The Prince of Blood (boyxboy)

5. Attack and Defend

The entirety of Glisten Fort roared in celebration, with Ace at its centre basking in glory. The soldiers around him cheered and raised their cups. In the corner of the hall, Claude merely wore a smile of amusement as he unhealthily downed an entire bottle of white wine. In contrast to the spotlight that Ace was under, he preferred the shadowy darkness that always accompanied the presence of light.

A few hours later, when Ace was truly drunk, Claude watched with a content grin as the equally drunk Nyal struggled to get the hyperactive drunk young prince out of the room. Claude walked over and swooped up the blonde haired young man in his arms. "I'll take him back to his room," he smiled reassuringly.

Nyal frowned as if trying to remember that he had a particular distrust of Claude. Then, a wave of headaches and dizziness hit him as the aftereffects of drinking worsened. With his thought process disrupted, Nyal forgot all about Claude.

When Claude got Ace back to the prince's living quarters, he threw the young prince ungraciously on the bed. "You can stop acting now, your clothes drank more alcohol than you did," he was laughing.

Ace sat up and rolled his beautiful sapphire eyes. "Yet here I thought I deceived even you!" He threw a pillow playfully at Claude who caught it and threw it back at him. "How dare you carry me like that!" he glared at Claude.

"Like what? A fairy tale princess? I thought it suited you best," Claude chuckled, "the fragile prince, Acelin Yonsor, has a ring to it."

Ace's face fell. "It does not!" He grabbed the pillow that was thrown back at him and started hitting Claude with it.

"Doesn't it?" Claude teased. "You are pretty."

"I would call it handsome," Ace argued, "and you're the pretty one."

Claude merely laughed as he tanked Ace's attacks.

Unfortunately, laughter does not ever ring out for long amidst a war. One night of celebrations later, it was back on the grind. First on the agenda was a congratulatory speech from the King himself, which Ace nearly fell asleep in. That was followed swiftly by an update on the wounded who were moved down to the crypts against the better judgement of the army doctors. Then, it was a fire power count along with a resource count. Long story short, Ace felt he was been split in a hundred portions every day as he dealt with the more administrative aspects of the job that required him to oversee every little detail of the day to day business within the fort.

The genius deception which Claude had called "empty city plan" paid off but also infuriated Opalian whose military commander doubled down on attacks to nearby towns, guard posts and watch posts, causing a surge of refugees entering Glisten Fort and swift depletion of defence forces. Glisten Fort was beginning to spread its defences too thin amidst the chaos.

Claude leaned his weight against Ace's desk swirling a bottle of red wine. "Do you plan on defending until the war ends?"

Ace looked up from the paper work he was signing off on and rubbed his eyes tiredly. "Father told me to drive them back to their territory, I did that in the first month. Only problem now is that the war did not end, it reached a volley like stalemate. Then father had the bright idea that we needed to attack and then well, your genius ideas happened."

Claude looked pleasantly surprised at the compliment. "Not my ideas, but they are genius, so what's next plan of attack?"

"None, nada, zero, zilch!" Ace snatched the bottle of red wine and placed it on the opposite end of his desk, the furtherest he could reach without having to stand up that was also out of Claude's reach. "You need to stop drinking!"