Luxthforthian was escorted into the ballroom, a vast enclosure that teemed with the richest inhabitants of Bastion Cothbrenias as well as nobles from other kingdoms who visited on such extravagant occasions. The room was adorned with towering three-hundred-foot curtains, and the walls were covered in murals personally commissioned by Cothbrenias to depict bizarre imagery—such as a fox biting off its own tail, or a swarm of ravens lifting a dead swan out of a lake by its neck. The tables were immaculate, decorated with the finest cutlery and silverware known to the kingdom, with napkins—made from goat milk and silk—folded into perfectly uniform pyramids. The attendees wore the fanciest attire they could muster: tailcoats, puffy dresses, skirts, or anything considered grand enough for the occasion. Everyone was encouraged to dress up to avoid appearing uncouth before the finely dressed elite. The Grand Cothbrenias Ball was held every six to twelve months. Cothbrenias has never actually attended a ball because the doors to get inside would have to be torn down and remolded to suit his massive height, wasting precious time and resources in the king's eyes.
The music that followed was that belonging to a pipe organ, played by the best organ player in all the kingdoms. He was Kingshold Von Sheltz, the apparent son of Honestria Sheltz, the most dangerous and wanted man in the world right now. He was captured by Cothbrenias and forced to pay off the misery his purported father has caused by playing and directing music or plays for the people of the kingdom.
The second Luxforthian stepped foot in the room, everyone stopped what they were doing and stared at him walking inside nervously. He looked out of place because he still was in his village boy attire. Even the pipe organ played something a little bit more…dratmatic as Luxthforthian walked past several rich men and women from Bastion Cothbrenias and other kingdoms, feeling out of place as he did so, as if he did not belong here despite his new access to power as the only rightful heir to the throne.
“Hello everyone, my name is Luxthforthian, and I am uh—the new heir to the throne?”
“A rightful heir to the throne?” a plummy feminine voice somewhere in the crowd inquired.
“Sounds like a fool’s story if you’ve gotta ask meh,” retorted another.
“Migh ah well be-ah liah,” responded a posh but high male voice.
Luxthfortian’s knights followed inside the ballroom at his command, a signature snap he copied from Cothbrenias, letting them know he wanted to be followed.
Suddenly, everyone in the room that doubted him began to clap their hands in a royal manner, some people even bowed out of dismissing him as a peasant with the tendencies of a raconteur.
Bernadette appeared a few feet away from Luxthforthian, causing him to light up as he saw her.
“To Luxthforthian, the prince of Bastion Cothbrenias!” she said, raising a golden glass of purple cider in the air, causing some of it to slosh out onto the golden encrusted floor of the ballroom.
As everyone went back to dancing and talking, Luxthforthian dismissed his knights as he approached Bernadette, throwing himself into her embrace as he nearly teared up.
“I missed you so much!” he shouted eagerly.
Bernadette laughed. “I missed you too idiot, but it’s only been 20 minutes!”
“Turns out I am the king’s son,” Luxthforthian said casually, placing emphasis on the satchel with Hexarexachrona. “We have to go now. We have a long journey ahead of us.”
~~~
Luxthforthian passed by a canteen full of poor peasants waiting in line for bread rations. The Eternal Dark as well as the flu that came with it has had a massive toll on the people of Bastion Cothbrenias. So much so that the food itself was rationed everyday since crops died out and all matters of preservation had ceased indefinitely. Luxthfortian waited in line with Bernadette. The two had discarded their peasant clothing for more modest attire, with Luxthforthain’s outfit consisting of a forest green cotton shirt and Bernadette’s an ebony, shoulderless top with small ash-colored chains.
“The line’s longer than Cothbrenias’ hair,” Bernadette quipped, rubbing her elbows nervously. “I don’t think waiting in this line’s a good idea. Imagine all the time we’re wasting away right now by standing here and waiting for bread that might as well be stale by now?”
Luxthforthian nodded. “Exactly. Who is to say that the bread served is rotten?”
“I always liked the way you thinked, Lux, it is very much like you.”
An instructor, a burly, middle-aged man with scruffy ginger side burns and a portly exterior, cleared his throat and shouted, “Next!”
This signaled that it was time for Luxthfortian and Bernadette to pick up their respective pieces of bread, which as they took their slices, were met with the realization that it was indeed stale, consisting of moldy patches.
“Ha!” Luxthfortian laughed. “I knew it!”
Bernadette nudged him on the shoulder. “For an extravagant kingdom, the bread’s consistently terrible. I mean a little yeast will restore the good bits, but I can’t say I’m disappointed it's unlike the bread from Dale.”
Luxthfortian bit into his piece of stale bread. “Tell me about it,” he said, voice muffled.
~~~
Cothbrenias unlocked the door to his room, stepping inside the real Eternal Dark that was his room, noticing Sensationia cowering by the alcove shattered in messy papers. He walked over to her, his mechanical steps rustling against the floor with his metal boots.
“You slapped me!” Sensationia called out across the room. “Made it look like a moment of courage in front of those adolescents! Sick! Your perverseness! AH!”
Cothbrenias inched closer to her, causing her to instinctively back as he instinctively reached for his sword that was no longer there. He unsheathed a wooden dagger from his breast pocket, clenching it to a point his already pale fingers turned a cream yellow.
“Answer me Cothbrenias, please! Make the suffering of these people stop, of me stop!”
Cothbrenias gave her a detached expression as he jutted his chin upward and noticed sharp protrusions sticking out of the ceiling fastened together by a string near the alcove Sensationia backed away from.
“Booby trapped,” Cothbrenias said, tone flat. “Sloppy.”
He bent down and picked Sensationia by the throat, holding her in the air with one hand while the other drove the blade through her right eye socket. Blood pooled immediately upon the entry of the foreign object, causing her to scream in abject misery.
Cothbrenias tilted his head, and then dropped Sensationia before he turned around and stood at his crimson-covered hands, chuckling a laugh after a laugh until it turned into a cackle so painful he turned his head to face a distressed Sensationa as she attempted to pry the object from her eye socket.
Cothbrenias’ knights barged into the room, seeing a sadist scene unfold in front of them that consisted of Cothbrenias cackling like a mad man and Sensationa sobbing like a dying window. The knights knew what they had to do to protect themselves as well as Cothbrenias and his image. Four knights ran up to Cothbrenias and leaped on him, applying pressure to his joints as four more jumped on his chest as he fell on his back, still cackling and trying to wrestle the eight knights off of him. Three more knights came in and pointed their blades at him as Pronzo came inside with a distressed facial expression.
Pronzo ran over to Sensationa, assisting her back onto her feet as he ordered two knights to escort her out of the room for medical treatment. While they escorted her out, the eleven knights wrestled with Cothbrenias before one of them sedated him with a tranquilizer dart.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
A knight stepped forward, watching as Cothbrenias’ body slumped into the grip of five other Knights of Cothbrenias.
“What do we do with Our Lord, sir?” asked a knight
“The department of medical insanity will have a field day if they realize their own king needs mental rehabilitation due to the disadvantageous effects of Dark Flu.”
“Understood, sir,” responded a knight that was assisting the others in supporting Cothbrenias’ unconscious weight. “To what location will serve Our Lord best, sir?”
Prozno analyzed his fallen Lord’s unconscious expression, noting how peaceful his closed eyes and flat lips looked, and then turned his head and glanced at the bloody pool where Sensationia was just moments ago. “Take him to the white room on floor forty-five. Make sure he is well-fed and drinks enough water. I will have to take charge while he rests.”
“You can’t do that, sir?” a knight supporting Cothbrenias’ weight answered. “A royal advisor can’t be crowned king. Besides, have you heard the news? The king has a rightful heir now.”
“A rightful heir?” Prozno scoffed. “Since when, last night?”
“He is the boy that looks like a girl,” a knight interjected.
“The one with the long blond hair,” added another.
Pronzo pulled out a quill with fresh ink on its tip and a piece of parchment. “It is verily true that about twenty-five-percent of infected exhibit violence in their tendencies; ergo, the seventy-five-percent that are not symptomatic are everyday individuals like you and me.”
“You’re saying we all have the Dark Flu, sir?” asked a knight.
Another knight coughed. “Does that mean we’re all infected?”
Pronzo smacked his forehead. “Insolent.”
All of the knights collectively hoisted Cothbrenias’ inert, unconscious body up and off the ground, carrying him out of the room while one knight stayed behind with Pronzo.
“What about the Queen, sir?”
Pronzo pretended to think, resting his thumb on his angular chin. “Keep them away from one another; I want her held somewhere medically friendly where she can heal from nigh myopia—yes, somewhere lovely.”
The knight’s brows peaked. “Where would that be now, sir?”
Prozno turned to face the knight, lowering his hand from his chin and crossing his arms over his chest. “We will…” he began, clearing his throat. “We will keep her as the head monarch of Bastion Cothbrenias until the latter king returns from his quest to restore this kingdom’s glory.”
“Understood, sir,” the knight responded, bowing to Pronzo before he too rushed out of the room in the direction the previous knights escorted Sensationia out. For Pronzo, the bloodtrail leading out was all he had to follow to reach Sensationia somewhere in the castle.
“Where did you run off to now, Luxthforthian,” Pronzo muttered.
~~~
Luxthforthian and Bernadette booked a ride from a horse carriage at around seven pm. In the meantime, the two attempted to locate Gildhart throughout the militiaristic zones of Bastion Cothbrenias, to no avail. Cothbrenias ensured that these two never locate their friend so that the boy can be reprogrammed as a member of the Knights of Cothbrenias. That meant that Luxthforthian and Bernadette had to head out to Castle Honestria together without the company of their portly ally.
Bernadette laughed to herself, saying to Luxthforthian as they entered the two passenger horse carriage: “I’m going to miss that fatty, y’know. He’s a good person, but sometimes he’s a bit of an idiot.”
As the carriage began to move with the help of two knights whipping the three horses leading it, Luxthforthian smiled, offering a benign comment in the shape of: “Yes, I have known him all my life, and I hope that whatever conditioning my father has for him changes him for the better. He always talked about being a part of the Knights of Cothbrenias, so I am glad that my father made his dream come true, even if it was inadvertent. The carriage began to pick up pace as the two of them buckled themselves in tightly. Despite neither of them ever sitting in a carriage, they both knew the formalities of the system: wear a seatbelt and wear a regal visage. As highlighted in many books Luxthforthian read as a child, it is uncouth to not follow these formalities with the utmost refined exterior possible.
“I’ve never been in one of these before—never thought I’d ever,” Bernadette said, tightening her leather belt buckle. “I’ve gotten so far in the last few months. I’m thrilled to see where I’ll be in a year or so.
“Alive, hopefully,” Luxthforthian added. “Maybe the three of us can rekindle when this all works out, huh?”
Bernadette’s eyes lit up at the thought, shouting: “You’re so right! I’m cooking this time! I’m tired of Hart always making his…world famous goulash.”
“That totally hits the spot, though!” Luxthforthian interjected.
“Ahem…” one of the knights controlling the horse carriage interrupted. “Tone it down a bit, My Lord.”
Luxthforthian realized how loud he was being and said, “I am sorry, but I get a bit carried away about some good food. My apologies.”
The knight offered a blank expression. “We made sure to treat you two, on Cothbrenias’ orders, to the finest picnic meals on your destination to Castle Honestria, with an assortment of the world’s nutritious delicacies ranging from sauerkraut to Tvorog.”
“I’ve got no idea what any of that is, but it sounds delicious,” Bernadette said, rubbing her tummy.
Luxthforthian raised a brow. “Uh—sir?”
“Please My Lord, it is us that have to call you ‘sir’,” said the other knight as he whipped the horse violently.
“I am so sorr—”
Bernadette rubbed Luxtforthian’s arm gently. “It’s okay, Lux. You’re new to this whole royalty thing.”
“Yes, I was just raised that way by those who took me at Dale,” Luxthforthian responded.
“Are you from Dale, Luxthforthian—I mean, My Lord?” asked the first knight. “That means you won that extravagant flooring in the archery contest.”
Bernadette turned to Luxthforthian. “You won flooring in the archery contest last year?! I thought that was some other children!”
“That was me,” Luxthforthian said proudly. “Gildhart still gets upset whenever someone brings it up to him.”
Bernadette chuckled. “I’ll make sure to say that first thing when I see that fatty again.”
~~~
Cothbrenias snapped awake, finding himself restrained in a straight jacket customly made for him in case he ever switched to the darkness. He had prophesied about the Dark Flu’s coming with the Eternal Dark, and had to act fast in case he converted to the evil potency it brought. Cothbrenias tried to shimmy and wiggle out of his restraints, but to no avail. He looked around the vast enclosure that surrounded him, a white-padded room that gave off a musty scent, causing his nose to shrivel up.
Cothbrenias chuckled to himself. “Undo these restraints and they call me a monster; leave them on and they call me a beast.”
He snapped the straight jacket in half, ripping the ridiculous outfit off of him as he cowered in the corner and smiled, noticing there was no way out of the room. “Ah Pronzo, when I said lock me away if I was to go mad, I meant give me a chance to escape and not starve to death.”
Cothbrenias laughed, surveying the room for any vantage points he could rip off the walls. That is when he noticed a slight wedge in one of the padding, making it even from the rest. Cothbrenias drew back his fist, sighing before he drove his arm straight into the uneven padding, tearing right through it in one punch at the expense of breaking his hand. He pulled his hand back, noticing the steady crimson around his broken knuckles, and then gazed at the light that pooled in from the outside world. As the light seeped inside and blood seeped outside, Cothbrenias reached up slightly, wrapping his other hand around the rough hole that he created, and then he began to tear away at the remaining walls and padding, making the hole in the wall reveal the rest of the kingdom as moonlight seeped into the room and the candles from inside began to go out.
“I will find you, Pronzo,” Cothbrenias leaped from the edge of the forty-fifth floor of his castle, and caught himself on the forty-fourth floor’s balcony, scaring and alerting a knight on stand-by.
“Code Red!” the knight shouted, raising an ivory spear in defense.
Cothbrenias kicked the knight off the balcony, wearing an expression of apathy as the knight’s screams got distant before a loud smack echoed throughout the kingdom.
Knowing that the knight’s alert caught the attention of others on patrol, Cothbrenias reached upward from the balcony, making sure his metal boots did not cause him to slip off, and then he climbed back up to the forty-fifth floor, and then drove his broken hand into the wooden vantage point that allowed him to hoist himself up to the forty-sixth floor, another kitchen, then the forty-seventh floor. This would repeat until he got to the very top, his broken hand now a mangled mess from smashing through so many walls and balcony points with so much force.
~~~
“Check this out,” Bernadette said, opening a pamphlet that acted as a directory for Castle Honestria. “Despite its destruction, we still get a venue for all its attractions. Do you think the waterfall is active? I hear it’s a sight to behold, yes?”
Luxthforthian, adjusting his seat buckle, nodded. “Waterfalls are always active, even when the Dark is around.
“Why is that, My Lord?” the second knight second, whipping the horse.
Luxthforthian’s expression turned red in the candle light of the carriage. “You whip that horse too much, sir. I command you to stop that immediately.”
“Apologies My Lord, it might be the Dark Flu that has affected my penchant for violence.”
Luxthforthian sighed. “Whatever it is, figure it out and please leave that poor animal from the pain it does not deserve; it already gets enough as it is with these expeditions.”
Bernadette gazed at Luxthforthian, not expecting the altruism from the latter, and then gazed at the second knight through the little slits in the carriage, but she could only see his silhouette.
