Damage Control

Rukelion was able to get away with having the rest of the week off to supposedly help Daisy settle in as he had hoped. General Pace was unexpectedly generous since he had used his past excuse of only joining the military to give his fiancée a better life to his advantage.

He knew how cherished "Veronica" was so it made perfect sense for him to give a hardworking young officer time off to take care of her. Unfortunately, Rukelion would be using it for something else entirely.

He had to get home and pack quickly. He had an excuse ready. All he could do now was pray Daisy bought it.

"A hunting trip with Conrad?" she asked with a raised eyebrow as she kneaded bread dough. "That's pretty last minute. I didn't realize you guys even got time off. Why didn't you say anything sooner?"

"It barely got approved. We have to take advantage of it now before our superiors change their minds. I wasn't sure it was going to before you arrived so that's why I didn't tell you about it. I know the timing is terrible since you haven't been here long but we've been trying to do this for over a year—" he lied.

Daisy cut him off. "It's fine, I was just surprised. I didn't know you even liked to hunt. Bring me something back, alright?"

"I will! Thanks for understanding."

Rukelion hastily packed his rucksack with the necessary supplies before grabbing a few days' worth of rations from the kitchen. He gave her a falsely cheery wave on his way out and said he would be home in a few days.

With his hood up, he raced to the nearest horse stable and rented one for the space of a week before heading out of town as quickly as he could. He knew exactly which route the crown prince's entourage would take to get to Zel. As long as he didn't stop to sleep, he should be able to catch up to them no problem.

He hated deceiving Daisy but she would likely be horrified if she knew he was going off to murder someone. Several someones in fact.

He knew it wasn't a good idea to fight on no sleep but pulling one all-nighter while he had been well-rested the day before shouldn't cause him problems. All of those soldiers back in Aveleen died because they were running on no sleep after a day of battle.

Even so, Rukelion managed to catch up faster than he expected so he took a two-hour nap to refresh himself. The prince was unexpectedly lazy and overslept so reaching his party was simple.

He needed to take out the easy ones first. The royal guard might be well-trained but so was he. He had been hiding noiselessly in a tree when they all briefly stopped to water the horses and eat lunch, a useful skill he hadn't forgotten from all of his time watching the mercenaries before they agreed to train him.

He jumped down with his sword drawn and killed three guards before anyone else noticed what was going on. The crown prince happened to be traveling with six.

"Who is that?!" one of them screeched as he drew his sword.

Rukelion's hood was up but it wouldn't matter even if it wasn't. None of these men knew him. It fell off as he began battling harder since the prince had begun to use his magic trying to stop him.

He managed to avoid the vines and brambles easily enough—those monstrous plants were the king's specialty not the crown prince's—but that did make it harder to take the guards down. Fighting multiple opponents at once was more difficult this way.

He hadn't wanted to do this so soon in case any of them managed to escape but he was left with no choice. He had to use his flames to fry the plants into a crisp if he was going to take down the rest of the guards.

"A fire mage!"

"I thought they were all killed!"

The crown prince was stunned. "Who are you? What do you want from me?"

Rukelion took advantage of his momentary distraction to kill the remaining guards. Without the plants in the way and with the benefit of fire on his side, it took less than a minute to take them all down.

"Are you really as stupid as you look?" he sneered. "It should be obvious but I suppose I can spell it out for you. I am Rukelion Blaze and I'm here to kill you in the name of Katalya."

The crown prince's eyes narrowed. "The third prince. I saw your body; how is this possible?"

"Does it matter? I'm going to kill you either way."

"Not if I have anything to say about it! I'm going to bring your head back to my father. That will show him my worth far more than defeating some insignificant wind mages. What can wind do against plants?"

"And what can plants do against fire without your little cheat?" Rukelion said with a maniacal laugh, continuing to burn the vines and brambles as quickly as the crown prince could summon them.

He seemed to realize this as well and his bravado faltered. "Hey—listen—we can come to some sort of agreement. There's no need to take it this far!"

"Agreement?! There is absolutely nothing you or anyone can offer me that would make up for what your people did to mine. I wouldn't give up the chance to destroy you for all the money in the world. Die, scum! The same way my family did: hopelessly knowing that no one is coming to save you!"

Rukelion couldn't destroy the forest because that would leave too much evidence behind that could possibly implicate him…or at least alert the king that there was a fire mage around. Otherwise he would create a raging inferno that would take the crown prince out in one shot.

What he did instead was run at a nearby tree, use it as a springboard while simultaneously lighting the plant magic on fire, and take advantage of the prince's distraction to slice off his head. There. It was done! One member of the Mirean royal family was dead by his hand!

He let out a triumphant laugh that startled some birds out of their nests. Once he had his exhilarating moment of victory, he needed to think. As much as he would like to advertise the fact that he had decimated his foes, he had to be smarter than that.

If the king knew his son had been murdered, he would launch a full-scale investigation. Evidence of fire magic might be found.

The first thing Rukelion did was unload and unsaddle the horses so they looked as though they were wild and set them free. He could burn most of the evidence and hope it was scattered away by the wind but only if he held it up. Scorch marks on the ground would be noticeable.

He may have hit a few places on the trees but all he could do about that was try to scrape the bark off and cut down the singed branches. Trees were damaged by animals and weather all the time so hopefully it wouldn't look too suspicious.

Honestly, his biggest concern was the bodies. He needed to get them out of here and find a way to get rid of all the blood on the dirt path and nearby foliage. Nothing could be left when the search along the route the crown prince took was eventually conducted.

Rukelion ended up taking the bodies to a nearby cave, heedless of how much blood he was covered in by doing so. He could burn these clothes after procuring replacements for them.

Once they were in there, he lit the place up with his hottest, most intense flames from outside the entrance. It was enough to begin melting the stone, which was a bit worrisome, but he needed every trace of those bodies to vanish from existence.

The last time he melted stone had been purposeful. He had been practicing his powers and wanted to see how hot he could get since he needed to be strong enough to vaporize anything. That was how he knew what to do to get rid of these bodies now. If fire could melt stone, it could destroy anything.

Once his task was complete, the stone glowed molten orange. Nothing was left of his enemies.

Rukelion used his magic to disperse the heat so he could go in and do more damage control. It was still steaming but at least the rock looked black now that it had cooled. The problem was that the inside of the cave had obviously been scorched. What he needed to do now was find other rocks and block up the entrance in a way that made the whole thing look like it had been a simple rock mound from the beginning.

He took care of that too and, satisfied with his work, headed back to the main road. The blood needed to go. He carefully burned it away and then found more dirt from elsewhere on the road and spread it around in a natural-looking manner so it all blended in. After that, he meticulously looked for any other details he might have missed for a solid hour before he was satisfied that the road more or less looked the way it had before he arrived.