Chapter 1

As quickly as my vision faded to black, it returned accompanied by sweltering heat. Squinting my eyes, I inspect my surroundings—golden sands at my feet, a stone wall extended to the sky above.

My jaw dropped.

There are two suns. Two of them, one yellow and one a cobalt blue, were too bright to do more than glance at.

"Highness!" A hand grabbed my shoulder.

Highness? "What the—"

I turn to her and freeze all over again. In my defense, seeing a face I designed, granted I'm no artist, and my renderings never came out quite right but still. Crimson hair, eyes of gold, thin lips, a scar on the right side of a nose slightly too large for her face.

"Samira?"

"Medic! His Highness—"

Still, it confirmed one thing, at least. I must have knocked myself straight into a coma. It makes me wonder how worth it that dance move was.

Pushing myself to my feet, I knock away her hand. The scene around me could only make sense if I were in a coma.

Men and women wearing violet vests and white ballooning pants ran back and forth as chunks of stone fell from the wall. The ringing of bells and trumpeting of what could only be two elephants sounding in unison filled the air. But it wasn't.

There's only one. I know because I wrote it. So either I'm in a coma, or that knock scrambled my brain, and I'm bound for a locked room with padded walls. Either way, I can live with that.

A chunk of stone, twice the size of my head, dropped from above, crushing a young woman to the ground.

Maybe not.

"Highness, you may be concussed." Samira moved in front of me and pressed a bit of cloth to my head.

Stabbing pain. I leaped back. "That hurt."

She recoiled as if I slapped her. But, then again, Samira's ward Prince Vandel* the fourth son of the King, never raised his voice. He didn't do a whole lot. His most significant accomplishment was that he convinced the King to allow him to guard the wall. Otherwise, the guy was a pushover.

It's not the case anymore.

I shove her aside and run to the girl who just took the chunk of rock to her dome; well, not exactly her. She's already dead; it's what she's carrying that I'm after. Two pouches, each about the size of my two fists together, hung from her side.

Concussect abdomens, basically a giant reddish ant with a butt that explodes based on the Malaysian exploding ant. When their stomachs are correctly removed, they can be used as explosives, I dubbed them blast pouches.

You are decidedly not, My Lord.

The words echoed through m head, and they felt like gravel.

Shit. I had hoped that Endurance being that the bastard is the split personality of the one time owner of this body thats not mine, I had hoped that he would be as absent as Vandel* himself. So much for that.

You got it. You've got two options here. Alike me as you did with Vandel* or shut up. Don't, and I'll nuke you.

What's this nuke you speak of?

I nearly fell over, but of course, Endurance doesn't know what a nuke is. This world had never seen one, and it's not like he can see my memories or hear my surface thoughts. All he gets are my emotions. Unless, I purposely shove something toward him. 

Having only ever seen the aftermath of those particular bombs, I brought up one I’m more familiar with. The bombing of a local theater set for demolition.

Imagine one of these just a hundred thousand times more powerful.

Endurance didn't respond, but that's fine. I'll deal with him when I have more time.

I ran for the stairs. A violet-pink haze coalesced in between me and the stairs. My heart begins to slam in my chest. Love. Samira's split personality manifested due to the amount of alpha and gamma waves and the projector connected to her ear.

Love just so happens to be one of the most dangerous characters in my novel. Anything is acceptable as long as it's done out of love. In other words, Love is the crazy stalkerish girlfriend every guy wishes he could've avoided. If she thought my death would bring her or Samira closer to her own happily ever after, she'd slit my throat with a smile. And I wouldn't be able to do a thing to stop her.

I draw the sword from my back. There's only one chance. I've got to get her just as she finishes forming.

You need to move faster!

Endurance's voice scraped across my brain, but I'm glad he's on my side. So I lean forward and push all the harder.

Three meters, her arms and chest are already solidifying as her face begins to form.

Two meters, her heads done, blonde tresses framing her heart-shaped face, and all that remains is her legs and her weapon.

One meter, her legs are nearly done. I'm going to make it! Raising the ivory blade, I cleave downward.

Her eyes widened, but it's too late. She bursts into nothing.

Are you proud of cleaving through a being that made no move to attack you? Pathetic.

I wince. It doesn't matter, I have something I need to do. Of all the drafts I wrote of the Desert Son, Vandel* dies in most of them. All before the first event was over.

Bite me!

I think not. I doubt you're hygienic. Though I believe you should know your swordsmanship is lacking.

Another trumpet blast. Crack!

The wall bowed inward.

Shit.

I take the stairs two at a time and skid to a stop next to the young woman dressed in a red uniform. I barely pay her any attention. The Kirusk has it all, and it's more magnificent than I could ever have imagined. The four ivory tusks, the copper skin, its kite-like ears, all of it.

I'm going to kill it.

"Highness, you must run!" She grabbed my arm.

I shove her off. It's getting old and fast. My eyes never left the Kirusk as it began to charge. "Shut up, or I'm pushing you off."

I'm really getting tired of these people.

Taking a half step back, I sprinted the distance to the edge and jumped. I prime the blast pouches, and they're away a moment later.

They detonated on contact, sending a light green liquid cascading across its ear and face.

They wouldn't be enough to stop the thing, at least not in the killing it sense. But halting its progress? That they managed. A good thing, too, else I might have landed on its back or more likely missed entirely and ended up a bloody smear in the sand.

Instead, I plunge my sword through its ear, and just to make sure I don't slip off, I take hold of the wiry hair coating the ear's interior. It bellows in pain.

"If you just hold still long enough for me to stab this through your ear, I'd appreciate it."

Among the three drafts I made for the novel, it just so happened that, in one of those, these creatures were just as intelligent as humans. Yet, if it understood me, it gave no recognition beyond reaching for me with its trunk.

I kick the incoming appendage, which does nothing whatsoever, not that I expected it to. It's not like I connected a knife to my slipper-like shoe.

Its trunk comes again and wraps about my middle pulling me away from its ear. As it did, I gripped tighter to my sword and began jerking it around, widening the hole. It raises me up, likely going to throw me into the sands below, and I jam the sword into its trunk.

Bastard! Don't you know who created you?

Its trunk loosened, and I moved. Then, using the sword to pull myself up to stand on the appendage, I rush forward, plowing my sword into its eye.

Blood spurted freely from the wound as the body went slack.

The Kirusk dropped to the ground, the impact throwing me from my sword. I tumbled down the trunk and into the sun heated sands, and I think I landed on a rock

Well, it seems you're not totally worthless. Still, it seems your only skill is not hesitating.

Screw him! Was it some battle that people will turn into legend? I doubt it, but you know what? My style of fighting doesn't work well against berserkers!

So says the twit who didn't bother doing a thing! So when I get a new manifestation, I am so frying you.

And he so could have! At the very least, it would have given the Kirusk another target. At most, he could have manifested and killed the thing himself. But nothing but radio silence? To hell with him.

I now remember why I killed Vandel* and it had everything to do with Endurance. There was something about killing off a character designed to take whatever came his way and keep going.

"Vandel* don't move! I've sent a team to collect you!"

Yes, because I planned on getting up and running away.

Picking out the speaker on the wall wasn't a challenging prospect in the slightest. Garbed in a white cloak trimmed in gold marked him as royalty, the twin braids on the right side of his head told me the rest. Tolwren, the crown prince, my oldest brother, and the intended main character of my story.

He was also supposed to be the one to kill the kirusk after he found Vandel's* dead body.

Too bad for him.

Sitting up, I loosed a groan as pain rippled from my back.

I can see the team Tolwren dispatched coming my way with Samira in the lead from my left. But out of the group of twenty or so, only two of them, not including Samira, were sent for me. The rest were no doubt beginning the harvest of the kirusk and assessing the damage on the wall.

"Highness!" Samira slid to a stop in front of me and began looking me over for wounds starting with the one on my head.

Gritting my teeth, I accept her prodding. Right up to the moment, she began prodding at the wound on my head again.

"Enough, Samira! I don't need a nursemaid!"

She swelled up, readying to go off, "I am not your nursemaid, Highness. I am your personal guard! I am supposed to keep you from all harm."

Read nursemaid.

Of course, she's also Vandel's* swordmaster and often left him black and blue and occasionally bloody. No harm, my ass. Then again, it takes a specific type of person to create a monster like Love.

"Then stop poking at me and let the medics do their job!"

I pointed to the two women dressed in green who stood on either side of her. She looked at them, and they looked back. Then, slowly Samira stood and moved to stand behind me.

Compared to Samira, the medics' touches were about as soft as a feather as they moved across me. When it was going to hurt, they told me that it would. After about ten minutes, they pull me to my feet, and I feel my blood run cold.

There, sitting in the sand near the wall, was Cola. It couldn't be anything else. There were no house cats anywhere except for the few that lived on the only "human" settlement on the planet.

Either my bell got rung harder than I thought before I got here, or the damned orange furball must've come with me after I crushed it. I'm betting on the latter. It'd figure.

I glanced over to Samira and the medics, and none of them seemed to notice Cola sitting there. If they had, they no doubt would have drawn their weapons. At the very least, Cola would have lost a limb before being captured.

Do you see that?

Not my favorite move but better to deal with Endurance than have anyone think I've lost my mind. The Kingdom wasn't kind to those with disabilities of any sort.

I see plenty, to what do you refer?

Right, of course he’s about as useful as a rubber duck at an ice rink.

Don't worry about it.

I look away as the cat stretches and yawns, then I allow them to lead me back into the city.

First time I've ever wished for a concussion.