The soldiers who had attempted to take Damian were clearly rattled by Eric’s sudden change in demeanor, but they quickly recovered their bravado.
“Mr. Chester, what do you think you’re doing?” one of them snarled, his hand moving to the hilt of his spear. “The Countess will not take kindly to this. You’re inviting a regional war between the Brants and Heard County!”
Eric’s lips curled into a thin, mocking smile. “A regional war? Yes, perhaps. But only if I’m foolish enough to hand this child over to a group of assassins wearing the wrong uniforms.”
“What are you talking about—”
“The genuine guards at the gate checked my face, not just my papers,” Eric said, his eyes scanning the two men with lethal precision. “But you? You were only interested in my ID. You wanted to know who the witness was so you could dispose of him. And you’re both mid-level Aura users. A bit overqualified for a street patrol, don't you think?”
He stepped forward, his presence expanding until the very air seemed to vibrate with his killing intent. “I saw the hooded men trailing the Countess’s carriage on my way in. I assume they’re your colleagues?”
The soldiers didn't bother with further denials. Their expressions hardened into masks of professional malice.
“A pity,” the leader spat. “You could have been a hero, Mr. Chester. Now, you’re just another body for the woods.”
They lunged simultaneously, their spears humming with Aura. Eric didn't even draw his sword. He moved like a shadow, ducking under the first strike and catching the second spear-shaft with his bare hand. With a single, bone-snapping twist, he shattered the wood and drove the jagged remains into the lead soldier’s throat.
Whistles pierced the air as five more assassins emerged from the surrounding trees.
*Seven in total,* Eric noted, his mind calculating the trajectories. *Novice and mid-level Aura users. Child’s play.*
He moved through them like a reaper through wheat. He didn't waste energy on elaborate strikes; he used their own momentum against them. He caught a blade mid-air, snapped the steel, and used the fragment to open an assassin’s chest.
When only the leader remained, Eric was behind him in a heartbeat, his hand clamped around the man’s throat.
“What do you want?” the man wheezed, reaching for his belt.
Eric slammed the man’s head into a stone wall. “I wouldn't reach for the poison if I were you. I’m not finished with you yet.”
He forced the man’s mouth open and, with a brutal, surgical efficiency, yanked out the hollow molar containing the suicide pill. The assassin shrieked in agony, but Eric’s gaze remained as cold as a mountain lake.
“Who sent you?”
“Arguin!” the man choked out, his spirit broken by the sheer, inhuman speed of his opponent. “The Marquis! He wanted the boy... a hostage for the mining rights! Please... just kill me!”
Eric snapped the man’s neck without a word. He looked down at Damian, who was still deep in a magically induced slumber, oblivious to the carnage.
“Not a sight for a child,” Eric whispered, stepping over the bodies and heading toward the palace.
***
As he approached the manor gates, he saw a scene of absolute chaos. Knights, servants, and even local villagers were running through the grounds, torches held high as they called out Damian’s name.
The child was clearly loved by everyone in this territory. Eric felt a strange, bittersweet pang in his chest. *It’s time to go,* he thought. *If I stay any longer, I might actually start to believe I belong here.*
He was about to step into the light of the torches when a blade whistled through the air, aimed directly at his neck.
Eric ducked, the steel missing him by a hair’s breadth. He spun around, his own sword clearing its scabbard in a blur of silver.
“Put the Young Master down!”
Eric’s eyes widened. Standing before him was a man in polished knight’s armor, his gray hair and monochromatic features instantly recognizable even after five years.
“Sardin?” Eric’s voice was a rasp of pure, unadulterated shock. “You’re alive?”
Sardin didn't answer. His face was a mask of cold, focused hatred. “I said, put him down, Duke Brant. Now.”
Eric’s shock quickly transformed into a white-hot, visceral rage. He looked at the man who had been his wife’s shadow, the slave he thought had died by her side in the river.
“You’re alive,” Eric whispered, his voice trembling with fury. “You survived the fall. You erased your past and became a knight in another house while she... while my wife died in that mud!”
He pointed his sword at Sardin’s heart. “What did you do to her, you coward? Did you push her? Did you leave her to drown so you could be free?”
Sardin’s eyes flared with a matching rage. He remembered the way Eric had treated Cornelia—the coldness, the neglect, the way he’d watched her wither like a flower in a frost.
“She’s dead,” Sardin lied, his voice like grinding stones. “And when she died, I was finally free of the Brant stench. I came here to start a life where a man is judged by his blade, not his collar.”
“Then you’ll die with that lie in your mouth!”
Eric moved like a beam of light. Sardin was an exceptional swordsman, a man on the verge of Transcendence, but he was facing the Soul Reaper. The first strike nearly took Sardin’s arm off. The second sent him flying back into a stone pillar.
“ARGH!” Sardin gasped, coughing up blood as he tried to stand.
Eric raised his sword for the final blow. “You should have died with her, Sardin. That was your only duty.”
“Dad?”
The small, sleepy voice broke the tension like a gunshot. Damian’s eyes were open, his blue gaze wide with terror.
“Daddy, no! Don't kill Sadie!”
Eric’s arm froze mid-swing. He looked at the child, intending to push him away, but something stopped him. The boy’s eyes were changing. The clear, bright blue was bleeding away, replaced by a deep, vibrant violet.
*Violet eyes.*
Eric’s sword clattered to the stones. “Your eyes... you’re... you’re of the Imperial blood.”
At that moment, a real gunshot rang out.
*CRACK!*
A bullet whistled past Eric’s ear, striking the stone pillar behind him. He spun around, his hand reaching for his discarded sword, but he stopped when he saw the woman standing at the edge of the courtyard.
She was holding a silver-plated pistol, her chest heaving with a frantic, murderous rage. As he watched, the disguise she had worn for five years began to shatter. Her blond hair darkened into the color of a midnight sky, and her blue eyes shifted into the same vibrant violet as the boy in his arms.
Cornelia Odile Chauvannelt stood before him, the 'Frontier Widow' dissolved to reveal the Princess of the Empire.
“Stay away from my son!” she screamed, her voice a jagged blade of fury. “Stay away from him, you bastard!”