The princess sighed. To think Azura would refuse even that. Couldnât he see that the kingdom would be in better hands with her. Her father was competent, but that was where it ended, the man didnât truly excel at anything, and he was too weak minded to do some of the things that needed to be done. She would be the superior ruler, and even Azura knew that. Even if he didnât like her. Although she couldnât say she really understood his distaste for her either. She was just trying to help him get stronger. It was obvious to her heâd be a major player in the near future. Unfortunately if she couldnât ascend to queen she wouldnât be in the right position to make use of him.
Worse yet, she didnât have anyone else who could kill the king without it being traced back to her. If she was being truly honest, part of her was relieved. She loved her father, even if she couldnât express it the way most children could, but the thing was she loved the kingdom more, and she knew if it was going to be strong enough to stand against the brewing storm she needed to be at the helm. Her father would too often ignore her counsel if it was even a bit unsavory. At least her father didnât doubt her when she told him about the signs of conflict that were starting to appear.
Even she hadnât been able to figure out just what was going on, but she had discovered that some people were working towards dangerous ends, and they were doing a very good job of staying hidden. She was pulled from her thoughts by a sudden chill. It wasnât cold, but it made her shiver all the same. It was a feeling of abject terror, and one well beyond anything she had felt before. âSo this is your choice then?â It took everything she had to stay calm. As blood pooled into her room from under her door. âAs menacing as this is, I donât believe youâve killed my guards.
âSo long as they donât choke on their blood.â She turned slowly, her attacker seemed surprisingly lax. She hadnât expected him to let her see his face. Even if he knew she would know either way. He was holding the dagger she had given him, and the jewel glowed a brilliant red. To her surprise the jewel wasnât the only thing glowing. Eyes of deep crimson fire stared back at her. Energy practically radiating out of them.
âWhat have you done to yourself?â She was struggling to maintain her composure. It was her understanding that the nature of the dagger was that almost any wound inflicted became a fatal wound, as the dagger would drain the life force of the victim away. Supposedly it could also break through magic defenses under the right circumstances, but she had never figured out that bit.
To her surprise he laughed. Not the light chuckle he might normally allow, but genuine laughter. âMore than I expected, but less than I feared.â The laughter stopped as suddenly as it started, and he was dead serious once again. His glowing red eyes made him a lot more intimidating than he had been before, and the menacing aura enveloping him was not helping. âYou wanted to see my fangs princess, well here they are. Are they everything you hoped they would be?â He spun the dagger in his hand. Catching it so it was in a reverse grip.
âYou wonât kill me. Not unless you unleash the seal again.â Whatever he had done to himself with the dagger shouldnât have changed his core personality. Or at least not so drastically heâd be willing to kill a child. She may be smarter than most of the adults in the kingdom combined, but she was only 12. âWhy even injure my guards? It couldnât be to get in or to stop me from calling for help. You didnât come in through the door, and Iâm confident youâve set up some kind of field to prevent noise escaping this room.â Azura was not the kind of person to do things halves.
âI didnât come here to talk, Alice. I came here to make sure you understood something. You can threaten me all you want, I don't care in the slightest, but if you ever threaten my friends again this will look pleasant.â Her blood ran cold, and she didnât even have the time to finish processing when an agonizing pain came to life on her left leg. She screamed and reached down to cradle the leg. Despite the unbearable pain she couldnât find an injury. âIâll leave it at that this time, if there is a next time, youâll wish I killed you here.â
She could barely register the words through the pain. She hadnât seen him move, either when he attacked her or when he left. She knew that was important, but couldnât nail down why as the wound that didnât exist felt like it was viciously tearing her leg in 2, yet no blood appeared. Without being able to call for help or walk all she could do was sit and cry out in agony.
***
Azuraâs copy wasnât particularly pleased with his recent decisions, but he reluctantly stood by them. Hopefully the princess would take the lesson to heart. She could mess with him all she wanted, but if she threatened his sister or his friends again he wouldnât leave it with just some temporary pain next time. He hoped more than anything that there wouldnât be a next time.
âWhat are you brooding about now?â Unsurprisingly Lily was the one to call him out on his current behavior. They stood at a nice airfield, waiting for their ride back to the academy. It was running late, but Thankfully they hadnât asked him where he disappeared to, the first or the second time despite the extra time they currently had. His friends probably knew they didnât want to know especially given his new eye color, and hadnât that been an interesting conversation.
*** (Before visiting the princess)
Azura Slowly recovered from the curse he had willingly bonded himself with. To say he felt different was an understatement. He wasnât any stronger, not really, but he did think he had a few new tricks up his sleeve with the dagger that would hopefully make up for the abilities he currently lacked. If nothing else, he was confident that his new connection to this dagger would help him be intimidating enough to get the princess to back off.
That would have to come later though, his friends would probably have noticed his absence by now. He took a deep breath and centered himself. He took off his scarf and wrapped it around the blade before attaching the bundle to his waist with a quick enchantment. He also made sure to enchant the scarf to hide the cursed nature of the blade it housed. He walked back towards the shop only to sense his friends approaching from that direction. No doubt Luna had found him with clairvoyance once they realized he was missing. It didnât take long for them to run into each other, but their reaction caught him off guard.
âWhat the hell happened to your eyes?!â Lily was the first to recover from the shocked state that seeing him had put his friends in, and the others quickly followed her lead. Shock faded and curiosity took its place remarkably quickly.
âWhat do you mean?â Did the curse leave marks on his eyes? He hadnât expected there to be any obvious signs, there usually werenât. He knew 2 people that had been cursed, and While Lunaâs was obvious that was less because she was cursed and more because the curse was negatively affecting her body.
âWhat do you mean? Theyâre bright red, Iâm pretty sure they arenât normally that color.â He winced. Of all the colors they had to turn red? He wasnât particularly happy that his eye color changed, but he was even less happy that they turned red. Just 1 more thing he had in common with his father. That realization alone was almost enough to make him reconsider his choice⦠almost.
âOh. Weird.â Less than a 2nd later his eyes were blue again. Not really of course, but the spell should at least make them appear that way. âHow about now? Are they normal now?â If the curse specifically turned his eyes red and it didnât just happen to be a side effect then this wouldnât work, but he figured that was pretty unlikely.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
âYou canât just hide it with a spell and pretend it didnât happen?â Katy jumped in glaring at him. He sighed he hadnât really expected them to just let it go, but heâd hoped they might. He figured telling them about the curse and his plan for showing the princess what happens when she pushes too far wouldnât be a good idea, so he figured a lie was in order.
âItâs a side effect of unsealing myself. I told you before this is the other copy's soul echo, but the body is still the same, so I suppose itâs only natural to assume the side effects would be on me rather than the other one.â Most of that was true, or at least in theory. Except of course that the unsealing has no such side effects. Or at least not any that he had ever noticed.
âThen why are they only turning red now?!â He almost laughed. Leave it to Roran to make his lie a ton more difficult without even doubting it for a second. As far as he could tell Roran was just genuinely curious about the cause and how the unsealing truly worked.
âI honestly donât know. Thatâs why I said it was weird. At first I assumed it was because me and the other swapped bodies right after, but as I said it made sense that the effects would be attached to the body, more than the soul.â Although there was a theory that eyes were a window into the soul, and it even had some pretty solid evidence so his eyes changing colors might be a fair bit more concerning than he had thought it would be.
âCan you make them change at will? I think the red makes you look pretty badass.â He rolled his eyes. Why wasnât he surprised that Lily would say something like that? He supposed there was a reason she was so abrasive given her history, but it was still a bit aggravating at times.
âI think I prefer the blue, the red makes him look really menacing.â He winced, he had to agree with that. He had after all been on the other end of piercing red eyes enough to know how disconcerting they were. Know matter how often he got stared down by them, that feeling of being ill at ease never really went away.
âI donât think the red suits me very well, but Iâll probably consider letting them change if Iâm ever trying to be intimidating.â As much as he didnât like the similarity with his father, he wasnât naive enough to waste a tool he had been given. After all that was what changed his eyes in the first place, and it was about time he put his new tools to work for him. âOh! My apologies, it has come to my attention that I forgot something at the castle, Iâll have to go back for it now or I wonât have time to get it and still make it to the airship in time.â He turned to leave.
âWe can come with you, we were about done shopping anyway.â He sighed. The worst part was that it wasnât even her doubting him. Luna was just genuinely trying to be nice. Unfortunately he didnât have enough time to try and ditch them at the castle, he needed them not there.
âCan you guys make sure to get to the airship on time instead? I want you guys to make sure it doesnât leave without me if you can.â He smiled apologetically, and thankfully it seemed like they all bought his excuse because they nodded along. Well except for Katy who had narrowed her eyes at him. She really was getting uncomfortably good at seeing through his deceit. He wondered if it was due to all of her practice with illusions. Either way she didnât stop him as he ran off.
He dropped the illusion on his eyes. Menacing was exactly what he needed for this next part. Good thing the princess had never figured out how he had gotten away with pranking her last time. Katy may be better at finding secret passages than he was, but he was still the one who taught her the art in the first place. His smile filled with malice.
***
âNothing in particular, just wondering how late our transport is going to be. I Got here 15 minutes ago, and I was late.â It wasnât untrue, he really did want to know mostly because he wanted to be out of here as quickly as possible. Especially because he wanted a 2nd opinion on how much the curse was affecting him. It wasnât as drastic a shift as when he unsealed himself, but he still got the feeling he wasnât quite himself either. Or at least not his usual self.
âIt is weird how late it is, do you think they ran into trouble?â Lily accepted his excuse without any fanfare. Unsurprising, it was hardly out of character for him to be annoyed at being made to wait. Especially when everyone knew how much he didnât like the princess. It was a shame he hadnât had many chances to talk to Xander, but they had a few chances to catch up at least.
âHard to say, there arenât exactly a lot of things that can force an airship like that to slow down, much less stop.â Then again not many wasnât the same as none. There were definitely monsters capable of taking down the airship, and that wasnât even considering the possibility of people being involved.
âHello students, I apologize for the delay, but it would seem that weâve run into some trouble. Nothing we canât handle mind you, but enough to slow us down. We estimate we should arrive within an hour, so please remain patient.â He sighed. There was his luck rearing its ugly head again. The princess would definitely recover her wits by then, so heâd just have to hope she didnât find out the ship was delayed.
He was confident she wouldnât threaten his sister again, but he had left himself open there, and the princess definitely wasnât the type to let something go without getting revenge. Especially not given the fact that he had probably caused her the most pain she had ever had in her life. He really wasnât happy about that. It had to be done, but that didnât get rid of the bad taste it left.
âWell that blows. What are we supposed to do for an hour? Thatâs like the worst frame of time. Too long for quick pointless fun, but too short to do anything meaningful.â He laughed, Lily had a point, but they all knew that it only applied in the city. Mostly since using magic to make yourself faster was pretty heavily frowned upon in the cities, and increasing your perception speed but not your body might as well be torture.
âIâd suggest we simply wait patiently, but I get the feeling you wouldnât like that response very much.â The glare she gave him in return confirmed his suspicions. He held his hands up in surrender. Honestly he wasnât sure what she wanted him to say though. She was pretty on point about that frame of time.
âWe could play cyvran.â He smiled. He was pretty adept at that game. Katy had never once beaten him at it. Given his terrible luck it was just about the only card game he ever won. He noticed Katy frown, but she didnât shoot it down. She didnât dislike the game itself, just playing against him. Which he supposed was fair. He wouldnât enjoy losing all the time either.
âIâve never played a game with this many people before, it should be interesting though.â Honestly this particular game had a habit of getting a bit chaotic, but he figured a little noise shouldnât get them in trouble⦠probably.
âIâd love to play, but I donât think Iâve ever actually heard of Cyvran.â He frowned, and considered that perhaps a different game would be better, since explaining the rules of this game would probably take the whole hour anyway.â
âItâs a ton of fun!â Roran stepped in before he had a chance to say anything though. âSo basically you make a deck based on certain rules, which I can explain later. There arenât actually any cards involved, so when I say you make a deck I mean literally! Anyway there are certain rules each card you make has to follow, and certain effects that can be given. Each card represents a spell that you are capable of casting, and you only get to set 50 cards for the deck!â
âOk so to prevent this from going on forever, you can basically think of the game as a simulated mages duel. It was created as a way for mages to fight without actually injuring themselves. Itâs a lot simpler than it sounds, so it would probably be best if we just play a shortened round to give you an idea how the game works.â He hadnât actually thought to challenge Roran to this kind of game before, but he had been wanting to see if heâd be able to beat the cursed man anyway.
âOh yeah! That makes sense to me!. So Iâll be your opponent and we cans set our durability to about 1/10th to speed the fight along!â He winced, weakening defense like that worked more in Roranâs favor than his, but heâd have to make do. Most of the party looked rather excited about watching, but Luna just looked curious.
âAlright Iâll watch carefully so I can try and join in on the next game then.â She stared intensely at them. Roranâs summation of the game probably made her a lot more tense about it, but it was actually a lot more simple than the rules would imply. He just hoped that the princess wouldnât go out looking for him until he was long gone.