The Prince of Blood (boyxboy)

8.Cost and Price

The next afternoon, Ace stood inside an air station, the familiar hologram screens projecting Howlite Castle, the base of the blue banner Opalian army, levitated all around him. On the ground and in the skies were the Parisoran army units, fighters, mechas, tanks and more. They were laying siege on Howlite Castle. Specifically speaking, they were waiting for an order to open fire.

Ace took a deep breath in and mentally prepared himself. "OPEN FIRE!" he ordered.

He knew well the consequences of his actions, but at the same time, he did not have much of choice. No one ever asked what he thought of the situation.

The units deployed all fired at the stone walled castle, Ace watched as the heat signatures inside the castles slowly decreased as people died, signalled by the blinking out of red specs to the bluish-green background. Opalian forces took to the battlefield for their last stand, but there was just too many enemies for them. This time, Opalian had their attentions split on two fronts. Whilst sudden as this attack had seemed, but Ace knew his father had been planning it since the end of the last war. Raynior was a petty king, he disliked being undermined, and for Opalian to invade, they had undermined him. As had his own sons when they spoke up repeatedly against him. Ace wondered what sort of clean up was taking place now in the Sparklieyr now that he was out of the way.

He felt a small hand reach into his, Ace looked down, it was Clay. Claude had insisted that he keep an eye on the young boy at all times. Ace would argue that war was not place for children, yet Claude seemed to think otherwise. As a result, Clay stood beside Ace, watching the destruction expressionlessly, as if he was used to it. Ace frowned, he thought he saw Clay's eyes flash blood red for a moment there.

*

Claude ruffed his newly appeared short curls just to mess them up further. He strode down some corridor in Howlite Castle with confidence, and in a deep green Opalian intelligence officer's uniform. Moments later, he stopped outside a cleaner's closet, the ones that are in little corners of the castle, usually under staircases where cleaners store their equipment. The secret unused places that everyone forgot existed. They were good places for entrances into the realm, or for portals, hidden out of sight, where no mortal would easily stumble across.

This particular closet is different from normal ones, it was an entrance into a maze that connected all the realms in the Nine Rings, which was the present system of realms. As Claude opened in and stepped in, his eyes adjusted naturally for the darkness. A man with long black hair and gauged out bleeding eyes stood there with a sleeping baby in his arms.

"Teacher," Claude smiled, "need help?" He was referring to the man's eyes, it was clearly a recent injury.

The man shook his head, his eyes rapidly healed itself, the clotted blood eventually disappeared into gold catlike eyes, which then faded to black human looking ones. He was wearing tattered black robes, not unlike the ones that Claude had worn when he first arrived face-planted in the snow, only with different embroidered symbols and runes.

The man looked down at the baby in his arms with a sad smile, "His Highness started an uprising," he began.

"Are you speaking to me as my Teacher, or as the Hands of Death?" Claude asked, stopping the man's story, his expression was dead serious.

"Neither," the man answered. "I'm speaking as Mystel, the man who raised you."

Claude cracked smile once more. "Right, but ah, Her Majesty killed him? Prince Hades is her eldest child and her heir!"

"He broke the rules," Mystel said. "If he succeeded, he would be the next ruling God of Death, Her Majesty was counting on that."

"He's also your apprentice, Mystel, he calls you Teacher the same way I do," Claude pointed out, "so why are you here instead of six feet under? By Her Majesty's orders, you would've sided with Hades."