CHAPTER SIX

Glimpse of Power

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Bram had lost consciousness for only a moment, but when he came to, the seventh prince was kneeling on the ground and spilling most of his luncheon onto the dirt. Despite his condition though, Bram’s gaze was alert and searching.

As for Rowan, she was gone. Although Bram seemed to recall seeing her turn to mist as he was blacking out. Strange that thick fog was beginning to rise from the ground to coil around his wrists and ankles soon after her disappearance.

 

 

“Gaah!” Bram gasped.

The seventh prince felt pain wracking his body as what seemed like a thousand volts of power had begun to stream into his veins, the blood vessels and unused magic circuits that spread throughout his body.

‘Ping!’

‘Ping!’

‘Ping!’

Notifications continued to appear, but it was a struggle for Bram just to browse their contents.

 

 

Try as he might, Bram couldn’t understand the meaning of those words. With each attempt, more pain lanced into his brain.

“Argh…”

 

 

If even just one percent of Rowan’s power was transferred to him, he imagined it would be more than enough to deal with whatever had made him wary. It had to be.

 

 

To use his life force to empower an ability…this sounded a lot like blood magic. Bram had little choice but to take the risk, however, because he couldn’t argue morality with his conscience if he was already dead.

 

 

“Fine…yes.”

 

 

“A double-edged sword…I’m used to such circumstances.”

 

 

“Bloody hell…You’re full of ill tidings…”

 

 

Unfortunately, it seemed Bram wouldn’t be able to follow the system’s recommendation. For he now saw the cause of his earlier trepidation. Four men appeared from behind the auto-carriage—and Bram knew at least one of them.

“Baer…”

The auto-carriage’s broad-shouldered coachman was in the lead, although it didn’t look like Baer had arrived to help his master. The contempt on the coachman’s face was too noticeable. Nor did Baer try to hide the bearded axe he held in each of his hands.

“Sorry, Your Highness,” the pale-skinned coachman grinned yellowing teeth at Bram, “but we’ve been promised a lot of griffins to bring you in. Alive, of course, but it doesn’t mean we can’t get rough if you’re unwilling to cooperate.”

If Bram wasn’t in such pain, he would’ve spat a curse at the traitor. All the seventh prince could do was show Baer a vulgar gesture he’d learned from his otherworldly visions—the dastardly middle finger.

“What’s he doing?” asked the oily-haired, gruff-looking fellow to the right of Baer.

“I don’t know,” replied the bald, heavy-bearded bloke to the left of the coachman. “Maybe he’s trying to point up…?”

“Why doesn’t he use his pointing finger then?” the oily-haired fellow argued.

The bald bloke shrugged. “Maybe that’s how fancy imps do it?”

Yes, the meaning of Bram’s gesture was lost in translation, although the seventh prince didn’t mind if they didn’t understand how he’d just expressed his anger toward them. Flipping them with the middle finger just made him feel better.

“What’s wrong with him?” asked the fourth man, a blonde youth in the teal gambeson that marked him as one of Bram’s soldiers. “The imp looks like he’s dying…”

Aside from Baer, Bram’s other three would-be-attackers all wore the pale blue-green colors of his household. The sight of these traitors caused the seventh prince’s anger to flare, giving him the strength to rise from the ground on shaky legs so he could face them properly.

“Phoebus’ cock,” whistled the oily-haired fellow, “looks like he ain’t dying then.”

With shaking fingers, Bram grasped the hilt of his sword. That was the limit of what he could achieve though. He hadn’t yet regained the strength to unsheathe its blade.

“More like he’s spoiling for a fight,” the bald bloke chimed in. “He’s got more balls than I’ve heard, our ill-fated prince.”

He laughed out loud, and except for the blonde youth, the other traitors soon joined in on the merriment. It was a scene of contempt that Bram was quite familiar with. Still, he wasn’t such a pathetic man that he didn’t chafe at their scorning.

“You best consider what you’re doing, Your Highness.” Baer raised his right hand so that his bearded axe was level with Bram’s eyes. “We may be common folk, but we’ve got more magic in our bones than you’ll ever know.”

The telltale sparks of sorcery flared out of Baer’s fingers just as a coat of flames wrapped around the axe blade.

“Funnily enough…” the bald bloke drew his sword and then pointed its tip at the ground. In the next second, dirt rose from the earth to weave itself around the blade. “…we learned proper sorcery thanks to you wanting to train your guards, imp.”

“Aye, you trained us hard you did, but you didn’t pay us enough to die for you in a war.” The oily-haired fellow licked the blade of his dagger with his tongue and then used sorcery to coat its blade in frost made of spit. “You should’ve paid us more if you didn’t want to get stabbed in the back.”

Only the blonde youth hadn’t made a move to intimidate Bram. Despite the haze clouding his vision, the seventh prince could see the hesitation on the boy’s face.

“Oi,” the oily-haired fellow glanced sideways at Baer,” didn’t you say there was a woman too?”

“Aye,” replied Baer. “A pretty noble. Too pretty for an ill-fated prince to be fooling around with.”

“She’s probably just using him just like those other nob—”

A look from Baer silenced his oily-haired companion. Bram caught the look, and he could guess what was left unsaid.

“You’re betraying me…to the northern nobles,” he deduced.

All four men stiffened but said nothing.

“Never you mind, Imp,” replied the bald bloke after a brief bout of uneasy silence. “Now, tell us where the bitch is, and we might let you have fun with her when we’re done. Everyone deserves a last supper.”

His words made Bram laugh out loud. It was quickly stifled by the pain though.

“You would die…before you could…touch her,” he growled.

“Look at this daft fool”—the bald bloke pointed at Bram’s shaking legs—“trying to be all brave and noble when he’s nearly shit his pants from fear.”

“Go to hell,” Bram hissed through gritted teeth.

“I reckon that’s where you’re going, Imp,” the bald bloke chuckled.

“Enough, Barret,” Baer growled at the bald bloke. Then he glanced sideways at the oily-haired fellow. “Hans, tie him up. We’ve been standing here long enough.”

At Baer’s command, a smiling Hans made slow deliberate steps toward Bram as if he wasn’t at all worried about the sword hanging from the seventh prince’s waist.

“Now, best not try nothing, you hear?” Hans brandished his knife around, showing off the frost that coated its blade. “A single cut of this and you’ll be lucky if you only get frostbite.”

Bram wasn’t paying attention to Hans’ taunts though. He was far too busy looking at the notifications popping up around him.

 

 

Along with this first window came relief. The pain finally subsided to a dull roar that Bram could tolerate enough not to impede his movements.

 

 

Bram’s arms and legs stopped shaking. His ragged breathing stabilized too.

 

 

 

Bram could feel his muscles expanding, stretching the fabric of his clothes.

 

 

 

The haze that had trapped his mind was gone too.

 

 

 

Bram inhaled and exhaled, beginning the breathing method he’d practiced for years to calm his heart, steeling himself for what he had to do next.

“You’re a handsome imp.” Hans licked his lips. “Tell me, you ever sucked a cock before, Handsome Imp?”

Perhaps if he’d been quicker about it, then Hans may have reached Bram before the seventh prince could fully adapt to the changes in his body. However, Hans, like most men, underestimated Bram. The oily-haired fellow thought that showing off a bit of sorcery was enough for the seventh prince to cower. Hans should have known better. Despite his shortcomings, a griffin’s cub was still a griffin—and Bram was much different from who he was only moments ago.

“You’ll like it.” Hans chuckled mischievously. “It’ll be the best thing you’ve ever—”

In one prodigious motion, Bram unsheathed his sword, and before Hans could react, the seventh prince sliced into his foe’s midsection. With his borrowed strength, Bram sent the blade out the other side of Hans as easily as if the traitor had been a slab of butter.

“Hans!” Baer roared, but his warning came too late.

Blood sprayed out in all directions as Hans’ upper body toppled over, leaving his lower half twitching for long seconds before it too fell limp on the ground.

“Gaah!”

Excruciating pain flared out of Bram’s wrist to climb up his shoulder like a lightning bolt racing through every nerve.

The half of his brain that hadn’t frozen from the sudden pain recognized that he had overused his newfound strength. The bones of his sword arm were unable to handle the strain of his borrowed power. As a result, Bram’s wrist was broken. So were three fingers from his right hand. Indeed, he only stayed conscious because the seventh prince was unreasonably stubborn.

“You shitty imp!” Barret roared as he charged at Bram with his sword raised high. “I’m going to cut—”

All at once, the fog that clung to their knees rose to cover their surroundings, hiding the seventh prince from their sight.

‘This is all the aid I will provide…’ said a whisper in Bram’s mind. ‘Remember, My Prince…fortune favors the bold.’

Rowan’s fog helped conceal the seventh prince from his attackers, but it wasn’t the same for Bram.

‘I see you.’

They’d look so proud when they showed him what sorcery they’d learned under his household’s banner. How foolish it seemed to Bram now to have been jealous of their talent when the very magic they flaunted was like shiny beacons in this thick fog.

Bram summoned his status while he switched his sword to his left hand. Intuitively, he placed all his bonus attribute points into ‘Constitution’ to help bolster his dwindling health and give him more options when wielding his borrowed power.

 

 

Only two abilities were usable, but they would be enough.

“Show yourself, you blighted imp?!” the bald bloke yelled.

With his boost in stats, Bram’s movements were inhumanly quick, although it took him precious seconds to figure out the right mix of exertion and restraint so as not to damage his body further. Swift as a flame-tail leopard, Bram got behind the fool who kept yelling for him to appear, and with a quick jab of his blade, he pierced the man’s right calf, forcing the bald bloke to stumble forward.

“Gaah!” Barret hissed. “Damn you!”

Even as he stumbled, Barret twisted his body around and sent his sword careening a full hundred-eighty-degrees—and hit nothing but air.

Bram had already stepped out of the blade’s reach, although the seventh prince was unprepared for the thing that came lashing out at him an instant later. He barely parried it—the whip made of the very dirt that clung to Barret’s sword. It snapped against Bram’s weapon, causing cracks to appear on the blade’s bastion-forged steel.

‘Warbringer’s balls,’ his brow creased at the sight of these cracks, ‘sorcery is such a fraudulent power.’

The enemy’s ‘Dirt Whip’ came snapping at him again—once, twice, thrice—with each swipe at the air barely missing Bram by inches. Despite his impeded vision, Barret’s intuition was inconceivably sharp, and if Bram’s reflexes weren’t magically heightened, the seventh prince would be the one bleeding now.

‘Snikt!’

Again, Bram got behind his foe, and once more, he made the bald bloke bleed. This time, with a cut that severed the tendon in the man’s heel, forcing him to his knees.

“Slippery bastard!” Barret slammed his free hand against the ground, causing the earth to rumble. “Eat dirt!”

Dirt and rock rose from the earth around him to dance in the air like tentacles whipping to and from while indiscriminately lashing against the air and snapping at the ground.

It was a desperate act of defense, Bram realized, for like a hellhound on the prowl, the seventh prince smelled blood in the air.

He ducked, dodged, and slipped past each grainy tentacle in a feat of daring and acrobatics that the seventh prince couldn’t normally achieve. Not without the aid of his newfound power. In the end, like a mighty griffin, Bram descended on his foe. And Barret, who was kneeling on the ground, was unable to see death approaching.

“Where are you?!” he screamed, his eyes darting left and right.

“I’m right here…”

Bram’s face appeared like a demon jumping out of the mist. It was the last thing Barret saw before the seventh prince’s sword pierced his chest.

“Y-you—”

The man’s blood spilled out of his mouth. The sight of it made Bram’s stomach rumble, and not in an uncomfortable way.

‘Ba-dump.’

When his enemy fell limp against him, Bram’s left hand reached out for the blood dripping down Barret’s chin.

‘Ba-dump.’

His fingers brushed against its crimson stain.

‘Ba-dump.’

It's just a taste. Just one.

‘Ba-dump.’

Barret wouldn’t complain. He was already dying.

‘Ba-dump.’

That’s when Bram caught sight of the man’s eyes. They were already devoid of light.

“Fuck…” Bram stumbled back, his mind reeling from the thought of what he’d nearly attempted. “What…what have I become?”

It was a question no one would answer. Nor was there time for Bram to ponder this strange change in him. For in his moment of confusion, he didn’t see Baer come up from behind.

“Found you, your Highness,” Baer whispered.

‘Clang!’

Sparks flew between them as Bram’s sword blocked the axe blade coated in magical flames. The impact caused more cracks to appear in his own blade, though this was not the worst of Bram’s problems. He hadn’t forgotten that Baer had two bearded axes, but he had no weapon to repel the other. Recklessly, Bram used his left arm to block Baer’s other attack before its momentum could reach its zenith.

“You crazy—”

The coachman’s eyes widened as he watched the blood gushing out of the wound hardening enough to push back against the axe head embedded in the seventh prince’s forearm.

Bram recognized the fear flashing on Baer’s face. It made him smile, and only then did both men notice the fangs protruding from behind his upper lip.

“Come on, Baer,” he growled, “tonight, one of us dines in hell!”

 

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