You know how things change when you’re just sitting in the classroom and suddenly the teacher says you’re called to the principal’s office?

  Your heart starts thumping. Your palms get sweaty. You get momentary expectations with palpable signs of your body gradually bracing itself for the impact even though you did nothing wrong. There’s the stress and the panic. There’s the chaotic shamble of emotions trying to settle on top of each other.

  I felt exactly that as I entered the grand hall after Belfray and Radek. Figures loomed around the hardwood table, seated upon the chairs like giants depicted in a grand painting. Five of them in total, three of which I had never seen before. Of the familiar two, my Mother carried herself primly like a statue, dressed in everyday clothes, yet somehow managing to look terrifyingly in control.

  The other familiar figure was the gardener, Paul. I didn’t know why he was here, but seated by the side, away from the other figures, he seemed more like a spectator than an active participant in the gathering. He smiled when his eyes spotted me, nodded slightly, and turned back to Mother, keeping his silence like a professional.

  I stood behind Belfray, my gums itching with the heavy air drilling a painful way down across my throat. There was a near-visible pressure present across the hall, perhaps a bit too strong for a child of my age.

  “Inner will, Runemaster,” Radek muttered silently as I felt his hand on my shoulder. “Just as we practiced. Manage your inner will. Your blood’s the strongest of this lot. You have nothing to fear.”

  A sudden cold crept down the back of my neck. I clasped a tight fist and managed a circulation of my internal energy, my Bronze Core pulsing into action as warm threads of The Undying spread across my body.

  It was a good effort, if I had to say so myself, which helped alleviate the pressure of facing a handful of Celestials, but ultimately, I still remained somewhat restrained and out of breath.

  Not much I could do about that.

  “He has the Master’s eyes,” said a man seated beside Mother, who I presumed was Marcus by his rather official clothing. He had a somewhat normal build, but it was his green eyes that demanded my attention. There in them I saw smoke-like wisps circulating as though mini tornados.

  Odd that, really.

  “Young Master,” beamed another one, a brunette woman seated across Marcus, who carried herself with a carefree air. She raised herself up smiling from the chair, rounded the table, and stepped close, patting me on the head as if I were a newly bought pet. “As expected, you’re handsome and cute. You might find yourself surrounded by more than a few suitors in the Creator’s Academy. We have to prepare—“

  “He’s going to be well-equipped and prepared to deal with insidious probes and calculating minds of those young women,” Radek interrupted with a smile. “Might teach them a thing or two while at it. He has the mind for it.”

  “So you say, Heart Mage,” the woman muttered, glancing briefly at Radek. She seemed, at that moment, disappointed, as if something about the Heart Mage made her cringe, then she turned toward me. “He’s not teaching you odd tricks, is he, Young Master? If there’s anything wrong, I can just send him to the Nightmare Lands, and it’ll take him at least a century to find his way out of that place.”

  “A century of peace and quiet,” Belfray mumbled. “A hard offer to refuse.”

  “You’re Payem?” I asked, getting a bit uncomfortable by the shared history between all these people. “The Dimensional Mage?”

  “Indeed, but you can just call me Crack,” Payem smiled, her rosy lips curling widely. She looked not a day older than Mother, who also resembled a woman in her early thirties without a single strand of gray hair. In comparison to these old farts of mine, they were quite young.

  Then again, you can never trust appearances with these Celestials.

  “Sit, Leo,” Mother’s voice echoed across the hall, silencing everyone in a millisecond. We all shared a momentary flinch, after which Belfray and Radek gently accompanied me to one of the seats around the table.

  I found myself boxed between those two, with Payem slowly taking her place beside Mother. There was another unfamiliar figure in the hall, who kept his silence and refused to acknowledge my presence.

  “Who’s that guy?” I whispered to Belfray, but all I managed to get was a tight frown.

  Interesting.

  “Marcus, continue,” Mother said.

  Marcus nodded and began right away, “As I’ve been saying, there has been a healthy influx of people flocking to the cause, mostly laborers and gatherers employed in the Palark’s own planes. Alongside the slave population, we now have at hand around a hundred thousand people waiting for a call. Belfray’s preparations have supplied us with a generous line of logistics. Keeping them fed and well armed won’t be a problem.”

  “Why bother with all these plans and operations?” Payem said with a shrug. “Grand Marshall, I could have Lord Master’s head delivered to your doorstep before dinner. The same goes for all his aides. Belfray can handle the kids. He has quite the experience in culling the younger generations.”

  “I will not lay a hand on the innocent.” Belfray stiffened.

  “They’re most certainly not innocent,” Radek said. “Killers and rapists. Whores and bastards. Nobody would utter a word if we hang them by the parapets to be displayed for all eyes to see.”

  “We can’t do that,” Marcus said, pinching his nose bridge. “We’re not here to deliver justice to the crowds, nor is it our intention to inherit a broken kingdom. This is but the first step of a grand plan. We need a base of operations, and we need it in pristine condition.”

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “Which is why I handed the reins to you, not this group of broken Celestials,” Mother said stately, then frowned as she regarded me for a brief moment. “And yet, things are moving faster than we’d initially thought. I won’t have Leo miss his golden years.”

  All eyes turned toward me. I wished for a moment to be one with the chair, to get inside the wooden structure so that I could escape those scurrying eyes.

  I couldn’t.

  “Then we push forward with the rebellion and aim for the center, right away,” Marcus said. “Have our men capture Lord Master and his aides, deliver them to be sentenced by a Grand Judge before a large crowd. There will be voices. High-class folk won’t be satisfied with our excuses. They’ve been aware of Lord Master’s disservice to the throne for years, now. Like worms around a rotten apple, they’ve been feeding off of him all this time.”

  “His boys aren’t that much different,” Radek chimed in. “Lord Master’s oldest son, Yarun, is essentially a copy of his father, if not worse. They say every Sunday, he hosts a banquet full of ripe, young women, forcefully taken by the King’s Own and delivered in chains to his royal hall. Rumors have it that his personal alchemist prepares him a set of energizing drugs so that he could last through the night—“

  “Enough. I don’t need a full account of Lord Master or his sons’ lives. I’m well aware of their disposition,” Mother said and gestured at Marcus. “Where are we at with rumors?”

  “There’s been talk about a long-lost prince riding a Golden Gryphon across the skies,” Marcus said, clearing his throat as his eyes glanced over me. “A heroic young man who cares for the weak and helps them to the best of his abilities. They say he saved hundreds from the jaws of local wildlife, eradicated a good chunk of their population, and cleansed a forest in the Grade D plane for the safety of the villagers and slaves being worked by their masters’ whip.”

  “They say that, really?” My eyes widened at the mention of my so-called tales of bravery. “I don’t remember cleansing a forest—“

  “We might have put our own touch to the matter, Young Master,” Belfray said, looking greatly displeased for some reason. “Yet I seem to remember we have swept a handful of forests, not just one, from those beasts. Why do people think it’s just a forest?”

  “That’s not the point—“

  “How is that not the point?” Belfray raised his voice when Marcus tried to reason with him. “We’re trying to make a case here about Young Master. If they think it’s just a single forest, then you’re not doing the good job you claim to be doing in that little palace, Marcus. You should know better than to disappoint the Grand Marshall.”

  “I did not—“

  “I knew I shouldn’t have left him alone,” Radek said, sighing out a long breath. “Never let a jack of all trades do the work that should’ve been given to a Heart Mage. They just don’t have an edge to them.”

  “I’m not a jack of all trades!” Marcus rose from his seat. “I’m a Celestial Mage who worked all his life as the Head of Imperial Palace for His Majesty, and helped him rule a total of a hundred big worlds and thousands of planes all by myself—“

  “Master of logistics and state work, and so on. Bla. Bla. Bla. It’s always the same with you.” Payem rolled her eyes at him. “Just tell us the truth. You couldn’t survive as a Mage and had to use your brains to get a seat at the table. When’s the last time you’ve used a spell? You’re just a crafty snake.”

  “Me?” Marcus’s eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets. He grimaced and jabbed with one thick finger toward Radek, who seemed surprised he was the one who got targeted when, in fact, Payem had been giving Marcus the stick all along. “You call me a snake when you literally have the most infamous Heart Mage across the Planar System at your table? How does that make sense? I’m just trying my best to keep you under control. If it was up to you, you would’ve long since locked this whole world and butchered everyone like a maniac.”

  “Just like the old times,” I heard Paul mutter to himself by the side. “Nostalgia is the one drug I’m incapable of replicating.”

  “Call me maniac one more time, then I’ll have your head—“

  A strong palm thudded down on the table, deafening my ears and sending chills down my spine. The hardwood somehow survived the impact, but the same wasn’t true for the members of the group. Against Mother’s eyes, gleaming with internal, violet lights, they all turned into statues too scared to utter a sound.

  “This ends here,” she said, glaring across the hall with strength. Then she gestured at Marcus. “Continue.”

  Marcus and Payem exchanged another, but this time silent, moment of confrontation before the man nodded grimly. “We’ll have the rebellion sweep the villages and small cities. They will join up around Sangdon and march into the inner city. There’ll be guards and the Royal Army. Lord Master won’t think much about a bunch of small fries, with an occasional Silver and Golden Grade figures in the mix, but he will be surprised when our men reveal their strength.”

  “Will that be enough to justify the coup?” Belfray asked.

  “No. A rebellion by itself won’t be enough,” Marcus said as he turned toward me, “which is why we need a figurehead. A symbol of the rising.”

  “Me?” I blurted.

  “Yes, Young Master. It has to be you,” Marcus said. “Already, the desperate are in need of a savior. People are expectant. There’s talk about your eventual rise. You have to be there before the crowds. You have to show them you have what it takes to become their ruler.”

  “But I’m barely ten years old!” I muttered, looking at Belfray for a helping hand, turning to Mother when the butler remained painfully silent. “You expect me to kill people?”

  “Bad people,” Radek said with a smile. “You’ve already tasted the blood of beasts. These people are no different.”

  Marcus nodded. “Due to your age, people will doubt you. They will find ample ground in criticizing your capabilities and your rather bleak family line. There will be nations salivating at the fact that a young King has claimed the throne, and that they could get his ear so long as they play their cards right. We will let them think of you as a lesser King so that when the time comes, we can use that as our justification for the eventual campaign to claim this whole world.”

  “Don’t worry,” Mother finally said. “It won’t take long. Worlds like this one are brittle and weak. They don’t have the power or the will to fight back against us. Once we get Palark under control, there will be no further warmongering. Others will peacefully submit themselves to our rule.”

  “What if they don’t?” I asked.

  “They will,” Payem said, smiling wickedly from the side. “This is not the first time we’re taking a world, Young Master. Have a little faith.”

  And here I thought Heart Mages were trouble. I could swear that this woman was way more messed up than anyone I had ever met in this life. She was like a true freak that could play with dimensions and think of butchering the whole world as a small thing.

  “You once asked me how life was when I was in Blaston Academy,” Radek whispered just then. “It was like this. People schemed and planned in the shadows to decide upon the fate of certain students. For them, it was the way of life, it was how they’d been taught from birth. It will be the case for you in the Creator’s Academy, but as I’ve said, you’ll be well equipped and prepared to deal with all the nonsense they’re going to try on you. Fun, isn’t it?”

  “Fun? I don’t know about fun,” I said, my mind too hazy to come up with a sensible answer.

  “It’s going to be fun. Trust me,” Radek slapped me across the back, making me nearly plant my face down the table.

  Everyone laughed at that, which helped me realize, once again, that I was surrounded by monsters, yet this time, for some reason, I didn’t feel completely out of place.

  I didn’t know if that was a good thing or not.

  ……

  :3

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