Nero

Like most sane people, Nero hated funerals. For his brief twenty-year existence on Riverward, he attended two and now was about to begin his third. When he entered the temple the young prince marveled at the lush nature of the building. The masterfully painted benches, floors, ceilings, griffin sculptures that dotted the temple, and most importantly, a clean and sturdy surface to walk on. As Nero walked down the hallway, he could only think of what he would do after the funeral. How much more enjoyable going back to the palace would be.

He loathed the long robes that he was forced to wear. His cape contained feathers from all the griffins, his buttons were made of pure gold, and his hair was groomed to perfection. Sitting still in his chair, the servants prepared him and assured him that he looked great, but all that Nero could focus on was the dragonvine that ran from the top left to the bottom right of his face. It had the appearance of a plant in a jungle but the texture of scales on a dragon. His complexation besides that was decent to any common eye, but it was stained. Stained by the looks he got when he met new people when he would ask people how their day was, and the look from his father—King Maximus.

The crowd was full of earls, their children, and a couple of commoners, with the ones sat further up signifying their rank in society. Nero reached the front row and took a seat next to his two siblings. He turned to her bastard sister—Gala—and asked her if she knew when their father was coming. “I don’t know,” She responded. “Last time I saw him, I was outside his door while he was getting dressed.” Gala turned to Nero and looked him in the eye. The only person who would do so. “You know, I don’t know why we didn’t just hold this thing in the Capital. We have a bigger temple and a bigger city. But no, we have to drag our asses to Staff Harbor and do this thing here.”

The bells rang shortly after, and everyone stood up. Their father was here, and everyone looked as Maximus entered the temple with his robes wrapped around his body. The extravagant design on his robes of the griffins beating the hydras back into the sea. Maximus’s crown only had a gold frame, while the outside and top were padded with griffin feathers.

The crowd was silent as the bells rang, and the fine silks of the king’s robes filled the room with a smell that commoners would only dream of smelling. One of the priests announced the king’s arrival. “You are now in the presence of King Maximus Qar. Originator of the name, king of the Dymish and Borzor people, and servant to the reunification of the continent and Mydrazan.” Maximus made his way to the front of the temple, took a seat with the priests at the front table, and the crowd sat back down.

There was more waiting, and Nero sat there, tapping his leg waiting for the funeral to start. Nero stared at his father. Whatever was causing the delay, it must have been because of Maximus, and it must have been stupid. Nero’s brother—Romulus—leaned over and asked Nero if there was anything after the funeral that the family was mandated to attend. “I hope not,” Nero responded softly. Romulus gave a little laugh and looked for Gala for confirmation. She also said that she didn’t know.

Romulus looked back at the door. “God, I hope we get some good music or something. This thing is boring.”

“You know, if you were a little more patient, then it wouldn’t be so bad,” Gala snapped back. Romulus turned back to her. “Oh, and you are the shining example of patience?”

A thump came from the back of the temple. Everyone looked back, and Nero slowly stood, knowing what was coming. More thumps came, and they peeked and tried to look past each other to see what it was. When the people in the back of the temple saw what caused such a loud noise, they stood, then the king, and soon the rest of the temple. The thumps roared as they entered the temple. It was the last griffin—Lucius—with his dead brother on his back. Gala looked back at Nero in confusion. Nero had the same question that she did: Why was Lucius carrying Titus on his back?

Lucius made his way up the temple, with every step a struggle. He barely fit in the gap between the seats, and when his head got to the front, he gracefully let his brother off his back as Lucius backed out of the temple until his head was the only body part left inside the temple. His dead brother’s corpse lay on the floor as the smell of what smelled like a dead horse enveloped the room. Romulus backed up and scrunched his face, Nero did the same but looked to his father for a reaction, Maximus looked to the priests seemingly looking for an answer, and Gala didn’t budge. The crowd murmured and wondered what was happening.

Lucius’s face held firm as he gaged the crowd’s reaction. It seemed as if Lucius was trying to be strong, but behind his eyes lay a sense of hopelessness. Maximus took a deep breath and stood tall. “Lucius! We told you that Titus’s body would remain at the graveyard.” His authoritative voice echoed through the temple. Nero thought back to the time when his father’s voice wasn’t authoritative. When it was gentle and soft before he was king. “Explain yourself!” Maximus demanded.

Lucius looked up at the king and slowly backed away from the temple. He had something in his front claw and placed it in his teeth. It was a jar filled with green liquid. Lucius walked back into the temple and placed the jar on his brother. “That was in my brother!” His voice tried to match Maximus’s authoritativeness, but Lucius was old, and his voice was raspy. “I am sorry to bring you the terrible truth, but my brother didn’t die peacefully in his cave. He was assassinated by someone with access to greenwood poison.”

The crowd erupted into quick, snappy, and unintelligent conversations of people confirming that the person next to them heard the same thing. There were plenty of “Whats!” “Ohs!” and “No ways!” Maximus demanded silence, and the crowd complied as if their life depended on it. Maximus demanded that Lucius be sure of the accusation that he was making. Lucius stared at the king. “No other leader on the continent is here to pay their respects to Titus. All of them were in Godmouth for Vespa, but not now. Why?”

The entire crowd—including Nero—looked at the king for a response. Maximus stood there thinking of an answer. Nero thought to himself too as he stared at the king. There was no previous official answer from the crown—or that Nero was aware of—and Nero waited for his father to say something that would dominate their lives for at least the next couple of weeks. Maximus still stood there, thinking. The crowd went back into their conversation, but as the voices reached a point where one couldn’t think, Maximus put his hand up, and the crowd quieted back down.

“You are right Lucius. It is a shame that the leaders are not here especially since now a terrific crime has come to light.” Maximus gave a frown to the crowd, but his children saw his smile. If only their mother wasn’t overseeing the capital while they were gone. She might have seen her beloved husband’s true nature. “But that brings us closer to the truth. You lost a brother, and we lost a friend. Crimes shall not go unpunished, and the truth shall be exposed. No matter the cost, and if the other leaders on the continent do not explain their absence and innocence, this kingdom shall honorably extract the truth.”

The crowd remained silent for a moment before some of the earls spoke up. “Hail Mydrazan and the king!” they said. Their voice seemed patriotic and loyal, but Nero was convinced that they had no passion behind their words. More people joined in and soon the temple echoed with thunder as the room chanted the kingdom’s motto. Nero glanced at his sister in disappointment as it seemed nothing good would come out of this. Gala nodded, and they both looked at Romulus for his reaction. He smiled in silence like his father.

#

Later that day, Nero found Gala sitting on a bench by the docks looking out into the vast bay that was Walik’s Wake. Everyone passed by her without a second thought as they went about their day as the sun set. She stared into the bay, with the only obstruction being the royal navy that was now hastily being prepared by the sailors. Nero took a seat next to Gala and asked if she thought Maximus was really going to do it. “You know, even if he doesn’t, he is going to get damn close,” Gala responded.

“Have you had an opportunity to talk to him since the funeral?” Nero asked.

“No, he’s too busy escalating the situation,” Gala said. “If this somehow, or probably, ends up as a war, I just hope that it ends early.” She sighed and her eyes relaxed. It seemed that so much was going on that the only way to tackle it was to turn off her brain for a couple of moments to naturally filter out what was important.

“Do you think you’ll be able to talk him out of it?” asked Nero.

“Maybe, if I can get him alone and talk some sense into him like the other times then maybe, but those times he didn’t have a good excuse to go to war. You can only talk somehow out of their instinct so many times.”

“What are you going to do if it does happen?” Nero asked.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“Try my best to keep the country together. Hold speeches, rally troops, and gather public support—I wish I didn’t have to, but Dad is probably going to force me. What about you?”

“Same,” responded Nero. “Well not the same thing as in rally people, but what dad makes me do. Which is probably to sit in the palace, so I don’t get captured.”

A moment later, thumps came from the right of them. They both snapped their heads at the same time to see what it was. It was Lucius making his way down the street inspecting ships and asking sailors things that Nero and Gala couldn’t discern from a distance. Gala stood up and made her way to him. Nero hesitantly followed behind and asked what she was doing. “Going to ask why he’s an idiot. Fucking Lucius couldn’t have talked about the greenwood poison in private.”

Gala pushed through the small crowd that formed around Lucius and looked him in the eye, with Nero not far behind. “Lucius, you know what you just did?” Gala demanded. Lucius focused his shift from the ships and crowd to the twenty-two-year-old bastard princess.

“I did what I thought was right,” he softly responded. Nero watched Lucius’s facial expressions. He was still angry as his eyes dilated and pitch increased at Gala’s questioning, but his tone was as if he was responsible for Titus’s death or a disappointment to his family. If he had one.

“And you know what the truth is going to lead to? Right?”

“My brother deserves justice,” Lucius said as he avoided eye contact. “My brother served this kingdom, and I have served him by bringing the truth. I only hope that Maximus translates the truth in justice and punish the people responsible.”

Before Gala could respond, an explosion erupted behind them. The thunderous noise rang in Nero’s ear for a moment before he could figure out what it was. It came from one of the ships, and the crowd stood in silence as Lucius immediately backed up and took off to see what happened. A plume of smoke rose from the ship. It looked like a gunpowder explosion.

Nero and Gala stood with the crowd and watched Lucius fly through the air before landing on the dock and nearly making it collapse due to his sheer weight. Nero and Gala slowly walked to the ship as the risk of another explosion died down. Most people were, however, running at full speed around the dock to an area they believed to be safe. Lucius looked at the ship that was now in pieces and moved his head around until he found someone drowning in the water near him. He was barely able to reach him, but after some struggle, grabbed him with his mouth and placed him on the dock.

Gala and Nero kept approaching when Gala noticed two men running towards them, attempting to hide their knives. Gala shoved Nero behind him and drew her dagger hidden between her pants and shirt. They tried to shank Gala, but she pivoted to the left as the knife passed. It nearly hit Nero as the assaulter lunged forward along the knife’s path. Gala swiftly slit the man’s throat, and the man fell to the ground instantly. The other man then tried to grab hold of Nero. The young prince tried to budge, but the man grabbed hold of his wrist and held a knife to his throat.

Gala paused and watched the man. People whizzed by them, only caring about themselves. Gala stood there as Nero and the assaulter watched her seemingly go through all the possible options. “Let go of the knife!” The assaulter demanded. His voice was rough, direct, and patchy.

“Oh, and you will let my brother go?” Gala asked with a suspicious tone.

“Yes,” he responded.

Gala looked at Nero for some guidance. Nero didn’t believe that the man would give him up, and judging based on Gala’s reaction: she didn’t believe it either. People kept whizzing by. Their field of vision was momentarily blinded every couple of seconds by people running perpendicular to them. Nero didn’t understand why they were running. It was very likely that there were no more explosions. Gala slowly walked at a forty-five-degree angle. The assaulter did the same, so they circled around and maintained their distance. He kept demanding that Gala make up her mind, every time moving the knife closer to Nero’s throat. Gala stopped when most of the people on the dock were now running in her direction, while Nero and the assaulter showed their backs to most of the crowd.

The knife had reached Nero’s throat, and he was afraid to breathe or gulp in case the knife accidentally nicked a blood vessel. Gala waited as the man grew more impatient, but Gala sat there with the dagger in hand, waiting. Her face was perfectly calm as she stared at the man like she was the one in charge and that she was waiting for him to respond to a question she never asked.

The crowd started to slow down as the odds of another explosion further decreased, but before it came to the point where people stopped running, a man bumped into the back of Nero, with him and the assaulter launching forward. Gala leaped toward the assaulter and pinned him to the ground. Nero checked his throat to make sure he wasn’t bleeding out.

Gala disarmed the assaulter and stabbed into the man’s hand. He screamed out in pain and quickly lifted his hand from the dirty dock covered with mud below him. It seemed that Gala expected his hand to stay put as Gala momentarily let some pressure go. Nero watched as Gala punched the man in the face several times after he lifted his hand. Each punch was more devastating than the last until the man lay in the mud, unconscious.

Gala rushed to Nero and asked if he was okay. He nodded and collected his breath. “Please, I’m fine unless I get more mud on me,” Nero replied.

“Don’t worry, we’ll get you cleaned up once this man is arrested.”

Nero shot to his feet and attempted to remove the mud, but it had already stained his clothes. Gala went back to the assaulter to make sure that he was still unconscious, before checking the first assaulter and confirming that he was dead. Nero didn’t notice it before, but as he looked down on the two men who attacked them, he noticed that they were Borzor people. Their skin was nearly perfectly black, and their eyes were red. The only similarity that Nero—along with the rest of the Dymish people—was the light brown hair. Except that, everything was different. Language, skin tone, culture, and so many other things may have provided a background for this attack.

The crowd had calmed down enough for some people to realize royals had just been assaulted and rushed to help Gala and Nero reach a safe building. The man who bumped into Nero, freeing him, was also brought to the same location.

They were brought to a small outdoor restaurant and were offered all the amenities that were available. Tea, coffee, free food, and even complimentary cigarettes and alcohol. Gala accepted the tea, while Nero sat there and reflected on what happened. He hated how everyone kept bothering him to ask if he was okay. He would be fine if everyone stopped asking. Gala kept yelling at the crowd to make sure that the unconscious man who assaulted them was constrained, while Nero sat there until the city guard arrived.

#

Romulus came a couple of minutes after a couple of soldiers took the assaulter away. He talked to Gala for a little to presumably ask what happened, checked out the rest of the area, and walked to Nero, who sat at one of the restaurant tables. “You really couldn’t have fought them off yourself?” Romulus teased.

“Romulus, what do you want?” Nero asked, still recovering from what happened.

“You know who those people were?”

“Of course not.”

“How long do you think it will take me before I get an answer out of him?” Romulus laughed.

Nero looked up but didn’t respond as he sighed. “Do you even know if the man speaks Dymish?”

“God, I don’t know. Let’s just hope so because I don’t want to listen to that brutish language and talk through a translator.”

Nero looked Romulus up and down and looked at the clean metal that Romulus wore. “Why are you wearing your armor?

“I got to head up to a military camp. Father asked me to head back up and prepare for a potential war,” Romulus answered.

Nero shook his head. “Why?”

“Well, it could be a preemptive attack. Dicon could be trying to weaken us, but Father also thinks it could be the Expert’s Commonwealth. Why? I don’t know.”

"Because greenwood poison comes from greenwood trees. They only grow in the Expert’s Commonwealth.” Nero said.

Romulus seemed impressed by Nero’s knowledge of greenwood poison. “Thanks, I’ll bring that up later with the man who assaulted you. Maybe it will help us figure out who did it, and while I’m at it I’ll let him know that he almost killed a scholar.” Romulus gave a little smirk, while Nero gave an awkward one back as he didn’t know whether to either laugh, smile, or not react to the joke. “Before, I question the guy and make wild accusations,” Romulus continued. “Did you have any quarrels with people that I am not aware of?”

“Please, I would need to leave the palace more often to have quarrels with people,” Nero responded.

“Did you not say thank you to a maid or something and now they feel insulted?” Romulus suggested.

Nero brushed off the question and moved on. “Before the ship explosion, Gala was trying to start something with Lucius,” Nero said.

“Am I not surprised,” Romulus remarked. “Can I blame her? She’s used to being the only person to get into her father’s ear and just like that it’s over. A griffin is about to start a war if no one stops it.”

“You get a chance to talk to him?” Nero asked.

“No,” Romulus responded, disappointed. “Though, I did see him. Not a good look... If I’m honest with you, I don’t really want a war. We’re not ready, and the generals are so far up their asses, I would be surprised if they knew what biome they were in.”

“And what you're better than them?” Nero asked.

“Maybe,” responded Romulus. “We’ll see the next time I have a war game, but you won’t be able to see that. Father told me to inform you that you and Gala were going back to Gatherstorm in the morning. Let me get you an escort before you leave.”

Nero got up with Romulus, but as his guard gathered and Romulus left, he saw Lucius out of the corner of his eye about a block away. He wanted to go up to him and ask the same thing that Gala asked before the explosion but decided not to. He didn’t want to go up there with a poorly formatted question in public as everyone would watch him embarrass himself.

He nearly made an impulse decision to go talk to him, but the royal guard was already gathering to leave, and he didn’t want to explain to them why he was trying to get out of their escort for something unimportant.

As he made his way to his night quarters, he looked upon the homes of Staff Harbor. They were just like the capital: terrible. The homes were built on weak foundations, half of them were leaning, making the alleyways weave and bend. Nero thought he was about to get jumped every time they reached an intersection, there was nearly no lighting, and people threw their feces out the window which then turned into mud.

He checked his clothing again, hoping the mud was gone, but as expected, it was still there. When Nero got to his bed, all he could think about was what the country, the cities, the villages, and the roads would be like if he was given free rein to clean them up, but no, not a single person in the royal family or court trusted him with the money. Though, most of the time, he didn’t trust himself to fix anything.