{Chapter 1}

In a honey wood room adorned by the grace of sunlight and soft silken curtains, a middle-aged man stood with an equally brilliant robe in his arm. He was refined and held himself with a humble head, although the colors and medals along his robe boasted his presence. There was no one quite like him, especially to the other beside him.

“Your Royal Highness, why do you look so troubled?” he, the celebrated duke and Minister of Magic in Soliere, asked with a complicated expression. His lips pressed together unevenly. Eye wrinkles diminished none of his superior looks.

“Hm?” Sandalwood eyes like amber reflected the mirror in front of him. “I simply wonder…” he looked around to survey each corner of the room and the furniture inside, like someone was hiding behind them. His lips pursed, a sigh escaping soon after. “Where is Orion?”

“Ah…” The duke's gaze volleyed between Luminur and the mirror. “Shall I contact him, Luminur?”

He shook his head. “Leave it.”

His gaze drifted to the window. Just as blue skies and the balcony outside remained, the wind likened to the curtains like bright jewels that were aglow.

“My prince, you’ve been staring quite a bit at the window.”

Luminur flinched.

“Is there something that…”

“No, not at all. I…” He shook his head and turned back to the mirror. “He must be at the New Harvest Festival because of the Trial.”

Elias couldn’t find words to say. Word barely audible to his old ears, he knew it was not meant for him to hear but Orion. Usually, this room would not be so empty, a certain spot beside his prince taken by that hot-headed youthful knight.

“Yet—”

“Let us be on our way, Duke Elias.”

With the flip of his golden coat and a white mask over his face, he took off to the door of his room, leaving a wide-eyed Elias who fumbled the clothes in his arms.

“Your Royal Highness, your white clothes will—!”

Obvious in the way he was left behind, he groaned and ran after the prince who gave no second glance as he strided the long hallways of the Crystal Palace, where sunlight encapsulated by the honey-colored wooden walls and red carpets.

“Duke Elias,” Luminur muttered. “What do you think today's Trial is about? I was not informed of the details.”

Elias, who had just caught up, took a second to breathe and straightened his hair. As much as he made his appearance right, prim and proper, he was a stiff board at that question. A side glance and a tight swallow: “His Majesty Ferdinand had instructed not to inform His Royal Highness until the Trial.”

“And what good does that bring?” He shot a glance at Elias. “Go on and tell me.”

“It is of Count Boulier’s daughter…and,” he hesitated for a second, “ten men.”

“I see.”

He stopped between the intersection of two halls and turned to Elias. “What would the appropriate punishment be? If you were the Judge of Aredese?”

Cold air pulled into Elias’s lungs at those few words. What else would he say in response to that? He didn’t have to mention what those specific crimes were to the prince; he already knew too well, better than anyone else who had the crude pleasure to be made aware of the nature of such evil. That question was nothing more than a way to affirm the prince’s thoughts, Elias believed.

Elias took a second too long to answer before Luminur lifted his hand in a stop motion.

“Don’t trouble yourself with the questions any longer. There is little point to it. It is as foolish as inquiring about Magie Societate East.”

“Luminur…”

He found himself numbed to hearing his name—the same before every Trial. It was better to be a corpse or a husk of a human. As he carried his light feet forward till tower-like doors loomed over them, like the flesh of his heart had already calcified into stone.

The guards beside him pushed the doors inwards to a wide white hall of marble and crystals embedded into the murals Great Hall of the palace. Sitting as proud as one may be, the lavishly dressed people had become as eager as a dog for bones; they already waited too long for the Sun Prince, more than they would have delighted themselves.

Luminur ambled with a straight back and cold eyes, and somehow, the room where the light of the sun burst through the grand window at the edge, was a winter storm. His gaze stabbed into the guts of people as they looked away.

I must have lost my mind for a second there; am I scared right now? Those words didn’t have to be spoken for everyone to be saying the same things. Not once have they feared him—the Sun Prince.

They never once feared him.

His heel clicked into place at the center of the congregation for all to see. Donned golden and most beautiful under the sunlight, no one found the heart to look away from his timber brown hair, lavish eyelashes, and stunning sandalwood eyes. He was mesmerizing, but he truly gutted their hearts as that gaze had hardened into steel.

The aging archbishop wise beyond years bowed to the king who sat at the center of the crescent-shaped crowd, at the crevice of the shape. He regarded the old archbishop and announced, “Where blood is paid by blood, Bane Aredese of Equity and Love demands nothing but parity and sanctification of the Nation of the Sun, Soliere. May the Judge of Aredese commence the Trial. The crimes are as is: torture, sexual assault, mutilation, and blasphemy”

The people leaned forward with a shiver in their bones, far too excited and eager so much so that Luminur felt his throat squeeze into itself.

The kneeling men casted a dirty glare at him. One of them scowled so deeply that it would be engraved into his face. They had no idea what they had to expect, but the man in front of them was barely twenty, neither built like a beast in body, and had been dressed so ostentatiously that they would make a debutante jealous of his beauty.

A sharp sound of a splat echoed through the silent room.

With a downturned gaze, Luminur saw a foamy liquid by the base of his feet; he looked up to an animalistic defiance, a longing to be a dominant and superior being over him. He gazed at the prince’s face and licked his lip.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Barely reacting, Luminur closed his eyes to the obvious taunt. With an outstretched hand, a radian golden light gathered at the palm of his gloved hand, swirling in thousands of threads, to condense into a bead the size of an eye. In his other hand, the rattling iron turned sharp at the simple summon in his mind. Like a snake it twirled and tumbled around the air as a rolling cloud would.

A golden light pulsed from the prince’s eyes, glowing in a beautiful color of the sun. So lovely, he would have been—yet the people felt a sudden weight around their throat. One noble man began to cough, scratching his neck. He didn’t understand; it was like a snake had wrapped around him.

Without a second, Luminur stepped forward and pressed the glowing bead deep into the forehead of the first man to the left, pushing into the flesh of the skin. A sudden red light emerged.

The man’s eyes bulged and a scream ripped into the ears of the audience.

He screamed and begged, fat rolls of tears slipping to his throat, cheeks, mouth. He gargled for mercy and wriggled, but it was as if his knees had been nailed to the ground.

Luminur pressed deeper into his skin.

“Please! Your Royal Highness! Mercy, mercy!”

His wrist bled against the ropes, screams turning hoarse.

The audience had gone quiet, bodies as straight as a needle.

“Mercy! Argh!”

The archbishop swallowed at the sight, touching his throat and sliding his hand over his eyes for a second. He glanced at the King whose face had gone pale.

“Ha…haha…” the man heaved and coughed a fit of blood.

Luminur pulled his hand away and stared at the dark spot on the forehead, where everyone had also looked. It was as black as tar, the skin around it crimson and blistered.

The people for once didn’t dare to look at the Sun Prince, their hands crumpled on their laps. The women who entertained themselves to see the most beautiful prince had already gone silent, some with a handkerchief over their mouths.

The man shot a weary glare at Luminur, but he froze—tears began to gather in his eyes. He saw the chains gathered in Luminur’s hand, eyes as callous and as deranged as a killer, but they were not deranged; empty like the void of hell.

He trembled at the sight. “M…mercy. I have a child—”

Chains wrapped under the neck, swinging around in a loop. The more that they overlapped in his throat, his squelching saliva and bulging eyes bled red. His tongue hung out his mouth.

One of the men and women immediately began to vomit, some whose eyes were shut tightly.

Another tug at the chains broke bones, cutting through flesh and skin. The body fell to the side, blood spurting from the hole and a pool of crimson trailing behind the head.

Luminur pulled his chains back and whipped them in the air, cracking them against the white marble. “Bane Aredese judged the first guilty.” His gaze swept over the other men, whose faces had long lost vigor. “I announce again the crimes for all and for Bane Aredese to judge: torture, sexual assault, mutilation, and blasphemy. Judgment of the second begins.”

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The Great Hall of Crystal Palace was bright and livid. White walls were rotten by fear, and the voices of people were slaughtered by the mere screams of the punished men that they heard. It was filled with different people: ones who trembled on their legs like a fawn, and ones who watched with wide eyes and clenched hands. Even the man donned by a crown swallowed down at the sight—a sight too cold and unforgiving. A raging red marred the marble grounds, creeping to the onlookers’ laced shoes.

On the floor, ten men kneeled, nine whose bodies were rid of their heads. They came from afar and heard nothing of the notable Judge of Aredese, simply that he was to turn twenty. Who in their right mind was afraid of a young man barely twenty? But as the heads of fellow men fell one by one, their pride melted into a puddle of wax and saw themselves as crawling bugs before him whose strident eyes were much the symbol of their death.

He gazed under his brown eyelashes, slightly furrowed in pure disgust, but even this spoke true to his elegance. The seal of the Tri-Seal Bearer marked his right arm below his golden robes for the Trial. It was an enviable and covetous title to be held. With it comes incomparable power and infatuating charm. Most who knew of the nature of Tri-Seal said he was blessed. Tri-Seal Bearers are the only mortals given the right to possess golden Soul Energy: the purest and most powerful form of it found only in the Banes of Ridonia.

He was the Judge of Aredese, the patron Bane of Incardia.

With the silver, snake-like Chains of Judgment in one hand and a golden bead in the left, Luminur sought to bring judgment in the name of the Bane of Equity and Love, and his presence swooped over all inside the hall like a tempest.

Even with the mask over the lower half of his face, his expression was spiteful, like a person who’s seen the vilest entities.

He took a deep breath. All the people turned away, only a few unfazed. The man on the floor had no chance to do the same, and he watched like his eyes had been pried open; with a bloodied face and clattering teeth, a nail struck him to his knees.

"Bane Aredese judged the ninth guilty. I announce again the crimes for all and for Bane Aredese to judge: torture, sexual assault, mutilation, and blasphemy." Luminur's gaze grated the ashen face of the kneeling man. “Judgment of the tenth begins."

The man turned into a sheet of ice. Tears began to drop down, to the chin and some strayed down to his throat. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

Soul Energy gathered in Luminur’s hands, swiveling into the chains and the golden bead. With a frigid frown and stifling stare, he pressed the bead into the forehead of the man. Screams, shouts, tears, terror; those were all meaningless. Not the pallid nobles, not the sweating king, and not even the howls of hags could stop the unhesitant prince. None were allowed, and Luminur himself gave not a second glance to it.

As the bead burned into the forehead of the shackled man on the floor, Luminur scrunched his nose. His eyes focused on the black spot made upon the skin.

With a swing of his hand, the silver Chain of Judgment wrung the neck of the man; whose eyes bulged and whose mouth began to froth. Luminur pulled one more time. The chains obeyed and threw a head to the back, a trail of blood behind.

The audience tried to sit upright, but in that small moment, their backs pressed tightly to their chairs. Some wished that they rather watched the New Harvest Festival Offering. Removing dust from white clothes proved no difficulty; cleansing blood from the unsullied mind had no cure.

Blood dripped from the blade at the end of the silver chains, and with a flick of his wrist upwards, Luminur splattered it off. From the rows of trembling feet and marbled floor, even if it were to be washed away, it would not disappear. He wiped his cheek of the blood. A streak of red that cannot be washed away.

The archbishop quickly regained his grasp on reality. Though his hands shuddered whenever a Trial was in place for the past two years, such barbaric killing was a first. He couldn't help but inch closer to the palace guards who had seen it as many times as he did, but remained stoic.

The archbishop cleared his voice. "Bane Aredese has judged ten men guilty. The Trial has ended."

As people left through the main doors in the front, maids hurried into the Great Hall. Buckets and towels sprawled the floors, and one manservant with a hose connected to the sink in the kitchen followed suit.

Luminur looked to the three guards that stood behind him. “Take the bodies to the outer wall guards and tell them to throw it out to the fields for beasts. Do not give these corpses the privilege to be burned.”

“Yes, Your Royal Highness,” they responded.

He swung his hand as blue Soulfire doused his body with ease, burning away the blood into crumpled ashes that dissipated into the air.

Luminur started his way back to his room. He dragged his feet with every step he took, and he wanted to close his eyes.

He looked another way, but when his eyes met those of King Ferdinand, he froze. The king possessed a complicated expression of disapproval and sorrow, both of which he could see. Luminur looked to the other side and headed to the right-wing of the palace..

Fulfilling his duties as Crown Prince and Tri-Seal Bearer tipped the scale till it almost fell to its side, against the scorn of the highest nobles in Crimson Union. He walked through the hallways with gloves soaked in a thick scarlet.

A heavy breath escaped his lips. From behind him, Elias had hurried over to him. There was nothing exchanged between the two of them, not after the Trial.

By the time they were in front of the golden twin doors, Luminur stopped for a moment. “Duke Elias, is this the will of Bane Aredese?”

Elias stopped for a moment, his folded hands unclasping. “I don’t know, Your Royal Highness.”

Luminur closed his eyes. He felt the pool of red liquid in his hands drowning his face when he stared at the pure white gloves. A sudden flash of orange hair and dead fish eyes caused him to flinch.

He shook his head. “Magie Societate…Zhongguog. What a hilarious situation. Even this Trial—death seems to be always around me, don’t you think?”

There was no response, much to Luminur’s sigh.

“I simply wanted to vent. With the number of lives that I’ve taken at this point, you would think that I would be calm and collected—perhaps I am. But whenever I think about it…” his hands slid under his hair. “Could I really change the future and…save them?”

“I don’t know, Your Highness.”

“I know."