Kier

As a child, his father always told him that you become the person you pretend to be. For Kier, that was true. He was always playing the perfect haughty prince role, and sometimes he forgot who he really was.

He flinched as the maid applied kohl to his eyes. “Careful with that,” he snapped.

“Of course, your majesty. My most sincere apologies.” she said in an entirely non-sincere voice. “We just need to put in your earrings and then we will be done.”

It was his 17th birthday, which he shared with his brother. They were twins, but somehow Perseus was the first in line for the throne because he was 30 minutes older. Unless Perseus abdicated, which was unlikely to happen, or somehow got murdered, which is even less likely, all Kier would be was the younger prince for his entire life.

Kier had never been a fan of birthdays, and this one will probably be the worst to come. Now that he is of marriageable age, every high-up invitee will be pushing their daughters and sons on him in the hopes that they could seduce their way into the crown. You’d think it would be worse for his brother, but Crown Princes have arranged marriages - Perseus had been betrothed to Lady Julia Fest, a girl he had never met, since he was 8.

In fact, that may be one of the only reasons Perseus was actually looking forward to this birthday. He was finally able to meet Julia, as their wedding was scheduled for next month.

Or maybe Perseus just simply enjoyed birthdays. Kier could never tell what was going on inside his brother’s mind, honestly. 

He was shocked out of his thoughts by the voice of a maid. “Alright, your majesty, we’ve finished. The party has already commenced, so change into your suit quickly.”

Before getting up, he glanced at the mirror. His face was nearly unrecognisable with the amount of makeup on it. The only thing indicating he was ‘Prince Kier’ was the comically large silver crown. 

He sighed, turned away from the mirror, and grabbed his suit from one of the maids. After hastily throwing it on, he joined his brother and parents in the hallway. 

“Kier, your jacket has a bit of dust on the shoulder. And my dear Perseus, I’ve told you to shave before the party. What will Julia think?” his mother remarked scathingly after carefully observing them.

“Mom, don’t worry, girls love a bit of facial hair on a man.” Perseus said.

“Sure,” his mother said with a scoff, before smoothing down her dress and facing the door.

“Now announcing: Queen Elayna and King Markus!” said a voice as the doors swung open. Kier’s parents strutted out importantly, waving at the guests.

“And finally, the stars: Princes Perseus and Kier!” Kier walked stiffly out the door, letting his brother steal all the attention. It worked - for the most part. He felt a few eyes on him as his brother waved and blew kisses at the guests. But as his brother stopped and started to descend the stairs to meet Julia, he was left all alone standing on the platform, and hungry upper-class eyes started to land on him.

“Crit-” he muttered under his breath, then immediately stopped, hoping nobody heard him utter the expletive. He walked down the stairs, pretending as if he was moving to the ballroom, then quickly slipped under the satin ribbon separating the ballroom from the rest of the crowd and immediately made his way to the corner.

He was hidden for approximately one minute.

“Well, the prince and his betrothed have had their first dance - let the rest of the dancing begin! Ah, another prince is in need of a dance,” the light operated by the announcer focused on him and he froze. “Who will be able to steal the heart of cold Prince Kier?” 

God, he’s going to fire this person as soon as the party ends. The closest person immediately turned to him, grabbing their daughter. “Prince Kier! What an honour! I know my darling daughter Ever was so excited to see you and perhaps get a dance.”

“No thank you.” said Kier through his teeth. “I am not dancing tonight.”

“Oh, but you’re marriageable, you’re going to need a spouse soon enough~” said the older woman with a laugh. Creepy.

“Everyone, leave my little brother alone. I must talk to him.” The crowd parted to make way for Perseus. Perseus wrapped an arm around Kier. “Such a wonderful party, isn’t it, brother?”

“Don’t you have a fiance to get back to?” Kier muttered under his breath.

“Don’t you have a fiance to find?” Perseus retorted.

“I’m not interested in such boring hobbies.” Kier responded.

Perseus laughed. “Oh, Kier, my dear. Sex is the furthest from boring. Look at her, for example.” He gestures to a courtesan. “She will do anything for you as a prince.” 

“Not interested.” Kier repeats.

“Come on, Kier.” Perseus says pleadingly. “I’ll just get you one for tonight.” He raises his glass. “Hey! Girl over there! Get over here.” A courtesan with short black hair, a lot of freckles, and wearing a skimpy robe stares at him. “Yes, you!”

Noble girls stare at her with jealousy as she approaches Perseus. “What do you need, my prince?” she says. God, Kier was cringing already at her fake-aroused accent. 

“My brother here needs some help. Can you give it to him?” 

The girl looks Kier up and down. “Oh, absolutely. Come with me, sweetie…” she whispered. 

Kier tries to protest as she drags him off, but Perseus just stares at him with a smile on his face.

“Not interested.” Kier said immediately after she dragged him out into the hallway.

“Wait- wait-” Kier was taken aback by the girl dropping her seductive accent. “Look. Hear me out,” she said with a pleading voice. “My parents really need-”

“Again, not interested, I do apologise,” said Kier firmly. 

“Hey! Listen up.” Kier was taken aback by the firm tone of her voice. Nobody had ever spoken to him like that before. “My parents went through all the effort to get me into this party so I could seduce the prince or whatever. I’m not even a girl, so I don’t know why they did that. Probably because nobody in our family is. But listen, you just pretend to do something with me, tell me our family’s standing, and then I’m out. It even gets you out of the party! You in?”

Kier stared at him. “What?”

The girlish boy sighed. “Did you even hear anything I said?”

“How old are you, even?” asked Kier. 

“16.” he said matter of factly.

“That’s… that’s 3 years away from the age of consent. Who let you become a courtesan?”

The boy laughed. “Wow, you really are sheltered. Barely anyone follows your very important laws outside the castle, and it’s not like your parents ever put any effort into even enforcing them. And once your stupid, horny brother gets crowned, he’s probably going to lower the age of consent.”

“Don’t talk about the prince like that.” Kier said as an automatic reaction. He was sort of right, though. “Look, fine. What information do you need?”

The boy walked closer to Kier, backing him against a wall, and stroked his neck. Kier winced. “Just let me know what the royal family thinks of the Astroth family~” he said, slipping back into his seductive voice.

“Astroth, uh-” said Kier, trying to think of any mention of that last name from his family as the courtesan’s hand lowers onto his chest and brushes against his locket. “Hey, don’t touch that!” he snaps. 

The boy withdraws his hand, but not his finger. He looks up at Kier, his voice slipping back into his normal tone. “Uh. Help. How do I not touch it?”

“Just take your hand off it, it’s not that hard!” Kier said. 

The boy laughed. “Aha. Ahahaha. I don’t think I can do that. You see-” 

Kier grabbed the courtesan’s hand and physically tried to pull it off the locket. It was stuck. “What in the nine hells…” he muttered. 

The boy’s face contorted in pain. “Your majesty, it kind of burns. Help.”

“Look, just breathe, uh,” said Kier, panicking, “Stay calm. I’ll get help.” He raised his voice, “MAIDS!” 

“Everyone is at the party.” muttered the boy. He winced again, “Ow. Where the hell did you get this locket?”

“I wasn’t aware that the locket my grandfather gifted to me was apparently murderous!” Suddenly, a flash of light blinded him as he didn’t close his eyes quickly enough from the shock. 

When he was finally able to open his eyes without them burning, he blinked quickly to clear his vision, and saw the boy lying on the floor with the locket clenched in his hand. He quickly ran over to him and grabbed the locket.

For the first time, it clicked open, revealing some sort of compass.

Kier’s eyes widened as he remembered the last message his grandfather left with the locket.

Prince Kier, this locket will only open when you find the right person at the right time. I trust you to guard it well and protect whoever opened it, and whoever it might lead you to.

He swore under his breath and quickly checked the heartbeat of the boy who had opened it. His heart was beating and his breathing was steady enough, so Kier assumed it was just shock.

He observed the compass. It looked fairly normal, though a bit fancier than usual. The main thing that made it different was that it didn’t have the labels of the directions, just an arrow. It also had what looked like almost a button on the side, like a stopwatch.

Oh well, it’s not like it would hurt. Probably. Kier pressed the button, and jumped back as a holographic image of a map came up.

“What the crit is that?” he heard the boy say groggily from behind him. 

Kier stares at the map. It looked very similar to the maps of Elysea that he’d seen before, but yet… still different. There were markers for certain locations, two on Damicus, one on Newland, and one on Clusia. And then… two in his current location. 

“Was he… tracking me?” Kier whispered. 

“What’s going on? Prince Kier?” said a sudden female voice. He looked up and saw the head maid, Claria. “Did this person attack you? Guards!”

Kier quickly shut the compass, extinguishing the hologram. “Hey, wait, no-”

“I’m getting out of here!” said the boy. He jumped up and ran down the hall. 

“GUARDS!” called Claria, but Kier was already sprinting past her to catch him. He had a brother, so he’d learned to be exceptionally fast, and he quickly caught up to him. He grabbed the boy’s arm and pulled him into a storage closet.

“What the hell did you do to my compass?” he immediately exclaimed.

The boy looked at him with fear in his eyes. “I didn’t do anything! I just touched it!”

“Look - what even is your name? I know you’re messing with me and I won’t allow it.” Kier opened the compass and clicked the button. “What do these symbols mean? Why are two of them us?”

“My name is Benji! And I don’t know? Why would I know? I’m just a courtesan!”

Kier sighed. “Look, Benji, you better swear to Virra that you’re telling the truth, or even he can’t save you.”

“I’m not even Virralian.” Benji muttered under his breath. “I just live here.”

Kier’s eyes flashed back to him. “If anyone heard you say that, they’ll have you executed. Why in the world would you think that it would be alright to say that to the prince?”

Benji laughed. “The prince is nice. Well, this prince, at least.” 

“Whatever. I need to get into my grandfather’s study, and you’d better stick with me if you don’t want to be instantly arrested.”

“I can pick locks!” said Benji enthusiastically. Kier rolls his eyes, and opens the door to glance out of it. 

“Right, we just need to run up those stairs there as fast as possible. On my count, three, two-” and Benji is already running. Great.

Kier checked one more time for guards and then sprinted to the staircase, climbing it as fast as possible. “You were supposed to wait until I said go!” he called up to Benji, only getting a laugh in response. 

“Alright, which one is your granddad’s study?” asked Benji.

“The door at the end of the hall,” responded Kier. “It’s probably locked.”

“Locks don’t stop me.” said Benji as he pulled a pin out of his hair and stuck it in the keyhole.

“Are you sure you can do that correctly?” asked Kier suspiciously as he approached Benji.

“Don’t worry, I always pick the locks of tons of noble’s safes after I… uh…” Benji trailed off, giving Kier a guilty look. Kier raised his eyebrow but said nothing.

After a few minutes of Benji messing around with his pin in the keyhole, a distinctive click was heard, and Benji opened the door. “Tada!” He exclaimed, obviously proud of himself.

Kier stared at the room. He felt ashamed even entering it, as it would be disrespectful to his grandfather’s memory. But also, he wanted to figure out the mystery of this compass. He cautiously stepped inside. 

“This room is massive. How much money did you spend on it?” Kier gave him a look.

“The castle was built by Virra himself.”

“Sure,” said Benji with a scoff. “That’s definitely true.” 

Kier opened one of the cabinets of the room’s desk. Nothing. He checked in the other one. There was a small book. He pulled it out and groaned. It was just “The Righteous Words”, the book chronicled by Virra. Kier was forced to read it every night. He flipped through it briefly, and stopped at one page.

It had illustrations. The Righteous Words didn't have any illustrations. He stared at what looked like some sort of complicated diagram, then went back to the previous page.

"Maji produces a distinctive trail, which can be traced with a device..."

"It's near-impossible to simulate maji with machines.."

"Commoner," Kier said to Benji, "Do you happen to know what maji is?"

Benji looked up suspiciously from where he was searching underneath the large bed's mattress. "Why?"

"So you do know... just come here and look at this," Kier said, pointing to the book.

It was in his grandfather's handwriting, not any sort of print like a regular book. It seemed to be a journal which had been disguised as The Righteous Words.

"I have located a machine in my hunt in the mountains. It is of similar make to a projector. However, the projection already has been set and is unchangable. It produces a map of our kingdom, but with strange marks on it. One of the marks points to the castle, specificially the dungeons. I will investigate further.

Upon investigation, I have discovered that the mark points to a prisoner in the dungeon, known only as Elias. He does not wish to talk to any member of the royal family, but I've read his files and it says that he is a Maji user and he must be tightly bound using 'the special metal'. I will report upon my findings of what Maji is later."

Suddenly, there was a knock at the door. "Who unlocked this? Is there a thief?" said a guard's voice, recognisable by the tinny tone of the helmet.

Benji and Kier exchanged panicked glances as the door swung open and they heard the guard calling for backup. Benji swore under his breath and shoved the journal into his shoulder bag. The two snuck into the bathroom, and Benji pointed to the window.

Kier shook his head. Absolutely not. This was the third floor!

Benji shrugged and dropped out of the window. Kier covered his mouth to keep himself from exclaiming, took one last glance at the rattling bathroom door handle, took a deep breath, and jumped out after Benji.