[LitF] 6. Hugs and Tears (Patreon)

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Frozen as the prince was, he could only see the assassin's armored arm holding the weapon but not who was wielding it beyond the door.

"Took you long enough," Stinson said.

"He was surprisingly alert until His Highness distracted him," a well-known voice said. Charlotte stepped in over the corpse's body. "Good job, Your Highness!"

Besides her voice, Arthur also recognized the tribal flower drawing on her armor's left shoulder, the insignia of House Graham.

Charlotte crouched over the corpse, grabbed it, and pushed it into her storage skill. It disappeared into the invisible boundary of thin air.

Arthur felt the magic locking his body disappear and asked, "What's going on, ma'am?"

"Nothing you must concern yourself with," Stinson replied.

"Plans with plans," Charlotte said.

Arthur could tell she had more to say, but first, she turned her back to the carriage's interior and stood guard like the dead knight had not long ago. Arthur briefly glanced outside and saw all royal knights were missing. Had she killed them too, or had Stinson previously told them to leave?

"To sum it up," she continued, seemingly ignoring her father's dismissive words, "Lars was a traitor. We used him to hide you in plain sight while false-feeding him information and spying on his comms. It was no coincidence that you were only attacked once despite traveling overtly for almost one year. He and his masters were waiting for us to leave the country because they believed we had assumed the fiasco ambush to be all they had. Everything we shared with Lars pointed at us growing lax and underestimating the enemy, especially after leaving the kingdom.

"Those plans also said nothing about us knowing our allies would turn on us. They haven't yet. They were also waiting for you to become an easier target. Lars thought he had been left out of the loop, and useless turncoats are the first to go after any conquest. He grew desperate to show his value and overreached."

Arthur was left wide-mouthed. "So your discussion was just a play? You're not dying, ma'am?"

"No," Stinson said firmly while looking straight ahead. "I knew beforehand we wouldn't leave, but everything else was legitimate. I just learned about my daughter's death curse and her odious husband's abandonment. We had a disagreement. I also do hate you with every fiber of my being. The best way to avoid having your enemy suspect something is wrong is by being honest."

Arthur could swear he heard Charlotte roll her eyes. "As usual, the commander abused his orders, Your Highness. His Royal Majesty's scroll told him to get rid of Lars, worded in a way only he would understand, and he did it the worst way he could." She sighed. "The commander enjoys acting detestably with anyone but a select few, and it gets even worse when he has the excuse of following orders. Even now that Her Majesty' childhood friend, the most trusted first-class wizardess in the entire kingdom, is creating a portal to send you away, he keeps offending you. If anyone asks, he'll claim it was to 'try to provoke a reaction on someone who stood unmonitored too long beside a spy.' His reasoning would be absolutely flawed but good enough to avoid punishment considering his value to the kingdom."

Arthur was surprised by what he heard.

His father could talk to his knights in codes? That made sense in retrospect. The enemy wouldn't know what the scroll truly said if it was intercepted.

The first-class wizardess was his mother's childhood friend? He looked at the woman, who hadn't stopped working despite the killing and the discussion. She had been surprised by Stinson's hatred but not the grand knight's death. Everything had been previously planned.

He slowly digested the words while the mage drew an extensive, complex magic formation on the metal floor. In the end, there was only one thing he still couldn't understand.

"Ma'am, how strong are you?"

Arthur had seen her deal with hundreds of people like they were annoying flies. Then, she killed a grand knight in a way that felt a little too easy. More impressively, she was level fifty-three while Lars had been fifty-five. Did she have many more achievements than him to ignore the level gap? Or did stats just not matter that much? Or maybe her skills were just that much better than his?

Charlotte chuckled, and Stinson replied in her stead, "Boy, take it as a lesson on stupidity. The Golden Kingdom's grand knight's armor had superb defense at the cost of some technical weak points. Any grand knight knows they should never touch an enemy for longer than needed to kill or disarm them, especially if they are stronger than the knight, and even more specifically if they are also grand knights with intimate knowledge of said weaknesses. Lars believed that by touching my hand, he would make me less likely to attack him, but it only made his armor vulnerable to my skills. I turned his armor useless. Lieutenant Graham's assassination skills did the rest."

Their words upheaved his worldview. "She's an assassin knight, sir? That's a thing?"

"We taught you a lot these past months, Your Highness," Charlotte said. "But it wasn't enough to make you omniscient. There is still a lot you don't know. The world is a complex mess."

Before Arthur could say anything else, an oval portal materialized in the middle of the inscribed magic formation with a swoosh sound. The temporary portal's opening was filled with different shades of blue mist swirling in a vortex. It differed significantly from the permanent portals he was used to, which looked like simple doorways into another part of the world—you could even see through them.

"I'm finished," the wizardess said before they could continue.

Stinson took his hand off Arthur's shoulder. "Get out of my sight, boy."

Arthur was still a bit confused about everything. Seeing a man die so close to him was unnerving, to say the least. It made him feel extremely vulnerable and reminded him of his nightmares.

However, his confusion, shock, and fear were quickly replaced with anticipation and joy.

He was coming back home.

Coming back to his mother, his father, and even Tamara. He had lived through hell and made it out alive.

Arthur suppressed a tear—he had become good at that these past months— turned to Charlotte and bowed.

"Thank you for your care, Grand Knight Graham. You said you were honored for training me, but I am the one who was honored by your presence and dedication. I'm sorry for your curse." He struck his left chest with his right fist. "Have a glorious death, ma'am."

Arthur didn't expect her to turn around, crouch, and pull him into a tight hug. Being almost crushed by plate armor was decidedly uncomfortable, but it didn't compare to how comfortably fuzzy he felt inside.

Charlotte said nothing at first, and Arthur kept his silence. Even Stinson seemed to respect the moment instead of scoffing or making a vile remark.

After what felt like forever, Charlotte whispered, "I overstep my station, but I must take it off my heart." She sighed. "Short as our time was, you were like the son I never had, Your Highness. Thank you." Before Arthur could reply, she released him, stood up, and left the room.

"And that, boy, is a girl who must always have the last word," Stinson said with an exasperated voice. "Now, shoo."

Arthur nodded. "Thank you for your protection, unwilling as it was," he said.

The man even nodded back.

The greatest lesson Stinson had given Arthur was that you didn't have to like someone to act civil—at least when Stinson found it convenient.

The prince turned to the wizardess, who gestured to the portal with some hurry. He nodded at her, said, "Thanks," and approached.

He could see nothing beyond. He pushed his hand through the portal and felt warm and cold, dry and wet breezes. When he tried to pull his hand back, he found it stuck. You could only move forward on a temporary portal.

Arthur took a deep breath and stepped through.

= - = - =

Arthur found going through a temporary portal a unique experience.

He didn't simply appear at his destination like a permanent portal. Instead, he entered a confusing space filled with warm and cold blue winds hitting him on all sides. He couldn't move, only let himself be carried and pushed in all directions at a fast speed. The only reason he didn't go ill was that he at least could close his eyes.

Then, without warning, the rotation stopped; his body was moving out of the portal the same way he had entered it, one step after another.

It was disorientating, and Arthur almost fell to his knees but managed to catch himself just in time.

He looked around to find himself exactly where he was supposed to arrive, the king's private teleportation room. It was the only place someone could teleport to in the palace, and its usage was heavily restricted.

The place was small and probably heavily enchanted for protection, though Arthur saw no visible magic runes. Not protective ones, at least, only the portal anchor on the polished white stone floor, a small blue circle filled with innumerable magic runes. Except for that and the lack of windows and furniture, it looked like any other room in the palace. The textured white walls had exquisite black and golden curvy elven patterns in place of footers and headers, and a single framed painting depicting the Golden King was displayed on the wall ahead of Arthur—the wall opposite the room's entrance.

It was the man's most widespread painting. It showed him in his full war regalia, an orichalcum armor. By all rights, the metal should be bronze-golden, but enchantments made it shine a bright golden as if it belonged to a messenger of Fate itself.

t was contrasted by the mythril used in the exquisite elven patterns throughout the armor and the broad high-bass layers on the chest and helmet. The chest layer was designed as the lion head insignia of House Boria, while the helmet was made to look like a mix of an angry dragon and a lion. The mythril was also enchanted to shine bright, though its silvery color was preserved.

The full armor was so heavy it required a considerable investment in strength to even lift, not to mention wear in battle without hindering one's movements.

The king's long sword was sheathed in a scabbard made of voidsteel. It looked like a black smear in an otherwise extraordinary painting unless someone knew the metal sucked light.

Although the weapon's blade was hidden, the mythril hilt—not enchanted to shine—was a work of art to rival the armor. The crossguard was the wings of a flaming phoenix, the golden and red leather wrapped around the handle came from two different wyrms and had been interwoven together to look like fire, and the pommel was an open-mouthed phoenix head. A few grams of gold on the head and wings made for extra details.

The king held his helmet under his arms in the picture, and his exposed golden hair and eyes proved his high elven heritage.

Some wrongly believed House Boria's hair and eye color to be the source of the title Golden King. Arthur knew it came from the armor, just as he knew how the Kingdom of Scaria had become the Golden Kingdom over time. His intelligence lessons had borne more fruits than just a stat increase.

Arthur just stared at the painting for a while; he had never noticed how young his father looked in it.

A few moments later, he recalled the last time he had seen the man. Some sad, unwanted feelings he had pushed to the corner of his heart threatened to resurge, so he distracted himself by checking the rest of the room.

Behind the portal, two grand knights guarded the only exit, blocked by a closed, thick voidsteel door. The light- and mana-sucking metal looked darker than black. Yet, despite its traits, the ten light crystals on the ceiling still made the room extremely light. That much illumination would be overkill in any other similarly sized room but was likely in place to guarantee any visitors or intruders had a hard time hiding.

The knights didn't move at the crown prince's arrival, not even to nod at him. They didn't need to acknowledge Arthur when performing their duties, but it was good form.

The prince wouldn't hold it against them; he had overgrown his childish pettiness. Instead, he was about to nod at them first when something pushed him from the back. Somehow, First-Class Wizardess Graywinter was coming out this side of the portal instead of the one Arthur had used.

He stepped ahead to give way to her. The portal, which looked the same as the one he had stepped into, blinked out of existence behind her as soon as she was through.

She didn't feel disoriented like Arthur. Instead, she ended the room with a straight back, looked at the knights, and asked at once, "Where are we expected?"

There was no reply. She growled in frustration, walked to the door, opened it with evident difficulty, and left. A moment later, she paused and looked back, "Come, Your Highness. Her Majesty is waiting for you somewhere. I must bring you to her."

Arthur shook his head. As much as he wanted to see his mother, it would have to wait.

"His Royal Majesty has standing orders for any family member to see him first when entering the palace," he said but did step out to seek his father.

The king's private teleportation room was inside the palace grounds, but since it was still a security liability, it was kept in the gardens. From the outside, it looked like a nondescript white room, except for the black door.

Arthur recalled the garden had been surrounded by big trees, but now he saw only small bushes and flowers that did nothing to hide the tall stone walls surrounding the property. It significantly improved visibility for the dozens of royal knights patrolling the area. The kingdom was at war and needed to properly detect any intruders.

The palace proper was a robust, wide white pentagonal structure five stories tall; the front was one of the sides. Triangular towers rose from the palace's five corners. The borders of every window, balcony, and door were golden. There was also a half-story-thick golden border on the rooftop. It was night, and all borders released enough light—white, not golden—to brighten every corner of the garden.

Two of each tower's walls, the ones facing outside, were covered by a massive black flag hanging from the top, displaying the nation's golden lion.

Arthur felt a mix of powerful emotions seeing his home again after so long.

"No, no," the wizardess said, interrupting Arthur's musings. "Her Majesty must see you first." She grabbed his arm.

The woman was old and a mage to boot, but her grip was firm as iron. She wasn't strong enough to open the voidsteel door easily, but she was still much stronger than Arthur.

The problem was that she should not handle him like that. Even if squires were servants, only other knights could treat them as such. Graywinter was a mage, so he was still the crown prince to her.

"Unhand me at once," he commanded.

"Stop with the nonsense," she said, not even looking at him as she pulled him toward the palace proper. He didn't try to resist. It would gain him nothing but pain and maybe a broken arm. "Lily is waiting for you, and something is afoot. You'll be safer by her side than with His Royal Majesty."

Arthur took a while to understand who "Lily" was, then was dumbstruck.

That woman dared to call the queen by a nickname! Arthur didn't even know his mother had one! He rarely even heard her name, Lilian!

Still, he didn't let his shock cloud his judgment. "I don't know you and don't trust you," he firmly stated while raising his voice so the royal knights would notice them. "Stopping anyone from obeying a royal summon is treason! I demand—"

He spoke nothing else after that, for magic closed his mouth shut.

Arthur had been annoyed before, but now he felt fear. He had just seen a grand knight killed for treason. Struggling sounded like a better idea now, but as he expected, it only gained him a bruised arm.

His seven points of strength were worth less than a pig's fart in the face of any awakener.

Arthur considered spending his stat points to gain an edge but resisted the urge. His orders were clear: not use stat points unless Stinson or the king ordered otherwise. The prince would rather die with honor, knowing he had obeyed his king, than live in shame for putting his life before his sovereign's will.

Not to mention it wouldn't work anyway. The kingdom would've fallen long ago if anyone could resist a first-class wizardess with a few stats.

Fortunately, his flaying was noticed. A group of three patrolling knights diverged their path to approach.

"Out of the way," the wizardess barked before they said anything.

Instead of obeying, the knights took their swords from their sheaths and raised their shields. "Hold!" one of them commanded. "The palace is—"

Invisible magic swatted them away like flies.

That created a commotion. Finally noticing something was terribly wrong, every royal knight around unsheathed their swords, raised their shields, and approached.

"Wizardess Graywinter, please understand!" the closest knight yelled. "The palace is on lockdown by the Golden King's orders! You cannot approach!"

Graywinter scoffed. "Nothing is ever closed to a first-class wizardess."

Arthur saw the air bend around him, then a shockwave spread in all directions. Shields and swords shone as the knights used their skills, but none resisted. They were pushed back like dolls by the spell that just kept going until it hit an invisible barrier around the palace.

Suddenly, a loud, thin, continuous screech sounded, seemingly from everywhere.

All windows and balcony doors closed at once while their golden borders released such an intense light that it hurt Arthur to keep looking at the palace. Unfortunately, the same magic that prevented him from speaking kept him from closing his eyes.

Through his involuntary tears, he saw the ground move upwards at multiple points around the palace like drawbridges.

Arthur could see into the ten openings on this side of the palace. Each revealed an underground metal room filled with dozens of royal knights already running out of them with shields raised. Two had grand knights at the forefront, who ran faster than all others toward Graywinter.

The prince's growing fear then turned into terror; dozens of windows opened in the palace, revealing many mages already casting spells. Meanwhile, a crystal pillar surrounded by lightning quickly rose from the top of each tower.

Arthur couldn't move even an inch, no matter how much he tried. Was the damn wizardess crazy?! If she wanted to commit suicide, why did she need to bring him down with her?!

And then, without warning, the loud screech disappeared, replaced with a voice that also seemed to come from all sides.

"Stand down," the king commanded.

The golden lights dimmed, and everyone stopped, including the First-Class Wizardess. She also released Arthur, both magically and physically. The boy rubbed his hurt arm and eyes.

"Your defenses are as slow as I feared, Your Royal Majesty," she said. She wasn't making her voice louder like Arthur's father, yet everyone heard her in the ensuing silence after the king's command.

Arthur heard someone approaching in plate armor. He opened his eyes, braving the pain in his eyes and the intense light's afterimage to see his father come out of one of the underground chambers wearing the impressive orichalcum armor from the painting. The only difference was that his helmet was on.

The prince could only tremble in fear and awe as he imagined such a warrior fighting the kingdom's enemies.

| Human — Level 81

"You call them slow," the king said, still walking toward them. "Yet they reacted much before you could reach the palace. And no one let you in despite you being with the crown prince."

Graywinter snorted. "As if anyone here even recognizes His Highness when he's looking like this. If he hadn't made a scene, I could've reached the palace with none the wiser. I even declared my desire to find Her Majesty while I was in the teleportation room, but none of the grand knights there did or said anything about it. They also didn't mention the palace was in lockdown. That's the Sunthon brothers for you; too struck up their purist asses to acknowledge a mage. I bet my left arm they hoped I would get myself killed in some senseless battle."

Her words were crass, but Arthur could almost feel a strange kind of respect in her voice. It sounded only as combative as a child seeking their tutor's approval. It was deferential in a weird way.

"You make serious accusations, First-Class Wizardess Graywinter," the king replied. "We shall investigate the matter. The lockdown is over. Return to your posts."

There was a moment of delay before everyone obeyed. Then, people scurried everywhere, the trapdoors closed, and the palace doors opened.

The king kept coming.

Arthur awoke from his stupor. Seeing his father in person after so long filled him with emotions he could no longer ignore. Foremost among all was shame.

He had disappointed the man the last time they saw each other, which hadn't changed.

The prince hurried ahead. Making the king walk to him on top of everything else would make things even worse.

He kneeled when he was fifty feet away, as any squire should, and said, "Squire Boria presenting himself. This servant arrogantly begs His Royal Majesty for food and lodging."

Charlotte had said this request, uttered by any squire who would pass any time in the palace, was mostly ceremonial. Arthur still feared a denial. His father had done a lot for him, but the prince was a disappointment. What if the man didn't want to pollute the palace's air with such a dreadful being? What if merely looking at Arthur disgusted him? The prince had certainly made Stinson disgusted.

There was no answer. Arthur was looking to the ground, and the gardens were in a flurry of activity, so he took a while to hear the incoming steps on the paved stone floor.

It didn't sound like the metal sabatons of the king's armor. Had the man summoned someone else to deal with the prince? Was it a civic servant coming to tell him he was not welcome?

After what felt like an eternity, golden leather boots—just like Arthur's!—entered his field of view.

"Give me a hug, my son," the king said with the kindest voice the prince had ever heard. "I missed you."

Arthur teared up and looked at his father, who stood before him. His armor was magically gone, replaced with white and golden royal vests.

The prince threw himself at the man's open arms as fast as his eight points of agility allowed him to.

They just hugged each other silently for a while. Arthur didn't sob, but the overwhelming feeling brought by the encounter had him keep tearing up for a while.

The hug lasted forever. It was also entirely too short.

Eventually, his father said softly, "I wish I had the time to stay here like this, but I must deal with urgent business. Stay with Graywinter. She'll take you to your mother."

"Yes, sir," Arthur replied out of habit.

The king released Arthur from the hug and grabbed the prince by the shoulders, looking at the boy's face. "None of that knight nonsense with me, boy," he grumbled genially. "Call me father."

Arthur was surprised at how old and tired the man looked, especially after seeing the painting. Were those wrinkles? Expression lines?

But what truly astounded him was how approachable the king was.

The prince had never felt his father was so human.

"Yes, father," he replied.

The man nodded. "Good." He looked at Graywinter, nodded at her, patted Arthur's shoulders, then left. The two grand knights who had come from the trapdoors followed suit.

"Forgive me for manhandling you, Your Highness," Graywinter said as she stepped beside Arthur and waved her hand. Warmth filled his arm and eyes, and the pain disappeared. "I needed everyone to see me grab the crown prince without his— without your permission. A stupid idea, if anyone asks me, but Stinson insisted it would help us locate traitors and spies. Something about watching people's reactions when they looked at you."

"You could've told me," Arthur complained.

She started walking, and Arthur followed. "Your Highness, I heard Stinson say you should always act as if your every word was heard by the enemy—and if you recall, I wasn't in the room. We had three trustworthy grand knights with us, but there were plenty of royal knights back in the carriage who might've been spies. What if they heard about this plan and contacted their co-conspirators? It wouldn't work, then."

The prince frowned. What three trustworthy knights? There were only two loyal knights there; Lars had been—

"Oh," he said as realization dawned on him.

The wizardess was mixing up lies and truth because someone might be listening even here. Some spies likely didn't know Lars was dead. Figuring out which spies knew and which didn't would help the kingdom's defenders understand the enemy spy network.

Yet, her words were scary. There were spies everywhere? Wait, if someone might be listening now, why would Graywinter reveal they wanted to catch spies by their reactions when they saw him?

He recalled Charlotte's words, "plans within plans;" this smelled like something similar.

Arthur grunted. He felt so frustrated by all that. Why couldn't people just be honorable like the knights in the stories?

Graywinter chuckled. "Don't overthink things, Your Highness. Leave that for scholars and mind specialists."

That frustrated the prince even more. He was always so outmatched. It was just annoying.

He kept silent for the rest of the way to his mother's quarters.

= - = - =

"Oh, my boy, what did they do to you?" the queen said when he entered her bedroom's antechamber.

That place was used for private meetings with her close friends and family. It was large and filled with white furniture with golden details.

The exceptions were some royal blue items like the three sofas she claimed acted as "light spots amid the white dullness." Arthur hadn't previously understood how any color could be a light spot instead of the multiple light crystals on the ceiling, but he had been enlightened to it after staring at Annie's green eyes.

Thinking of the light crystals made him look at them—or rather, at where they were.

They were exquisitely inlaid with silver frames on the mirror that occupied the ceiling of the queen's quarters—all of it, including the bedroom, antechamber, and bathroom.

Arthur blushed furiously.

He recalled telling his mother how he enjoyed the mirrors. He remembered how red her face had gotten when she said it had been his father's idea. He recollected that Tamara had been present and coughed a little. Finally, he matched it against the words he had heard Charlotte say not so long ago: "We needed release. We made glorious love for five days straight. I've never felt so alive before, and I'm dying! I even bought a ceiling mirror!"

Arthur knew his father and mother had to do that so he could be born. But he didn't need to know they might even do that in this very room!

'Oh, Fate!' he thought, suddenly horrified. 'The sofas!' He stared at the offending piece of furniture, trying very hard not to picture—

His mother's tight embrace brushed all those thoughts away. He felt a bit self-conscious about her chest pressing on him, but not too much. She was his mother, and the entire hug just felt comfortable instead of anything else.

"You look so thin," she said. "What did they do to you? And these clothes! How can the crown prince walk around like that! Scandalous! What will the other Houses say?"

"Knights don't care about such frivolous things, mother," Arthur quoted Stinson.

"Nonsense," she said and released him. She looked at him from head to toe. "You grew up so much... I knew you would, but seeing it in person... And your hair! You need a haircut. And a bath. I had your head maid prepare it in advance. They are waiting for you."

Arthur blushed again. "Uh... I... Knights bath alone."

"Oh, son!" She hugged him again. "That's Stinson doing, isn't it? I can hear his grumpiness in your every word. Don't worry; you're home now. You can go back to being yourself."

Her words made him very uncomfortable. What "go back to being himself"? He wasn't a child anymore. "Uh... Mother... This... This is—"

Graywinter surprisingly came to the rescue. "His Highness has reached puberty, Lily. He can't bathe with the maids anymore unless you're looking for a bastard grandchild. And you really should hear my report before you continue this conversation."

"What?!" She released Arthur from the second hug but kept holding him by the shoulders. "Not just his height... His face..." She teared up. "His smiles... His childhood..." The tears fell down. "My boy is... gone?"

Arthur felt as if he had been slapped.

He wasn't a child anymore, he knew that, but he also didn't see himself as a fully-fledged adult. Even Charlotte had said as much; he lacked the maturity that could only come with experience. So, deep inside, he had still thought of himself as his parents' boy.

Having the cold truth thrown at his face in such a blunt manner hurt.

"Lily," Graywinter insisted firmly. "The hormones are clouding your judgment. Please, release the boy. You can catch up to him later."

The queen did as told. Her arms weakly fell to her side as she kept crying and silently staring at him.

Arthur couldn't take it anymore.

He turned and briskly left the room.

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