Prince David slicked back his hair. It was a shade of faded gold, his natural shade. His eyes were a deep blue, also his natural shade. There was something so freeing about putting the disguises down. Never again would he have to get Rose to change the color of his hair or eyes for the sake of this charade. He was going to be Prince David for the first time in what felt like an eternity.

  Sam walked next to him and patted him on the shoulder. They had been a close friend and confidante for many years, and they understood the power of this moment for the prince.

  David didn’t put on his nicest clothes, but he put on a suit that was made for movement. The sort of thing that got looks at a dinner party but would not get in the way if he needed to kick someone in the face.

  It was a jet-black suit to match the jet-black mood that filled the city.

  David was almost ready; he was merely trimming his fingernails, when the first of the hounds appeared out of the ground.

  The first hound he saw was a lovely shade of pink. The hound seemed a bit ethereal, but its teeth seemed very sharp and headed directly for the prince’s face. The body was heavily muscled, but the dog itself was only the size of a chihuahua.

  The prince immediately batted the hound away from him. His fist made direct contact with the animal, but instead of slamming into the floor it just slid right through. The hound was gone as fast as it had arrived.

  Sam looked at the where the dog had just appeared and where it had just disappeared, then said “we should not be in the castle anymore.”

  The prince agreed with that statement and the two of them gathered Ian up from his personal brooding before exiting the prince’s personal castle from one of the less obvious exits.

  Thankfully, no more hounds came bursting out of the walls as the prince exited his abode.

  The prince watched as Clyde destroyed Dahlia’s army. He had known that the man would be a good investment, and he was proud of him for finding his strength. A strength that no one, not even Clyde himself, had known he had.

  It was a beautiful day for the destruction. The air was crisp, and the scent of flowers carried. The prince felt himself relax for a moment too long.

  The pink hound came roaring up out of the ground between the prince’s legs. It was snarling, snapping, and slobbering as it clawed at his pants. The prince reflexively dashed away, and Ian brought his sword down upon the creature. His sword cut clean through it, but the hound was unbothered by the strike continuing its yipping and attacking.

  Ian focused a little more; his eyes clouded for a moment as he brought his blade down a second time on the beast. This time the beast fell in two and stayed that way.

  “Thank you.” The prince barely had time to utter before three more of the beasts came erupting out of the ground again. These beasts were an unhealthy shade of red, the red of someone who had become far too angry far too quickly.

  These beasts didn’t let out yips, instead they let out howls. Their sizes varied, the smallest of the three was barely the size of a house cat, but the largest was big enough that if had stood on its hind legs it would have stood far above the tallest man that the prince had ever seen in his life.

  These three dogs roared as they charged at the prince. Sam got in the way this time, bringing their flute down upon the heads of the beasts one by one. After each blow the beast suddenly keeled over and died. The prince felt it was a tash disconcerting to watch.

  “It seems that Dahlia has made her big move.” Sam spoke to no one in particular, but Ian grunted in reply. The prince also agreed but he kept his thoughts to himself as he thought of his younger sister.

  Oh, what lengths she had gone to take a throne that she would hate. What lengths she has gone to kill her only sibling because he stood in her way. When did it come to this between them? Why couldn’t they hate their father for this? Why did Renoir’s gift cause them to only find love for him when they should be spitting at his feet?

  David had no answers, but he felt that soon he would.

  Both sides of David were covered by his two most loyal and trusted advisors. A blade and a flute fluttered on either side of him, both taking the lives of as many hounds as they could.

  David could only be impressed with the skill and power the two of them held. He had never been able to do that.

  The hounds of pink predominantly covered Sam’s side while the hounds of red covered Ian’s side. There were beasts as large as houses that erupted from the ground, but nothing could truly stop the unyielding blade or flute.

  It was a scene that belonged in a painting as David watched himself be protected.

  David had always felt useless when gifts entered the battlefield. He was never strong enough to hold his own truly. He leaned on the power of his advisors and underlings, using his charisma to lead them, but there was something raw about the power displayed easily by those who followed him that he would never experience.

  But maybe he could.

  David reached inside himself and touched his soul space. Inside was the great mouth he had made from the bones of a dead god. There was divinity in that, there was power in that.

  David touched the monument and felt hunger consume his world.

  He felt himself become the forest fire that burnt the forest to a crisp. He felt himself become the wolf who gorged itself on more meat than it could handle. He felt himself become the ocean and how it ached for all to come into its embrace.

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  David didn’t smile. This was not a light power to be used for fun and pleasure; this was something bought with the lives of people. But still a part of him was giddy on the sensation of true power.

  David’s shadow stretched along the ground. Behind him, his shadow head started elongating, the head grew wider and wider in the process of becoming large enough to accommodate the massive mouth now there.

  The mouth smiled at no one in particular, then detached itself from the prince’s shadow. An amorphous blob rose from the ground in the shape of a mouth the size of a man. It smiled and licked its lips as it stared out on the battlefield.

  The hunger within David had lessened as the mouth had come into existence, but there was still enough in him to make his stomach burble and make the scent of blood in the air smell appetizing.

  In a similar fashion David formed two more of these mouths and made them all stand around him in a circle. They were that hunger personified, and they did not want to be sitting still. They wanted to consume everything. The air, the sky, the hounds, the dead, everything was fair game to these avaricious things.

  David touched the monstrous art contained within his soul and told those mouths, “feed.”

  Like gluttons at a feast, they threw themselves at the ethereal hounds of red and pink. There was something primal and feral to the way that their teeth tore into the incorporeal flesh of these hounds. The pinks hounds cried out in terror, while the red hounds screamed in outrage. Yet they were an unstoppable tide rushing in towards David and his few protectors.

  But the more that David’s three mouths consumed, the hungrier David felt. It tore his stomach inside out. He started tearing at himself trying to find a way to vent all this hunger in his soul.

  He reached deep inside his own mouth and drew out another incorporeal mouth. Then another and another, until a cascade of these endlessly hungry mouths tore into the hounds.

  David didn’t have a few protectors, he had himself. He had brought this power to heel and was directing these little pieces of hunger to consume his enemies.

  David wretched onto the ground and more of these hungry things escaped him. The hounds were endless, but David’s hunger could not be quenched and so the mouths had their fill of the flesh of these beasts.

  Ian deemed that his defense and Sam’s were no longer necessary, and David was inclined to believe them. His army was just as endless as the hounds and just as magical.

  The three people turned to face Clyde’s battle with Dahlia’s army only to watch a massive dragon come crashing towards the ground while Clyde flew up into the sky.

  “I wasn’t expecting a dragon.” David said softly.

  Sam let out a small chuckle, “I don’t think anyone was expecting it.”

  The prince thought that Clyde seemed to be holding his own against the dragon though. This opinion changed instantly when a massive column of flames exploded out of the dragon’s mouth and turned Clyde and the Kingmaker into mere ashes.

  The prince took a moment to mourn the untimely death of the man, but no more than that. It wouldn’t have been practical to grieve Clyde.

  “Will you take care of that, Ian?” David asked.

  Ian gruffly nodded and closed his eyes while lightly resting his hand on the pommel of his sheathed sword.

  The cut was perfect. The sword screamed as it left Ian’s sheath and then the air rippled as the cut carried itself through the open air separating Ian from the dragon.

  The scales of the dragon were hard, but Ian’s blade was renowned for being able to cut anything, thus the dragon was felled in one single strike. Not something that the prince relished in happening, but it was part of the necessity of his plan.

  The prince looked around and noticed that his mouths had stopped feasting, the endless supply of hounds had seemed to be not all that endless after all. The mouths were salivating, looking around at the destruction and chaos surrounding them. The prince pulled on them and made them sit around him in a grotesque display as he started walking towards Dahlia’s army.

  A great storm of lighting erupted from the center of Dahlia’s army and many streams of electricity were sent careening towards David’s castle. If this had happened earlier that morning, David would have ducked and hidden from his sister’s magical barrage. But now, he simply directed some of his mouths to consume the lightning as it arced at him.

  With a puff of smoke and the acrid scent of ozone, the lightning was nullified by the prince’s new hunger.

  Flames, knives, water, plants, pure energy; everything that his sister could conjure was sent to destroy David, yet none of it got close to touching him. He simply consumed all that stood in his way.

  With a final step he reached the scant remnants of Dahlia’s army. They had been truly ravaged by Clyde’s attack and stood shivering, having accepted their deaths as a fact.

  Maybe they were a little disappointed to not see Bloody Ian crest the rise that led to them. If he had it would have immediately crushed any semblance of hope for survival. But because they only saw the prince, they believed they might have a chance to live.

  The prince quickly disabused them of that notion.

  With a flick of his wrist, his hungry mouths were forced to regurgitate all the lightning, fire, knives, water, plants and energy they had eaten when Dahlia attacked them.

  The brave men and women in his sister’s service didn’t even stand a chance. David made sure not to murder any of them, but they were tossed like ragdolls in the face of his power.

  Men and women fell to their knees and wept as his power ripped through them. This was what the truly gifted felt. This was as close to godhood as a person could feel.

  The prince indulged in his newfound powers a bit longer than he should have. But soon his sister’s army was leveled and only she stood before him.

  David looked like his mother, but Dahlia looked like their father. All the king’s best features had been given to his shining daughter. Now she just looked scared as she stared at the shining rows of enamel surrounding her brother.

  "So, this is it then?” Dahlia asked quietly as she stared her death in his eyes. “Truly a magnificent gambit brother. You must have been hiding this power for years so that you could blindside me. Back when we were still loving siblings you were plotting my downfall in this exact moment.”

  Tears glistened in Dahlia’s eyes as she spoke one final time to her brother. “Kill me then and be done with it. Rule this country and make our father proud.”

  David crossed the remaining distance between the two of them and embraced his sister in a hug. She didn’t move, but he tried to envelop her as much as he could. What must she think of him to truly believe that he would kill her in cold blood like this?

  David looked deeply inside of himself and found that all he held for his sister was love. There was no hatred making him want to kill her in this sick game, there was no burning rage towards their differing treatment by their father. Just love.

  But there was something burning with hatred inside of him. Something that was hiding behind his mental images of Dahlia, something he wasn’t allowed to see.

  David directed a flow of mouths to consume whatever was hiding the hatred from him. Hundreds of tiny mouths broke down his mental barriers until he truly saw what was hiding there.

  David hated his father. The man that had forced him and his sister to try and kill each other. Maybe it made for a clean succession, but that wasn’t the point.  His father’s gift kept anyone from hating him, so he was free of the consequences of making his children fight to the death like this. It probably wouldn’t even bother his conscious.

  “I love you sister.” David said to her in his tight embrace, “but this was never about you.”

  David quickly let go of his sister and turned to address his shadow.

  “Benny, take me to the king.”

  David’s shadow engulfed him, and he was gone from the field of battle. Leaving only questions and pain in his wake.