Prime Minister

Daromir’s stress levels had never been higher than since his liege chose to make a dark mage his fiancée. And with the bachelor’s tournament coming soon, the increased workload had made it even worse.

Daromir stretched his arms and stared at the document in front of him. It was a standard agricultural report, but it was one of a stack of forms that had piled up during the past week when their work had mostly been documents pertaining to the tournament. It was the same thing every year, but it never got easier.

He looked over at King Basil, who was working through his share of the paperwork with a spring in his step. It wasn’t difficult to figure out why. He had made arrangements to see Nythana that night. The ease that the girl had wrapped Basil around her fingers irritated Daromir to no end, but he knew that it was too late to do anything to stop it. Stepping in would only magnify the problems they were already all facing.

“There’s only a week until the tournament,” he said. “Do you suppose your fiancée has completed the preparations for her magic display after the tournament?”

“Well,” Basil said. “I haven’t seen her in a few days, but I believe she has.”

I won’t complain about not having a dark mage near, Daromir thought.

“I’m certain that she’ll give us a show,” Basil said.

“How can you be so confident, Your Majesty?”

Basil looked up at him and flashed a smile.

“We were talking a couple weeks ago, and I asked her where she learned her magic.”

“And what did she say?”

“She said that everything she knows was taken from the research of dark mages that she’s hunted.”

Wait, Daromir thought. Dark mages are solitary mages. The risk of being killed by a fellow practitioner looking to acquisition their resources is too great for cooperation. All of the new advancements and unique spells that they create stay with them instead of being distributed to the magical world at large. And since they don’t need to wait for mana restoration to use their magic, dark mages with external life energy sources can do up to ten times as much field research as a normal mage. That creates an enormous gap in what a dark mage can achieve in their lifetime compared to a normal mage.

Daromir ran his fingers through his long ponytail as he thought.

If she’s been acquiring the research of all the dark mages she’s killed for the past hundred years, she must have come across some of the most advanced magic that’s ever existed. And if she’s learned the principals behind every one of their spells and spent a century perfecting those principals…

“It seems you understand what that means,” Basil said.

“But that would make her…”

“A veritable well of knowledge,” Basil said. “Not to mention a master spellcrafter. I wouldn’t be surprised if she could cast as many different mana-based spells with her wand as you can with your rod.”

“Be serious, Your Majesty,” Daromir said. “She carries prefabricated spells for a reason.”

“I wouldn’t underestimate her if I were you,” Basil insisted. “I think we can expect a great showing from her next week.”

Daromir didn’t say anything in response, and they returned to the week’s paperwork in silence. Daromir glanced at his casting rod where it rested in its holster on a stand beside his desk. His casting rod was crafted from a miniature bloodwood tree with six branches that each ended with a spellstone that had a powerful spell carved into its surface. Six powerful and versatile combat-related spells at his disposal that would let him attack and defend in a variety of circumstances, and an uncarved spellstone in the center that he could attach external spells to in the event that his six built-in spells weren’t enough to do the job, and yet Basil thought that a wand would be able to outperform it.

The thought of it was preposterous. Yet, Daromir felt that saying anything on the matter would profit him nothing, so he held his tongue. The silence between them persisted until the building shuddered ever-so slightly.

They both looked up from their work and then glanced at each other.

“Did you feel that?” Basil asked.

“Yes, I did.”

They both listened as they reached for their gear. The distant sounds of screams reached them from beyond the doors, and the building shuddered once more.

“An attack, it would seem,” Daromir said with click of his tongue. “Nuisance.”

“They waited until Nythana was out to launch it,” Basil said, standing and latching on his sword belt and casting rod. “This is likely an insider.”

“One of the new tributes, no doubt,” Daromir attached his own casting belt to his waist and grabbing a spinning top-like implement from atop his desk.

“We’ve certainly had an interesting batch this year, haven’t we?” Basil remarked.

“Interesting is not the word I would use, Your Majesty,” Daromir said as he set the top-like device into the top of his casting rod, connecting its tip to the central spellstone on the rod. He immediately fed mana into the spellstone.

“Always so grumpy, Daromir,” Basil said as he opened a compartment in the wall and fed mana into a spellstone centered on the device hidden within. The locking mechanism attached to the safe popped open to reveal a set of weighted metal chains.

The magic energy from Daromir’s spellstone fed into the top wedged between the branches and produced an elaborate, compound spell circle atop the casting rod. Daromir marched over to the safe with the chains, pointed the top of his casting rod at it, and forced magic energy through the spell. The uppermost of the five elaborate magic circles drifted away from the others until it touched the interconnecting chains. As soon as it touched them, it grew to surround them, then it yanked them backwards towards the other circular fields of the spell. It rejoined them, and the top circle and the three beneath it activated at once, wrapped around the chains, and vanished from sight, leaving only the bottom spell circle hovering above the central spellstone.

With his spell set, Daromir turned to Basil.

“You should get to safety, Your Majesty,” he said, though he had a feeling it would be fruitless to say.

“Not a chance,” Basil responded. “If one of Nythana’s favorite maids dies while I’m cowering in a corner, I’ll never be able to look her in the eyes again.”

You say that as though she wouldn’t force you to look her in the eyes, Daromir thought. But trying to stop him will waste crisis response time. I’ll just have to be prepared to defend him as we go.

They exited the office and moved down the hallway towards the source of the sounds. They rounded a corner and found a humanoid shape casting raw elemental spells at one of the tributes and Alba, who was only just able to hold them off with a shielding spell.

A majinn, Daromir thought. One of the tributes, no less. Thank The Goddess I had the foresight to bring the maha-velum chains.

Daromir gripped his casting rod.

“That majinn is Titarium’s tribute,” he told Basil. “And the girl Alba’s protecting is the one from Minsolvon Republic.”

“Wonderful,” Basil said with heated sarcasm as he pulled his sword and rod. “This is just what we needed a week from the tournament.”

He isn’t wrong, Daromir thought. I almost feel bad for Gerenda and the witch.

“I will draw it’s attention,” he said aloud.

Though I’d personally prefer to kill it while its back is turned, he added to himself.

“Ready,” Basil said.

“Lipa Cratim of the Titarium Kingdom!” Daromir declared, attracting the girl’s attention. “I see you’ve become a majinn.”

The girl bellowed in response. She was a horrible sight to see. Dark veins snaked all across her skin, and even her eyes had black veins in them. Bone-like structures seemed to have sprouted from her right shoulder and left knuckles, as well as from her jaw. The change must have been recent, because the protruding bones had streaks of blood running down them.

“Perhaps you thought to kill His Majesty with the heightened power that comes from being a majinn,” Daromir continued.

I don’t sense any spellstones on the surface of her body, he thought. She must have ingested them.

A smirk tugged at the edges of his mouth.

That makes this rather simple.

He adjusted his grip on his casting rod.

“How truly foolish of you.”