Demon Heart | Prince of the Barren Sands Volume 1

Chapter 12 (Part 1 of 3)

On the railing of every level in the private arena within the prince's palace, observers from Ison's upper classes packed in. Shoulder to shoulder, they hung there overlooking the festivities they'd been promised were to come. Some were already cheering for the event set to unfold before them. Others simply murmured their enthusiasm. Still more were in awed silence.

Sweating in the growing heat of the day, beneath the sweltering suns, Kaden was in the same group as the latter. He stood at strict attention in front Prince Relastin, whose throne hauled from its customary place in his audience chamber to sit in the middle of the arena. And trying his hardest, Kaden attempted to appear the part of a seasoned warrior.

Seated on a more grandiose throne, brought all the way from the capitol city of Imeron on the backs of slaves, to the prince's left, sat High King Arban, Son of Xorvis. The prince's father.

The king was noticeably larger than the prince, both in height and mass of muscle. He was a mountain of a man and was stoic to the point of being stone. Had Kaden not witnessed him silently and purposefully parading in with a cadre of servants earlier, the Karo Shar might have thought the monarch now before him to be a statue of the man who ruled them all.

While the face of the High King was hidden partially behind a full but well-groomed beard, his steel chest plate was massive in its girth. His legs, like the trunks of trees, protruded out from under his golden spun urk, while his sandaled feet planted firmly to the ground.

Kaden couldn't tell by the prince's posture if he feared his father, respected him, despised him, or some combination of all three.

Lar, Son of Jardis, ready for battle stood to the Kaden's right, in front of the King who'd sent him. He wore his color garb, and every breath the man took spoke of how ready he was for what was to come. He stood erect, like a penis preparing to fuck a whore after returning from war.

Kaden looked up to the second balcony. There he saw the woman he was to marry. Assuming he survived this. She was surrounded by her own slaves. They formed a wall that buffered her from the crowd of Ison's citizens. Among those with her was Hernah. Her slave's face sported a dour glare.

"Is it true," the king leaned towards his son and spoke. Kaden easily heard the thunderous boom of his words above the din in the short distance that separated them. "That your Karo Shar was once nothing more than a mere alchemist?"

"The son of my Chief Alchemist, my King." Prince Relastin's answer was delivered with all the bravado he could force. But somehow he still paled in comparison to the king.

"The one you had executed for treason?"

"Yes."

"A bold move, my son. To make a traitor's son into your Karo Shar? To put someone so disreputable so close to you speaks of your confidence as a warrior and leader."

The fact the prince's left hand clenched, then relaxed was not lost on Kaden. "I trust this man with my life, my King."

"I must say, I didn't know what to expect. I figured he'd be a scrawny thing. That's why I sent Lar, rather than my own Karo Shar to challenge him. Not that this boy, who you call a man, seems to be anything special. I've seen many finer specimens."

There was an instinct inside Kaden to react to the insult. But he held it in check. Still, part of him wanted to rip the Rohs Fang from his back and challenge the king here and now. Kaden realized that such was the residual of Rage and the Courage from battles past still in trace amounts in his body making his mind act in such ways.

It made Kaden want to be careful about how much he would partake of the substances during his lifetime. He didn't want to lose himself to them. He'd already acknowledged to himself that his temper with Sahl was growing less kind. And Kaden didn't want to become that sort of person. Who knows, if he did, what he would do.