"Can I go out?"
"No."
"Can I look outside the window?"
"No."
"Can I even talk to someone other than you?!" Auren frustratedly asked him to clench his fists and glare at the person near the door, but he didn't respond. "Then what can I do?!"
The man pretends to think, then says, "I will ask the king." And walk out the door.
"Eivan!" Auren shouted his name, but he's already gone.
Auren is frustrated because he was guarded by the knights, especially Eivan, for the past week. Yes, a week had passed, and he couldn't set a foot outside his chambers. Yes, he has been recuperating for the past three days, but after that, he was really bored with just eating and having dessert for the next four days. He can't even talk to the maids who deliver him food occasionally because Eivan shooes them away.
Auren thinks it was the king's doing. He doesn't want anyone to know who or what he is. He felt like an ornament ready to be admired by a select few. A real prisoner in a great bedroom.
It was really a great bedroom. It was big enough to roll around the floor, and even if Auren held a party of ten people in there, it wouldn't be enough to fill the bedroom. It also has a receiving area outside of this room, and another one as big as this is a walk-in closet, with half of it being a bathing area. The room just needs a kitchen to call a house.
Frustrated by the last conversation, Auren sat on the edge of the bed and held his forehead. "What to do? I need to talk to Lyore. I need to know what happened that night. I missed him... so much." He sighs. "His warm breath against my skin and how he held me." Auren looked at his hands for a second, then brushed his hands on his hair and let gravity take him back to the comfort of the bed.
Auren closed his eyes. "I can't even feel him inside." He was talking about the thickness of the person he had sex with that night. I think it was really Lyore.
With that longing for Lyore's touch, he didn't notice the person who walked through his door and let himself sit on one of the chairs near the sofa.
He heard Auren mumble something and asked, "Don't you need my approval? I guess you don't because you didn't even welcome me and just gave me sighs. It seems that you really are bold, Mr."
Auren jumped up when he heard him, but didn't stand up. He just sat there and looked at Mirenor. Opposite of what he did, King Mirenor stood up and walked to him. "Tell me you need me." He said mockingly.
"I need you." Bitterness is what Auren tasted after saying what the king wants to hear. Auren knew that defying what this bastard wanted would make him suffer.
Mirenor sat near him, smiled, and asked him, "What does our only guide need?"
Auren knows that he wants this person to perish and die in his hand, but he also remembers that this king is the one who helped them when they needed someone to heal them. And just remembering how Lyore got hurt by the last attack makes him miss that person more than anything.
"Eivan said some words." The king spoke. "You want to go out, speak to someone, or roam around."
It was a statement. He didn't ask Auren, and Auren knows that. He knew that if he contradicted him, he would be punished, and by that time, he felt something was wrong.
"What if I say you can't? What would you do? Or wait! Better yet, what could you do for me to gain that little freedom?" He smiled. A smile that you could say he was having a good time playing with him. "Tell me." Mirenor provoked.
"Your majesty I..." Auren tried to speak. "I can't stay inside. I need fresh air. Even the balcony is enough if you can't let me out."
"And jumped down and killed yourself? No."
"I-I won't! I love my life."
"You don't." The king contradicts. "If you really love your life, you'll not be here." His face turned sour.
"You're the one who summoned me here! You even used your knight to get me! So many of them, and even that man, Eivan, didn't leave me alone and take me away from my home!" Auren's tone is slightly elevated.
"Home?! You called that home? What? You'll tell me that home is where the person is? Bullshit! Home is somewhere with the person who would protect you, and that is me. I can give you everything, I can make you stop working. Selling those herbs won't be enough for you. Heck, you even share it with that bastard!" The king shouted out.
Auren was taken aback. He didn't expect the king to snap. He knew he was somehow twisted, but he also knew that it was for what he believed in.
"Lyore is the only one I have. He felt like family."
"Haha! You're making me laugh, Auren. You ran away from him seven days ago! Then you want to return to him? For what?! What good reason do you have? Is it family? No! You're not real brothers. You're more than him. He was nothing. He can't even look you in the eye and tell you what he feels about you, so what? What is he? What's in him that makes you run to him after deciding to be with me?!"
Frustrated enough, Auren didn't know why the king was saying these things. Why would he be purely concerned about him? He just looked at him from far away, so why would he react this way?
"Why are you saying this? Who are you to judge?!" Auren shouted too, but when the king tried to reason out a loud sound, stop them.
They both ran to the balcony just to see that a part of the palace was destroyed, and it was burning. Some knights run that way, and the servants run the other way.
The king grunts and looks at Auren for a second before running outside the door, leaving Auren on the balcony. But it didn't take long enough for him to get back and hold Auren by the waist and use his powers. He used his powers to lift them. They levitate to the scene, and they saw Eivan having a one-on-one fight with a person with a gas mask.
"Eivan!" The king shouted his name so Eivan jumped away from the guy, making the king use his powers to hold the villain away from them. "Stay with Auren." He commanded the knight to bow at his presence.
"So," the knight Eivan asked Auren while holding his arm and looking at the chaos for a possible danger. "How was the talk with the king?"
"Piece of shit."
The knight looked away from where Auren was to hide his laughter, but Auren already noticed it.
"Why would you even follow a cruel, dysfunctional king? You, that magician, and that guy with many knives are a little nice but it puzzled me, why you all trust and follow that kind of shit--"
Eivan already put his hand on Auren's mouth before he could say that word, then he whispered, "There are many ears here, sweetie. You mustn't use bad words and be a good pet."
Auren struggled to get away from Eivan, and when he did, he pushed him away, "I'm not anyone's pet!" he exclaimed.
"Better than death," Eivan warned.
Both of them stop their argument when the guy with many knives throws his knife across them just to hit the other guy with a mask that are trying to stab them.
"Nice one Sylas," Eivan commented then pulled Auren away from the fight.
Sylas threw his knives in the direction of the enemy but they didn't hit him. The guy can make himself get through physical objects making Sylas throw more.
"Stay still!" Sylas shouted but the enemy just used his power even more. He walks towards them until he almost reaches Auren.
"Run!" it was Eivan.
Auren did run when he was pushed by Eivan. He was currently blocking the attack of that enemy. Clashing of swords will be heard from everywhere. He found a tree close enough to know what was happening in the fight.
How could they even attack the palace? Don't they have anywhere to attack? What is even the purpose of this mission? Why would the guys from the other side of the gate attack this place if it didn't even have mana stones or artefacts?
Auren bit his lips and tried to figure it out but suddenly someone from behind him pulled him away.
"What are you doing? Get away from here!" It was the chancellor, Yusei.
"I can't. I don't know where to go and that piece of shit told Eivan to protect me."
"Piece of... wait, are you saying the king told Eivan to protect you?" Auren nodded. "But he left you here unprotected?" Yusei glares at where the fight is.
"He didn't, it's just--"
"Don't try to antagonise me. That idiot!" Yusei exclaimed and put a spell on Auren so he wouldn't be found by someone other than him. "DON'T YOU DARE MOVE!" he warned making Auren look away.
Yusei run to where the fight is while shouting, "IDIOT KNIGHT! STAY WITH HIM!" He pointed where Auren's at and then attacked the one who can't be killed physically. Successfully, hitting the enemy with his pissed off fireball burning the flesh of it.
One of the masked men ran to the guy and then held the guy in pain. "Retreat!" he shouted and they all ran to the gate. They made it feel like they really are running away just to give a hand to their colleague so that he can cast his biggest attack.
An asteroid above them can now be seen. Everyone who saw it is filled with fear for their life and for others. Suddenly, the king used his power to make an impact slowly snapping the three of them out of their own fear.
Eivan uses his Aura sword trying to cut it into pieces and he did but the toll is on his hands. It was burned by his own Aura making Yusei focus on healing that kind of burn with a special spell. Pain can now be seen in the king's face. He knew he couldn't take it anymore. He can't even think of what to do with it. He can't even throw it away because there is nowhere in the capital he could put it out. And he didn't even have the capacity to throw it way upwards because it may just come back at them.
The king kneeled. He was sweating and grunting in pain but he still held on.
"Fuck. I don't want to do this. But if I do this, promise me you'll heal me." Sylas who is now near Auren after running away from the fight said.
"Hey! What do you mean? What are you gonna do? Come back!" Auren's face is full of fear but he didn't get a chance to run away. His knees are like jelly from the level of fear that he can feel right at that moment. Fear for his life and for others. And he can't even do anything to help them.
The guy with yellow short hair, dressed in a genie-inspired vest and pants, and had many knives walked passed the king and took a deep breath. A few seconds later, he snapped his fingers and everything stopped. Only Auren can move and see him do his thing. Sylas, the son of a merchant used his hidden power of using time.
At that moment he rewinds time just enough so that the caster is preparing his attack. That's the only thing Sylas can do and then he collapsed where he stood but before he even hit the ground, Auren ran to the place where the caster is and stabbed the back of the invisible caster.
The king saw what Auren did and even though he was not feeling well, he used the last bit of his power to hold that caster so it wouldn't have a chance to run away.
An automatic response came from the last two of the saviours. Yusei freeze the place where the invisible caster is now visible. And even if Eivan's hands aren't fully healed, he used his sword to slit the caster's head making the other invaders flee from the scene for real this time. The asteroid can't even be found above them after the death of the caster.
Finally, they can rest.