CHAPTER SIX

  The Prind His Trickster

  Where…?

  It took Bram a sed to gather his bearings and notice the strangeness surrounding him.

  Ah, I see…

  Above him was a clear blue sky half-veiled by the gss towers that rose to scrape against it. These lofty towers which seemed to have been made by the greatest of giant folk were taller even than the highest spires of the Sn’s pace.

  I’m here again…

  Beh him was a wide street of gray stohat was unlike any road one might find in the Imperium. It was a street painted with otherworldly symbols that stretched outward like a great web in all dires, snaking out onto other paths and around buildings of stoeel, and gss.

  In this straher world that pgues even my waking thoughts…

  Around him was a great host of oners dressed in stra fortable clothing that was vastly different from the restrictive uniforms and sweeping dresses of the imperium’s nobility.

  Thoughts that did little to help me in my youth…and made me a target of ridicule and spite.

  A shadow passed over him, drawing Bram’s gaze to the great steel bird s over the distant clouds. Instinctively, he khat this giant bird was no animal, but a flying carriage that was but one of the many examples of this other world’s iy.

  Though I still believe now what I ko be true then…that this other world would be the ao my ck of sorcery…

  A horn-like roar pierced Bram’s musing, drawing his gaze back to the street and the beast that had made this strange-sounding howl. It was a beast whose bright blue scales were ed around a body that was both wide and sleek.

  This beast of speed raced toward Bram like a tri-bull charging a matador.

  It’s why I sought out the cursed cave…

  He locked gazes with its pair of glowing eyes which were bright and gring, a a cold shiver climb up his spine as he thought of their immi collision.

  Because I believed the rebel trickster locked within it might help me wield this otherworldly knowledge for Lotharin’s sake…

  Long seds ticked by while Bram stood in the middle of the road uo do anything as the shi hurtled toward him. Theirs ainful meeting that hastened a violent ending to his dream, causing Bram to awaken with eyes wide and a curse spilling from his lips.

  “Fuck…”

  The pri up with a groggy head, but his gaze was alert and searg.

  “Where…?”

  It didn’t take him long the curtains hanging on his four-post bed or the polished wooden paneled walls of the rge bedroom that still didn’t quite feel like it beloo him. He had only used it for two weeks though, so this feeling of unfamiliarity was uandable.

  “Yours must have been an iing dream,” spoke a deep, intelligent voice. “The drool on your gives you away.”

  The prince’s gaze so a dark er of his bedroom where the shadows seemed extra thick. He peered into that unnatural abyss—and the abyss looked back at him with crimson eyes.

  “It’s dohen…” Unsciously, Bram’s hand moved to his chest which was covered by a fresh linen shirt he hadn’t been wearing during his journey. “…I’ve set you free.”

  She stepped out of the shadows and into the faint light of dawn’s first rays filtering in through the curtains of the rge window to the left of the four-post bed.

  “I’m free thanks to you.”

  The prince’s eyebrows rose in slight surprise for the woman who revealed herself looked nothing like his expectations.

  “You’re…the trickster?”

  “Were you imagining a more horrific tenance?”

  The rebel trickster of legend was no horrible monster who’d been burnt by the gods as her title suggested. She ale, crimson-eyed beauty who looked no different than the young highborn dies of the Sn’s court. Her bright red hair was slicked bad tied in a messy bun behind her head, giving breadth to a heart-shaped face that would make most men swoon to see. Her neck was long and slehe sight of which made Bram remember the moment she had kissed his throat and sealed the bargaiween them.

  Bram’s hand flew to his neck, but she had left no wound for his fio brush against.

  “Already regretting your choice, Prince of Atn?” she asked in a teasing voice.

  “I regret nothing,” Bram insisted. He gnced left and then right, before adding, “Where’s Ser Anthony?”

  “Your knight was here earlier but went off to deal with your courtiers since you were still unscious,” the trickster answered. Then, pointing to the bedside table, she added, “He asked me to tell you that he’s retrieved the item you promised to return after you came home.”

  “ht, I did promise to give him his pipe back.” A tinge ret filled Bram’s face. “Pity, I was starting to enjoy the taste of cloud weed.”

  He took a sed to ihe purple coat that was folded on top of the table which she must have brought back from the cursed cave for him. It was mostly burnt, certainly unusable, which was another pity, because it had been one of Bram’s favorite coats.

  “Well,” Bram cast a furtive g the trickster’s crimson hair, “I guess I’ll wear red ime.”

  He got out of bed only to find that his legs were made of jelly.

  “Careful, you nearly died two nights ago,” the trickster reminded him. “You’ll need more time to heal.”

  “Two nights ago…” Bram’s brow creased. “No, I’ve no time to lie in bed.”

  With so little time left for him to fulfill his duty to Lotharin, a day wasted was one he could ill afford. More importantly, the mastermind of this plot to murder him wouldn’t give up after a single failure. They would try again, and soon. So, Bram must also be prepared to repel them with whatever meager force he could muster.

  “There’s time at least to take a breath,” the trickster insisted.

  Despite his protests, she forced him to sit by the edge of his bed with a delicate hand whose grip was as strong as steel.

  “You worry about any further attempts on your life for the foreseeable future. I’ve dealt with what needs dealing,” she promised as she sat beside him.

  The trickster motioo the floor.

  “Your enemies will receive the message loud and clear after they hear of this.”

  She snapped her fingers.

  Suddenly, as if a veil had been pulled from Bram’s eyes, he saw with crity the se before him.

  “Bloody hell…you’ve been busy.”

  The parquet floor around his bed was caked in the dried blood of numerous corpses, all dressed in the all-too-familiar armor of the White Rose. It was clear that they had died violently. Dismembered limbs had been the cause of the bloodstains on the floor, but there weren’t enough of these stains to expiate of the dead. For all of them were like dry husks drained of life.

  A stench of iron and decay filled his nostrils, causing Bram to pale. “How did I mao sleep through all this…?”

  “You were sn,” she said teasingly, but also added, “They came like thieves in the night… Whoever sent them must have known you were bedridden and thought you vulnerable.”

  The implication of her words wasn’t lost on him. There must be a spy in his household. One or several who o be rooted out lest his rivals learn of his pns.

  “Their assumptions proved wrong.” The smile orickster’s red lips widened, slightly dist her features but not marring her beauty in the least.

  “And when whoever sent these assassins receives word of what’s happened…” Despite the queasiness of his stomach, Bram’s mind couldn’t help but turn its cogs. “…then they’ll think I’ve found myself a strong protector.”

  Smugness fshed orickster’s face.

  “They might even assume that I’ve found an ally in one of the Sn-guard—”

  The trickster ughed. It was both a girlish sort of giggling and malicious ughter that made the hairs on the back of Bram’s arms stand on end.

  “Don’t pare me to the frail guardians of your Imperium,” she pined.

  “Of course,” Bram ceded with a chuckle. “Your value is far greater.”

  He gnced sideways at the trickster whose face seemed too io have itted the massacre around them. Even her lithe but curvy form was more suited to a dy’s sweeping dress rather thaeal-cambeson and the tight-fittiher breeches she wore. He betedly realized that this was the uniform of the soldiers of his household, although the noble crest on her left sleeve—the ht below the golden griffin of house Attin—was one he didn’t reize.

  “What you’ve done here will surely make the enemy pause and force them to rethink their tactics. It buys me time to see my pn to fruition…” Bram leaned back, relief flooding his face. “Thank you, Trick—”

  He frowned.

  “What do I call you?”

  Before the trickster could ahe bedroom doors flung open, and two maids walked in.

  “You’re awake, Yhness!” excimed the older-looking maid. “Lady Rowan should’ve informed—”

  Notig the corpses on the floor, the older maid let loose a high-pitched shriek of terror.

  Not an illusion then, Bram mused. Out loud, he said, “To be fair, this probably isn’t the worst thing you’ve seen in my bedroom.”

  He fshed the maids a smile, but her of them smiled back.

  The seaid screamed too—and then all hell broke loose.

  “They’re finally finished…” Bram sighed in relief.

  Beside him, the trickster let out a soft giggle while she leaned an elbow against the baly railing. “It was fine practice for the ime they up our mess.”

  There would be a ime, Bram agreed. The other royals would see to it.

  “Well, like my old masters often say, never send an assassin to do a bard’s job.”

  Bram couldn’t help chug at his joke. Of course, if one of the Delightful Troupe had e for him, he never would have seen them ing, and that thought sobered him quickly.

  “Gods, the rumor mill will be w hard today…”

  Bram’s brow creased while he watched his guards drag the st of the dead toward the auto-wagon waitio his bastion’s tall gate. Soon that auto-wagon filled with corpses would be driven out past the drawbridge and into the city’s Hightown district.

  “If they didn’t think me peculiar and inpetent before…”

  The stench alone would draw the gazes of the highborn in Bastille who would no doubt find a way to bme Bram for this ghastly i rather than show sympathy for their new governor who’d been the victim of another assassination attempt.

  “…They’ll certainly think so now,” he guessed.

  “You don’t seem to mind pying the fool,” the trickster noticed.

  He bed his hand through wavy strands of his pale blonde hair that had lost their purple shade. “Give them a show to ogle and they won’t see the knife ing for their throats.”

  “Theatricality and misdire?”

  “Exactly.”

  The trickster gave Bram an impish grin.

  “And here I thought you despised intrigue despite learning to wield it yourself.”

  “How would you know that?”

  She pressed a sharp nail against the skin of Bram’s hand, drawing a tiny bead of blood.

  “For the blood is the life…” She brushed her finger against the bead and then pressed that bead to her lips. “Your past, thoughts, dreams, even your desires…they are recorded in your blood like the moving pictures of that other world.”

  “ema,” Bram recalled the strange word that felt alien on his tongue.

  “ema,” the Trickster repeated more awkwardly. “Such wild and fantastiventions your dreams bring you.”

  Bram couldn’t help smiling at the pliment si was the first time anyone plimented him for his madness. His gratitude was quick to wither though once he realized the implication of her fession. She knew his ihoughts…he had yet to decide whether this was a gross invasion of his privacy or an actal veniehat made it unnecessary to expin his otherworldly visions since she could see them for herself.

  “What do you think of it?”

  “Yreat uaking?”

  Bram nodded.

  “‘Tis…ambitious.”

  To use his knowledge of the other world for the betterment of Lotharin, the weakest of the twelve kingdoms that made up the Atn Imperium—ambitious seemed almost an uatement.

  “Is it possible?”

  “With my power…perhaps.”

  Bram cast a sideways g his new colborator.

  The trickster basked in the light of Aarde’s m sun which bathed the blue sky in a bright golden .

  Bram thought it unfair that she knew everything about him, yet he knew nothing about her apart from the scattered tales he’d discovered of her nearly fotten legend, the same ones he’d shared with the Mighty Greenwood Gang a week ago.

  He observed her pyful smile—how she ehe freedom he’d given her—and he loo know her truth. Despite this, he resolved not to ask the trickster about her past. Better that they build trust with one another first. Perhaps then she might be willing to share her tale. For now, it was enough that she possessed the power to help him realize his goals.

  That thought made him frown.

  Yes, she defeated the assassins who came to kill him, but did she truly possess the power to give him his heart’s desire?

  “I sense your doubt.”

  “You sense my thoughts even without blood?”

  “Reading your mind would require sorcery, and I’ve not dohis,” she expined. “What I sehout effort are the emotions bubbling to the mind’s surface.”

  “Ahik.” Bram couldn’t help feeling fasated. “Could you show me more proof of your power?”

  “The proof is right in front of you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She pointed a fi the er of her left eye, drawing Bram’s gaze to something floating at the leftmost er of his vision whily appeared after she poi out. It was a tiny twinkling thing bathed in a ghostly gloed like a single blue eye.

  “The All-Seeing Eye shows hidden truth to those who seek it,” the trickster cimed.

  This All-Seeing Eye seemed eager to show Bram its hidden truth, and with this realization came words that automatically spilled from his lips. “Show status…”

  With this intation—his sed—the All-Seeing Eye expanded into the familiar ghostly blue window that had hauhe prih thoughts of power he couldn’t wield. Today, however, it seemed power had e to him at st.

  Wele, Bram.It was the first time the system had ever shown him kindness. The sight of its greeti emotion swirling into his chest.

  Please wait while the system measures your current capabilities.“At long st…”

  A tear fell across his left cheek.

  “You’re finally on my side…”

  A new ghostly blue windoeared before Bram, carrying a word he’d longed for from the moment he first lears meaning.

  STATUS NAME:Bram Lothaire of House AttinRACE:Human (Atn)LEVEL:1JOB:Administrator Lv.1LIFESTYLE:Not yet determinedAFFILIATION:[Atn Imperium], [Kingdom of Lotharin], [Bastille Shire], [tral Martial Academy], [The Delightful Troupe]TITLE:[Seventh Prince of the Atn Imperium], [Ill-Fated Prince], [tractor of the Burned One], [Governor of Lotharin], [Eorl of Bastille], [Apprentice of the Delightful Troupe]“Titles?”

  Bram sed the list, his eyes narrowing at seeing his ill-fated moniker. Instinctively, he tapped a finger against it and wasn’t surprised when a smaller windoeared to superimpose itself over the first.

  [Ill-Fated Prince: Doubles experience required to level up, doubles points required to increase fame, doubles experience required to grow lifestyle, ce of learning skills or spells is lowered by fifty pert [50%], random enters with monsters in a field or dungeon is increased by twenty pert [20%], item drop rates and experience gain rates lowered by [10%].]

  “I should have known,” Bram sighed.

  “Truth is not always good,” the trickster admitted. “‘Tis not all bad either.”

  True enough, his title of seventh prince gave Bram several boons; a dist on knight or cilor recruitment fees, rger levies in wartime with higher taxes duriime without incurriies such as lower fame and higher tyranny with Lotharin’s popution, and, to Bram’s delight, a ten pert bonus to experience earned for both jobs and lifestyles.

  “Brilliant,” he grinned.

  He had once dreamed of being a ‘Knight Enter’ like his brother Balor or a ‘Sky Ranger’ like his sister Camil, his two older siblings who hadn’t shunned Bram ht for his ill fate. Unfortunately, such professions required sorcery and were impossible for the ill-fated prince who cked magi his veins. Now, however, a quantified refle of Bram’s physical traits showed him proof of his ging fate.

  HEALTH POINTS (HP):120MAGIC POINTS (MP): 10STAMINA POINTS (SP):200FATIGUE:38%“Is this…truly real?!”

  The prince’s shoulders shook because he couldn’t trol the tide of emotion washing over him as he saw the numbers showing him a truth he longed for.

  “How did you do this?”

  Bram felt a hand on his shoulder. The warmth it instilled in him calmed his trembling.

  “I gave you only what your body could hahe trickster answered. “Enough magic to awaken this fasating sorcery hidden inside of you.”

  Bram was at a loss for words, although his gratitude was obvious wheook her hand and kissed it. Because of this trickster, the ill-fated prince was no longer a me duck. Magic coursed through him now. A tiny amount by anyone’s measure, aainly not enough for proper sorcery, but this was a new beginning for him.

  “‘Tis not time to celebrate. ‘Tis but the start of our rebellion,” she said encingly. “So, what shall we do , My Prince?”

  “For a kingdom to thrive, there are five siderations to meet.” Bram flexed the fingers of his right hand. “Of these five, the ‘Martial’ issue is Lotharin’s most urgent .”

  No spark of magic fshed across his fingers, but he didn’t feel disappointed.

  “We ck soldiers, knights, and sorcerers. We ck…champions.”

  His eyes drifted to the status window floating in the air.

  “In my visions of the other world, I saw its cities teeming with people — like spiders rushing across a web of stohs leading into gss cos — they are the resource we o set our pn in motion.”

  JOB/s: Administrator Lv.1“We will summon these people to Aarde…” Bram tapped on this strangely named job, and what he read of its status made him smile. “…And give them a reason to fight for us.”

  GD_Cruz