"Hit me."
The guard stared at me. He was a veteran of the Sol-Guard, a man whose bicep was roughly the size of my head and whose face was a map of scars earned in the service of the Empire. He looked at me, then at the frilly, silver-lace-trimmed umbrella I was holding, and then back at me.
"Your Highness," he grunted, his voice like grinding gravel. "I cannot—"
"That's an order," I interrupted, adjusting my grip on the ivory-white handle. "Swing the halberd. Full strength. Aim right for the nose. If I die, you get a raise and a week's paid vacation for services rendered to the Crown. It's a win-win situation."
The guard's eyes flickered. I could see the mental calculation happening. The struggle between his oath of loyalty and the desire for a better pension.
The pension won.
He shifted his weight, his boots grinding into the dirt of the secluded training courtyard. He roared, the sound echoing off the stone walls, and swung the heavy, steel-headed halberd in a brutal, horizontal arc. It was a kill-shot.
"Aaaaaah!"
I let out a completely dignified, tactical shriek and jammed my thumb onto the release button.
SH-THUMP.
The Bastion Parasol exploded into its full, frilly glory just as the steel blade connected.
CLANG!
The sound wasn't the tearing of silk; it was the ringing of a heavy hammer against a mountain. The halberd didn't cut through; it bounced off the delicate-looking lace as if it had hit the hull of a battleship.
The recoil sent a shockwave back through the polearm. The guard's arms buckled, his gauntlets rattling against his bones as the vibration traveled all the way to his teeth. He stumbled back three steps, his hands trembling as he stared at his weapon in horror.
I was still standing. I hadn't even moved an inch.
I slowly lowered the parasol, peeking over the top of the silver-silk canopy.
"Zero recoil," I whispered, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs. "100% Sun Protection. And it actually matches my shoes. It's beautiful. It's a miracle of engineering."
The Guard with shaken hand speaking slowly, still shaken "What is that fabric made of?!"
"Government Budget." I said.
I clicked the parasol shut. Clack.
The guard was currently leaning against a stone pillar, gasping for air as if he'd just tried to chop down a mountain with a kitchen knife. His halberd was notched, and his pride was clearly in pieces.
"Good work, Sir Knight," I said, dusting off my sleeves. "I'll see to it that you get that raise. Just... try not to mention the part where I screamed like a startled cat. Let's call it a 'battle cry of the soul.'"
I turned the Bastion Parasol over in my hands. It had been forty-eight hours since I'd looted it from the vault, and I'd spent nearly every waking second testing its structural integrity. It hadn't chipped. It hadn't stained. It was the only thing in this entire Empire I currently trusted.
(Two days. I've had two days of peace before the script catches up to me.)
I looked up at the sky. The sun was at its zenith, hanging over Sol-Aeterna like a giant, burning eye. The light was too bright, too perfect, reflecting off the white spires of the palace with a brilliance that made my head throb.
"The Sun is high," I muttered, my stomach doing a slow, nauseous flip.
It was time.
The Imperial Inspection wasn't just a suggestion anymore; it was about to become Law. I had to go to the Throne Room. I had to face Emperor Helios.
(My father. Or rather, the man whose DNA this body shares.)
In the novel, Helios was a shadow—a distant, cold authority who barely looked at his third son. But to me, he was a boss fight I wasn't equipped for yet.
"Right," I said, tucking the parasol under my arm like a baton. "Time to go tell the Emperor I'm ready to leave his beautiful, rotting utopia."
I adjusted my collar one last time.
"Wish me luck, Guard. I'm going to go talk to a god. I hope he's in a good mood.
—-
Walking into the Throne Room of the Lux-Aeterna was not like entering a room; it was like stepping onto the stage of an opera house while the orchestra was mid-crescendo, only to realize you've forgotten all your lines.
The scale of the chamber was designed to crush the human psyche. The ceiling was a dome of pure celestial glass, hundreds of feet above, which focused the afternoon sun into a single, blinding pillar of light that hit the center of the room. It felt less like a palace and more like an altar.
Rows of nobles stood on either side of the red carpet, their faces obscured by the shadows of the tall marble pillars. They weren't people; they were the audience. Their whispers were the white noise of a theater, the low hum of expectant spectators waiting for the clown to slip on a banana peel.
At the far end of the hall, seated atop a throne carved from a single block of sun-bleached obsidian, was Emperor Helios.
He didn't look like a father. He looked like a statue carved from light and apathy. His crown was a halo of golden spikes that seemed to bleed radiance, and his eyes—the same reddish-brown as mine, but aged into something harder were fixed on a point far beyond the walls of the palace.
Beside the throne stood Aelius, looking every bit the perfect heir, his arms folded over his chest as he watched me approach.
Every step I took echoed with the weight of a thousand eyes. I felt small. I felt like a glitch in a masterpiece. I felt like I was holding a frilly umbrella in a room full of gods.
I reached the base of the dais and stopped. The air here was heavy with the scent of incense and old, dusty power.
The Emperor didn't move. He didn't even blink. The silence stretched, thick and suffocating, until the sound of my own heartbeat was the only thing I could hear.
"The Third Prince, Willes Rembon Lux-Aeterna," the Emperor's Aide announced, his voice booming through the hall like a funeral bell.
I looked up. The Emperor's gaze finally shifted, descending from the heavens to land on me. It felt like being placed under a microscope.
"You have requested an audience," Helios said. His voice was a low, vibrating hum that seemed to come from the floor itself.
The Emperor remained as still as a tombstone, his silence a heavy cloak draped over the room. It was Aelius who stepped forward, his boots clicking rhythmically as he moved down the first few steps of the dais to stand between me and the throne.
He wore a smile that was far too bright for the coldness in his eyes. He raised a hand, gesturing to the assembled nobility like a ringmaster introducing his favorite clown.
"My lords and ladies," Aelius projected his voice, filling the hollow space of the chamber. "As you are all aware, the Third Prince has… struggled to find his footing within the sacred duties of our lineage. His conduct has, at times, been a source of concern for the Crown."
A ripple of quiet, mocking laughter drifted from the shadows of the pillars.
(Yeah, laugh it up, you over-designed extras. I'm the one getting an unlimited expense account.)
"However," Aelius continued, his tone shifting into one of faux-earnestness, "in a moment of rare clarity and profound humility, Prince Willes has approached the throne. He has confessed his shortcomings and begged for a chance to redeem his name through service to the Empire. He has requested to personally oversee the Imperial Inspection of our outer provinces, starting with the frozen heart of the North."
The nobles whispered, their fans fluttering like the wings of startled birds. The narrative was perfect: the "Trash Prince" was finally being sent to the doghouse, but they were dressing it up as a "Grand Quest for Redemption" to keep the royal image untarnished.
Aelius turned to me, his eyes gleaming with triumphant malice. "Is that not so, brother? Have you not yearned for this opportunity to prove your loyalty to our father's light?"
I bowed my head, my eyes fixed on the red carpet. My hands were gripped tightly around the handle of my hidden parasol.
"Indeed, Brother," I said, my voice dripping with enough feigned remorse to make a saint gag. "I have realized that my place is not in the comfort of the palace, but in the trenches of our great nation. I wish to see the North. I wish to… inspect it. Thoroughly."
(Inspect the vaults. Inspect the local tax revenue. Inspect the quickest routes to the border.)
"Very well," Aelius said, his voice ringing with finality. "By the grace of the Sun and the will of Emperor Helios, the Imperial Inspection is decreed. You shall depart ."
He leaned in slightly, his voice dropping so only I could hear. "Try not to die too quickly, Willes. It would be such a waste of a good uniform."
"However," Aelius said, his voice dropping an octave as a cold, predatory light entered his eyes. "We cannot send a man of your... vibrant reputation into the provinces without a steady hand to guide his moral compass. We would not want the Grand Dukes to think the Royal Family has sent them a common hooligan."
I felt a sudden, icy prickle at the base of my neck.
"Brother," I started, a bead of sweat tracing a path down my spine. "I assure you, my moral compass is perfectly—"
"Therefore," Aelius interrupted, sweeping his gaze toward the shadows at the side of the hall. "I have requested a Liaison to accompany you. Someone of impeccable character. Someone whose loyalty to the Crown is beyond reproach. My own betrothed, the jewel of House Vane."
The crowd parted.
Anastasia Vane stepped into the pillar of sunlight.
She looked like a vision of celestial wrath. She was dressed in a traveling gown of deep, obsidian silk with silver embroidery that caught the light like frozen stars. Her golden hair was pinned up in an intricate, severe style that emphasized the sharpness of her features.
(No. No. No, no, no.)
My brain went into an immediate, catastrophic tailspin.
(You locked me in a box with the Terminator?! You're sending the one person who wants to wear my intestines as a scarf to be my 'moral guide'?! Aelius, you magnificent, golden-haired idiot, you've just signed my death warrant!)
I looked at Anastasia. She wasn't looking at Aelius. She wasn't looking at the Emperor. Her crimson eyes were fixed squarely on me, gleaming with a terrifying, hidden intelligence.
She stepped forward and sank into a curtsy so deep and so mathematically precise it felt like a silent insult to everyone else in the room.
"It would be my singular honor to serve the Prince," she said. Her voice was a soft, melodic chime that sent a shiver of pure dread through my marrow. She looked up at me, her smile a masterpiece of feigned devotion. "I shall stay by his side, providing guidance and... correction... until the very end."
(The 'End.' She didn't mean the end of the tour. She meant the end of my life.)
The nobles clapped politely. Aelius looked smug, clearly thinking he'd successfully shackled me with a watchdog.
I looked at the Emperor. He was still staring at the wall.
"The decree is set," the Aide announced.
I gripped the handle of my Bastion Parasol so hard I thought the steel might snap. I was a prince of the Empire, a man with a blank check and a legendary weapon, and yet, as I stood there in the sunlight, I had never felt more like a dead man walking.