The pain ripped through my entire body as I heard the footsteps multiply, leather creaking, metal clinking softly. My vision cleared just enough. Shapes appeared at the edge of the clearing. Selene's Lion Guards, ten of them. Their captain was at the front, looking at me like I was a prize.
The others fanned out, blocking the paths back into the trees and any way for me to escape. This confused me as they were hired to protect me, but the atmosphere now was something completely different; it was nerve-racking. By the way, each one was looking at me. What are they doing? I asked myself, confused.
Behind them, a ragged group of adventurers spilt into the open ground. A dozen, maybe more, I couldn't focus, so I wasn't sure. Mismatched armour, scarred faces, the hungry look of people who'd been promised coin for a monster's head, and at this moment, I assumed I was the monster.
I recognised the captain who'd been at the manor two nights earlier. He was grinning now, knuckles already wrapped in iron-studded leather. They saw me on my knees, clutching my chest, breath coming in wet gasps. My soon-to-be attackers witnessed the black ichor still staining my lips from the heart I'd torn out and swallowed.
They no longer saw a man or the third prince of Verona. They saw the prey they were after. The leader's voice cut the morning air, calm and final. ''Hold formation. The fat prince's changing. Don't let it finish.''
The adventurers and Lions didn't wait for orders. The first of them acted instantly, a wiry woman with a shaved head and twin daggers still sheathed, lunged forward and drove her boot into my ribs. Pain exploded white-hot; I folded around it, air punched out of me in a spray of spit and blood.
Before I could even try to curl tighter, a second kick cracked across my jaw, a snap echoing out. My head snapped sideways, causing stars to burst behind my eyes. Then they were on me. Fists rained down, hard, deliberate, no wasted motion. A bearded axeman slammed his gauntleted knuckles into my temple.
A boot found my kidney. Another stamped on my hand; I heard bone crack, felt the wet grind. Someone grabbed my hair, yanked my head back, and a knee drove into my throat. I gagged, choking on my own blood and the thing uncoiling inside me. I couldn't raise my arms to defend myself.
My limbs were stone, drowned under the avalanche of pain and the wildfire tearing through my Mana Core. Every beat of my heart fed it more, too much, too fast, and still the dam inside me held, trembling, on the verge of bursting wide. Through the forest of legs and swinging fists, I caught Selene's second in command watching. Not joining in.
Just… waiting. His eyes narrow, calculating something, like he knew something the mob didn't. ''Enough!'' he barked at last. ''We need to get him away from here before the others find us.''
Following the leader's words, the blows slowed, then stopped altogether. My attackers and betrayers parted. I slumped forward onto all fours, strings of black drool hanging from my mouth, every breath a razor in my lungs. The leader stepped closer with a knowing smile crossing his face.
His shadow fell over me. ''You still in there, lad?'' he asked quietly. ''Or did the heart finish what the monster started?''
I tried to speak, tried to curse them, but all that came out was a low growl, not mine but something dark. Not human. Something in my chest flexed again. Hot. Alive. Hungry. The Lion Guards tightened their grips on their halberds. The adventurers stepped back, suddenly uncertain.
Deep inside me, whatever had snapped free as I opened my eyes, and the pain vanished as my body morphed into something legendary.
***
(Selene's POV)
My teacup froze halfway to my lips when the door to the tearoom flew open without so much as a knock; it crashed against the wall, causing splinters to fly everywhere. I blinked, confusion flickering for half a heartbeat, then Veyle stepped through. The third in command of the Lion Guards and someone who had been by my side for many years.
Behind him came the rest: ten of my own alongside five others I didn't know, filing in silently. Lily, Arthur's personal maid, the quiet shadow who poured his tea and could put a blade through a man's eye at thirty paces, set the teapot down with careful precision. Her dark blue eyes flicked to me once, a single silent question: Now? I answered by rising slowly from my chair.
''Veyle,'' I said, voice low and edged like steel. ''Explain this rudeness and the lack of discipline of the Lions?''
His hand settled on his sword hilt, ready to strike, thinking he had the upper hand, considering I was stepping close to the Seventh Circle, and he was only on the fourth, just like most of the soldiers here. That's when I noticed the others fanned out behind him, weapons already lowered, faces calm in the way only men who've already decided to kill can be.
''Orders from the big boss, Commander,'' her third in command replied.
The word Commander came out twisted, almost mocking. ''The Third Prince has been compromised by the Dark Gods and will become too dangerous to be left alone, so he needs to be killed.''
His gaze slid sideways to Lily. ''And those who might try to protect him, even though she hates him herself.''
The air in the room thickened, heavy with the promise of violence, the way it always does right before the first charge. Lily gave a soft, almost shy laugh as her eyes lit up with something unknown. ''You're going to try to kill me? How very brave, and I may hate him, but no one gets to kill the prince.''
Veyle raised his hand when realising the situation was going south. They moved as one, rushing us, trying to overwhelm us. My longsword came free in a single clean motion, the scabbard singing as the blade cleared it. The first spear thrust at my throat; I parried, stepped inside the reach, and opened the man from hip to shoulder with a backhand cut.
Hot blood sprayed across the wall in an arc as the flesh was spilt in two. Lily was already moving. She vaulted the tea table like it weighed nothing, twin knives flashing from her sleeves. The nearest guard swung; she twisted in mid-air, landed on his shoulders, and drove both blades down through the gaps in his helmet.
He collapsed like a puppet with cut strings. Oh wow, she's skilled!
She rode the fall, rolled off, and came up inside the next man's guard, ripping her dagger across his throat before he could even lower his mace. I fought as something deep inside me was unleashed. These were men I had trained, men I had bled beside, men whose names I knew, and I felt nothing but cold, bright fury as I carved through them thanks to their betrayal, fueling my rage.
The look in their eyes said it all, and Veyle's smug expression. A spearhead shaft cracked against my pauldron; I caught it mid-swing, yanked the wielder forward, and buried my sword in his chest to the crossguard. Another tried to flank me; Lily's throwing knife punched through his eye socket.
He dropped, screaming, clawing at the hilt. Steel clashed, sending sparks everywhere as I killed another. Blood painted the rugs, the walls, the chandelier above us, dripping with crimson. Veyle came at me last, face contorted with rage and something that might once have been regret, but that vanished as he readied to fight.
''You could have stood aside, Selene,'' he snarled, blade raised high. ''This is bigger than loyalty to one tainted prince.''
I met him in the centre of the ruined room. ''My loyalty was never to the boy, well, at first,'' I said, and caught his overhead strike so hard the shock ran up both our arms to the shoulders. ''It's now to the man he's becoming, the one I swore to shield.''
Seconds later, I twisted inside his guard, stepped close, and drove my longsword straight through his open mouth and out the back of his skull. His eyes widened in shock as the life faded from them. Then his expression went blank. I kicked the corpse free of my blade, as the place went quiet.
Silence crashed in, broken only by the soft patter of blood dripping from the ceiling and Lily's steady breathing. Over a dozen bodies lay scattered across the parlour like broken dolls in ruined gold and crimson. The young woman wiped her knives clean on a dead man's tabard and looked at me with quiet, fierce admiration.
''They really thought all of them would be enough to kill me, never mind you, Lady Selene,'' she murmured.
Following her words, I sheathed my sword. The roaring lion on my breast was soaked dark, almost black. ''They weren't sent to succeed,'' I said. "They were sent to keep us here and away from the prince.''
Lily's voice cut through the dripping silence like a thrown knife. ''Go. Now.''
She was already moving, sliding fresh blades from hidden sheaths along her forearms, stepping over Veyle's corpse without looking. Her eyes were calm, almost serene. ''The manor's compromised,'' she said. ''Every corridor, every stair. They'll have secondary teams moving in behind this one. I'll hold the chokepoints and kill them all to buy you time.''
''Lily.''
''No,'' she shook her head once, sharply. ''You swore the oath to the man he's becoming, now kill these idiots while I'll deal with them here.''
I didn't argue. There was no time, and she was right. I sprinted. My boots pounded marble, then carpet, then stone as I tore through the east wing. Servants scattered like startled birds; I didn't slow as I jumped outside using a broken window. The manor blurred behind me as I started sprinting even faster.
My lungs burned, heart hammering loud enough to drown thought as I pushed more mana into my core to speed up, to go even faster. I pushed harder than I ever had. The air itself seemed to thicken in protest. Then something gave, a sharp crack behind me, like thunder breaking inside the halls.
The shockwave washed out across the landscape. I didn't look back as I passed Riverrun; I couldn't. The dungeon entrance was ahead, a black iron-bound oak door, with two guards posted. When I came close, I noticed most of the Legionnaires were outside, guarding the entrance from the surrounding adventurers.
As I made my way through, the soldier in command noticed me and ushered me through the shieldwall before I exclaimed. ''The prince is under attack! We need to get in there to help him!''
''We know, my lady,'' the older man revealed. ''Lord Garrick and the others have gone after them; we received a message seconds ago.''
Without replying, I rushed inside only to see Garrick, Marcus, and ten Legionnaires fighting with bandits who charged out of the surrounding forest, but I ignored all that while shouting to the older man. ''Kill them all! It's another attack on the prince!''
Just then, a horrifying bone-rattling roar tore through the first floor, an unearthly sound born somewhere between the abyss and a dying beast. It carried raw anguish, molten rage, and something far older than pain. Every fighter, every blade, every breath in the dungeon froze mid-motion.
I shook off the paralysis and sprinted forward, boots pounding until I burst into a wide clearing, and stopped dead. Prince Arthur crouched at the centre, surrounded by the last of my Lion Guards, a crazy-looking woman holding a knife to his chest. Their swords were levelled not outward at some enemy… but inward, at him.
Around them clustered wide-eyed adventurers and opportunistic bandits, weapons half-raised, faces caught between greed and terror. But none of that prepared me for what was happening to the prince. His body convulsed. Black, glossy material, neither metal nor flesh, erupted from his arms in jagged spikes.
Claws, talons, blades of living shadow punched outward through skin and armour alike, flexing and dripping with something darker than blood. His spine arched at an impossible angle as the transformation raced across him, violent and unstoppable. Whatever I previously sensed was inside him had finally decided to come out.