prince Rajak calmly remarked.

"Tends to happen when I get trapped in an ambush," Ruis snorted. "I assume the no-sky-walking and endless hoards of people thing was all part of the plan to lure me into the alleys?"

"Perhaps," The prince replied vaguely. "It allowed us to meet without anybody the wiser."

"Well, we've met," Rui remarked. "Now what?"

"I asked you to join me," Prince Rajak reminded Rui. "You have yet to make your choice." owns this.

"Join you…?" Rui narrowed his eyes. "You can't be serious."

The prince simply stared at Rui. "You know…out of all the seven candidates for the throne, we are the closest."

Rui raised an eyebrow. "We come from the same background," The prince revealed. Yet his eyes took on a dark luster.

"I was born and raised in an orphanage as well," Prince Rajak calmly stated. "Do you know what happened when my siblings learned of my existence?"

Rui stared at him silently.

Yet the silence was deafening.

"They…sought to kill me," Prince Rajak whispered. "They failed. It was a miracle, but I was not home that day in the orphanage. I had snuck out into a traveling merchant's carriage to go into town so I could partake in the Kandrian Martial Festival."

His eyes sharpened, and a glint of hatred flashed in his eyes. "Do you know what happened while I was gone? Do you know what I saw when I came back?"

His golden eyes hummed with unadulterated fury.

Financial services.

Depraved Martial services.

Smuggling.

Depraved human goods and services.

Harmful substances supplies.

Information theft.

The six dons regulated these six pillars of the Underworld, ensuring they thrived, spreading more misery as a necessary and intended consequence.

"You don't have the right to call anyone a disgusting monster," Rui glared at him. "You're more disgusting than them all."

"I'll say this one last time," Prince Rajak narrowed his eyes. "Join me. I have the power to give you anythi-"

"Anything I want?" Rui glowered at him. "You're the sixth prince to make that offer. If that was enough, I would have joined Princess Raemina's faction a long time ago. Fuck off."

"Is that your final answer?"

"It always was."

A moment of silence rang in the air. The two men stared at each other with piercing eyes.

He turned, never once breaking eye contact. "I hope you don't come to regret this decision."

WHOOSH

Just like that, they had all disappeared. Rui's expression loured with displeasure as he considered everything the prince said to him. There was no doubt in his mind that the prince was poisoned with hatred that he couldn't even see, or worse, didn't even care about his own hypocrisy. He just wanted to exact revenge on those who had slaughtered his orphanage. The only way he was able to was the Underworld, for it was the only remaining powerhouse bloc that could allow him to compete with his most powerful siblings. The one entity that none of the other princes and princesses dared to touch.