"Don't let a serpent into your garden and expect it not to devour its sweet fruits"
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At the time of the bloodshed fate of the flower family, Prince Shiro had been summoned by the Kuronami family's first born son, lord reiyo who awaited his younger brother's arrival behind the guarded walls of the clan's fortress which was hidden behind a thick steam.
Earlier that day, Prince Shiro received a letter from his younger brother, who spoke of his awareness of his younger brother's defection. Prince Shiro wasn't surprised by this, after all his elder brother had inherited the sorcery which had only been passed down to legitimate offsprings of the Kuronami family.
A special power that allowed lord reiyo to, let's just say see threads of fate directly from the spirit realm. Since the end of the blood war, he'd been confined behind the walls of the fortress by spirit king Kesean, as his powers were important to the special powers when it came to preventing catastrophic events.
As Prince Shiro walked through the steam surrounding the fortress, he noticed a wide gate with black serpent pillars which led to a wide wooden bridge at the entrance of the fortress that was structured above a circular stream of water glistening under the moonlight.
Four sorcerers of the Kuronami family stood guard at the gate's entrance. As Prince Shiro hesitated before going on, one of the guard's called out to him in a toneless voice.
"Prince Shiro. Please enter the steam fortress. Lord reiyo awaits you inside."
Prince shiro nodded at the guard. And as he crossed the bridge, he heard waves of vibrations that attacked his inner ears, and grimaced before pushing open the tall doors.
The steam from the fortress made it seem as though Prince Shiro had walked inside of a furnace. The unbearable heat made his walk down the stretched staircase feel endless until he reached the bottom.
The room was completely dark and yet so wide, but once he took a few more steps forward, Prince Shiro could see a purple glow in front of him with sound waves surrounding it.
There was a stone chair at the room's center with a man with rough textured black robes on. His robes were pulled down from his torso and hanging from his waist, as he sat with his leg in the seat, propping his arm against it.
On his head, there was a cold stone machine around the upper half of his head, with tubes connecting to it from above that seemed to be reaching up towards the dark ceiling of the chamber.
Once lord reiyo heard his younger brother enter the chamber, his voice echoed as he spoke.
"I was almost certain you weren't going to show up, considering what you and that bitch from the flower family are doing tonight."
Prince shiro's posture stiffened at the echoed sound of his elder brother's voice. While he spoke, Prince Shiro remembered the day where he had first met his elder brother just eighteen years ago.
***
When he was just ten years old, he'd been sitting in a war ravaged section of a slum, his skin was stained by mud and he waited patiently for his father to return home.
After a long few hours, his father returned with a woman who wore clean robes and had a sharp look on her face. His father on the other hand was fixing his tussled hair and wrinkled tunics, and his breathing was heavy as if he'd just ran at full speed the whole day.
His father looked at him with tired eyes and said:
"Shiro. Come with me… this nice lady has offered us a place into her family."
Shiro was a sharp and observant child, and often times he'd have to stay by himself until his father returned to him after leaving for hours with the same woman from the royal family in the fourth nation.
Upon being recognized as the new prince of the Kuronami family, he'd seen less of his father as he spent most of his time attending to the matriarch's desires, while his son had been feed and trained by the clan until he'd honed his sorcery enough to be used in the war.
***
Lord reiyo scoffed as he continued.
"I'm not going to waste any more time. I know about you and kalah's plan on defecting from the royal families. As we speak now, she's murdering her parents along with any of the flower family's combatants…"
Prince Shiro looked puzzled. In his mind, he'd remembered lady Kalah mentioning having something to do before they made their way off the mainland, but he never considered that it was to reduce the military power of the flower family.
He understood full well why she'd go this far, but still he may not have agreed with it nonetheless.
"I'm sure you've wondered why the Kuronami family haven't killed you after I informed them of the serpent in our garden…"
"It's because many of the family's branches were never on board with an illegitimate member becoming clan head."
Prince Shiro wasn't surprised by this fact. After all most of the royal families, with the exception of those whose bloodlines produced members with sorcery close to divinity, valued legitimacy over capability.
Affairs such as this in royal families, even when Prince Shiro gained his position in the secondary branch of the Kuronami family, would often spark civil wars between families.
But the special powers on the other hand…
Prince Shiro's eyelids lowered at his older brother's words, and he said somberly:
"So what? Were and the neighboring branches waiting for me to screw up so I'd get booted out of the family?"
Lord reiyo rubbed his fingertips together.
"Something along those lines. Like I said, an illegitimate member of the family is no good in the eyes of the branch families. And naturally, we were hoping for you to screw up at some point…"
"Which is why, once I first saw a fragment of a scenario involving you betraying our family, I informed the family, and they'd already nominated me as the patriarch of the family."
In the five months following the battle on the world's boarder, lord reiyo's desire for a closer relationship with the special powers had grown.
Naturally with the backing of the special powers, especially with someone possessing sorcery that could prevent catastrophic conflicts, lord reiyo would be in a position that no other royal family, with the exception of the flower family, could reach.
The machine around lord reiyo's head hummed faster, sending vibrations through his skull.
Prince shiro rubbed his aching temples, turned away from the pathetic state of his older brother and walked towards the exit with a lowered head.
An echo of laughter sounded from behind him as his older brother said:
"A Prince walking with a lowered head shows that you have a weak conviction. No way in hell can you or that bitch stop the six nations from culling all those foreigners."
Prince Shiro ignored the words of the Kuronami family's new patriarch, and left the steamed fortress, on his way to meet with lady Kalah.
***
It took Prince Shiro hours to stalk the heavily guarded streets of the village. The heavy and loud rain didn't make it easier to use his sorcery to make up for his lack of sight.
But with the guards focusing their attention on the flower family massacre, he at least had some of the heat off him.
At some point, he'd ventured through a forest of tall trees and heard a sound that resembled the rattling of a serpent's tail.
The color of the human shaped soul was a dark red hue.
As he approached it, he heard lady Kalah's voice with the sound of a cool breeze brushing against the ocean's waves.
"You made it. It's time to go."
Before the royal family sorcerers could arrive, the warship had already set sail and was long gone. On the trail of the old earth.
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Continued in chapter 129: The culling
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