Louis Emiliano Franco Worchester, or short Louis, was a prince, unsurprisingly. He was second in line of succession and was portrayed as gentle, empathic and nice to the servants by all the books I read. I knew there was lots of propaganda being circulated, but I didn’t expect him to trip me over the moment the doors closed behind us. If not for my vampire reflexes, I would surely have fallen over at this point.

“Don’t get cocky now that your mother took you back in.” Yeah … I already didn’t like where this was going and regretted that I remained silent in the throne room.

“Hey, that hurt …” I said and rubbed my ankle while carefully watching the guards at the door. They didn’t move at all, except to avert their gaze. The prince´s behaviour was certainly not as uncommon as I hoped it to be.

“I hope so, someone like you shouldn’t be allowed to walk around freely. You are a disgrace to nobility. The faster you learn your place, the better.” He rudely shoved me backwards against the wall, holding me by my shoulders. As my eyes darted over to the guards, they still didn’t do anything. Either they shared his opinion about my apparent birth, or they simply didn’t want to anger the prince. What was I supposed to do here? Break his neck and hide all the evidence was a tempting option, but no a feasible one. Acting composed was also not possible as it didn’t fit the character I was trying to play. I could either cry or try to speak with him in kindness.

Well, kindness wasn’t my forte and as I already wanted to rip his organs out, I simply started to tear up. I whimpered quietly, earned a few cuteness points from the guards and sank downwards at the wall. Louis snickered as he let go of my shoulders and stepped back.

He wasn’t willing to go further at this point, but he also didn’t need to. A few maids already saw the spectacle from the distance and they would surely spread the story of Louis, bullying a small girl until she cried. I never used powerlessness as a weapon before, but it felt strangely fulfilling to see it working.

“Stop crying, you idiot.” Although my performance captivated the maids and possibly even the guards, he didn’t change his opinion at all. For him, I was just a bastard born out of wedlock and I was honestly okay with it. If he wanted to be terrorized in the future, he was free to beg for it.

Still trembling, I rubbed my eyes as the tears subsidized and stayed silent for a while. Only the nervous coughing of a guard interrupted the silence between us. He must have realized his earlier mistake and looked at me in anger.

“Come with me.” He soon led me away from the path I took to get here, not that I would find the way out of this labyrinth anyway. Louis on the other hand lived here his whole life and knew all the ins and outs of this place. This time, he seriously showed me around, at least a bit. We never went into the interesting rooms, even though there were all kinds of facilities around this part of the palace. A lounge, a swimming pool, whatever you desired, you could find it here. What I didn’t expect though was the room he led me to. It already smelled disgustingly like sweat as I stepped into the room with a very apparent reason behind it. It was a training room for sword fighting. I didn’t know for what reason they needed a floor that felt soft as I stepped on it though. The stones of purgatory probably did a better job in showing me my mistakes.

Looking around intimidated, I found a few knights sparring with wooden swords. One of them headed over towards us the moment he spotted us standing at the door. He simply left his sparring partner standing and rushed over towards us as if his life, or rather his payment depended on it.

“Your highness, what brings you here during this late hour?” Yeah, I wondered as well ... what brought us there?

“I desire to show the young lady behind me how a knight in training fights.” So he did want to brag, but I already knew this wasn’t the sole reason for coming here.

“Oh, a sparring match? In this case, let me pick out one of our squires to be your partner.” The knight said, not expecting the next words of the prince.

“This isn’t necessary. Lucy told me she can fight with the sword as well.” I opened my eyes wide and interjected promptly.

“I never fought before.” I claimed.

“That´s just her humble nature, don’t worry Axel.” Louis said towards the knight. Axel visibly disapproved of this duel but gave us two dull wooden swords nonetheless in fear of angering the prince. Shortly afterwards, he stepped into a white ring on the ground and I followed suit, already visibly struggling to keep the sword upright in front of me.

“Mr. Schweiss, if you could be our referee.” Axel soon rang a little bell and Louis stormed towards me. Meanwhile, I was somewhere else with my thoughts. Louis … Louis … how many Louis existed in this royal family? There was the old king, Louis the twenty-fourth… but there had to be even more. I was sure Louis had a cousin named Louis and his father`s second name was Louis as well. What a strange sense of naming …

In any case, I wasn’t really concentrated. I trembled a bit for show and soon lost my sword as he swung against it. It all happened painfully slowly, I could change the course of this mock battle whenever I wanted … if I wanted that is.

A few seconds afterwards, he pointed the tip of the sword towards my face triumphantly. Looking rather shocked, I stumbled backwards, out of the ring.

“The winner is his highness.” Announces Axel swiftly afterwards to no one’s wonder. I gracefully accepted my defeat. If he wanted to call himself ‘Louis, the slayer of little girls’ now, I would fully support his decision. As if it was an achievement to have beaten me, he handed over the wooden sword with a smug and approached me shortly afterwards again.

“See, you don’t have the strength to live in the world of nobility.” I nearly burst out in laughter. Since when needed a ten-year-old girl to fight? Instead of laughing though, I rather pouted and looked at him, swearing to pay him back tenfold.

“Is that so? How about you show me how it is done then? Apparently, we will meet rather often in the future, so how about we duel each day we met in different disciplines? We will take turns in deciding what to compete in.” I said in defiance.

“There is nothing you can beat me in.” In all honesty, I barely knew anything he could win against me. I would certainly lose in very specific things like ‘underwater sparring with a few sharks in the water’ or ‘underwater wrestling’ or … well, I think it was clear where I would lose.

“Let´s wait and see. If you would be so kind to bring me back to my mother.” I said while smiling brightly.

“Gladly.” This was going to be more fun than expected. It was just a question of who could go on the others’ nerves more, the weak but kind-hearted girl, or the prince who was a bit too proud of his heritage.