I hadn’t nodded.

I could see in the guard’s eyes that he delighted in telling me this. The way he must have chuckled to himself as he walked me along, knowing I had not asked for this. Had not agreed, but had been strung along.

The Fourth Prince had played me once again, like he did best.

He was a genius at getting what he wanted, which begged the question… Why did he want me?

He had clearly wanted me enough to play around with me, to trick me, and to spend his time on me, but it did not make much sense. As I was now, I was a child with no skills. I was of no use to him.

But I did not have the time to come up with any sort of answer, if such an answer existed, because just then, the familiar-looking man grabbed my upper arm and squeezed.

I tried shrugging him off, but he just squeezed harder, and then went to squeeze my other arm.

“Not much muscle on you, huh. Guess we better get you something to eat,” he said, and then gave some instructions to some people standing around, to which they immediately ran off to do stuff.

Henry.

That was his name.

I hadn’t talked to him much in my previous life, but I vaguely remembered him being in charge of this place.

‘This Place’ being The Fourth Prince’s personal ‘orphanage’ for a lack of a better word.

Mostly, this was where he trained his people. Not only kids, but also people from the slums that looked like they had potential, as well as people selling off their kids if they were in debt.

Henry was, as I recalled, not a bad man. He simply did his job. He was one of the few people who treated me like a human being, but not much more than that, which, back then, was more than enough to make me respect him.

He was a big man, in the muscle-way. He did most of the heavy lifting around here, and trained the bigger kids with heavy weapons.

I was chosen to specialize in lighter weapons and intelligence gathering, and never had him as a teacher, but had seen him around here and there.

And now, I was here again. Seeing him like this made me want to run away.

I did not have fond memories of this place.

But it would help me re-learn skills I needed for surviving, and more importantly, to ensure the safety of The Sixth Prince.

And despite not knowing why, The Fourth Prince wanted me, and playing along with that for now was my only real choice.

He always got what he wanted, even if he had to break it.

I knew this better than anyone.

So… That was it.

I would train here, get useful skills, gather intelligence on The Fourth Prince, and hopefully that would be enough to win the trust of The Sixth Prince when I made contact with him again.

Yes.

This was the plan.

“Eat, boy,” a voice said from in front of me, showing down my face, my nose almost making contact with a plate of chicken meat.

While I had been busy thinking back and gathering my thoughts, the food had been prepared and now stood in front of me, a heavenly smell rising up.

I could remember this from my previous life.

This was where my loyalty had been ironclad and solidified.

The amazing food, the promise to never go hungry, the way I finally could fill up my belly with meat that was given freely, not stolen.

But this time, I had filled my belly with ‘Lyric’, who had freely given food to a stranger, not asking for anything in return.

I was hungry, but not hungry enough to let it decide my future.

I had changed.

This life would not be wasted.

Despite ending up the same place, this would be different.

My worries melted away as I took a bite of chicken.

The juices flowed into my mouth. I could tasted it has cooked for a long time, something only rich people could afford. I was used to dry chicken that had been cooked through as quickly as possible without letting anything get burned or go to waste, but this… This was luxury.

I blamed past me a little less.

It was good chicken.

I finished eating, after a few prompts from Henry to “eat up”, was shown to a bed in a room filled with beds, and went to sleep feeling slightly sick from overeating.

For the first time in this life, I slept on a real bed. It was scratchy but soft. Most of all, it was rather clean compared to my previous sleeping spot, which had been trash.

I was so tired…

My mind did not linger on the grueling training that awaited me when I woke up, it only thought of one thing.

The Sixth Prince.

And with that, I fell asleep.

I was awoken with cold water pouring over me to the point I thought I was going to drown.

“You smell!” a little voice said, and then another bucket-full of water engulfed me.

If I had been fully awake, I would have suggested I could go to the baths, and to not ruin the bed or waste the water, but I had no such time.

Instead, I was entirely drenched, my new warm bed had turned into a very shallow pond, and the sleep I had been needing had turned into an abrupt awakening.

After yet another bucket, because apparently two wasn’t enough, the water torture stopped, and I could see two kids standing at the end of my bed.

“You smelled…” the little girl said as a way of explanation, looking like she was about to cry.

“We helped you out! Now you can go to breakfast with the rest of us,” the other kid, the one who had seemingly thrown the water at me, smiled brightly, as if he had just done me a great favor.

“...thanks,” I said, not wanting to make enemies on my first day here.

I had thought it over, and what I needed the most around here was trust. My childish brain and body might have made things harder for me, but one lesson reigned supreme. You would get nowhere without trust. People needed to trust you to open up, to talk, to share the important secrets.

Secrets I needed to know and bring to The Sixth Prince to earn his trust.

“I told him to wake you first…” the little girl said, still on the verge of tears, “but he said this would be faster…”

“Thank you,” I said, this time with a softer voice. I tried for a smile, but it fell a bit flat. I did not know how to smile.

“Yea, now we can all go! What’s your name? I’m Ballad.”

“Mallis,” I said, nearly choking on my own name.

I remembered Ballad.

He and his sister had died shortly after I got here in my previous life.

I didn’t know how, hadn’t really cared.

I didn’t even remember if they had come to greet me like this in my previous life, or if this was another change of trajectory.

The only reason I knew at all was because I had taken over their duties after they were gone.

It wasn’t out of the ordinary for kids to die around here, after all.

It was The Fourth Prince’s personal training grounds. We didn’t play around here. Only the strong survived.

“Are you… Okay… Mal?” the little girl, whom I could only assume was Ballad’s sister, looked at me with big and worried eyes. It was clear she wanted to come closer and look at me, but instead she tripped in place.

I tried to ignore that she had called me ‘Mal’. The fake name I had given ‘Lyric’, but something within me felt guilty.

Then, courage overtook her as something in her eyes changed, and she started walking closer to me, and put a small little hand on my forehead.

“...you’re wet…” she said, her voice so small it was barely audible.

“Of course he’s wet,” Ballad said, choking back laughter.

I could see the humor in it, but a laugh would not emerge. Not even with my poor and childish self control.

“I’m fine. Thank you. Breakfast?” I kept my sentences short, but I did try to put in some sort of warmth.

Though it was a losing battle.

Knowing these two would die soon made me want to keep my distance so I didn’t get caught up in whatever got them.

I couldn’t afford to die again.

Not here.