CHAPTER 90

  TO FOOL YOUR ENEMY, FOOL YOURSELF

  Every letter, every word screamed official. The report was something else. “Man, this is some next-level shit.” Hans wondered, breathing. “One ought to regret falling from grace. She is likely to long to be a warlord again, and she needs the spirit connection. But if that were possible, she’d have it. Father never leaves a room for return.”

  His fingers wandered absently across the furrowed ridges of his brow, tracing the contours. In his other hand, he held the document—a monochrome report. He read and read, almost devouring it.

  “Prophecies…” he murmured, the word a breath between thought and speech. A crooked smile touched his lips. “Well, naming myself Theodred wasn’t just for messing with Deli; I thought it could also be a way to pique our dear queen’s interest.” He paused, chuckling under his breath. “And by the , it seems it will be.”

  He rolled the report, sliding it onto the desk. “Still, a backup plan is in order. My record of first plans triumphing is... nothing short of legendary—in its consistent failure.”

  “Wait a minute.” He paused, reading a line that he had not put too much weight on before. “What was her gift she received from Osiris… and Arat doesn’t know?” The thought surfaced like a lingering dream. He recalled Arat’s uncertainty, doubt in his voice. But also remembered what Aadya had said, “Her gift was knowing the future or what she said a—curse.”

  He picked the report once again, skimming through and through. “This is disturbing— why she does not show affection for her children. Is she fearing something?”

  Even thinking hard. He didn’t get anything. “Ugh!” Frustrated, he plopped down on his cosy bed. “Ah man, I have more questions than answers now. I really need some Deli here— no, I don’t.” Suddenly, an obscured idea hit him. “Maybe something will happen to her children as she saw in the future. Maybe someone used them as her weakness— like me,” He pointed at himself, chuckling. “But that’s not me. Maybe, what was his name?”

  His eyes found under the Relationship and Influence column. “Martys Clandor, fire knight of rank 08. Well, it’s not some crazy secret that the Crows are not happy with how Reina rules. Clandor now calls her queen of commoners— nobles, royals, doesn’t like commoners getting equal opportunities.”

  Nodding, he laid out, he needed more information. At least on a few points. “I should commission another secret enquiry,” he murmured under his breath, eyes turning narrow. “Crows and her children. I need to be sure using them will get a result.”

  He resolved, thinking, if the threads led where he hoped—they would not just serve a plan. They would forge a weapon. One sharp enough to shake the Clandorian Queen to her very core.

  Pulling out a Firestone from a knapbinder, he ignited the dossier. What was a report now lay in ashes. He picked the communication orb, drawing a familiar pattern, and relayed his plans to Arat, obviously hiding some crucial details he didn’t want to share, and Arat didn’t mind. Just like that, another commission was made, but this time Hans showed his stingy side on this, making it completely free of cost.

  Even when Arat said he’d send the money— his piled-up allowance— Hans didn’t agree. “I’ll claim it when I sit on that throne,” he said, cutting off the connection.

  In three days, he received another report summarising Reina’s situation. It revealed that she was being forced by Crows, particularly Martys. As if, he knew her some deep, dark secrets. A button only he can push to make Reina do his bidding. Her children, on the other hand, craved her love and care but only received her cold gaze.

  Hans caught a line that intrigued him more than any other: it appeared that Martys’ secret holds weight, speculated to be big enough to dethrone Queen Reina and put down the matriarchy lineage for good. The ‘sharp sword’ he holds on Queen Reina’s neck needs further time to unearth. But it is safe to say —Martys wants to become the king.

  “Now, that is interesting,” Hans murmured. “Should we silently support him? My hands won’t get dirty, and I’ll finally be able to scratch my year-long itch.” He recalled his Deadlands time, when he was left for dead, where they had clashed, or more clearly, when he was trapped and ambushed.

  “Oh, I’m telling you. I’ll get my revenge. But before that, I’ll get your skills, your spirit, and everything I can get out of you. You’ll be queen of ashes then.”

  On the next dawn, the first thing he did was find Delimira. He’d been hearing Chris’s babbling about her being so quick that he couldn’t even see. A perfect assassin, he called. “I wonder who’ll be faster, me or her when I turn elf.” He hummed, skipping to the training ground where she was rumoured to be.

  But that wasn’t the only reason he’d sought her out. There was something he needed to know—a crucial detail, if he hoped to slip past Reina’s sharp intellect. Like her, Delimira had a gift for seeing through people, especially him; she could spot his lie or a hidden thought in a heartbeat. And when it came to reading people, none stood closer to the original Reina Clandor than Delimira herself.

  He waited impatiently as both Chris and she clashed, a spar turned into a serious game. She had defeated everyone other than Chris before, and now everyone was gasping to see who’d come top— her or Chris.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Krosh Art— forfeiting as a fourth-circle mage, Delimira finally picked up her rapier, acknowledging that her as a mage was not enough to tame a knight like Chris. She turned dark, as if something of pure evil had woken inside her. Twice, thrice, or maybe several times, her speed skyrocketed. Every time she moved, she left a black streak that followed her. Soon Chris was surrounded by fast-moving black lines.

  Aura skill: Surge. Chris invoked a counter, burning his aura and transforming it into electricity that ran amok in his veins. He too, turned into an electrifying blue streak and soon none could see them but only two lines chasing each other or clashing.

  “Are these two freaking undergrads? Man, this doesn't feel right! These two are monsters. How am I, or the others, supposed to compete with them?” The final-year student started chirping.

  Hans had similar thoughts as he noticed the audience taking in the scene with their mouths agape. Many competent students had already left for their apprenticeship but the remainder wasn’t some chump change. They had stayed to take the extra teachings that Sierra and Rudolf were collectively giving to them.

  Hans turned, his eyes focussing with a mana layer over his pupil. He began to trace them. He could make out what was happening. Their swords clashed, they dodged and countered. It was too fast. “Krosh is a power that is hard to make and even harder to deplete,” he thought. “She could go on all day, but Chris, if he doesn’t use imperial bloodline soon. He’ll just gas out.”

  And Chris on the receiving end, knew that too, but it was an ego-death if he used the bloodline against Delimira, who wasn’t even using the LONG transformation. He wanted to fight that—

  Shiek! A red streak of blood traced over Chris’s cheek. And with a swift motion, the rapier flicked itself to his neck.

  “You lost, Christopher Holger.” She said, her voice proud and her face without a hint of exhaustion.

  “Hans.” She turned, calling aloud. “Get your ass over here.”

  “My ass is good where it is, Deli. It’s not listening to me. See.” Hans joked, imitating the struggle of standing up.

  “Stop joking. Don’t you want to see? Who is stronger, you or me?” She flicked her rapier in his direction.

  “Nah!” With a swift neck moment. He gestured for her to come to him. “It’s serious. I’ve more important business than something stupid about who is stronger and who is what not.” He once again glanced at the training ground, torn between Delimira’s and Chris’s power. “It’s not bad. At least I don’t have to worry about them when I go do my business in Deadlands.”

  “What?” After freshening up in a jiffy, she rushed to him, asking. She knew that gaze very well; Hans was cooking something, and if she didn’t hurry, there would be serious damage, similar to the Rebellion sword falling into the hands of Xandor and Samson waking up as an imperial pain in Genas’s green butt.

  “I asked, What?” Delimira reiterated, finally jolting Hans back to reality. He was lost in his own world, murmuring something undecipherable.

  “Ugh, this is happening too frequently.” He shook hard, trying to throw off the stuff his brain was processing. He just had the past dream with his eyes open. “Ancestor was right? The more diverse fighting styles I see, the more memories of the past will come back to me— so Clandor was not always a matriarchal land. I’ve seen him, the black-haired elf…and now I think, yeah, he looked a little like that psycho goddess. Was Ancestor the one running from him… but I’ve seen him behead—Ha, this is confusing.”

  “What is confusing?” Delimira stopped Hans, who was about to pluck his hairs out. “These hairs are precious, you know.” She fixed his hair and asked, “Stop mumbling and say, why did you call me here? What are you scheming this time?”

  “Exactly. This.” Hans pointed, confusing her further. “This… how do you know I am about to do something?”

  “I told you before, didn’t I?” She sat beside him, relaxed, putting one knee over another. “Elves have heightened senses that allow them to feel other people’s emotions. Some elves have this heightened to such an extent that they can sense what others are feeling just by looking at them. Queen Reina and I are the two peas in a pod in this case.”

  “So let’s just say, I want to fool her in such a way that she could never tell if I’m lying or not. And there mustn’t be any room for doubt. What should I do?”

  “Hans. You are playing with a fucking fire here. Xandor, rebellion, civil war. That is just something your plan went wrong, but fooling Reina is just a ‘wrong plan’. She’d be wary of you just because you are a Parvian.”

  “Let’s drop the Parvian part. What then?” Hans raised his brows, asking her to recompile her answer.

  “Haa!” She sighed, thinking, and after a brief pause, she aligned her thoughts with words, “She is just like you—”

  “We are nothing alike.” Hans hated those words and he was not shying away from expressing it.

  “NO, you are.” Delimira insisted on him listening. “You are both batshit crazy, but she has a precise control over what you can perceive of her.”

  “Meaning?”

  “People are hypocrites by nature.” She explained, “We always say don’t judge a book by its cover, yet we always do. Let’s see by example. You knew giving Rebellion to Xandor was a bad idea, yet you did. Admit it, it was not solely because of the transaction you did with him. It was your curiosity, you wanted to know what Xandor could do with that sword. Your need to know tendency is what I call common craziness between you two.”

  “That’s probably right—and your point?”

  “If you want to fool her, be sincere about it. Fool yourself into believing something you are not, and she will follow even if your cover is dubious, just because she’d be curious about how far you can stretch the charade.”

  “That is I can do.” Hans nodded.

  “My butt, you can. It is the hardest thing to do.” Delimira right out denied.

  “You did it.” Hans pointed, “You pretended, no, you believed yourself to be an ass, but you are just a lost girl searching for reasons to get by, didn’t you? You even gave up your dream of revenge—

  “Because the path to there was sad and lonely. I’ll lose much more important in that pursuit. If it ultimately makes me unhappy, why should I hit my head against it?”

  “You never wanted revenge, yet everyone, including me, believed you did. Because that’s how you made us perceive it. You lived that lie. I can do it too.”