A King’s Son Doesn’t Kneel

“The Kraken Organization?” Kane’s gaze sharpened. “You told me that project had been dismantled.”

The raven upon his shoulder tilted its head.

“That is what I believed,” Julius answered through it. “I was deceived.”

Across the ruined plain, Haze, Rappa, and Mitch remained still. Malvern stepped in front of Kane, placing himself between the King and the trio. His sword remained low at his side.

Julius continued. “Six wanted criminals, each classified at Dragon-level severity, gradually vanished from the records of the Raging Volcano Guild. Someone was removing their names one by one.”

Kane’s fingers tightened.

“I suspected who was responsible, but I chose not to move. So I sent Revon to investigate in secret.”

“And what did he discover?”

“The project was never shut down. Its command was transferred to the Emperor, who has been working alongside the Kraken Organization’s current leader.”

The raven’s black eyes fixed upon Kane.

“Someone you know very well.”

“Neven Vashenharth.”

For a moment, even the wind seemed to stop.

Julius’s voice grew heavier. “They moved today. Their objectives are to overthrow you and capture a boy with a half-crimson eye.”

Yellow lightning burst across Kane’s body. “Julius, I owe you my gratitude.”

“Save it for later. Besides, I have already dispatched four of my Elite Guards to help contain the situation.”

Far above the borders of Lykoria, something enormous tore through the clouds. Its wings were so large that they blocked the sunlight each time they moved. Two figures dressed in red armor stood upon its back, the plates of their armor rattling in the wind. A raven rested upon the shoulder of one of them as the creature carried them south toward Valenharth.

Back at the ruins of Oakheart Castle, the raven flew from Kane’s shoulder as he closed his eyes and focused.

Inside the Royal Palace, Kane’s lightning copy continued sealing documents at the desk.

A distant impact shook the palace.

The copy’s hand stopped. Its gaze shifted toward the window as another tremor passed through the walls.

Then its yellow eyes began to glow.

Far away, Kane closed his own eyes and focused through the copy.

The copy’s sight would become his path.

One more moment, and Kane would cross the distance between them.

The office door opened with a slow creak.

Neven stood in the doorway, dressed in his black priestly robe.

A small portal opened beside the copy’s neck. A hand emerged from it, gripping a narrow knife. Clear liquid dripped from the blade and struck the floor.

The knife plunged into the copy’s neck.

It burst into yellow sparks.

At Oakheart Castle, Kane’s eyes snapped open.

The path that would have carried him back to the palace in less than a second was gone.

Nash.

Alvis.

Julia.

As far as Kane knew, Alfred was still away from the palace. No one remained there capable of protecting them.

Kane turned sharply toward Malvern.

“Deal with these three.”

Malvern’s head shifted toward him. “What happened?”

“The Royal City is in danger.”

Yellow lightning erupted around Kane, and he shot into the sky before another thought could reach him.

“Wait! Your Majesty—I can open a portal…”

Malvern’s words reached no one. Kane was already tearing across the sky.

The wind roared around him. The land beneath became a blur of forests, rivers, and stone.

“Faster!” Kane said through clenched teeth.

Yellow lightning intensified around his body.

Haze watched the fading streak of light. “So,” he muttered, “he figured it out.”

Back inside the Royal Palace, Neven stepped through the office doorway and watched the final sparks of Kane’s copy disappear.

“A clone,” he said. “As expected of a cunning heretic.”

He approached the desk, pulled back the chair, and sat. For several seconds, he said nothing. His hand moved across the wood, passing over the royal documents until his fingers reached Kane’s green-and-gold crown.

“How did he sit here?” Neven asked. “How would you describe it, Alfred?”

Alfred looked into the room. “Peacefully, I suppose.”

Neven’s hand stopped. For several seconds, his face tightened. Then his arm swept across the desk, sending documents, seals, ink bottles, and the crown crashing to the floor.

“He stole my kingdom. He butchered my family. And then he sat at my father’s desk as though he belonged here.”

Red and black ink spilled from their broken bottles, flowing beside one another across the floor. Neven rose. “Today, Valenharth shall be freed from the usurper who seized its throne.”

Elsewhere in the palace, inside the Royal Library, Alvis sat at a long table, holding an open book in both hands. Beside him lay his closed notebook, a pen resting across its cover.

He had read the same sentence four times.

Across from him, Nash opened another book, flipped through its pages, closed it, and immediately reached for the next one. Alvis’s eyebrow twitched. He tried to read again.

Another book slammed shut.

“You said you’d help me study,” Alvis said, “not annoy me.”

“I’m looking for something.”

Nash scanned several pages, clicked his tongue, and closed the book.

Alvis lowered his own. “What are you looking for, anyway?”

“Something that explains magic.” Nash leaned back in frustration. “Something that would help control mine.”

“You won’t find it here.”

Nash glared at him. “What?”

“I’ve looked before. I wanted to learn more about magic too, but I never found a book that specifically focused on it.”

“Tch.”

Nash folded his arms. Alvis studied his annoyed face, then slid the notebook and pen across the table toward him before pulling his chair closer.

“What are you doing?” Nash asked.

“Teaching you the principles of magic.”

“You?”

Alvis glared. “My dad taught me.”

“That makes it slightly more believable.”

Alvis ignored him and drew a triangle. “This triangle represents the human body.”

Nash leaned closer despite himself.

Alvis wrote one word at the upper point. “Senergy.”

At the lower-right point, he wrote another. “Phynergy.”

Then the lower-left. “Menergy.”

Nash looked between the three words. “So everyone has these?”

“Yes. But that alone doesn’t make someone a magician.”

Alvis drew a wide circle through the triangle, its edge crossing all three sides. “This circle is mana.”

“Inside the body?”

“No. Mana exists everywhere around us.” Alvis tapped the circle with the end of the pen. “Dad described it as countless feathers too small for our eyes to see. A person born with magic breathes those feathers in.”

“And then?”

“Those feathers unlock three pathways of magic.”

He traced an arrow from phenergy to the Aura Pathway. “The first is the Aura Pathway. It is fed by phenergy and requires mana to open.”

Then he traced two arrows—one from phenergy and another from senergy—to the Auralethes Pathway. “The second is the Auralethes Pathway. It is fed by both phenergy and senergy and requires…”

“Pain.”

The unfamiliar voice came from beyond the bookshelves. Nash and Alvis turned.

Neven stood at the end of the aisle. Alfred stood beside him.

Alvis blinked. “Alfred?”

He looked from the old servant to the stranger. “Who is this man?”

Alfred’s face held none of its usual warmth. “Mind your tongue,” he said. “You stand before Neven Vashenharth, son of Ziven Vashenharth.”

His voice turned colder. “The rightful King of Valenharth.”

Alvis stared at him. Then he forced a laugh. “Alfred… you’re kidding, right?”

Alfred did not answer. Alvis’s uncertain smile slowly disappeared.

Neven looked at him with something close to pity. “You poor child. You never asked to be born from a usurper’s blood.”

Cold gathered beside him. “May the Lord forgive me for what must happen to you.”

An ice trident formed in the air and shot forward.

Nash threw himself against Alvis, knocking both of them to the floor as the trident passed overhead and buried itself in a bookshelf. Wood cracked, and books crashed around them.

Alvis stared at the ice trident.

Before Nash could push himself up or turn, Neven crossed the distance, caught the front of his clothes, and lifted him from the floor.

“Let go of me!”

Nash kicked and struck at his arm, but Neven barely moved. With his free hand, he brushed aside the locks of hair obscuring Nash’s left eye. His gray gaze settled upon it.

“The half-crimson eye…”

For the first time, fascination disturbed Neven’s calm expression. “Such purity.”

Nash stopped struggling for half a breath.

Neven leaned closer. “I wonder what purpose the Emperor has prepared for an innocent soul like yours.”

The Emperor? Nash thought.

Alvis forced himself upright. “Release him!”

He looked desperately at Alfred. “Alfred, do something!”

A portal rippled open beside Alvis. A fist struck him in the stomach. His breath burst from his mouth. Before he could fall, another portal opened behind him. Alfred’s hand emerged, seized him by the hair, and dragged his head back.

Alvis’s eyes widened through the pain. Alfred looked down at him.

“I have waited years to stop pretending.”

His grip tightened. “Every time I called you Prince, I had to swallow the lie. Every time I bowed to your father—to that false king—rage burned inside me.”

Alvis’s lips trembled. “No…”

Memories struck him one after another.

Alfred opening a portal into the kitchen after midnight so Alvis could steal cake without Kane noticing.

Alfred sitting beside his bed and reading stories until he fell asleep.

Alfred leaving the palace in the middle of a storm to buy medicine when Kane was away.

Alfred standing before the King and accepting blame for a mistake Alvis had made.

“The Alfred I know…” Alvis whispered. “He would never say that.”

Something flickered in Alfred’s eyes. It vanished before Alvis could understand it.

“Then you never knew me.”

Nash’s anger surged. “Get your hands off him!”

Neven looked toward Alfred. “The boy is right. There is no need to prolong this.”

Alfred released Alvis’s hair.

“End his suffering,” Neven said.

Alfred opened a small portal and drew out a knife. “As you command, my King.”

Alvis remained on his knees. The library blurred around him.

His father had been called a false king.

Alfred had hated him all along.

And everything he had believed about his childhood had been a lie.

Nash saw Alvis on his knees, and for an instant, the sight reminded him of his mother.

Dark crimson aura erupted around his fist. “You bastards!”

Neven’s eyes widened at the familiar pressure.

Nash drove his fist forward. Neven released him and tilted aside. The blow passed his face close enough to stir his white hair. Nash hit the floor, rolled, and rose between Alfred and Alvis.

“Piss off, or I’ll crush you, old man,” Nash said.

Alfred did not reply. His gaze lingered on Nash and the dark crimson aura surrounding his hand, but he continued addressing Alvis as though the threat meant nothing—as though everything he had already done was still not enough to avenge himself upon Kane through his son.

“In truth, none of this is your fault, Alvis.”

He took one step forward, then another, his hand swaying at his side with the knife held tightly in his grip.

“You were simply born as the heir to a throne your father stole,” he said. “And whether I like it or not, you must die for the sake of the kingdom.”

Then Alfred stopped.

His eyes widened.

Books ripped themselves from the surrounding shelves. Dozens floated above the floor, trembling beneath an invisible force.

Julia hovered above the library floor near the second-floor balcony, her black-and-white maid’s dress shifting around her legs.

Alfred’s fingers trembled around the knife’s hilt.

Julia!

The books circled her like a storm as she fixed Alfred with a hard stare. “Step away from Prince Alvis.”

The floating books shot forward. A portal opened behind Alfred. He vanished through it and emerged beside Neven as books struck the place where he had stood.

Bitterness flickered in Alfred’s eyes, betraying the emotion he tried to conceal.

You’re not supposed to be here, Julia!

Far away in her room, the window stood open. Beneath the dresser, hidden in shadow, lay the folded letter the wind had swept from her bed before she could ever read it. It should have taken her far from the palace.

Julia descended slowly, her brown eyes fixed on him. The hurt within them was worse than anger.

“Alfred… why?”

He could not answer.

Nash turned toward Alvis. The prince still knelt on the floor, staring at nothing.

Nash grabbed him by the collar and struck him across the face. Alvis crashed against the nearest bookshelf. His eyes snapped toward Nash.

“You pathetic moron!” Nash shouted.

Alvis stared at him.

Nash’s dark crimson aura shook around his clenched fist. “A king’s son doesn’t kneel!”

The words echoed through the library.

Nash stepped closer. “So get up and don’t let this old bastard decide who you are.”

Alvis’s eyes trembled.

Nash pointed toward Neven and Alfred. “There is only one King of Valenharth.”

His voice hardened. “And that’s King Kane.”

Then he held out his hand. “You’re his son. So snap out of it and fight by my side.”

Alvis stared at the offered hand.

Julia landed beside them. “Nash is right, Prince Alvis.”

Several books remained floating around her. “You are the prince of this kingdom.”

Her gaze stayed on Alfred. “And its future King.”

For several seconds, Alvis did not move. Then his hand closed around Nash’s. Nash pulled him to his feet.

His body still shook but he stood.

“Lady Julia. Nash…”

He drew a deep breath. Flame gathered inside his chest. His eyes snapped open. “Dragon’s Breath!”

A concentrated torrent of fire tore through the library. Neven touched the floor. Ice erupted before him, forming a thick wall. Alfred leaped into a portal and emerged behind the frozen barrier as flames swallowed the aisle.

Heat shook the shelves. A tear slipped down Alvis’s cheek and vanished into steam before it reached his jaw.

The fire ended. Cracks spread across Neven’s ice wall. Alfred stepped from behind it and tore away his charred outer cloak.

Alvis struck his fist into his open palm. “I’m ready now,” he said. “Let’s bring them down.”

Nash’s aura returned around his hand.

Julia lifted two fingers, and several books rose from the shelves, circling around her.

Alfred tightened his grip around the knife. His gaze moved between Alvis and Nash. But when it reached Julia, his hand hesitated.

“No matter what you do, nothing will change what is about to happen here.”

Across the Royal City, the Kraken continued tearing through everything in its path. A tentacle crashed through a line of buildings. Stone and glass rained into the streets.

Royal Guards attacked from every direction. Fire burst against the creature’s hide. Water blades struck its limbs. Spears of earth rose beneath it.

Nothing stopped it.

Jack held a Royal Guard by the front of his armor. “JAJAJA! Is this all the Royal Guard can do?”

The guard struggled, but Jack’s grin only widened. “Boring.”

The man exploded inside his grip. Jack laughed as blood and smoke scattered around him.

Sparks sat upon the edge of a nearby rooftop, one leg hanging over the street. A small mirror floated before him. His dark blue coat shifted in the cold wind as he calmly drew a comb through his hair, watching his reflection while destruction spread through the avenue below.

On the Kraken’s back, Yuki threw both arms into the air. “Again! Crush another one!”

A tentacle wrapped around a fleeing Royal Guard. “Please!” the man screamed. “I have two children!”

The Kraken slammed him into the street. The stone beneath him shattered.

Yuki laughed.

Evren arrived moments later. His feet stopped.

Frozen bodies filled the avenue. Some remained whole. Others had shattered beneath falling debris, leaving broken faces and limbs scattered across the snow. Blood ran between the stones.

Evren covered his mouth as his stomach twisted. “What kind of hell is this…?”

A wounded Royal Guard landed beside him. One of the Kraken’s tentacles had thrown the man across the street. Blood poured through a split in his armor.

Evren dropped to his knees and caught him. “Hey. Stay with me.”

He pressed both hands against the wound. “Don’t close your eyes. Help is coming.”

The guard’s lips moved. “Run…”

His body went still.

Evren froze. Bernard’s voice returned. “Young one. Mount your horse and retreat.”

His hands began to tremble. The Kraken towered over the avenue. Every part of Evren wanted to obey that old command again.

Run.

Live.

Return to his grandmother.

His fingers closed around the hilt of his sword. “No.”

He stood. His knees shook so badly that his armor rattled. Evren pointed the blade toward the Kraken. “We are Royal Guards of Valenharth.”

His voice cracked. “We protect this city.”

The sword trembled in his hands. Evren looked at it. Then he pressed its tip into his palm.

Pain cut through the fear. Blood ran along the steel.

“Iron Magic—Elongation!”

The blade shot forward. It stretched across the avenue and struck the Kraken’s side. Evren gritted his teeth and pushed. The Kraken’s soft flesh caved inward beneath the tip. Yet its skin refused to break.

The creature slowly turned toward him. Evren’s face went pale. “My blade…”

“Hohoh…”

Yuki crouched upon the creature’s back, his crimson eyes fixed on Evren. “That one next.”

He pointed. “Tear him apart slowly. I want to hear everything.”

Sparks looked toward him from the rooftop. “You are utterly deranged.”

The blade shrank back to its original length. Evren stepped backward. His breath came too quickly. His sword lowered.

Then he slapped both cheeks with his bloodied hand. The sting forced his head clear. He laughed weakly.

“I’m still afraid, Senior Bernard.” Tears streamed down his face.

He raised the sword again. “But this time…”

His shaking hands tightened around the hilt. “I’m moving.”

He ran. “AAAAARGH!”

The Kraken’s tentacle swept low. It wrapped around both his legs and lifted him upside down. Evren’s sword fell from his hand and struck the street below. The world spun.

Yuki leaned over the creature’s back, savoring the sight.

Evren closed his eyes. “Please, Lord…”

His tears fell toward the street. “Watch over my grandmother.”

The tentacle tightened.

“She has no one else.”

Yuki raised one hand. His smile widened. “Now—”

A woman dropped from above, her right fist drawn back and wrapped in violet aura.

Yuki looked up.

His crimson eyes widened, and his breath caught—not with fear, but admiration.

“METEORIC DESTRUCTION!”

Her fist slammed into the Kraken, and a shockwave tore through the avenue.

The tentacle around Evren’s legs went slack and released him. He plummeted to the street as the Kraken hurtled backward, its enormous body crashing through one building, then another, before vanishing beneath an avalanche of stone and dust.