The Storm King

Throughout Leon and Antonius Agrippa’s entire fight, Elise gripped the armrests of her seat so hard that they almost deformed. She couldn’t turn away from the sight, though she wanted to. She could do nothing but watch in horror as her lover and a gladiator fought each other with the intent to kill down in the sands of the arena.

Her behavior was mirrored in quite a few of the spectators, and even in her own box. Cristina and Asiya watched in fascinated horror, and Valeria had frozen in her seat the instant Leon appeared, gripping her armrests in much the same way Elise had. Alix was the most relaxed of them all and she watched the fight with a light smile on her face as if she knew something that no one else did.

Elise had to admit, though, that Alix did know more about Leon’s fighting abilities than anyone else present, and her seeming lack of concern helped Elise to relax more than anything else did.

“He really is fifth-tier…” Asiya muttered in a tone that wasn’t quite disbelief but also wasn’t too far from it either.

“That’s Sir Leon?” Cristina asked quietly.

“That’s him,” Elise confirmed.

“He seems…” the Princess continued, but she didn’t quite know how to phrase her observation. “He seems… quite the capable knight, I don’t think that gladiator is going to win.”

“There’s no way Leon’s going to lose this, not against that arrogant pretty boy,” Alix confidently stated.

“Mm,” Valeria murmured in agreement. After Alix, she had the most experience with Leon’s fighting style, not to mention her own prodigious combat skills. Once Leon seized the initiative from Antonius Agrippa, she visibly relaxed and said, “It’s over now.”

Elise sighed in relief as she watched Leon put more and more pressure on Antonius Agrippa, but she didn’t release her death grip on her seat’s armrests until Leon had definitively defeated the gladiator.

“This is so… exciting!” Princess Cristina exclaimed as Leon made his way toward the exit of the arena’s stage and the rest of the crowd rose from their seats and started filing out of the arena. “Are all games like this?”

“No, this was an unusual thing,” Asiya said, her normal cheery demeanor buried under a much more serious attitude. “The only people who fight in the arena under normal circumstances are gladiators and other people who are specifically trained to do so. Or at least, only those who work in the industry. A knight fighting a gladiator in the arena is quite unprecedented.”

“That gladiator went against the will of Prince August,” Valeria said, “he shouldn’t have done that.”

“Yeah, only if both of the Regents give the order to kill should that have been legal,” Asiya added. “If Leon hadn’t stopped him, that gladiator could’ve been arrested for murder. I mean, he still could be right now for a host of charges, but at least murder won’t be one of them.”

“Like what?” Alix asked curiously. She wasn’t a noble, and so she wasn’t that well-versed in the law. Of course, none of the other ladies were lawyers, but they had a greater understanding of the legal structure of the Bull Kingdom than Alix did.

“Assaulting a knight, assaulting a Legion officer, and contempt of the Royal Family just off the top of my head,” Asiya said.

“He may not have murdered that other gladiator, but there could be a few attempted murder charges,” Princess Cristina added as she sent the Royal box a complicated look. She wasn’t active in the politics of the Kingdom, but she still had a Royal education, and she could see where the Kingdom was going if the two Prince-Regents had made their conflicts publicly known.

Cristina and Asiya then began to further explain and discuss what the consequences could be with Alix. Valeria and Elise, however, had gotten involved in their own quiet discussion, for Elise had noticed the obvious anxiety Valeria was under when Leon appeared and fought Antonius Agrippa. As Valeria relaxed in the wake of Leon’s disappearance and the others’ discussion, Elise leaned over and whispered a question in her ear.

“Do you like my boyfriend, Val?” Elise whispered into her friend’s ear. Her tone wasn’t accusatory, and neither was it angry. In fact, it was more teasing than anything else.

Valeria froze once again, her beautiful face immediately going red from embarrassment and panic.

“W-why would you think that?” Valeria asked, deliberately not looking at Elise as she did.

Elise smiled at her younger friend and said, “Everything. Everything makes me think that.”

Valeria’s bright blue eyes turned toward the floor, and she explained, “He’s… a friend… or, friendly… he was a good sparring partner, and I’d like to spar with him again…”

“Mmhmmmmm,” Elise teased with an almost predatory smile on her face.

“That’s the truth!” Valeria protested, her raised voice finally drawing the attention of the other three in the box.

“What’s the truth?” Asiya asked, her eyebrows raised in delighted inquisitiveness. She had been too engrossed in her conversation with Alix and Cristina to pay attention, so all she saw was Elise leaning toward Valeria and the latter looking like she was about ready to die from embarrassment.

“Nothing!” Valeria vehemently replied, knowing that if Asiya got involved then her teasing would never end.

“I think Val likes Leon,” Elise explained, her narrowed eyes and wide smile encouraging Asiya to do exactly what Valeria feared she would.

“Oh ho ho…” Asiya said with a smile to match Elise’s. “She’s had her heart set on him ever since they first fought back in the Knight Academy. I almost feel sorry for Gaius Tullius, he tried to court Val for years and failed at every turn. If only he knew that the way to win her over wasn’t by party invitations and gifts, but to give her an entertaining fight…”

“Shut up…” Valeria half-heartedly said as she slowly started to sink lower in her seat and hid her face behind her hands. She was stoic by nature and had been trained to fight with nearly every weapon imaginable. She could kill with ease, and her enchanting skills weren’t something to scoff at, either. However, for all that, she still didn’t quite know how to handle it when her friends pressed her buttons.

“Oooh, so it’s true then?” Cristina asked, her soft brown eyes glittering with interest. She had already been told that Valeria had a crush on someone, and now she had her confirmation.

Valeria could only sigh with the knowledge that this was going to be her life for the next few hours, and possibly, from the way Cristina and Asiya’s eyes were staring at her in almost sadistic joy, the rest of her life.

And then, Elise leaned back over and whispered something into Valeria’s ear that left her utterly stunned, something that none of the other ladies heard.

“I really don’t mind if you like him…”

---

When Leon made it back to the Royal box, he found the three high officials and the four Paladins waiting outside.

“Sir Leon!” Roland exclaimed once Leon showed up. “What happened?”

Leon was about as keen to speak with Roland as he always was, but he indulged the Paladin as well as the other six curious people who were staring at him and explained everything that had happened. The Earthshaker Paladin laughed uproariously when Leon got to the part when Octavius reaffirmed the death sentence he had passed down, and the Sapphire Paladin also couldn’t keep a smile off her face. Roland and the Brimstone Paladin, however, were incensed.

“Looks like things are going to get a bit complicated around here,” the Chancellor observed. He then turned to the Chief Steward and the Spymaster and said, “Let’s head back to the Royal Palace. I think we’re going to be busy for a while…”

The other two high officials agreed, and the three swiftly took their leave.

Those who were left hardly had better opinions of their immediate future, though, as the four Paladins seemed about ready to kill each other, and Leon went quiet as three seventh-tier and a sixth-tier mage let loose with their powerful auras. He did his best to resist the pressure they put him under, but he was still only a fifth-tier mage, no matter how close to the sixth-tier he was, and he had a tough time just remaining on his feet.

‘Come on…’ Leon thought as he stared at the door of the Royal box. He guessed that the Paladins would only last another couple of minutes or so before they reached for their weapons. ‘Come on, you Royal bastards! Finish up whatever you’re doing and get your people under control!’

---

Right after the enchanted glass for the Royal box slid back into place, Trajan abandoned all decorum and quite roughly grabbed Octavius, lifting the younger Prince up by the collar of his dress jacket, and slammed him into the wall of the box.

“WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?!” Trajan demanded, even more irate than he was the first time.

Despite the elder Prince’s wrath, and the equally angry looks August and Stefania were giving him, Octavius’ face broke out into a wide, proud smile. “Unhand me, Uncle,” Octavius whispered, his voice steady and calm. “I am a Prince-Regent, if you put me down right now, then I won’t have you arrested for assault.”

Trajan stared into Octavius’ eyes and saw how serious the younger Prince was. Trajan would never be convicted of assault, of course, but having one of the Paladins outside escorting him back to house arrest in the Royal Palace was a humiliation he could do without. Especially if that Paladin was Earthshaker.

Trajan dropped Octavius to the floor and stepped back. He glanced out of the window and saw Leon putting immense pressure upon Antonius Agrippa and smiled. Even if Octavius went against tradition and ordered the death of a gladiator, it still wouldn’t happen.

But the actual death of the black-armored gladiator wasn’t what Octavius had been trying to achieve. In fact, Octavius hadn’t really been trying to achieve anything, he simply wanted to show August how little authority the younger Prince had. He had his favorite chariot team sabotaged, he paid Agrippa not to acknowledge August, and he had August’s order essentially overturned before the whole Kingdom.

Not the best way to de-legitimize his brother, perhaps, but Octavius had to assert his authority, and symbolically showing the common people that his was the side of victory went a long way toward that goal. That Leon soon defeated Antonius Agrippa was a disappointment that angered Octavius to no end, but he didn’t regret his order at all—the day was still a success.

“Uncle, you are not the Regent of this Kingdom,” Octavius said with a smug smile. “I am. You have no authority over me, and that you consistently countermand my orders leads me to think you might be attempting to take advantage of Father’s infirmity to launch a coup.”

“I have no need for a coup, if I wanted the throne, I would be King,” Trajan growled. It was true, to an extent, as Trajan had been the heir apparent as the eldest son of the previous King. However, he didn’t want the throne and relinquished his claim to it in favor of Julius.

“Wants and desires can change with time,” Octavius observed. “Regardless of your motivation, you will stop, or I will have you arrested.”

“You can’t do that, I too, am Regent,” August stated.

“On paper, perhaps,” Octavius sneered. “You are not Father’s heir. Only I am, as only my blood is awakened! Your blood is too common to carry the Sacred Bull’s power!”

“All of you need to shut up!” Stefania shouted. “We are family! This is not how family is supposed to act towards one another!”

Octavius smiled contemptuously at his elder sister and said, “You are no family of mine, and that bastard over there is even less my brother than you are my sister.”

This statement shocked the other three to the point of speechlessness. People could reject political titles, but it was unheard of for a noble of any rank to repudiate their own family—noble legitimacy was given through kinship, and Octavius’ claim that the other three legitimate children of King Julius weren’t his family was to implicitly say the same about the King. It was tantamount to giving up his title as Prince, but none of the other three had any illusions about whose side the nobility would take if this were to become an actual legal issue given how many of them followed Octavius.

Satisfied with the result of his denouncement, Octavius swiftly left the Royal box, his face almost split in half with a shit-eating grin.

Trajan, Stefania, and August were so silent that even a mortal could’ve heard a pin drop in the Royal box. All three of them, even Stefania who normally isolated herself completely from politics, could feel that something was coming, that even if this didn’t go as well as he had hoped for, Octavius was now done sharing power. Up to this point, Octavius hadn’t been exerting his influence too openly in the capital with both Trajan and August there as well, but now he was asserting himself. He would no longer listen to anyone else.

Once he was gone, August collapsed into his seat, mentally exhausted from the day. Of course, just an exhausting day wasn’t enough to leave him feeling so defeated, but Octavius had struck a nerve when he reminded August that his blood hadn’t been awakened.

Over the Bull Kingdom’s five thousand years of history, there hadn’t been a single Monarch whose blood hadn’t been awakened; the title of Bull King wasn’t just for show. When push came to shove, the fact that Octavius had awakened the blood of the Sacred Bull and August hadn’t was a huge mark in the Second Prince’s favor.

But then, as August was trying to process everything that had just happened, Trajan said something that stunned him more than anything else that day.

“August, I think it’s time we awoke your blood.”