The Prince of Blood (boyxboy)

9.Cruelty and Love

Ace quickly found that ruling a kingdom was no easy feat, even if he had the help of a formerly renown Shadow and two renown Bounty Hunters of the Nine Rings. In general, Parisora was thrown in the deep end of disasters as the crops died. Famine and locust swarmed the land like a plague, yet Claude had the heart to joke that toads and first born sons were next. Ace glared at him for that whilst Edith laughed, clearly there was a reference here that he was missing. Even from the safety of the palace, Ace could tell the misery in everyone's faces.

"Messing with the natural course of fate comes with cruel and hefty price," Claude said as he entered with a tray of freshly brewed tea.

Clay walked in next to him with a judging look on his face. "Opalian's not doing much better," the young boy's voice had a remarkably mature tone to it. "Though it's probably more of the fact that they blasted all their money on the military and drove the country into poverty and starvation."

Ace now frequently wondered if he was truly as young as he appeared. "Parisora is starving and my royal advisers want me to throw a party," he scoffed, scrunching up some "important royal documents" in his hands and tossing it across the room. His office, well technically his father's but King Raynior was more or less permanently out of commission, was now littered with paper that outlined bad ruling advice. Having four funerals to plan was also not a mood. He was never close enough to his "family" to actually grieve for too long. They allowed their greed for power take control over their choices. The only inconvenience was that none of them had any plans or ideas for their own funeral.

The royal family of Parisora is a complicated one. The Princess Royal Sealin was the second oldest of the four siblings, she and the former Crown Prince Diorlin were born to Raynior's first wife, who died of complications during a surgery for something that Ace could not recall, not that he was even born then. Though he did remember well that Sealin and Diorlin did not get along, at all, in fact they despised each other. It made perfect sense for Sealin to want a shot at the throne too and since she was the current Queen's favourite for being a "girl", she likely thought she stood a good chance to win.

Then, there was the complication of the Second Prince, Remlin, who was the son of Raynior's second wife. That one died in a car accident. Then came Ace, born to Raynior's third wife, who died in a terrorist attack when he was barely old enough to speak. A couple of years later, Raynior would marry the last Queen, the one who killed Sealin, though why, Ace suppose he would never know, he thought the Queen liked Sealin very much. He did suspect that perhaps the Queen wanted to become the ruling monarch instead of an adviser and a some what glorified trophy beside the King. Or she could be having an affair with one of Ace's older brothers, after all, the age gap is not that big.

"Claude, help," Ace moaned with a childish look on his face.

Claude chuckled and caressed his cheek. "I appreciate your confidence in me, but I really don't know any more than you do."

Ace glared at him, slapping away his hands with a sulking expression. "Locust swarms, surely you have a solution."

"Let it play out?" Claude suggested weakly. He was always bad at political problem solving.

The doors to Ace's office swung open once more as Edith bursts in laughing. "Prince was never a Strategist, for good reasons too."

"If you have advice, that would be welcome, sister," Clay said flatly as he stormed in behind her. He too, seemed to have developed a peculiar dislike towards his older half-sister who had tried to shoot him at their first meeting.

"Shut up kiddo, let the grown ups talk," Edith muttered. She turned her attention to Claude and pulled up a hologram screen that projected out of her watch. "I think you should see this, Prince."