TRT Chapter 111: Prince Everard and Princess Evelynn (Patreon)

(Edited by Radriel7)

The rest of the day passed by without much incident. Everyone there fought in at least one match, myself included. We all traded pointers, socialized, and had a good time in general. Some of the people there were a bit stuck up, such as the House Rhodes retainers, but everyone got along well overall. The tea and snacks helped a lot. Delicious food always lifted peoples’ moods.

Those who weren’t in the middle of a match often paired together in order to talk and gossip. Most of the time it was about the current ongoing match, or one of the previous matches. However, a few people took this opportunity to exchange news about what was going on in cultivator society. Who was marrying into what Clan, who offended who, and so on. In that regard, it wasn’t that different from House society.

To be fair, there was a lot of overlap between the two. While not all Clans were Houses, and vice versa, enough of them were that what happened on one side often affected the other. In some cases, events that occurred within a cultivator Clan provided new context for their actions as a House. It made for an interesting dynamic, given how these two different, but similar, societies were intertwined with one another.

All in all, I’d say that Clan Sturm put on a good showing. While my disciples didn’t win every sparring match they participated in, they won enough of them to avoid shaming the Clan. Of course, I won all of my matches, so there were no worries there.

One particular pairing that caught my attention was Lorelei and Lord Asher. They spent most of the gathering in each other’s company, well after their sparring match ended. While I wasn’t sure if they shared any romantic feelings for each other, it was clear there was something going on between them, even if it ended up just being friendship. Based on her expression, Corie felt unhappy about this but kept it to herself for now. I had a feeling that Lorelei would get an earful later on.

All good things come to an end, however. My guests started to leave at around mid-afternoon. Lord Asher and Lady Isabella were both important scions of their respective Clans/Houses, meaning that they were quite busy. They didn’t have time to laze about and chat all day, even if it was in the guise of sparring and trading pointers. This applied to their retainers as well, who were themselves important scions of their own Clans/Houses. Still, it made me glad that they all took the time to attend my little social gathering.

Before he left, I asked Lord Asher about something that had been on my mind. Before our duel a couple weeks ago, after I defeated Lord Wilbur, Lord Asher mentioned something about an inter-Clan tournament.

“It’s a tournament between the cultivator Clans in and around Sunheart, specifically for the younger generation,” Lord Asher explained. “Despite the name, rogue cultivators and cultivators from outside Sunheart are allowed to participate. It’s an opportunity for the younger generation to earn prizes and win glory for their Clan. For rogue cultivators, it’s also an opportunity to earn a spot as a retainer for one of the more powerful Clans.”

He nodded towards Shannon, Annabelle’s bodyguard, who was currently tending to her mistress.

“That one over there won a previous tournament and ended up becoming a retainer for House Solaria,” Lord Asher explained.

Interesting. I’m sure Annabelle would love to learn that little tidbit about her bodyguard, if she didn’t already know. I guessed Shannon followed Lady Thorne when the latter married into House Thorne.

“When is the next tournament?” I asked. “I’m thinking of participating.”

Lord Asher nodded, as if he expected that question.

“Two years from now,” he said. “It occurs every three years. There is also an age limit. Only those twenty one years old and younger can participate. This is to encourage new blood to participate, rather than having the same people win the tournament over and over again.” He grinned. “If you’re curious, I won the tournament before the previous one.”

I could believe that. Lord Asher was already at the fifth thread of the Second Circle, which put him ahead of most wizards his age. If his cultivation was equal to his wizardry, or even just a little bit behind, then five years ago he would have been well ahead of his peers.

Annabelle was going to be disappointed when she heard about the age limit. She was already twenty one. By the time the next inter-Clan tournament arrived, she would be too old.

“I didn’t participate in the previous one since I hadn’t needed to,” Lord Asher continued, grinning at me. “However, if you’re going to participate in the next one, then I will have to as well. It’ll be an opportunity to avenge my loss at your hands.”

I returned his grin with one of my own. He had no chance of beating me, but I wasn’t going to rain on his parade like that.

“I look forward to it, Lord Asher.”

After that, I let him go and went about saying goodbye to the rest of my guests. Given the small number of participants, this didn’t take too long.

Annabelle, unlike everyone else, decided to stay behind for a bit longer. Neither of us had any other commitments for the rest of the day, and our respective families were busy with other business. This meant that we both had a big chunk of free time available, and we intended to take full advantage of it. The mere thought made my heart race, despite my suspicions of Annabelle’s true identity.

However, we had some business to take care of first.

While I had been busy hosting the social gathering, Paladin Charles and Vice Captain Coombs dealt with Prince Everard and Princess Evelynn. They informed me of what happened afterward. The twins had indeed tried to force their way onto the grounds of Sturm Manor, forcing the House Sturm retainers and the paladins of Tempest to subdue them and take them into custody.

Sturm Manor didn’t have any holding cells that could keep a pair of Sun wizards contained, Sun wizards who were also likely cultivators since they were from House Solaria, so the retainers and the paladins made due with Nullicite manacles and one of the rooms in Sturm Manor’s cellar.

Annabelle and I headed to the cellar in order to deal with Prince Everard and Princess Evelynn. Life had been good for us without their involvement, and I wasn’t going to let that change any time soon. Annabelle, in particular, didn’t have the patience to deal with their bullshit. She endured it a year and a half ago, and she didn’t want to go through that again. Despite being scions of House Solaria, there was a limit of what they could get away with.

The cellar for Sturm Manor was a clean, dry, and well-lit place. Following Paladin Charles’ direction, Annabelle and I arrived at the room containing Prince Everard and Princess Evelynn. It was a small storage space with a thick wooden door that had been cleared out for the twins. A pair of guards kept watch; a paladin of Tempest and a House Sturm retainer. I could hear the twins yelling and complaining through the thick wooden door.

“How are they?” I asked.

“Energetic, Chosen,” the paladin of Tempest said in a dry voice. She wore a neutral expression.

“They’ve done nothing but complain ever since we took them into custody, Lord Gabriel,” the retainer of House Sturm said with an annoyed look on his face. “They threatened to bring the full wrath of House Solaria upon us if we didn’t let them go.”

That wasn’t an idle threat. While they weren’t part of the main family, Prince Everard and Princess Evelynn were still members of House Solaria. An insult against them was an insult against the rest of their House. However, given the situation, I doubted the twins would get their way. After all, they were the ones in the wrong.

“I’ve half a mind to let them try,” I said, pinching my chin between my index finger and thumb. “It would give me justification to challenge them to a duel.”

Annabelle jerked her thumb towards the wooden door.

“You can already challenge them to a duel,” she said, sounding irritated. “They trespassed onto Sturm Manor. That alone gives you reason to punish them.”

“Yes, but if they get House Solaria involved and make a bigger mess of things, then I could demand more compensation from them after I win. If I challenged them to a duel now, I would get a much smaller sum.”

Annabelle’s lips quirked up in amusement.

“I love how that’s your biggest concern,” she said. “You don’t even consider the possibility that you might lose.”

“Of course I wouldn’t lose,” I said in a somewhat offended tone. “I was more powerful than them a year and a half ago. I doubt that they’ve improved much since then.”

While Prince Everard and Princess Evelynn were above average when it came to wizardry, they had nothing on me. Even after suffering a setback when Annabelle shattered my Circles, I was still ahead of them. At most the pair would be in the Second Circle. There was their cultivation to consider, if they were indeed cultivators, but I wasn’t worried. After all, I defeated Lord Asher, albeit barely. I doubted they were more powerful than him.

“Anyway, let us get this over with,” I said.

I gestured to the guards. They opened the wooden door just as Prince Everard and Princess Evelynn raised their fists to bang on it. Caught off guard by the door suddenly opening, the pair lost their balance and fell forward. The two of them scrambled to stand up. The Nullicite manacles didn’t restrict their movements much, since wizards weren’t a threat without their magic, so it didn’t take them long to right themselves. Even if they were cultivators, we had four people to subdue them again if they caused trouble.

An idle part of my mind noted that without the chain connecting them, Nullicite manacles were more like bracers. If a cultivator wanted to train their bodies without relying on their mana, then using a pair of Nullicite bracers wasn’t a bad idea.

“You!” the twins said at the same time, their voices filled with outrage.

I took a moment to study the both of them. Prince Everard and Princess Evelynn looked a lot like their father, Prince Eugene. Both inherited his sun-kissed skin, aristocratic features, and golden eyes. Their hair was also the color of burnished gold, though Prince Everard wore his short rather than long like his father and sister. They wore red and gold clothing, the colors of House Solaria. As for their age, I believed they were a little younger than me.

The twins were also handsome, in an androgynous sort of way, which made it difficult to tell which twin was male and which one was female just by looking at their faces. If it weren’t for their clothes, and their distinct auras, I would have had difficulty telling them apart. That was how similar they looked.

In terms of wizardry, they were both at the first thread of the Second Circle. I couldn’t tell what their cultivation was, if they had any, since they had kept it hidden.

“How dare you imprison us like this, you ignorant troglodyte?” Prince Everard asked.

“Who do you think you are?” Princess Evelynn demanded.

I crossed my arms and smirked at the pair, amused by their attitude.

“Lord Gabriel Sturm,” I said. “Chosen of Tempest.”

They both paused at that. I noticed that the two of them avoided looking me directly in the eyes for some reason. They always focused on another part of my face.

“So what if you are?” Princess Evelynn asked. “That doesn’t give you the right to treat scions of House Solaria like common criminals.”

“We demand that you release us right away,” Prince Everard said. “If you do, we just might consider showing you mercy.”

My amusement faded away and a cold mask replaced the smirk on my face. I let out my aura, using it to pressure Prince Everard and Princess Evelynn.

“If you two were common criminals,” I said in a flat voice. “You would have already been executed for trespassing on Sturm Manor. The only reason why you are still alive and unharmed is because you two are scions of House Solaria. I wouldn’t have extended this courtesy to anyone else. Don’t test me. You are not in a position to make demands.”

The twins gulped. Even the guards shivered at my tone. Annabelle alone seemed unaffected.

“What are you two doing here?” she asked with a sigh. “I thought you had gotten over your obsession with me some time ago. Why did you follow me here?”

The twins glanced at Annabelle, as if just noticing her presence, before they both let out squeaks. They both tried to hide behind one another, to no avail. When that didn’t work, they ran back into the room and hid, before peeking out at Annabelle through the open doorway. My beloved just rolled her eyes.

“Seriously you two?” she demanded. “Why are you acting like this? You can just talk to me like a normal person, you know? It’s the least you can do, after the shit you both put me through.”

The twins shared a look, before focusing on me. Once again, they avoided looking me directly in the eyes.

“Release us, Lord Gabriel,” Prince Everard said in a haughty voice. “And House Sturm won’t be punished for your insolence.”

“Otherwise, prepare to face the wrath of House Solaria,” Princess Evelynn said, speaking in the same tone.

Well, it looked like they planned on ignoring Annabelle’s words.

“That’s fucking it,” she growled. “Maybe a beating will loosen your tongues.”

She marched forwards, ready to lay down the smack down, but I stopped her in place by putting a hand on her shoulder.

“Let me handle this,” I said. “Right now, this is just a matter between me and them. If you get involved, then House Thorne might get dragged into it.”

Annabelle looked unhappy about this, but accepted my words and stepped back.

“How dare you lay a hand on her?” Princess Evelynn screeched.

“Keep your filthy paws away from Lady Annabelle, you brute!”

The twins rushed forward, apparently set on defending Annabelle from what nefarious intentions I might have. The guards started to intercept them, but I gestured for them both to stand down.

I kicked Princess Evelynn in the stomach and sent her flying back into the room, taking care not to hurt her too much. She tried to avoid my blow, making it obvious that she’d had some kind of martial training, but she wasn’t fast enough. Prince Everard roared when he saw what happened to his sister and tried to hit me with a kick of his own. To his credit, his form wasn’t bad. If it had landed, it would have hurt a lot.

Unfortunately for him, I avoided his blow with ease and kicked his other leg out from under him. Prince Everard crumpled to the ground. Before he could recover, I grabbed him by the shirt with one hand and lifted him high off the ground. With my free hand, I summoned a Claw of the Storm Dragon and pressed it against his throat. He froze. Princess Evelynn, who recovered from my kick, froze in place as well.

“It seems my words aren’t getting through your thick skulls,” I said, speaking in a cheerful voice. Underneath the cheer, however, was an undercurrent of malice. “So let me reiterate. You two are nothing more than trespassers. Your status as scions of House Solaria prevents me from killing you outright, but I can still punish you for your transgressions. So unless you want to see how creative I can get when it comes to inflicting pain, I suggest you both shut up and listen.”

Prince Everard sneered at me.

“If you think you can cow us with threats of violence, you are sorely-…”

I grabbed his cheeks with my clawed hand, cutting off his sentence.

“Shut. Up.” I forced him to look me in the eyes. “Here’s what’s going to happen-…”

This time, Prince Everard cut me off midway through my sentence when his eyes rolled in the back of his head and he fainted in my grasp. His head lolled backward.

“Everard!” Princess Evelynn screamed. “What did you do to my brother?”

I stared at Prince Everard’s limp body in confusion.

“Nothing,” I said, completely baffled. “I just looked him in the eyes.”

“What? That can’t be. Look at me.”

Confused, I glanced at her. The moment our eyes met, she fainted as well. The House Sturm retainer caught her before she hit the ground.

“What is going on?” I muttered to myself.

Both the paladin of Tempest and the House Sturm retainer looked as confused as I felt. I glanced at Annabelle. Of the four of us, she’d had the most experience dealing with Prince Everard and Princess Evelynn. Unlike myself and the two guards, she didn’t look baffled. Instead, she wore a concerned expression on her face.

“I think they’re fine,” she said, speaking with care. “The same thing happened when they first met me. If it’s anything like what happened with me, they should recover in an hour or so.” She frowned. “Though I’m not sure why they fainted now. I thought you already met them.”

I frowned as well, before thinking back to my interactions with Prince Everard and Princess Evelynn. The first time I had met them face to face was when they took an interest in Annabelle and broke into my dorm room at the Solarian Imperial Academy to interrogate me. I had heard about them before that, and I met their father when I debuted into House society, but that was my first time meeting them.

A nagging suspicion blossomed in the back of my mind. The only thing I could think of that would cause this was when I looked them in the eyes. During my previous interactions with them, and for most of this one as well, they always avoided direct eye contact.

Well, they looked me in the eyes when I first met them thinking back on it. That was the only time. After that, they looked at me everywhere else except my eyes. At the time, I didn’t think much of it. However, given what just happened, I couldn’t help but think that there was a connection.

“It doesn’t matter,” I said, shaking my head. “If something happens to Prince Everard and Princess Evelynn, and House Solaria blames us for it, then House Sturm will be in big trouble.”

Punishing a pair of trespassers was one thing, causing permanent harm to two scions of House Solaria was another. One was more acceptable than the other.

“Follow me,” I said to the House Sturm retainer who carried Princess Evelynn. “We’ll take them to the guest wing.” I turned towards the paladin of Tempest. “Have the paladin who is most adept at healing meet us there.”

The paladin of Tempest nodded, before looking off into the distance as she spoke to her comrades using spirit sense. The House Sturm retainer followed me to the guest wing, carrying Princess Evelynn in his arms while I carried Prince Everard. Annabelle tagged along as well.

Despite the name, Sturm Manor’s guest wing was just a short hallway with rooms our family had set aside for guests. They didn’t see much use since we didn’t often have overnight guests. Each of the rooms was clean and well-appointed, but bland and devoid of any personal preferences. They reminded me of hotel rooms back on Earth.

I brought Prince Everard to one of the guest rooms and laid him down on the bed, before gesturing to the House Sturm retainer to do the same for Princess Evelynn. Because they were siblings, and twins at that, I figured it was best to keep them together.

While waiting for the paladin to show up, I removed the Nullicite manacles and examined the twins using my divine sense. As I suspected, they were indeed cultivators. Like me, they used the Hidden Lamp Seal to keep their cultivation hidden. Both were at the peak of the Energy Condensation stage, putting their cultivation a bit behind their wizardry. They also practiced a body cultivation technique, a bloodline one. It seemed that they were descended from a magic beast, a dog magic beast to be exact.

If this got out, it would cause a scandal of epic proportions. There was a prejudice against those with magic beast blood and House Solaria was the ruling family of the Solarian Empire. If House society found out that scions from House Solaria were descended from a magic beast, it would tarnish the name of the House Solaria as a whole. It would also cause people to question if there were any other scions of House Solaria who had magic beast blood in their veins. I suspected it was the entire House, if the Sun Emperor was who I believed him to be.

Backstabbing son of a bitch.

I turned my attention away from the twins’ cultivation and their magic beast blood, and focused on the condition of their bodies. Prince Everard and Princess Evelynn suffered from severe stress. Something had strained their bodies, minds, and souls. Not to the breaking point, but enough to knock them out. Given what happened earlier, I guessed that looking into my eyes had been the cause. With that in mind, I checked out their eyes.

Ah, so that’s what it was. Fuck. Things just got a lot more complicated.

I spent a few more minutes examining the twins, before settling back to wait for the paladin of Tempest to show up. While paladins weren’t as adept with healing as dedicated healers, they still used Holy magic. Each of them had at least some skill with healing. After all, the battlefield was a dangerous and chaotic place. The ability to heal one's wounds could often mean the difference between life and death.

It turned out that the paladin most adept at healing was Paladin Charles. He was a burly man in his early thirties, with pale skin and medium length blonde hair. A trimmed beard covered his face. He somewhat reminded me of a certain Australian actor back on Earth who was famous for portraying a certain Norse god.

Paladin Charles nodded in greeting to me, before examining the twins. While I had already done my own examination, it didn’t hurt to get a second opinion. Besides, since he had Holy magic, he could heal some of the damage the twins had suffered.

“It looks like Prince Everard and Princess Evelynn are suffering from acute stress,” Paladin Charles said when he finished examining them. He gave me a questioning look.

“I didn’t torture or torment them, if that’s what you’re thinking,” I said, giving him a cross look. “They fell unconscious all on their own.”

The paladin shrugged in response.

“I didn’t say anything, Chosen,” he said, sounding as if he didn’t believe me. However, he moved on before I could call him out on it. “I can heal their bodies with my Holy magic, but it will take their minds and souls a little longer to recover.”

I nodded at him.

“Go ahead and do what you can,” I said. “After that, you may leave.” I gave Paladin Charles a hard look. “It goes without saying that you will keep what you saw here today to yourself. This cannot get out. If it does, I will hold you responsible.”

Paladin Charles nodded, a grave expression on his face. He was at the Holy magic equivalent of the Third Circle, meaning that he would have noticed the twins’ cultivation, as well as the magic beast blood running through their veins. Since Priestess Kaya assigned him to protect me and Sturm Manor, I assumed he understood the implications of that.

“Understood, Chosen,” he said, before getting to work.