Chapter 134 (Part 2): Roots of Decay
The Weight of Crowns
Moonlight pooled like spilled mercury across the terrace as Prince Chen-Augustine's voice turned brittle. "My grandfather ruled with velvet gloves. For thirty years, he let the Sand Tribes gnaw at our borders—dividing their clans with gold and promises, avoiding outright war. A patient man." His knuckles whitened on the stone balustrade. "But my father? Augustus VI hungers. Twenty years ago, he sent a hundred thousand soldiers across the desert. Slaughtered their warriors, their families, even children playing in the dust. Ten thousand corpses stacked like firewood."
Bennett's breath fogged the cold air. "A waste. If you're to be a butcher, finish the job."
Chen's gaze sharpened. "Explain."
"The steppes span a single province. Total tribesmen? A million at most." Bennett's hand slashed downward, severing moonlight. "Kill ninety thousand more. Burn every tent, salt the earth. Let their ballads die with the last weeping mother. Yes, it's monstrous—but cheaper than eternal war."
The prince studied him as one might a newly unsheathed blade. "My father thought the same. Until the Holy See's High Pontiff crawled from his marble temple, clutching scripture like a dagger. 'Mercy,' he preached, as if blood could be unspilled. Convenient piety—to leave the tribes fractured but breathing, a thorn in the crown's side."
Festering Wounds
Bennett's shadow stretched long across the warrior statue. "The Church thrives on weakness. A stable empire needs no salvation."
"Precisely." Chen's laughter held no mirth. "So now we bleed gold to garrison two thousand cavalry beyond the desert. Supply lines stretch thin as a beggar's hopes. Ten times the cost of regular troops, year after year—all to guard graves." His wine cup trembled. "And the South Seas… ah, there madness blooms brightest."
At the mention of the southern campaigns, Bennett stiffened. His father, Lord Raymond Rowling, had forged his legacy there—three naval expeditions that once balanced glory and profit.
"Your sire's voyages brought timber and spices," Chen continued, "but now? The sea rots with greed. We launch armadas every three years, strip the coasts bare. The natives flee farther south, forming alliances in waters even our ships dare not tread. Last expedition cost sixteen million gold. Return? A paltry million. Yet my father plans another."
The prince gestured toward the revelry below, where nobles laughed through jeweled masks. "The Storm Legion starves. Provincial garrisons patch armor with prayer. Only the Capital Guard eats full—the emperor's pampered hounds. And this place—" he kicked the statue's plinth, "—is where generals come to sell dignity for coppers. The North's commanders run brothels; the South's, opium dens. All to fund what the treasury cannot."
Dancing on Embers
Wind carried the scent of roses and rot. Bennett watched a nobleman below stumble into a fountain, golden chalice sinking like a drowning sun. "Why tell me this, Your Highness? These are state secrets."
Chen gripped his shoulder, fingers cold as a surgeon's scalpel. "Because you see the cracks. Because when the Storm Legion's commander begged my father for funds last winter, the emperor gifted him a sarcophagus—'for when your loyalty perishes.'" The prince's voice dropped to a whisper. "And because tonight, that servant's missing finger links to tribesmen who've infiltrated the capital. Tribesmen protected by someone powerful enough to hide them here, in a military stronghold."
Bennett's pulse quickened. The scroll in his sleeve prickled with latent magic.
"The Sand Tribes remember every death." Chen's breath fogged between them. "They'll strike soon—at the Northern Duke's wedding. A union meant to bolster defenses, yet conveniently timed as their warriors gather. I need someone… unburdened by honor to turn that pyre into a beacon."
The Devil's Bargain
Music swelled from the hall—a dissonant waltz of lutes and desperation. Chen's eyes reflected the dying moon. "Swear fealty to me, Bennett Rowling. Not to the crown, not to empty titles. To the dream of an empire that endures."
Memory flickered—Vivienne's kiss, his father's weary smile, the assassin's mangled hand. Bennett saw the web now: tribal vengeance, Church machinations, an emperor's decaying mind. Every thread led here, to this prince who smelled blood on the wind and called it perfume.
He bowed, lower than protocol demanded. "I serve no man's dreams."
Chen's smile bloomed, sharp and satisfied. "Good. Dreams are for poets. We'll work in nightmares."
As dawn clawed at the horizon, painting the statue's ivory sword blood-red, Bennett understood his role. Not a knight, not a hero—a scalpel. To cut away the rot before it consumed them all.
And if the cure killed the patient?
Well.
Dead empires don't bleed.
Chapter 135: Of Ambition and Temptation
The Prince's Gambit
Moonlight streamed through the arched windows of the terrace, casting silver streaks across Prince Chen-Augustine's sharp features. His voice, smooth as aged wine, carried a weight that belied his youth. "You are clever, Bennett Rowling. Bold." He leaned closer, the scent of sandalwood and power clinging to his robes. "What you've built on the Rowling Plains—those innovations—they're not mere childish whims. A canal system to irrigate arid lands? Trade routes bypassing the Guilds' chokeholds? Genius."
Bennett kept his expression neutral, though his pulse quickened. He's been watching. Closely.
"Yet for all your brilliance," the prince continued, tracing the rim of his goblet, "you've been treated like a dull blade in your own house. Mocked in the capital for years, playing the fool… until now." His gaze sharpened. "A mage? I confess, even I didn't foresee that twist."
The night air hummed with unspoken truths. Somewhere below, a lute player struck a discordant note, quickly drowned by drunken laughter.
"I am twenty-four," Chen-Augustine said abruptly, "and the throne's shadow grows long. To reshape this rotting empire, I need minds untainted by courtly rot. Minds like yours."
Bennett's smile was a flicker of candlelight. "I'm fourteen, Your Highness."
"Your ancestor rode with Augustus I at eighteen," the prince countered, a chessmaster revealing his endgame. "Age is parchment; deeds are the ink. What say you, Rowling?"
The Dance of Refusal
Bennett let the silence stretch, studying the prince. Why lay bare your ambitions so recklessly? The memory of Captain Alfonse's grimace outside the Magus Guild resurfaced—the royal guard's discomfort at seeing them together. This isn't trust. It's a test.
"Your Highness honors me," he began, choosing words like poisoned petals, "but such weighty matters…"
Chen-Augustine raised a hand, cutting him off with a laugh that didn't touch his eyes. "No need for pretty denials tonight. Let us speak of sweeter things—poetry, star charts, the alchemy of wine."
What followed was a duel of wits masked as casual banter. The prince quoted obscure verses from the Epic of Shattered Stars; Bennett countered with biting satire from southern playwrights. Chen dissected celestial mechanics; Bennett retorted with theories on light refraction that would've made Archmage Geraint blush.
By midnight, even the prince's polished composure showed cracks of genuine astonishment. "You argue like a man who's lived thrice fourteen years," he murmured, refilling their cups with amber nectar.
Bennett shrugged. "Books make poor bedfellows but excellent tutors."
The Gilded Cage
Their intellectual sparring ended when Count Vilia and Marquis Solomon descended like vultures scenting weakness. "Your Highness! The star performers await!" the count simpered, jowls quivering above his ruby collar.
The banquet hall was a carnival of decay. Nobles in peacock silks guzzled wine from gem-encrusted chalices, their laughter tinged with desperation. A baroness fed grapes to her pet lynx while a viscount "accidentally" spilled hot wax on a serving girl's neck. Bennett noted it all—the unpaid debts in hollow eyes, the way Count Vilia's fingers lingered too long on the quartet of identical mage-apprentices.
Four sisters. Four sacrifices.
When the clocktower groaned three, Bennett found himself ushered to a chamber that reeked of decadence. Circular walls pulsed with crimson light from enchanted crystals. At the room's heart loomed a circular bed like a cloud stolen from the heavens, its silk sheets already indented by four lithe forms.
The quadruplets knelt in mock piety, white mage robes artfully disheveled. Their faces—mirror images of porcelain beauty—flushed as Bennett entered.
"Does our lord require… assistance?" the boldest purred, lower lip trembling despite her trained seduction.
The Saint's Trial
Bennett's throat went dry. They're exquisite. And terrified.
Memories crashed over him—Vivienne's laughter as she tripped over spell components, her wide-eyed wonder at his simplest magic tricks. These girls have no such innocence left to lose.
"Fetch me a drink," he ordered, voice rougher than intended. "Fruit nectar, no wine. And find fresh robes—this stench of hypocrisy clings."
As they scrambled to obey, Bennett retreated to the bath chamber. Steam rose from a marble pool large enough to drown regrets in. A luminous pearl embedded atop the central column shattered falling water into liquid diamonds.
He'd barely shed his tunic when four gasps echoed behind him. The sisters stood nude, skin glowing in the mist—a living painting of temptation.
"Out," Bennett growled.
"But master—"
"I'm practicing ascetic magic," he lied, clutching at straws. "Celibacy for seven moons. Now go."
They fled like startled fawns. Bennett sank into scalding water, cursing his own nobility. Fool! They're yours by law! Why play the saint?
The Devil's Whisper
The bed, when he finally approached, radiated heat—and not from enchanted stones. Four bodies lay entwined beneath gossamer sheets, curves outlined in the crimson gloom.
"We… warmed it for you, lord," whispered the second sister, voice cracking.
Bennett's resolve crumbled. One touch. Just one—
A ghostly laugh slithered through his mind. "Predictable."
He recoiled as if struck. "Semele! You wretched—"
"Tsk. Such language for your spectral guardian." The ancient sorceress's voice dripped mockery. "Shall I describe their pulse points? The third girl's birthmark shaped like—"
"Enough!" Bennett yanked the sheets overhead, burying himself in scented darkness. The sisters' confused whimpers followed him into fitful dreams of violet eyes and a laugh that carried no price tag.
Chapter 136: The Uninvited Specter
Ghosts in the Shadows
The carriage jolted over a rut in the road, moonlight slicing through velvet curtains to paint Bennett's face in fractured silver. He stared at his palms, still faintly scented with the quadruplets' rosewater perfume. Why now, of all times?
"Disappointed?" Semele's voice slithered through his skull like smoke through prison bars—sweet, acrid, utterly inescapable. "Did you crave applause for your noble restraint?"
Bennett's jaw tightened. Months of silence since Gandolf's death, months of shouting into the void of his own mind. Now this phantom chose to manifest during his most vulnerable moment. He pressed a thumb against his carotid, feeling the traitorous pulse quicken.
Get out. He thought the words like hammer blows.
"Tsk. Still the prude." Her laughter crystallized into ice picks behind his eyes. "Those girls wept with relief when you fled. Should I describe how the boldest traced your abandoned pillow with—"
Enough! Bennett's mental roar rattled the carriage's crystal decanter. Across from him, Prince Chen-Augustine glanced up from his state documents, one eyebrow arched in polite inquiry.
"Road's uneven tonight," Bennett lied smoothly, steadying the clinking glasses. The prince's returning smile didn't reach his mercury-colored eyes.
Serpent's Mercy
"Your restraint intrigues me," Chen-Augustine said later, fingers steepled beneath his chin. Moonlight caught the serpentine embroidery on his sleeves—a subtle nod to the "gift" he'd left behind. "Most men would've drowned in that honeyed trap."
Bennett studied the passing silhouettes of black pines. "Honey attracts flies, Your Highness. I prefer..."
"Sword steel? Spellfire?" The prince leaned forward, scenting weakness. "Or perhaps you've sworn vows to that ghost haunting your bloodline?"
The carriage lurched violently.
Semele's spectral fingers tightened around Bennett's spine. "Careful, little hawk. This one's sharper than his poisoned daggers."
"Vows are for priests," Bennett countered, ignoring the icy nails scraping his vertebrae. "I simply dislike audiences during private acts."
Chen-Augustine's chuckle held genuine warmth. "Ah, but we're all performers here. The true art lies in—"
A twang sliced through the night—the gutstring snap of a siege crossbow. Bennett moved before conscious thought, tackling the prince to the lacquered floor. Six armor-piercing bolts embedded themselves in the carriage wall with the shriek of tortured metal.
Dance of Blood and Moonlight
Chaos unfurled its wings.
Kik the driver roared, his whip becoming a silver serpent that batted aside a second volley. The air reeked of ozone as the royal mages erected barrier sigils—cobalt glyphs flaring like deranged fireflies.
"Stay down!" Bennett hissed, pinning the struggling prince. Chen-Augustine's composure cracked for a heartbeat, revealing the feral youth beneath—a cornered wolf ready to gnaw its own leg off.
"Left!" Semele's warning came a half-second too late. A black-fletched arrow punched through Kik's shoulder, painting the road with arterial spray. The driver collapsed against the reins, his dying whip-strike sending splintered wood through three attackers.
Bennett rolled, fingers clawing at floorboards. "Your Highness! Secret compartment—"
"Third panel from the rear!" Chen-Augustine snapped, already ripping up carpet. Their hands closed on cold steel simultaneously—a paired set of dwarven-forged daggers humming with containment runes.
Above, death rained in technicolor. A royal mage detonated midair, his final firestorm illuminating the ambush's architect—a hooded figure wreathed in aqueous magic.
"Hydromancer," Semele purred. "Trained in the Drowned Citadel by the stench of him."
Bennett's blade found its first throat. "Later!"
Whispers in the Blood
The skirmish ended as abruptly as it began. When the last attacker fled into shadowed pines, Bennett stood ankle-deep in gore, the prince's dagger still quivering in an oak tree where he'd pinned a fleeing crossbowman.
"Your reflexes astonish," Chen-Augustine remarked, calmly wiping brain matter from his sleeve. "Like watching a winter fox among fat geese."
Bennett ignored him, crouching beside Kik's shuddering form. The driver's breath came in pink bubbles. "Poisoned... arrowhead..."
"Fool." Semele's voice softened unexpectedly. "His lungs are filling with sea snake venom. Even I couldn't—"
"Quiet." Bennett pressed both palms to the wound, ignoring the prince's sharp intake of breath. Emerald light spilled between his fingers—not healing magic, but something older, wilder. The type of power that left scorch marks on the soul.
Kik arched off the ground, eyes bulging as Bennett's stolen vitality flooded his veins. The driver's scream harmonized with Semele's furious howl:
"Idiot! You'll hemorrhage your own—"
Darkness swallowed the world.
Aftermath
Bennett awoke to the cloying scent of imperial incense. Silk pillows cradled his throbbing skull. Across the opulent recovery chamber, Chen-Augustine stood framed by dawn-light windows, examining a scroll bearing the Rowling family crest.
"Fascinating," the prince murmured. "Your father's latest tax reports show a sudden interest in mithril imports. Curious timing, given tonight's... excitement."
Ice flooded Bennett's gut. Father. Military connections. Crossbows.
"Oh, it reeks of conspiracy," Semele crooned, her voice thready but vicious. "Shall I sing you the song of patricide, little hawk?"
Bennett closed his eyes against the rising sun. Somewhere beyond these gilded walls, four white-robed girls awaited his return. Somewhere in the bloodstained woods, a hydromancer nursed burns. And here, in this perfumed vipers' nest, a prince's smile grew hungrier by the heartbeat.
The game had just begun.