Patient

Malrik could admit to himself when he did something simply to spite the other person. And standing there in that library, he could not help but needle the princeling and make him angrier. 

His aura was just so beautiful. All that red surrounding him and begging to be coaxed and acknowledged. 

Vain as he may be, Malrik knew all that emotion was not directed only at him. From what the prince had said and from what he had observed, there were some who wanted to control him. 

His anger came from feeling powerless, a feeling Malrik could more than sympathize with. 

That did not mean he was going to stop provoking the fake prince any time soon and depriving himself of all that glorious red. 

It also helped that the fake prince was not too bad to look at. 

As they stood there, staring at each other, the prince's aura intensified. Malrik couldn't help taking a step forward. He just wanted to feel it caressing his fingers once more. 

The prince took an answering step back and bumped against the heavy chair, his aura shifting colors. It changed from a perfect red to an orange, then to yellow the longer they stood there and stared at each other. 

Fear.

A useless emotion that did not help him. 

"What are you doing?" The prince asked. 

Malrik took three steps back and lowered the hand he had unconsciously raised. He tried very hard to quench his disappointment. If he rushed the fake prince, he risked being stuck in his prison again with no hope of getting out any time soon. 

He had to be patient and take his time. He depended on the prince's help to find his physical body so he could reclaim his kingdom and punish those who had entrapped him. 

Malrik's wrath was nothing if not patient. His vengeance would be slow. And painful. 

The thought alone made him smile. "Apologies, Your Highness. I thought there was a bug in your hair."

Both of the princeling's hands immediately went to his hair. He cursed softly and raked both hands through the strands, making a mess of it. 

"Is it gone?" The prince asked. 

Before meeting this man, Malrik thought there was no more naivete to be found in this world. But there he stood, asking a king of hell if the bug in his hair was truly gone. 

An absurd thought he had already considered returned to Malrik. Did he not remember summoning him? Had it been an accident?

No, that was not possible. Was it? 

Malrik stared at the fake prince as if seeing him for the first time. He blinked wary brown eyes back at him. 

Was he truly oblivious to the identity of the one who stood in front of him? Before, Malrik thought the fake prince was merely playing along, pretending so that no one else found out the truth - that he had summoned a king of hell into the Royal Palace. 

But now… 

As the silence dragged on between them, Malrik's thoughts spun as he considered the implications that the one who had summoned him did not know what he had done. 

Should Malrik disclose his true identity? No, that was too risky. The prince could use it as a means of manipulating Malrik into getting what he wanted. Which… what was it exactly that he wanted? 

If he had summoned Malrik on purpose, he would know. Wrath, death, destruction, and fiery ends to one's enemies were usually different names for the same desire: revenge. 

But if his summoning had been an accident, then what did the fake prince want? To take power? Since he barely seemed to grasp the basics of magic, that probably was not his end goal. Then what?

And if he had summoned Malrik on accident, how exactly had he managed that? Malrik had long since erased his true name from any records. After taking the throne of the Fifth Circle, he had never been summoned by any creature - be they mortals or otherwise. 

So how had this clueless and painfully naive man done it? Especially since he claimed not to have any magic. 

Questions circled his mind like annoying insects and Malrik couldn't help but chuckle at the absurd situation. 

"What?" The fake prince asked. "Do I have something on my face?"

"Yes." Malrik pointed to a point close to the center of his own forehead. "Some of the ink transferred to your skin."

"Oh." The fake prince, Perry, rubbed at his forehead, twin spots of pink blooming on his cheeks. "Why didn't you just say so."

What a ridiculous creature. Of all the things to be embarrassed of. Curiosity peaked, Malrik crossed his hands behind his back and circled the table, putting a flimsy barrier between him and the wary princeling. 

"I did not think it important. Besides, you did not transfer any dangerous symbols or spells onto your skin." Malrik tilted his chin toward the book. 

Perry's face paled and he flipped through the book, looking for the page he had used to rest his forehead on. 

"Wha-What is this one used for?" Perry pointed at the page in question and Malrik couldn't help but notice how his fingers trembled slightly. Was he truly that afraid of magic?

The absurd notion almost made Malrik chuckle again. He held it in because he thought he was starting to understand what reactions made Perry afraid, uncomfortable, or angry. 

Laughing at him while he was clearly scared might upset him and keep him from exposing more of his pretty aura to Malrik. And it could also make him more afraid. 

So, Malrik diligently glanced down at the page and pretended to study the symbols, as if one glance was not enough for him to understand what he as looking at.

"It seems to be some sort of cleansing array for spring celebrations. This modification seems to make it more suitable for stables and other animal pens." Malrik pointed to a smaller circle interconnected with a larger circle and with the symbols for the sun, the moon, and a handful of constellations decorating the insides of both circles. 

Perry exhaled in relief and sat back in the chair. He inclined his head forward and held it up with one hand while he continued to flip the book with the other. "This feels impossible."

An idea struck Malrik. "Instead of trying to climb a mountain barefoot, why don't you learn to ride a horse first."

Perry glanced up at him, frowning. "I don't think I have enough brain power to even try to understand what you just said."

Malrik gingerly pulled the book Perry was hopelessly gazing at and, after looking carefully at the pile the librarian had brought, selected the first-hand account of a historian and handed it over. 

"You said you wanted to read about the history of the kingdom," Malrik reminded him. 

"Right, I did say that. What time is it anyway?" Perry pulled back the sleeve on his left arm and glanced at his bare wrist as if checking something. Then he exhaled, shoulders slumping. "Never mind, I probably wouldn't understand your answer anyway."

Malrik had to admit he was intrigued by all of Perry's strangeness. How could someone not understand something as simple as telling time? And then it occurred to him that he might not understand it either. 

Depending on how long he had been trapped underground, the people of this kingdom might have come up with an entirely different way of telling time. 

"When last I looked, it was still some time before the mid-small hours." That part was true enough. Without any windows around, There was no way of knowing precisely how far away dawn was. 

"I… think I understand," Perry mumbled. Then shook his head and opened the book. 

The first page was dedicated to a map of the continent and the second, to a detailed map of the Kingdom of Avera. There were four dates on the top right hand corner - different numbers, one for the calendar followed by different parts of the continent. 

Malrik recognized only one of them since the Circles of Hell were not that preoccupied with following arbitrary dates set by mortals. 

Five hundred summers. That was, according to the date on the map, how long Malrik had been buried underground. 

Five hundred. 

The number gave him pause and made him step away from Perry. 

Was his kingdom still standing? Were any of his subjects still alive? His brothers and sisters… 

Emir. Was Emir still alive? 

There was only one to find out. And for that, he would need the cooperation of the fake prince staring at the maps as if he had never seen one before.