RD 5 Ch 36

“Well,” Circe said as we reappeared back outside the trial, “that was certainly… something.”

I blinked away the sudden shift in light to find ourselves in the dark of Tartarus, but far from the start of the trials. We were behind our own troops as they trained on the first wave.

“You’ve got that right,” Winnie said, immediately spotting members of her sect still training in Tartarus. She began heading their direction as if it were just another day.

“She’s a little prickly, you know,” Simone said, coming to stand beside me. “But I think, under the frigid lair, the barrier of thorns and of course the raging inferno of crazy, there might be a good person.”

I turned slowly to Simone. “For all our sakes, I hope so. I’m still a little peeved she got us all stuck in the Trial of Kings.”

“It did end relatively well,” Simone interrupted, beaming at me.

“It did, didn’t it? Well, we all got our titles.” Circe glanced over at Princess Almeria. “I guess you are free to go do whatever it is you’re doing.”

The princess now had her helmet off and her clothes had been blessedly restored from how they’d ended the Trial of Kings. I didn’t even want to think about the headache that would have ensued had I returned her to her people in the state in which we had left.

“What do you mean?” the princess asked, glancing at Circe with a slight tilt of her head, genuine confusion on her face.

“Well, what are you doing now?” Circe repeated, gesturing at her.

The princess shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t get to decide that anymore, do I?”

I was about to say something, but Simone whipped around faster than I could react. “You mean because you now serve the Hegemon?”

The princess nodded. “He has bested me in an honorable duel and forced me to serve him.” Princess Almeria performed some sort of ritualistic bow toward me that must have carried deep meaning because several of her people, already halfway over to greet her, gasped and began talking among themselves quickly in a language I did not understand.

“Explain. Now,” I ground out, hoping to get an answer before her people overwhelmed us.

An older man rushed to her side and fell to his knees. “Princess, is it true?” he asked, a warble in his voice.

The princess gave a sedate nod and more gasps rippled through the crowd.

I pinched the bridge of my nose as a headache crept up. “Princess, I’m sorry. Whatever you think just happened, we’re going to have to put that aside. I don’t know your culture, and if I have in some way offended you or indebted you, we can cancel the debt.” I tried to keep my voice calm.

The old man gasped and hung his head. He drew his sword from his belt and offered it to the princess.

She took it in a reverse grip and in a single fluid motion drew it up to place the point on her chest and pushed.

I watched, frozen in horror, the last thing I wanted was for the woman I had painstakingly extracted from the Trial of Kings to kill herself. I reached over and grabbed the sword by the blade to stop her, cutting my hand deep. Blood ran down the blade where she’d already pierced partway into her chest.

“I’m going to play the stupid foreigner card right now,” I said, steadying my voice and hoping I was projecting some calm. Because the woman had a solid inch of the blade in her chest right now and was still trying to push it deeper. “Whatever is happening is in no way my intention.” I hesitated, clearly this was complicated, but it seemed like the best move. “I absolutely forbid you from killing yourself.”

The old man gasped again, looking at the princess in horror. “What have you done for him to damn you to a life of shame?” he scolded her.

I ran my free hand over my face. This was going to be a lot. “All right, no more reactions.” I held a finger up to silence the crowd. “My name is Bran Heros. In the Trial of Kings I was given the option to become a Hegemon, a king among kings. I’ll make this simple: as such, I had to subdue the princess and get her to give her forces over to me. Now that seems to have caused some misunderstanding. Hopefully this will make sense.”

The old man nodded, then spoke through clenched teeth. “Yes, and then you have denied her; if she does not belong to you then she does not belong in this world.” He gestured at the blade still poised over Almeria’s chest.

Despite my attempt to explain, she had yet to fully withdraw the weapon. Though thankfully she wasn’t still trying to stab herself.

“To ask me to live after that is to ask me to live with the shame of being taken and then disowned,” she said, voice raw. “I am no one and nowhere in the hierarchy.”

I held my hands up. “Saying ‘you’ve been taken’ means something different to each of us, I think.”

“Did you not beat me in one-on-one combat with the purpose of making me yours?” She asked, eyes wide.

Despite everything, the draconic transformation, the poisoned lake, the chaos, she looked almost small and oddly vulnerable.

“Well, yes,” I admitted, “for the purpose of the trial.”

Princess Almeria nodded along with me. “Yes, and so I now belong to you. And as such do all of these people behind me.” She gestured at the small army she had brought with her.

I paused and stopped trying to view it from my own sense and listened to her, now starting to understand the implications of what she was saying. “You mean that by winning, I have defeated all of them and own them as well?”

“Of course.” She nodded as if the concept was simple. “How else do you improve your military rank if not by showing your prowess in combat is above theirs? Only by doing so repeatedly can you build a reasonable hierarchy among those born to fight.”

I opened my mouth meaning to say something, but between my shock and the ridiculousness of it all I failed to come up with words. And my lack of argument seemed to be accepted by the broader group.

“Of course, as the Princess says, now that you own her, her life is yours. And if you do not wish it, then she shall simply need to remove it.” The man was somehow making a sort of twisted sense.

“And what happens if I ask her to live a peaceful, normal life on her own?” I tried. I really did try.

Almeria and her people looked at me as if I had two heads.

Thankfully Simone saved me, laughing as she came up behind me. “You will have to forgive Bran, he’s not very good at adjusting to other people’s customs. We are honored to have Princess Almeria join our family.”

Simone’s words caused another outsized reaction, but this time it was gasps and nods from Almeria’s people. The princess herself flushed bright red.

I glared at Simone as she gave me a sweet, innocent smile.

“We really do need to welcome them to the fold of humanity… especially if we’re going to ally with them.”

The smile I returned towards Simone was tired. “Of course, I’ll leave it to you.”

“Good. Wonderful.” Simone gently grabbed the sword and eased it away from Almeria’s chest. “Now, if we can put the sword down, perhaps we can talk about options for what happens next.”

“Options?” Princess Almeria perked up.

“Oh yes, dear. Plenty of options. The Mul Branova is a big enough organization that you won't get shoved into anything you don't enjoy.” Simone told her.

The princess nodded, looking very serious. “I think I would like options,” she said, checking with me as she spoke.

I held my hands up. “Just listen to Simone. She handles…” I paused, trying to come up with the words. “She handles most everything for me when it comes to the larger organization at this point. Her words are practically my own.”

Simone beamed at my admission of how much work she did for me. She finally took the sword from the princess and handed it back to the old man. “She won’t be needing this, nor will you, at least not for these purposes. I will need somebody to walk me through your culture, but who better than the princess who will be joining Bran’s family?” Simone looped her arm through Princess Almeria’s.

As Simone mentioned joining the family, there was another visible reaction throughout the ranks of her people gathered around us. The feeling was some mix of expectation and unease among the crowd following the princess.

I frankly didn’t care much for the pageantry; there were far too many other concerns on my mind. Like how long we’ve been gone and if Vidar attacked in that time or worse if there had been any movement from the demons.

Simone caught several of the Mul Branova coming our way. “Ah yes, that will have to happen later,” she said, patting the princess on the shoulder. She healed the cut on Almeria’s chest. “You’ll have to forgive me, but for now could you simply follow me and help me prepare whatever tasks await Bran after being away so long?”

Princess Almeria hesitated and glanced in my direction, but I was happy to hand the burden off to Simone. “She’s my number two. If you serve me, then you serve her too,” I said.

Those words were heard by Gloria, who walked up, hands on her hips, glaring at me. The purple-haired woman wore a fitting outfit, white leather pants, a black top that likely cost more than most families make in a year, and a plush white jacket hanging off her shoulders.

“Not surprised she’s number two, but it still hurts to hear it,” Gloria said.

Then something launched at me, no less than a dozen serpentine locks of hair crashing around my head and pecking me with affectionate kisses. About a quarter of them sat back like girls with arms crossed, waiting for me to make the first move.

Meanwhile, Nyx buried her head in my chest; her arms wrapped around my shoulders and her serpentine tail coiled around my hips and legs, binding me as she snuggled me for all I was worth.

I rubbed the top of Nyx’s head. “I missed you too. And you, Gloria, thank you for helping. I could breathe easier knowing you were outside of the trial, taking care of everything that might come our way.”

A small smirk ticked at the haughty mob princess’s lips before she quashed it down. “You make it sound like you were gone for years. You were only gone for two weeks,” she said, rolling her eyes and batting the air as if brushing away the compliment.

I bent down and whispered in Nyx’s ear, “Do me a favor and drag her over here.”

Nyx peeped up through her excited serpentine hair; one of the locks stretched out, snagged Gloria, and dragged her in close enough for me to wrap her in a hug and press her to my chest. I kissed the top of her head.

“Thank you for taking the reins during my unexpected leave of absence. I’m relieved it was only two weeks, it felt like far longer,” I said. I squinted, wondering if Syssy had done anything to time, though as far as I understood, that was usually prohibitively expensive. “Syssy, go team Bran.” I murmured because there was no way it had only been two weeks inside.

I smiled at Almeria’s people waiting in the wings. “If you would be so kind as to let us regain our bearings before we get into anything too important. I do think I need to give some of my family overdue attention and make sure we’re on the same page before we decide what to do next.”

“Of course, Hegemon Bran,” the old man, seemingly Almeria’s second, bowed in my direction.

“Just Lord Bran,” Almeria informed him swiftly. “Hegemon is a mouthful. I do believe he would much prefer a shorter term of address.” She checked with me as she spoke, and Simone nodded beside her.

This was going to take some getting used to. Apparently I’d gained a princess today by accident.

“As we serve you, it is well within your right to dictate when you have time for us,” the old man added, bowing again. “We are relieved that we won’t be cast aside for now.”

That statement felt at least a smidge passive-aggressive, but I wasn’t about to pick a fight over it. At the end of the day, I had to make choices in the best interest of humanity, and there was quite a lot that I needed to catch up on across the world. I had no need to impress this old man; I did have a Demon King to defeat.