Inside the throne room of the capital city of the Azeria kingdom, Frostford, a young man was sitting on the throne. Clad in typical nobles clothes and with a red silk cape, Niel held in his right hand the crown of the former king, his dead father.
As he looked at the crown he couldn't help but smile. he then laughs madly.
"Hahaha, Now I am truly a king hahaha."
At that moment, the door to the throne room opened and a soldier entered. The man bowed down in front of Niel and soon he began to speak.
"My king, the preparations have been completed. All soldier are ready. All we await now is your command."
"Good. Since there are still no reports about Ilene's death, it is safe to assume that she has managed to reach my brother and uncle. How unfortunate."
Niel stood up and exited the throne room. On his way to the balcony, he walked down the hallway. Upon arrival there the sight was truly amazing to behold.In front of him, down below in the courtyard before the palace, was an army assembled. Twenty thousand soldiers, strong and willing to die for their king.
Niel was liked by the nobles because they could easily influence him, with just a little flattery he would do anything they wanted him to do. So why would they lend him their own soldiers? The answer was the same reason why Niel would betray his father and family, the potent brainwashing ability of the succubus that had always been right beside him for the last few months. For her, it was child's play to bring the nobles to offer their soldiers to further Niel's ambition to become king.
Most nobles had in fact even willingly, without the use of any magic agreed to participate in the killing of the former king. For them he was a nuisance, he favoured the peasants and common people over them, cutting down their rights, given to them by their birthright. And if that was not enough, he also kept them away from any big decisions regarding the future of the kingdom. To make it even worse, his other two children, including the crown prince Reyn, inherited that trait as well. Only Niel had a different mindset, one that favoured them, so they were more than happy to make him a king.
As he was standing on the balcony, still dazed at the sight in front of him, Niel was approached from behind by a certain woman in a black dress. She came closer to him with silent step and hugged him from behind. With her lips slowly reaching for his ear, she whispered:
"It's time, my darling Niel. It's time for you to truly become a king. You must not let anyone take the crown from you not anyone only you." Once again his eyes began glowing in a faint red.
"Yes, I shall be the one and only king. No one but me, all those who try to oppose me of becoming king shall die."
Niel inhaled and shouted to the soldiers:"Strong warriors and brave soldiers of the Azeria kingdom, there are still some rebels that oppose the rule of your new king crush them at once leave no one alive, destroy everything. They are based in the town of Veriates. Today we will march to crush those rebels. Let no traitor alive! For the glory of the Azeria kingdom!"
"Uohhhh!" Niel's speech was like a thunder in the ears of many warriors that assembled today they replied to by a shout filled with morale and eagerness for battle.
The woman behind Niel finally let go of him and returned to the palace's interior. She was on her way to the royal bedchambers, Niel would surely follow her in a few moments. On her way she muttered:"Now it won't be long before Azeria falls."
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Veriates was a town of medium size situated near the mountains, just like many other towns and cities of the kingdom. The town had grown from a simple village over the past few years. At first, it had been just a trading town but without big importance. However, its position in the kingdom was of strategic importance so it was decided that the town would be given to the knight order lead by the king's brother to serve as a base of operations.
The king's younger brother, Sir Alanus, was formerly known as Alanus Riverfrost. After joining and in the end becoming the leader of the order, he lost his status as a noble, just like everyone else that joined. After joining the order it would not matter if you had been a peasant or a king's relative, you were just a knight sworn to serve the king and die for him.
All of his wealth was donated to the order and used for the development and fortification of Veriates. This led to the building of a quite impressive stronghold. Veriates was now surrounded by a massive stone wall, almost six meters tall with large towers evenly spread across it. The entrance to the town was a single gate made out of a special type of wood and fortified with metal.
Connor and Ilene had finally reached Veriates' gate. Outside two watchmen were standing guard. Due to the falling snow seeing conditions were not that good but it was still easy to spot the dark armoured knight in the radiant white snow. Without hesitation, they drew their weapons and soon the voice of one of the guards pierced through the cold air.
"Who goes there? This a stronghold of the Azeria knights! Outsiders are not allowed in!"
Connor kept walking until he was right in front of to the guards, not caring about the warning they had given. Now that they could clearly see him and his 'package' he spoke:
"So what you are telling me is that you consider the princess of Azeria an outsider?"
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"Di...di you just say, princess?!" One of the guards, a young boy maybe 16 or 17 years old, spoke surprised.
"You idiot! It could be a lie. Go check." The other one said. He was in his late twenties and obviously more experienced than his comrade, sometimes it was a fake decoy from their enemy so they have to check if it's the real princess or not.
The younger soldier moved closer and looked at the girl who Connor was carrying. With just a look she had been identified. Due to her being a princess and the fact that she often visited her uncle many soldiers knew her or at least knew her appearance.
"Forgive my rudeness, your highness!" The soldier yelled unnecessary loud and bowed his head. The other one promptly did the same.
"Forgive our rudeness, your highness!"
Ilene just looked at them with a smile and said:"It's fine. You were just doing your job."
"Thank you very much, your highness!" The younger soldier yelled again, obviously, he was not used to be in the presence of nobles. Upon raising his head up again he noticed the makeshift bandage around Ilene's leg and the bloodstain on it.
"Your highness, you have been injured. We have to take care of the wound." As was just about to reach out to her, she remembered what almost had happened to her in the forest at the hands of these soldiers.
"Nooo!"
Her shriek startled the man and she buried her head in Connor's back. Her most recent experience involving men had traumatised her. She could not bear the thought of someone touching her, but strangely it was different with Connor. Maybe because he had stated that he was not human or just because he had saved her from that situation. "Please just take me to my brother. Please."
She whispered to Connor who remained still for the entire time, only silently watching. *sigh* "The Princess wants to see her brother. Show me the way."
"Ahh, yes. Right, this way. Follow me" The younger soldier had replied. "By the way, who are?" The other one asked before Connor passed by him.
Connor didn't reply, he wanted to interact with humans just as much as it was necessary.
They entered Veriates. The town was well built, the houses looked sturdy and the streets were cleaner than he expected. There were other people, besides those belonging to the military, living inside Veriates but most of them had at least one family member in the order and were thus granted the right to own a house inside Veriates.
Connor with Ilene on his back quietly followed the soldier to the castle. When they approached the gate, the leading soldier yelled to the guards above:"Open the gates! Her Highness, Princess Ilene has arrived!"
The gates slowly opened and the soldiers bowed towards Ilene and then turned around to get back to their post at the main gate.
Connor made his way inside to the snow covered courtyard. A small path to the castle's entrance had been cleared.
In the courtyard, knights in silver armour and with winged helmets were lined up on the left and the right along the path to the castle. News of the arrival of the princess spread fast.
He did notice the Knights were staring at him, but they were no threat to him so he didn't mind it and just walked past them. Just when he arrived at the door, it was opened by a youth with long red hair and quite a good looking face. Just behind him was another man with short black hair and a beard. Both of them were wearing armour in identical to the one the knights were wearing. Connor immediately knew that the red haired man was Ilene's brother. It happens not every day that you meet someone with natural red hair.
"Brother! Uncle!" Ilene quickly got off of Connor's back and slowly moved towards them.
"Ilene? What are you doing here and what is with that injury?" Her brother asked with a worried voice while he moved closer to inspect her wound.
When Ilene reached her brother she hugged him tightly, tears filled her eyes and she said:"Brother, father was killed!"
"Wh.....what did you say!?" Reyn was shocked, as was Alanus.
"Who!?" Reyn asked in anger.
"Hoho, so the king is dead. How interesting." This was an amusing information to Connor who had only listened up until now.
"It...it was" Ilene stopped for a moment. She didn't have the courage to tell them because even now, she could hardly believe that her second brother had murdered their father.
But Reyn didn't have the patience to wait. In his anger, he didn't realise that he grabbed Ilene's shoulders tightly."Tell me, Ilene, what happened?!"
Ilene started crying. Reyn let go of her, he realised he had been too harsh, something was clearly bothering her and preventing her from telling them. Suddenly he felt a hand on his shoulder, it was his uncle. He looked him in the eyes and Alanus only gave him a nod.
Alanus moved closer to Ilene and patted her on the head. "You did well coming this far, but I need you to tell me what happened, okay?"
Ilene looked at him and nodded "Two days ago, a rebellion occurred in Frostford. The enemy reached the palace and killed father. The one who did it was-" She stopped for a second and took a deep breath and continued shortly after.
"The one who killed father was our brother, Niel." When she finished Alanus and Reyn both wore a shocked expression on their face.
Reyn was the first to recover from the shock."It can't be. Why would Niel kill father? It doesn't make sense?" Reyn yelled, his emotions got the best of him.
"Ilene, is it possible that you have seen wrong?" Alanus questioned, hoping that his guess might be true.
"No, I am certain. I saw what happened. It was Niel."
-Silence
As they were all just standing there, a messenger on a horse arrived in the castle's courtyard, dismounted and hurriedly ran towards Alanus.
"Commander! Commander! Report!"
Alanus turned around "What is it?"
"I have a report, a......an army is headed towards us!" Alanus' expression went even darker. "What army? Demons I guess? How many are there and what kind?"
"No demons, sir. The army is made up of humans and they carry the banner of the second prince. We estimate there are around twenty thousand of them!", the man reported. The surrounding knights began to whisper. "Be quiet!", Alanus yelled.
"So everything you just told us is true, Ilene. Niel really did kill father and now he is coming for us. Damn it. I will make sure to personally kill him !" Reyn was furious.
"Calm down Reyn. Now is not the time to loose your head. First, take Ilene to rest, she has gone into too many things in the past couple of days."
Reyn Nods in agreement.
"Yes, of course, uncle. Come Ilene." Reyn reached out to take Ilene by the hand, but as soon as he touched her, she flinched and jumped backwards into Connor. That was when Reyn finally noticed Connor.
"What's wrong Ilene? And who is that knight in black armour?"
Ilene looked at Connor and before she could say anything, he had already stepped in front of Reyn. "I am the one who saved your sister from death."
"Is that so? I thank you for what you did. Give the man some money and get him out of my sight! Now come Ilene." Reyn extended his arm towards her.
Ilene was covered in cold sweat because of her brother's attitude towards that thing, Connor. She knew what he was capable of it. She looked like she wanted to say something but once again Connor was faster. She was picked up by him with one hand and placed over his shoulder like the first time.
"Money........hahaha. I do not need your money. I want something entirely different and if you can't give me what I want, I will simply kill everyone here and take it by force." Connor spoke in a cold and chilling voice. It made all the people that are presence shivered as he finishes talking.