Two Suns

It took a full month and a half to return to the capital city of Karnath.

When they passed into the inner city, two hundred men split from their procession and took the captives, including the elder, off to be questioned.

When they reached the palace gates, the rest of the armed guards left with Captain Stone and Sir Hunt, just a few palace guards accompanying the two carriages.

It was only once within palace walls that Takis, Lucian, and David Ballas were left without further escort. Takis was required to report to the King as soon as possible, but demanded they all wash and change before doing so.

With that goal in mind, they walked in the direction of Takis' wing of the palace, but were interrupted long before reaching it by a girl no older than 13 or 14 years old.

She had brown hair unlike Takis and his father, but the same greenish blue eyes, and a skirt that allowed for freedom of movement, despite it's overly decorated appearance.

He slowed to fall a few steps behind Takis as the prince approached the young girl.

"Have you missed me this much Irina? That you wait for your brother by the palace doors."

The young girl frowned as she replied "Miss you? You promised me to help with my training and then disappeared for months! I don't have much time left."

Her indignant words caused Takis to pause and Lucian recalled what she was talking about.

Princess Irina was a cultivator as much as any of the other royal heirs and was to participate in a Demian Tournament held between the many sects and clans sworn to the kingdom. At her request, Takis had promised to help her train for the event, but then the King had summoned them to order the Cinderheart extermination.

"Irina," Takis started with a troubled smile. "I promise I will, really. But now isn't a good time, I'll find you later, okay?"

Irina's indignant expression took on a few shades of disappointment in her older brother and Lucian could almost see the man waiver at her reaction.

"Soon." He said quickly. "As soon as I can, I promise."

The princess dropped her indignance in favor of total disappointment as she sighed and shook her head.

"It's okay big brother. I understand."

She started walking away slowly, her shoulders slumped, but Lucian was sure he spotted hints of a smile on her lips as she turned away.

'Wrapped around her finger' he thought with a chuckle.

Takis scratched the back of his head and continued towards the prince's wing as David spoke.

"Do not fret Your Highness, I am sure she will come around. Her Highness is rarely downcast for long."

Takis gave a noncommittal response as he walked, and soon they had found their way to the prince's wing. All of his servants and retainers lived in this wing, including David and Lucian.

The three parted ways to wash and change in their own rooms, before Lucian returned to Takis' quarters and found he and David waiting, ready to go and report to the King.

**

As Takis reported to the King, and Lucian & David responded to any questions asked of them, Count Glaider dismissed his trusted aide after hearing the news he brought.

"They acted quickly. I'd only just got Cinderheart so completely under my thumb and already it has been ruined."

"It is not too great a loss" A feminine voice spoke from his side.

If Count Glaider could be considered a somewhat handsome man in his late forties, then the woman by his side made him appear a worm. She was beautiful beyond words with impossibly smooth and pale skin, eyes bright enough that he sometimes mistook them for glowing, and long hair finer than any silk he'd seen in his own estate or even the royal palace.

Many assumed her to be Glaider's new mistress, but he would never dare to claim it himself. He feared the woman beside him far more than he did even King Magnus IV, and that was never a man to be trifled with.

"You learnt what you needed from them. They have already devoted everything they had to you, and so they may lay content in death."

Her voice was so smooth in his ears that Glaider often lost track of what direction the voice spoke from.

In truth, he was intoxicated with the woman. But he feared her, and that fear kept his mind sharp.

"They did not give everything they had to give. It is hard to come by such military force."

"Do not dwell on what has been lost. It was simply not meant to be. Instead, think of the future. Two of the old houses already swear themselves to you, and with the recipe for Alger's Devotion, the others are sure to bend the knee.

"You must act quickly, my Count." She placed slender hands on his shoulders, gripping them from behind. "Gather your forces, and take this land for your own."

Her voice lowered to a whisper as the woman spoke.

"The old blood runs through you, the true nobility of this kingdom, your kingdom. And it will be you that that unites this continent, King of The World, and my one and only champion"

Count Glaider's mind numbed as her soft words rung in his ears. He felt that something was wrong, but the thought seemed preposterous to him.

How could anything be wrong? He felt great.

**

A few days after his return to the palace, Lucian sat within the large, sprawling courtyard of the prince's wing and cultivated beneath the bright rays of sunlight.

He had been forming more than a drop of trueblood every day of late, and his first Spiritual Anchor, the one in his mind, had finished stabilizing. Though he'd lacked the time he used to have for training his techniques and practicing his martial forms, he still did what he could every day.

Currently, power surged throughout his body and collected near his heart, like a ball of blazing energy. A second sun was forming within his body, the first in his mind and now the second in his heart, its gravity pulling at his soul, forcing it to occupy more than just his brain.

The first anchor was far easier than the rest, as the soul inhabited the mind naturally. But to bind the the soul to other places in the body, he had to pull it from his mind and spread it throughout.

It was a painful process accompanied by a great headache. His back was drenched in sweat and his teeth were clenched hard enough to shatter, had they belonged to an ordinary man. His consciousness flickered on and off, losing a little progress every time, but he persisted still.

When finally the great tension released, Lucian felt an illusory clicking of something into place, as the anchor became firmly bonded to his soul and body.

With a long breath, he confirmed that he now had two revolving, immaterial stars in his body, acting as bridges between the physical and spiritual.

Opening his eyes, Lucian leaned back against a tree trunk as he tried to recover from the mental fatigue. Before him, Prince Takis sparred with his little sister, Princess Irina, himself using a wooden sabre while she attacked with a steel sword.

The Princess was an augmenter, though her art seemed very similar to Takis' daoist art, both based on the revolving seasons. It seemed the difference lied in the point of emphasis.

Where Takis manifested the biting winds of autumn, the chill of winter, and so on, Princess Irina's art built momentum in spring, filled herself with power and mental fortitude in summer, and attacked the emotion and mind of an enemy in autumn and winter.

It focused not on the elements, but on the sentimental value and associations with the many seasons.

When he had recovered somewhat, Lucian resumed his testing and experimentation of the white light, formed of condensed lifeforce. It was very, very difficult to control and currently he could do little more than blast it about like a child swinging a heavy stick.

But it was powerful, and he did not abandon that so easily.

He'd considered that deathfog may be capable of something similar, some higher form of condensed energy, but he knew too little of it to succeed in replicating the technique. In truth, he'd never even found something that expelled pure deathfog, always death transformed from life, as in dying things. The only exception had been the planesfiend but that was an abnormality There was nothing like the sun to act as an example of what could be achieved.

Had he not seen and experienced the domineering lifeforce and power held in the sun's rays, he'd never have thought to try and make light out of life.

Forming a sword of crystallized blood, Lucian tried filling it with that bright white light, and managed to hold it for a total of seven seconds before the crystal blood, harder than steel, disintegrated.

That was the longest he'd managed to hold it for.

'One step at a time' he thought to himself.