Slowly, leon opens his eyes. He blinked slowly and realized he was staring at the ceiling, feeling around he could feel a bed under him.

“Where am I?” He croaked out from a dry throat.

“You’re in the infirmary sir, you fainted.” a soft voice said to his right.

Leon looked towards the voice. A thin fit body with orange and blue stripes wearing a solid white sleeveless dress that cut off at the knee.

“Who are you?”

“I’m the nurse on duty to watch you.”

“You seem young.” The also very young prince replied.

“I’m not much older than you are.” She chuckled. “I am in training though, and I assure you I can help with most any problem you may have.”

Leon hmm’d. Looking around he noticed they were alone.

“Where is Dyandale? I was on my way to the library when I saw him.”

“He was the one that brought you here sir. He said he had some other things to take care of and he would be back.”

Leon stared at her, then began to sit up.

“So what’s your name?”

The lady looked at him worriedly moving to stop him until she noticed that he was trying to get out of bed. She smiled at him and replied.

“My name is Kah-Ri.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you Kah-Ri, it’s a nice name.”

Leon began to move to get out of bed. Kah-Ri put her hand on his chest and with a small blush spoke.

“You should rest a little longer sir. You’ve been here for six hours.”

“What!” Leon panicked.

“When you fainted you hit your head. This could lead to problems if rushing away too fast after waking up.”

Leon eyed the lady and sat back.

“May I have some water then?”

The lady nodded and turned away while leon looked out across the room.

“I know i saw Dyandale. But… What happened after that?” he said to himself.

Leon looked over and saw a glass of water in front of him.

“Oh, you’re fast.” He said to the young lady occompaning him.

The lady gave a slight laugh and nodded to the table with a pitched of water on it behind her.

“Not that fast. You must have really hit hard when you fainted.”

After another hour or so of talking, Leon was aloud to leave. He couldn’t remember why he was going to the library so he went to get some food. As he thought through what happened today he felt his head to see if he could tell where he hit when he say Dyandale walking up.

“Hey! What happened earlier?” Leon said when he felt something pull on the fur on his head as he pulled his hand away.

“OUCH!” He gasped as he flinched away from himself and saw the ring on his hand. When Leon reached to pull it off Dyandale held out his hand.

“I wouldn’t do that sir.”

“Why not? I don’t even know where it came from. It’s not mine, I'm sure of that.” Leon said while rubbing his head with his other hand.

“Actually, it is yours. When you came looking for me you had said your head was hurting. Then you started unconsciously start casting spells. We believe the inherent power from your royal blood manifested and was too much for you to handle.

“I thought that wasn’t supposed to happen for another few years.” Leon questioned.

“Yes, well sometimes it happens early. The ring suppresses your power.”

“Won’t that affect my training and studies?”

“It should be fine sir. It’s there to help you not hurt yourself or others around you. It won’t hinder your studies at all.” Dyandale said with an air of practiced speech.

“Alright, well at least it looks cool.” Leon said looking at the ring.

A finely cut sapphire adorned the top of the golden band. Runes were etched into the ring, tracing around it. As leon lowered his hand back to his side Dyandale spoke up.

“Have you studied up on the cultures of the people coming to the ball?”

“My plan is to just not talk to anyone honestly. I’ll probably slip up and start some kind of war without knowing it.” Leon chuckled.

“You will have to talk to people Prince Leon.”

Dyandale put extra emphasis on the words Prince Leon.

“We should head to the library to go over the basics again.”

“I’d rather study psychology or misdirection, for Moddy’s sake i’d rather learn more Abyssal.” he complained, and that language was dreadful to learn, too many consonants and not enough vowels he thought.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

* * *

Over the following days he studied what was appropriate in the races cultures. It was engraved into the heads of the boys. Leon did very little in the way of physical training and continued to terrorize the guards.

The day before the ball Leon snuck out once again. No one was in the garden this time though. When he made it out into the market he was pleasantly surprised that accommodating the normal hustle of the area there was music. Up and down the road he spotted various people playing instruments and others passing them coins or dancing. There were even some singing and clapping along with the music. When he made his way to Ale-rons store he stopped and listened to the musician that was playing about twenty feet away. He gave a big toothy smile at the sight and headed inside.

“Ale-ron, you sleeping on the job again?”

A small laugh could be heard from the back. Then a soft, smooth voice rose. It was evident from the authority and care in the voice they had some power.

“We are back here love. Why don’t you come see your suit.”

As soon as he heard the voice panic rose in his gut. He thought maybe I should leave and pretend I was never here. How did she know it was me? Finally he settled on acceptance.

“Coming mother. How did you know I would be here?”

Queen Keerah peaked her head around the frame of the door in the back of the building and replied.

“My sweet child.” Her smile could be heard in her voice. “I am the queen of a kingdom. There isn’t much I don’t know about the goings on about here. Plus, you’re my child. Why wouldn’t I come see what you had picked out yourself?”

Leon scoffed.

“You ratted on me didn’t you Ale-ron.?”

A smooth laugh was heard and through the chuckling Ale-ron replied.

“Actually, she came in right after you left to see why you had come.”

“They grow up so fast don’t they?” Keerah questioned, feigning worry throwing the back of her hand to her head and closing her eyes. Ale-ron began to laugh harder.

Leon made it to the room they were in and stared at the two then gave his mother a questioning look.

“You aren’t mad?”

“Mad? Oh dear, why would I be mad?” Queen Keerah replied while ushering her son through the door.

“Wearing this you’ll be as much the center of attention as I. I’m not mad at all, this is wonderful.”

With a smile he turned to look at his custom tailor suit. The exact suit he has imagined was there hanging on a mannequin. The jacket ran down to the mid thigh with seven radiant cut garnet buttons off set two and a half inches from the center of the chest. There was an excess amount of material that folded back over on itself at the collar. The sleeves came to a point on the back of the hand. The pants were fitted as any other suit pants would be. This is when Leon noticed it, as he looked back and forth over it the suit shifted and changed. It shifted from black to a glistening dark cobalt with purple stitching. Keerah laughed as he swayed back and forth.

“It’s wonderful isn’t it?”

“It’s exactly what I envisioned.” Leon said baffled then looking to Ale-ron.

“I had to have it enchanted to make the stitching change, but i believe it was worth it.” Ale-ron stated proudly.

Keerah clapped slightly with a big smile on her face and said.

“I loved it so much when I saw it I had to see both of my sons in it. I had Ale-ron make one for Lushen as well. His is red though.” She said off-handedly.

Leon looked slightly to the right and saw a perfect replica of his suit, albeit fitted to a larger frame and shifting to a dark crimson red. He lowered his head.

“Yeah, it should be nice.” Leon said.

As Leon stood in his room he wondered how many people would actually show up to the ball. The Winter Ball was more of a day of cease fire and social event than a ball. Kings, Queens and even army generals came from around the country for one night. They would all talk and some would dance, enemies would even act like they weren’t at war. The reason everyone came to Lestillim was because no one knew the castle actually was. To get here everyone would meet a group of patheran mages on the far side of the Briar woods. The mages were escorted by over forty well armed soldiers, the King, Queen, and Guardian. The three royals were there to greet the balls attendees. The guest were teleported straight to the castle via a set of circles that were constructed just for the occasion. For the circles to work at least one of the three mentioned royals had to accompany them. If they weren’t in the circle when it activated all passengers would immediately be teleported to a random spot in the middle of the continent.

This being said, the guest never came alone. The guards that would accompany them on their journey had to be left behind. When the civilians found out there was an untapped market nearby every year a plea was issued to the King. The merchants asked him to be able to sell their goods to them. Now every year for the day before, during, and after the ball there was small tent city set up outside the woods. The merchants would get teleported safely to the area for a small fine, a tax was put on everything that the merchants sold too. This wasn’t an issue because the merchants would sell their goods and skills at an extreme mark-up seeing as they couldn’t be bought anywhere else. Pantheran items were looked upon as extremely valuable items since they couldn’t be found or replicated anywhere else.

Leon made his way to the ballroom. The “party” had been going for about an hour so it was time to make is entrance. As he got to the doors that lead into the ballroom he met his mother and brother.

“Don’t you look stunning!”

His mother cried out in joy wrapping him in a big hug. Lushen scoffed and crossed his arms over his chest.

“My boys look perfect in there suits.” she said with a tear in her eye.

Lushen looked at Leon and asked.

“When did you have time to come up with this?”

“It just popped into my head one day. Figured I'd be the only one wearing it though, until mom found out.”

Lushen gave him a small smile.

“It’s not bad. I like it more than a normal suit for sure. We will definitely stick out.” He said while looking at his suit again.

Queen Keerah took a step back and raised her arms up turn slightly from side to side.

“How do I look?” she asked.

A blue and red marbled dress adorned her. Small sapphire and garnet gems could spotted all across the dress with a small train following behind her. Both of the boys said practically the same thing, telling her she looked beautiful. She smiled and had both of the boys take an arm and said.

“Well, let's go boys. It’s time to make our entrance.”

The door in front of them opened from the otherside. A man whose voice was louder than everyone else's began to announce their appearance to the crowd. Everyone went quiet. As soon as they stepped through Leon could feel something was wrong and the ring on his finger began to glow warm.

“Now entering Queen Keerah Lucious, escorted by her two sons…”

As the man spoke Leon huredly glanced around the room. To their sides and lined all the way down the stairs was a guard dressed in shining well kept armour.

“Prince Lushen” the man continued speaking.

His heart pounded loudly in his ears, while his ring went from warm to hot. At the bottom of the stairs stood Deyton and Duran watching them come down.

“Lucious and Prince…” The man’s voice echoed through his mind.

His heart pounded loudly once again. When he looked over the crowd, one woman began to rise above everyone else while moving her hands as faster than Leon thought was possible. in the time it took Leon to wonder how she was doing this she was already three feet over the crowd with one arm stretched out.

“Leon Lucious.” The man finally finished his announcement.

“No…” Was the only thing Leon could whisper out before three rays of fire lanced towards them. It looked as if each of them had a ray aimed towards them. He barely had time to notice what looked like a black lighting bolt following the one aimed for his mother. At that moment everything went black, and a sheet of warmth covered his entire body.