Chapter 32: Motohara

Shiori and Motohara tried to react instantly, but the Duke was faster. Before they could move, he murmured words that shook the air.

Shadows widened and grew around them. The air tingled with energy.

This wasn’t like Motohara’s magic. It was far more liquid and subtle. It wasn’t like Symphon’s magic either. It carried a deeper and undeniable power.

The thing in front of her was too old to be merely human. Behind the joyful smile and youthful exterior, the Duke was ancient. He had seen the day every living tree in this forest was a seed.

He was too old for fighting transient things like Shiori or Motohara. They were the morning breeze. He was the sun and stars.

He was older than days or years alone could tell. Perhaps he remembered when the mountains around them first learned to stand up.

“Darling boy,” the Duke said, “I’ve never been able to overestimate thee. Defying my control? Hatching a clever plan to free the Princess? My love, thou are the kind seen once in a century.”

Shiori’s knees turn to water and her blood to ice as the Duke Spoke. Every word was saturated with magic. He Spoke magic as easily as Shiori drew breath.

But that wasn’t the worst of it. Motohara’s memory that she had experienced in the Emporia had seemed mild compared to being in the Duke’s presence.

His smile and compliments to Motohara were genuine. He was happy, joyous, ecstatic. He was full of life and optimism. Shiori knew he was genuinely impressed and proud of Motohara, his child.

But a terrified part of her mind knew the happiness in his perfect smile came from his dying children. His ancient immortality cost more lives than she dared imagine.

His optimism had been bought by blood. He was full of life because he wouldn’t hesitate to feed Motohara, his own child, to the fire of his immortality.

He would do it with the most honest and genuine smile Shiori had ever seen.

And if he’d do that to his own child, what would he do to her?

Time slowed. The Duke seemed to stand there for minutes as the portal closed behind him, but Shiori knew it had only been seconds.

Motohara produced a handful of rocks from somewhere and launched them with a muttered word. They flew like bullets from a gun.

And the Duke just let them hit him. They ricocheted with a startling snap or shattered into powder against his skin.

The Duke’s eyes widened. “She’s given thee power? No small thing thou art in love, but with a Princess? Knowest thou the walls that lie between a Royal and a soiled, murdering tool like thee? Thy hopes will be dashed when she learns what thou art.”

Motohara wasn’t listening. He attacked again and again. First, he waved a hand and murmured a word that cast a plume of dust to envelope the Duke. Next, he flew as another word turned him into a blur faster than any bullet train.

He bounced off a tree and came away with a branch in his hand. Most of the word shattered away leaving a stiletto dagger of wood in his hand. He flew into the dust around the Duke, dagger first.

Then there was a painful silence.

The dust cloud hid the conflict’s outcome. Umbrae shadows surrounded Shiori, watching her. What should she do? She had never fought anyone before. If she intervened, would the shadows open her like she had seen them do to Ribald?

“Mores Praetor,” the Duke’s voice came from the dust cloud. “Upon a better world, thou wouldst have happiness. Alas, ‘tis a shame thou wast born in Kryptopeda.”

A howling wind nearly knocked Shiori over as it cleared the dust.

The Duke stood, holding Motohara by the neck with his feet dangling at least ten centimeters from the ground.

Motohara’s face was a mask of pain. Red lines of magic writhed through his body from the Duke’s hand. His muscles looked strained to the breaking point. The improvised wooden dagger was shattered in his hand.

When the Duke said his true name, Motohara lost all power.

“Stop!” Shiori yelled, putting all her power behind the spell she used most often. She had no real plan, but this seemed better than threatening the Duke with floating pebbles.

The red magic boring holes into Motohara vanished, and he relaxed. All sound ceased. Not a leaf moved. The shadows wilted under the spell, and more than a few silently died, a black smoke leaving crumbling bodies.

“Your majesty,” the Duke said without turning his head, “thou art, verily, one to behold. Such power! In so little time?”

He struggled against her spell and broke free. “I tremble at the thought!”

“Let us go unharmed,” Shiori said, struggling to keep her voice steady, “and you won’t have to see what I can really do.”

The Duke’s eyes sparkled with youthful merriment. “A fair sight better than the last Princess. She had your eyes, but not the fire in your soul. Forsooth, neither of us twain know what thou canst do. Thou art yet an infant in magic, yes?”

With a powerful word that echoed through the trees the Duke broke Shiori’s spell. The return of rustling leaves overhead became deafening by comparison. The surviving shadows stalked closer to her.

Motohara collapsed, unable to stand or move after the Duke had Spoken his name. Shiori had weakened Symphon by speaking his true name. By saying Motohara’s true name, the Duke must have leech all power from him.

Motohara groaned on the ground.

The Duke smiled in surprise. “Canst thou remain awake, dearest child? I Spake thy name in all earnestness. Thou hast grown marvelously.”

“D…” Motohara struggled to speak. “Do you...”

The Duke squatted next to Motohara, looking more like a child at a playground than a man in red silks and gold embroidery had any business appearing. “Wonderous indeed! Mine eyes deceive me? Thou dost yet struggle?”

“Get away...” Shiori began to say, then felt claws around her throat and jabbing at the small of her back. A few more centimeters and those claws would pierce her kidneys and kill her.

“Mores Praetor,” the Duke said. The words hit like a two-ton slab of granite, crushing the boy into the earth. Motohara seemed frail and small. The impact of his true name had sunk him into the soft forest floor.

The Duke stood. “Such strength indeed. When thou art bent to my will I will have such errands for a boy such as thee.” The Duke turned to Shiori.

She struggled, but stopped with a gasp when the claws at her back cut through her clothing. She felt her blood trickle down her back, soaking into her shirt in an expanding warm wetness of lost life.

She was going to die.

“Do you know…” came Motohara’s voice again.

The Duke spun, fascination in his eyes. “From whence cometh this power, darling boy? Thou dost continue to astound!”

Motohara struggled to roll out of the depression he had been forced into, but not before the Duke pushed him deeper with another word.

“MORES PRAETOR!” the Duke said, putting effort into the spell. “Forget not who thou art, my child. It is unseemly to struggle.”

The Duke sighed. “To weightier matters. Princess, I must…”

Motohara stood. “Do you know what the name Motohara means?” He was in pain. Shiori didn’t need more than a glance at him to know that the fight with the Duke had bruised his body and stolen his strength.

Motohara trembled under the effort of struggling to stand. Tears ran down his face, frustration at his weakness written clearly over his face. “I can’t forget who I am, but I can change.”

The last word, ‘change,’ echoed with magical force.

“Mores. Praetor!” the Duke said impatiently.

And nothing happened.

The Duke gasped in amazement. “My, my, my wonderful Mores.” The words were a startled utterance, nearly a prayer.

“That isn’t my name anymore, old man.”

Motohara seemed more real. There was a pulse of power from him that rivaled the Duke’s aura. Shiori recognized that sense of realness. She had seen it in Symphon. Motohara had just thought of his true name and somewhere he had a Grimoire lending him power.

“Mores Praetor,” the Duke bellowed. But it did nothing.

“Shall we fight in earnest, father?” Motohara said with renewed energy.

The Duke laughed heartily. “Darling boy, mine, it shall be my delight.”