Deus Necros

“Dark magic, huh…” Ludwig turned to the Prince. The words left him calm, almost conversational, though the air itself felt like it had teeth. Overhead, the sky pressed low, bloodied and stale, and the river’s jaundiced surface gave back their reflections as blurred smears that breathed when they did not. He let the silence stretch a heartbeat longer than manners required, forcing the question to sit between them like a stone on a table.

“You believe that was dark magic?” he asked again.

“It sure as hell felt like it,” Tull said as he took the space directly in front of Alex with the trained thoughtlessness of a shield that knows what it is for. The big man did not posture. He simply placed himself where the blade would fall. “Do you know the punishment of using Dark Magic in the empire?” His tone had the iron taste of rules chewed for years.

“First of all…” Ludwig said, and the pause landed cold. “That wasn’t dark magic. That was black. Understand the difference, it is the same spell that my master uses, though far weaker. That’s [Dark Flame] don’t misunderstand the name for it being dark magic, as it only uses my mana as a catalyst and unlike Dark Magic that uses rituals, blood, or souls to power itself, this was purely normal.” He did not look away from Tull as he said it. He let the man hear each word as a brick, laid steady. The river gave a lazy gulp behind them, as if trying to swallow the distinction and failing.

“Secondly,” he turned his head to face the prince, the motion unhurried, “This isn’t the empire last I heard. If I see need to use Dark Magic to save your imperial behind, trust me, I won’t hesitate in using it.” There was no heat in it. No plea. A plain statement of how the world would proceed if it came to that. He had the voice of a man who already knew what he would do in every ugly hallway.

“It’s wrong.” Alex said. His face did not shift, but the words were scrupulous, polished by years of being correct before being useful. He stood straight in the sour air, posture careful, a line of silver certainty in this damp yellow dusk.

“Ludwig’s right,” Redd said, the growl beneath his words more weather than sound. “If it is needed to save you, even I would use it. Tull, would you not agree?” Redd’s eyes had not left the river. He spoke like a man who had decided which wolves to feed.

Tull hesitated, the pause honest and visible in the set of his jaw, but then nodded. “Without hesitation.” He did not enjoy conceding, but duty does not require enjoyment.

Alex looked at him in surprise, Tull, the man who dedicated his life to the empire first, and the pricne second was willing to go against the rules of the Empire itself just to save him? though a prince, it shouldn’t be that easy to break the Law of the empire, especially for Tull.

“That is not the way of the empire!” Alex protested. The words snapped cleaner than the air allowed, a whip-crack muffled by swamp. He was not shouting. He was affirming the shape of a house he still believed he lived in.

“You know why you’re so behind in the line of succession?” Ludwig asked, it felt like a complete change of conversation to everyone else.

“Oi, stop, don’t say things you don’t understand, Ludwig,” Tull tried to intercept. His head angled a warning, and the knuckles around his sword hilt whitened a breath.

But Alex only frowned. He did not flinch from the cut. “Speak, tell me why you think i’m behind?” he said. His gaze was steady in a way that belonged to someone who did his reading and showed up for the exam anyway.

“You’re too damn smart for your own good,” Ludwig added. He let the words settle like a cloak and then tightened them. “To use one’s brain is good, but you don’t have the power to apply your own ideas. Where your brothers are already tearing each other apart, taking claim of kingdoms and annexing them under their own service, what have you been doing? Playing in the desert with someone who’s a traitor of the empire, Following… Rules.” Ludwig said. He did not raise his voice. He sharpened it.

“It’s only words and rumors, once I get back, I can easily clear your name, not to mention I’ve also been playing the game of politics far longer than you could think of. Yet never broke the laws of the empire!” The prince’s reply carried that careful neatness again. He set his pieces straight, even in a place that bent lines.

“Sure thing, Alexander,” Ludwig said, and the name came out with the smallest tilt of humor that did not reach his eyes. “But I see a great lack of power behind you, enough that you had to personally go to the frontlines and try and solve the war with the Kingdom of the Sand.

Say, even if by some miracle, the Sand Kingdom decides to stop the war against the empire… How would you take credit? The army of the Empire will take all the achievements if they were to go to war and win. Not to mention, the Holy Order is already fully deployed here, once the Hero arrives it’ll be a full on assault… How will you be able to convince the king to stop this war before that happens?” His questions did not seek answers. They weighed him.

“I’ll do whatever it takes, even if it means killing the thing that’s corrupting this river. Which we all know was the source of the King’s mental distability,” Alex said. He did not blink. He had a way of making impossible verbs sound like chores.

“Is that so…” Ludwig said as he turned to look far deep down the river. The current there did not move so much as brood. The yellow surface wore a skin of stillness that pretended to be calm. “Do you know the powers you’re about to face?” Ludwig asked. He asked without heat, the way you ask a child whether he knows fire is hot.

“You solved it before. And I’m pretty sure that Tull is far more proficient in swordsmanship that you are. So it shouldn’t be a problem.” He said. He did not mean it to insult. He meant it to reassure himself on paper where the numbers added up.

Ludwig smiled, and the expression sat on his mouth like a knife placed carefully on a cloth. “That’s what i mean… too smart for your own good…The Wrathful Death… the only way I was able to beat it was by dropping it down the mountains of Solania, and fighting it for five years straight, sure Tull might be more proficient than me in drawing blood, but there is no one under this sky that has more endurance than I. You’ll die of exhaustion in weeks if you were to fight it, not to mention, the Wrathful Death went mad eons ago, it was slow, sluggish, brutish and devastating, but mindless, what we’re fighting now is on an entirely different Level… She isn’t one without a mind. The chances of your survival aren’t even in the single digits, we’re talking decimal chances…” He let the number hang, a cold bead of sweat rolling down the side of a calculation.

“You won’t scare me into backing out, we went too far to simply backout.” He said. The prince did not raise his chin. He simply refused to lower it.

“Good, I’m glad you think your capable, shows promise, but confidence without power to back it out is nothing short of suicide,” Ludwig turned to Tull. He did not soften his gaze. “Do you have an escape Crystal?”

“I always carry one… why?” Tull’s fingers brushed the place on his person where such things lived, a small, habitual confirmation that looked like a prayer and was not.

“Hopefully you’ll be able to use it.” Ludwig said. The words were plain, but something quiet in them took the temperature out of the air.

“Shouldn’t it be the other way around? To not need to use it?” Tull said. There was a tightness in the question that did not belong to fear. It belonged to inventory.

“No, because you will definitely need to use it…” Ludwig tightened his hand on his sword. The leather creaked once, a sound that felt too loud in this muffled world.

“She is here…”