Chapter 32: The Frostthrone

"Your daughter is capable of killing you. What's stopping me from sending her to get your head?"

The advisor flinched slightly under Alexander's touch, so a smirk graced his face as he patted the older man's shoulder.

This told the prince all he needed to know. Sure, everyone would be surprised when they're given a death threat, but Issac Devinsky isn't just anyone. Getting a reaction from him only confirmed Xan's suspicious.

Shit, he really should've treated Xiao better. He should've treated everyone better, really. No time to dwell on that now. His beloved is probably waiting for him.

"Thank you for your time, Advisor." With a smile, the prince disappeared through the door.

Just as he's about to ask a servant where the Devinskies went, his green eyes landed on a visiting royalty. As soon as the Princess of Vardalen saw him, she gave him a polite smile.

Fuck, Xan totally forgot that Aurelia is still alive.

___

Another sleepless night awaited him, and the king's grip tightened on his crown. Black steel cut into his fingers, yet he held on. Droplets of dark red blood stained his white silk shirt, yet the king couldn't care less as he gripped the crown to his chest.

In front of him laid the dead body of a princess, a person too ambitious for her own good. Her blood soaked the leopard fur rug, one which she hunted by her own hands and gifted him years ago. Now, he doesn't know where her velvet red dress ended and where her wound begins.

After all they've been through together, she had the heart to betray him. She was his friend once; at least he thought she was. However, she visited his kingdom with ulterior motives this time.

She knew him like the back of her hand, so instead of seducing him, she planned to poison him.

Unbeknownst to her, he tasted the poison in the wine she gave him, but the poison had no effect on him. She thought he still had a weakness, but his only weakness was gone the moment he officially became king.

The king clenched his jaw as his radiant green eyes scanned the princess one last time. When the sun rises, he will personally pay a visit to her father.

"Guards!" Xan called out to his men, who immediately kicked his bedroom door open.

Two out of three of them gasped when they saw the corpse of Princess Aurelia of Vardalen on the floor. Their king is standing over her lithe body, one of his shinny black leather shoes is sinking into her back.

Then, he kicked her towards his guards. Her pale skin landed at their armored feet, and they all yelped in unison.

"Your majesty?" The oldest of the three guards looked at him, his eyebrows knotted in worry.

"Get the council. We're preparing for war." Alexander licked his lips and put his crown on his head. The cold steel fitted perfectly as if they were meant to be.

The guards nodded, and they ran out of his room. Without closing the door, the king walked back to his bed. The white fur coat, which Princess Aurelia also gifted him, hung heavy on his shoulders as he sat down, the mattress falling under his weight.

Almost everything in his bedroom is lavishly decorated with fur, which are gifts from the princess laying dead on the floor. Xan wanted to burn this room down. The last person he could trust put poison in his drink, and now he's going to war with her kingdom.

If HE was here, HE would be more thoughtful than Alexander. HE would prepare defense and wrap the princess's corpse in preservatives and present her to her father and nicely ask the King of Vardalen to surrender. Hell, HE probably wouldn't even kill Princess Aurelia.

But HE isn't here, so Xan is going to kill that smelly old man and take over their kingdom.

The king gritted his teeth. He looked at the wine bottle on a little table next to his bed. Without much thought, he picked up the poisoned wine bottle and threw it to his wall. A million pieces of glass when flying, one dared to slice his face.

A drop of blood ran down his high cheekbone, and the king sighed before he closed his eyes. His wound would close up in a few seconds; however, he missed warm hands that would dap a wet towel over his face when he cut himself, followed by gently scolding.

No matter what the king does, his thoughts always go back to HIM. It's been six months, and Xan has flipped his kingdom upside down to find the one man that matters in his life. Not only his kingdom, but the king had gone to many strange places to find this one man so dear to him, yet Xan realized it too late. Xan watched the man slip through his fingers like sand, and the man disappeared since.

At last, when the young king finally became invincible, the one and only king to fully wield shadow magic without dying or corrupting, the one person who can rule the world, Alexander felt like he has nothing.

Because the only person whom he ever wanted left him, and HE doesn't want to be found. Xan knows HE should not be left alone, because HE would end himself.

It has been six months, and the king still held on to hope that HE wouldn't do it, and that HE is waiting for Xan to find him, and Xan would apologize like many times before, and HE would follow the king back home.

Failing to find HIM isn't an option, so when Xan was sitting on his throne, exhausted of ideas to find his beloved after six months, and suddenly Princess Aurelia waltzed in his kingdom bearing news, the young king couldn't help but allow her to give him a drink while they talk about their next best plan.

Before he silted her throat, Princess Aurelia spoke of the Monastery of Magic and the secret underground lake underneath it. Xan knew that place, it's one of the first places that he checked. Then, the princess said if he stayed underneath the water long enough, time and space would become thin, and that's where she suspected HE had gone off.

Xan only nodded in response, and then he took a sip of his wine. The bitter poison settled on his tongue, and immediately the glass shattered in his hand.

This wasn't any regular poison, nor any "accidental" poison. No, this is a poison that the Princess developed herself. He didn't give her a chance to explain. After all, she was too eager for him to have a taste of the wine that she got.

Before the sun could fully rise, Xan ended the Vardalen royal bloodline. He didn't give them a chance to explain themselves, and now the two kingdoms have become one. Rechena has devoured her neighbor Vardalen, and she's looking at the south next.