Deus Necros

The blade was out now. Not swung, but visible. The Emperor wasn’t asking as a man. He was asking as the empire. Ludwig felt the Second Prince’s presence flare like a smug ember at the edge of his awareness.

The trap was complete: refuse, and you defy the Emperor; accept, and you surrender what you bled for.

That was clear and obvious. This was a test, and a very hard one at that too.

Ludwig looked at the second prince, he had a smug smile on his face.

The smugness wasn’t loud, but it was poisonous. The kind of expression that said: I already own your answer. You just don’t know it yet.

Ludwig could almost hear the Second Prince’s thoughts, how he’d imagined this moment, how he’d rehearsed Ludwig’s humiliation, how he expected the Emperor to take the heart and place it into the heir’s hands like a trophy.

“Your majesty,” Ludwig said, “This is not a power that anyone can handle; it isn’t a good power. It isn’t evil. It is simply rabid and destructive.”

He chose the words with care. Not mine. Not I refuse. Not never. He framed it as reality, as risk, as a warning for the sake of the empire itself. Rabid. Destructive. Something you didn’t “use”, something you survived.

He kept his tone respectful, but he didn’t soften the truth. If he softened it, he’d be lying, and the Emperor would smell the lie like smoke.

“You’re saying that even I cannot control it?” the Emperor said.

The question came smooth, almost amused, but it pinned Ludwig in place. The Emperor didn’t sound offended; he sounded interested.

Like he wanted Ludwig to step into the trap fully, to commit to the implication. Ludwig’s throat tightened. He forced himself to breathe shallowly and evenly.

“No,” Ludwig shook his head.

The single gesture carried an ocean behind it. He wasn’t saying the Emperor couldn’t control it. He was saying the Emperor didn’t need it. Didn’t want it. That it was beneath him. That it was a curse, not a crown. But he didn’t say those words out loud, because words had sharp edges, and this hall was listening.

“HOW DARE YOU!” The howl came from the second prince. It was louder than a lion’s roar and more sudden than the cry of a banshee.

The sound hit like a physical blow. Nobles recoiled. Servants flinched. Some gasped. Others yelped outright, startled so badly their bodies moved before their minds caught up.

The howl carried aura behind it, raw, arrogant force meant to dominate the space by sheer volume.

Everyone in the hall yelped and jumped from their place at the suddenness of that howl.

Well, besides Ludwig, and the emperor who somehow managed to cover his wife with a protective film of power that blocked all sound and echo in a faster time than the howl even reached them. It happened so fast Ludwig barely registered the motion, no flourish, no obvious gesture, just a ripple of authority that wrapped the Queen in silence. Sound died against it. The howl might as well have been a whisper inside that barrier. And the Emperor did it without looking, without shifting his posture, as if shielding his wife was as reflexive as blinking.

That was true power.

The emperor didn’t intervene; however, he seems to want to see how this would progress.

That was the part that chilled Ludwig more than the howl. The Emperor wasn’t stopping this. He was letting it unfold. Watching. Measuring.

The test had shifted shape: it was no longer only Ludwig being tested. It was the princes. It was the court. It was the question of who could hold themselves in check under pressure.

“You dare say that you have a power that will not be used to serve the emperor! You’re underserving!” he said.

The Second Prince advanced a step, his voice ringing with outrage that felt practiced. Underserving. Not unworthy, underserving, as if Ludwig had stolen something that had always belonged to the throne by default.

His hands flexed at his sides, and Ludwig saw the way the nearby knights subtly adjusted their stance, ready to move. Not to protect Ludwig, never that. To protect the prince’s pride.

“I have earned this power by slaying the Usurper of Death; it is mine to claim, or is that not the law of the empire? To take what you can?”

Ludwig’s voice stayed even, but the irritation under it sharpened. He didn’t raise his tone. He didn’t posture.

He simply spoke the empire’s own creed back at them, letting the words do the cutting. To take what you can. That law had built Lufondal. It had justified conquest and blood. If the prince wanted to argue, he would be arguing against the empire itself.

“Hah!” the prince moved toward Ludwig, the knights were all ready to execute Ludwig if he dared cause any displeasure to the Prince.

The movement was aggressive, more challenge than approach. Ludwig felt the ring tighten, the guards, the hidden blades in noble clothing, the knights who’d been statues until now.

They weren’t defending order.

They were defending the prince’s right to be offended. Ludwig kept his hands relaxed at his sides, but his muscles were coiled. One wrong twitch and they’d have an excuse.

“People forget the second part of that Quote! If you cannot protect it! it was never yours!” he said.

The Second Prince spat the words like holy scripture. Ludwig could practically see him imagining the audience nodding, imagining himself as the righteous heir correcting a peasant’s arrogance.

The quote was old, old enough to be carved into training halls. It was the kind of maxim that made murder sound like philosophy.

Ludwig’s irritation was growing more and more. Maybe it was the lack of the serene water, maybe it was the Heart of Wrath acting up when up against the emperor and maybe it was just the annoying second prince.

It swelled like heat under skin. Ludwig could feel it creeping behind his eyes, tightening his jaw, making his fingers itch. The vial at his chest was empty, useless glass. The Heart of Wrath pulsed like it approved of the conflict.

And the prince, by Necros, the prince was loud. Ludwig had been dragged into too many performances, too many ceremonies where men like this played at dominance while others died in the dirt to make it possible.

It was time to shake things up. Time to show them who’s the real danger.

“Would you like to have a taste?”