I am Ren Drakemore, the unwanted second Prince of Arcadia, who will one day take the throne from my tyrannical father and good-for-nothing brother. And today is my 8th birthday.
For most people, birthdays are joyous occasions, celebrations where friends and family gather to honor you, expressing gratitude for your existence and the time you've spent in their lives. A birthday is meant to be a celebration of life. But when the day you were born is also the day your mother died, that anniversary takes on a much darker meaning.
Every year, on the 10th day of Blossomarc, the entire kingdom throws a grand festival. Commoners and nobles alike celebrate the memory of Queen Arin, mourning her tragic passing. In a way, my birthday is widely observed, but not for me. They don't celebrate my life, they mourn my mother's death. Most people in the kingdom don't even know I exist.
Tonight, the market streets will be alive with festivities: entertainers performing for the crowds, food stalls serving indulgent treats, memorials adorned with flowers and tributes to the late queen, and mages casting mesmerizing displays of colorful lights and fire in the night sky. It will be beautiful. It always is.
Lady Willow will undoubtedly plan something private to mark the day for me. She always does. Most likely, she'll arrange a special meal and present me with some thoughtful gift. Every year, she goes to great lengths to fulfill some imagined checklist of birthday traditions she believes human children desire.
I appreciate her efforts, but I think I'd rather skip it altogether and focus on my training.
In the last three years, I've made immense progress. Nearly being devoured by a monstrous worm tends to motivate a person to push themselves harder.
After that day with the Dreadcoil, I asked Captain Gavin to begin training me. I wanted to learn more about his use of enhancement spells and to develop my swordsmanship. I had realized that magic alone has its limits. If you let yourself run completely out of mana, you are defenseless. Proficiency with a sword provides a way to keep fighting even when mana is low and allows you to conserve magical energy when it isn't necessary.
Gavin informed me that my father had expressly forbidden all nobles in the castle from assisting or even being near me. However, Gavin had no intention of following that edict. To avoid being caught, he limited our training to one hour each evening, conducted in the privacy of my tower. True to his word, on most nights, he would arrive after sunset, train me for an hour, and then join Lady Willow and me for dinner before heading home.
Thanks to his guidance, I've grown much stronger and more skilled with a sword. One of the first things he taught me was that physical conditioning helps reduce the toll mana drain takes on stamina during battle. Because of that, I've incorporated rigorous physical training into my daily routine.
My magic training with Lady Willow has also advanced significantly. My magical capacity and control have improved to the point where I can now control four puppets simultaneously, with a range of several miles. I've even integrated my puppets into my combat training. While my muscles don't benefit from their movements, I gain valuable practice in the spells and techniques they perform. They also provide me with a good sparring partner when Gavin is not around.
At present, I have an array of puppets at my disposal: four humanoid puppets, ten small hummingbird puppets, and a large hawk-shaped puppet equipped with sharp metal claws and a razor-like beak.
I haven't neglected my studies, either. With two puppets reading different books at a time, I've managed to get through over 100 books a year. This has allowed me to gain knowledge across a wide range of topics. I'm close to exhausting Lady Willow's library, burning through its collection so quickly that I'm now searching for other sources of books. With my perfect memory, there's no point in rereading what I've already completed.
Perhaps the biggest milestone is that six arcs ago, Lady Willow finally agreed to teach me offensive magic. She decided my magical control had improved enough to safely handle the complexity of combat spells. Since then, I've learned level 2 spells in fire, earth, lightning, and water magic.
It's worth noting that spell levels don't refer to their strength but to their complexity and the order in which they are typically taught. The power of any spell, regardless of its level, is determined by the caster's magical capacity.
I still remember the day Lord Griswald used the level 1 fire spell Fire Lance against the Dreadcoil. The small crater it left behind gave me a clear benchmark for the power of a trained mage. I'm proud to say that my version of Fire Lance leaves the same level of destruction. While I'm not suggesting I could beat a battle-hardened warrior like Lord Griswald, being able to match his strength with a spell at age 8 is a promising start.
Right now, I'm working on a special puppet, one unlike the others. Its wooden body is reinforced with iron, dressed in armor, clothes, boots, gloves, a hooded cloak, and a mask to conceal its nature. I've armed it with a sword and several daggers purchased from a local blacksmith.
The biggest difference with this puppet is the addition of two unique enchantments: Replicate Voice and Thought Transmission. Replicate Voice allows the puppet to speak and mimic any voice, while Thought Transmission enables telepathic communication, letting me direct it from afar and covertly relay messages.
"I think you're about ready." I say to myself looking over my puppet as it is held up by its support frame.
Just then, the door to the tower creaks open, and Lady Willow walks in, her traveling cloak draped elegantly over her shoulders and her magical storage bag at her side. She had left earlier to make our weekly delivery of potions to the apothecary.
"Welcome home, Lady Willow!" I call out with a smile from across the workshop. "How's Lady Muara doing?"
"Lady Muara wasn't able to purchase any of our potions," Willow replies, her tone calm as she hangs up her cloak.
"She couldn't buy any of them?" I ask, surprised and confused. "What happened?"
"It appears Lord Fobos has decided to sabotage our potion-making venture," Lady Willow says as she begins ascending the spiral staircase, gesturing for me to follow.
"What did he do?" I exclaim, hurrying after her. "How did he sabotage us?"
At the top of the stairs, she takes a seat at the tea table beside a window and waits for me. As I round the last step, she gestures to the chair across from her. I quickly pull it out and sit down, eager for an explanation.
"Tell me what that pompous jerk did," I say, my frustration bubbling over.
"When I arrived at the apothecary, Lady Muara informed me that she couldn't accept our shipment because she had no room left in her storage for potions," Willow begins, her voice composed as always. "The Merchant's Guild has ensured that every shop licensed to sell healing potions in the capital is fully stocked."
"How is that sabotage? Shouldn't she honor her previous agreements with us first?" I ask, frowning.
"Guild rules dictate that contracts arranged through the Guild take precedence over privately arranged ones," Willow explains. "Lord Fobos is flooding the market with potions through Guild contracts, effectively locking us out."
"But where is he even getting the potions from?" I ask. "I thought there weren't many people producing high-grade healing potions locally."
"You're correct," Willow says with a knowing smile. "They couldn't have sourced all those potions from within the kingdom. It's likely they've imported large quantities from neighboring nations."
"That must be costing them a fortune," I say, the realization dawning. "Buying at full price and covering transport costs? They're probably taking a massive loss just to stop us from making money."
"And with trade negotiations between nations taking place in person," I add, "it would take a competent person at least six arcs to finalize the contracts, acquire the goods, and transport them to flood the market. Fobos doesn't strike me as particularly competent."
"Indeed," Lady Willow says, her tone dry. "For someone like him, I'd estimate it would take closer to two years, four arcs, and ten days to complete such a plan." She pauses thoughtfully. "Give or take a day."
I blink at her in surprise, my bemused expression meeting her widening smile. "That is… a very specific estimate."
"Of course," she replies, the hint of a smirk playing on her lips. "But specifics aside, Lord Fobos' short-sightedness has worked in our favor. By flooding the capital's market, he's inadvertently created a massive deficit of potions in neighboring nations. Prices in those regions will skyrocket."
The thought settles in my mind, and I can't help but feel a glimmer of satisfaction. "So, by trying to ruin us, he's actually handed us an even greater opportunity," I say, shaking my head at the irony.
"Thankfully, Lord Fobos isn't particularly clever." Willow remarks, her tone laced with bored amusement. "You would be wise to learn from your adversary's mistakes."
"You must always consider not just the immediate effects of your actions, but also the ripple of consequences they will create and how people are likely to respond, even many steps down the road." Lady Willow councils me.
"Understood," I respond, mulling over our options. "As for the potions we couldn't sell today, we could save them to sell in one of the neighboring nations. The Kingdom of Hyperion is the closest and maintains friendly relations with Arcadia."
"On the other hand, we could provide today's potions to the commons for free." I suggested. "I would like to continue to make deliveries to our friends in the commons even if we are not selling locally."
Lady Willow considers my words carefully, her expression unreadable. "If that is what you wish to do," she replies evenly. "However, you must consider how Lord Fobos will respond when he discovers your actions, assuming he hasn't already."
Lady Willow and I departed the castle once again, her magic bag in hand, to deliver the potions to the commons. Like before, we passed through the nobles' district, the clean streets and ornate homes giving way to the more humble surroundings of the commons as we reached the gate. Once inside, we veered off the main road, navigating through side streets and narrow alleys until we arrived at Mr. Langly's house.
In the past, I would distribute the potions myself, handing them out openly to those in need. However, it quickly became clear that this was far too conspicuous. Flaunting our disregard for the Guild's rules was not just unwise, it was dangerous.
Instead, we devised a better system. We partnered with Mr. Paul Langly, a trusted member of the commons. Mr. Langly was a local healer of sorts, someone the impoverished turned to when they had nowhere else to go. His treatments relied heavily on home remedies, whose effectiveness and safety I found... questionable, to put it kindly.
However, he was an honest man at heart, and our arrangement benefited everyone. By providing him with our potions, his treatments became 100% effective, and zero percent snake oil.
There are plenty of odd ingredients that go into potions, but snake oil is not one of them.
We arrived at a group housing building, worn down and dirty like the rest of the commons. An old wooden sign nailed above the entrance read "Healer." The paint was faded and peeling, but it was enough to identify Mr. Langly's practice.
Inside, the air was stale, and the dingy hallway was lined with doors leading to cramped, single-room family quarters. The first door to the right had a smaller version of the sign from outside, marking it as Langly's apartment.
I knocked, and a moment later, the door creaked open. Standing before us was Mr. Paul Langly himself, a skinny, ancient man with long, unkempt white hair and a beard that was only slightly less white. His tunic and apron were stained and smelled of a rotten concoction of spilled home remedy ingredients, spills that I suspected weren't recent.
If I'm being honest, his appearance didn't exactly inspire confidence in his abilities as a healer. Still, many in the commons swore by him.
Today, however, he looked far worse than usual. A black eye darkened his left socket, and fresh cuts marked his swollen lip and right eyebrow. His own dried blood mixed with the usual stains on his clothes, and he limped painfully as he stepped aside to let us in.
"What in the world happened to you, Mr. Langly?" I asked, concern evident in my voice as I took in his injuries. "Are you hurt? Willow, please, a potion."
"Darn right I am, Your Princeliness," Langly muttered, accepting the potion Lady Willow handed him.
She had already anticipated the request and produced it with her usual efficiency.
Langly lowered himself onto his bed with a wince, removed the stopper from the potion, and downed it in one gulp. The faint green glow of the potion's magic healed his injuries almost instantly, erasing the cuts, swelling, and bruising.
"Some of your father's knights on the order of his lordship Fobos did me the discourtesy of paying me a visit, they did," Langly sys angrily, setting the empty bottle aside.
"Lord Fobos sent knights here and they just beat you up? For no reason?" I asked, my voice rising in disbelief.
"Oh no, no, no, that weren't all," Langly says bitterly, his frustration evident. "They also took the potions. Accused me of having stolen goods, they did. Called it a warning."
"A warning?" I asked, my jaw tightening.
Langly nodded, his gnarled fingers gripping the edge of his bed. "Aye, a warning. Said if I'm caught with 'stolen goods' again, I'll be thrown in the dungeon, I will. And you know what they meant by 'stolen,' don't you, lad? It's them potions you've been so kindly providin'."
My hands clenched into fists. My father and lord Fobos had gone to far, harassing and stealing from a man who had done nothing but help others. Their actions weren't just cruel; they were meant to send a message, to me.
Lady Willow placed a steadying hand on my shoulder, sensing my growing anger. "Calm yourself, young master,"
"Why should I be calm? Shouldn't we get even?" I argued, my anger bubbling to the surface.
Lady Willow raised an eyebrow, her tone steady but edged with a hint of humor. "Young master, if you truly want to get even with the King and Lord Fobos, it shouldn't be for this. Let's not forget, they've done far worse than stealing a few potions and roughing up Mr. Langly."
"I don't know, M'lady," Langly interjected, his tone laced with indignation. "From my perspective, this was pretty bad." His comment went unnoticed as Lady Willow pressed on.
"And besides," she continued, "you already have a long-term plan for revenge, one that you will not throw away over a single slight. Remember, your goals are far greater than this small offense."
I fell silent for a moment, the weight of her words sinking in. "But it's infuriating," I say, my voice quieter but still tinged with frustration. "Why shouldn't I act now?"
"Because, young master," Lady Willow says, her tone softening but retaining its firmness, "achieving your goals requires a calm head and careful actions. To outmaneuver your enemies, you must thwart them subtly, striking from the shadows. When you defeat them, it should be in such a way that they never realize you were the architect of their downfall."
She was right, of course. Acting rashly might feel satisfying in the moment, but it would jeopardize everything we were working toward.
"Fine," I conceded with a sigh, leaning back in my chair. "I'll play it smart. But someday, they'll pay for what they've done."
"In any case, we can't leave the potions here with Mr. Langly. Those knights are sure to return, and if he has a new stock of potions they probably will arrest him. " Willow says matter-of-factly.
"Yeah, I'm not looking to get my ass beat again. No way, no how," Langly says with a determined shake of his head.
We apologized to Mr. Langly for the trouble and set back to the castle still holding all the potions.
It was frustrating that Lord Fobos had made it more difficult to distribute potions to the commons.
That said, there is a silver lining to this. Many of the commoners in the capital know that I was the one providing those potions. After this, word will spread that Lord Fobos, or even the King himself ordered that knights steal the potions and beat an innocent man. This will only likely increase my support and reduce the support for the King amongst the common folk that make up 95% of the kingdom. Having the support from commoners is a powerful card to play if you do so at the right time and place. I don't know how or when I may play that card, but I do want to have that card in my pocket.