“Come now, Blood Beast, that can’t be the extent of what you have for me today!”

The air here bled moisture. Though not quite as oppressive as the southern forests with its sullen swamps and stifling heat, the humidity still hung heavy enough to try even the hardiest of creatures at midday. Sweat dripped down his back and soaked through the thin material of his shirt, making it cling more like a bandage than the airy training attire it called itself. An exhale slipped over his lips. Above, the sky burned a bright, cloudless blue. All in all, a typical afternoon for an Aurinonian summer, as relentless in its heat as a starved dog on the tail of a rabbit. 

Now, to the question: was that all he could manage under such a stressor?

Hardly, but…

“Your Highness, I do believe no good will come from goading the man.”

“Oh, give it a rest, Esko. It’s not as though Fia will do anything drastic. Will you now, Fia?”

Standing across from him was the crown prince. The first of three royal heirs, though his twenty-five years set him a good decade older than the youngest. Tall in the way most of the Tatvalo line tended to be, though still lacking several inches on Fia’s own figure, with the same dark hair his father sported, the color so deep a black the rumors of it had made the man a myth gifted to the empire from the night itself. In fact, save for one particular feature, he had often been mistaken for his father at a quick glance, albeit as a vision from his youth. Stalwart build, thick in the chest but not overbalanced in body, with an easygoing smile that could cut as well as it could calm depending on the words that accompanied it. The only thing Prince Akseli had inherited completely unhindered from his mother was the startling gold of his eyes. 

He made for a keen opponent in more ways than one. A fact Fia begrudgingly had to remind himself of far too often. But his thoughts mattered little on the topic, currently goaded into them or not, and so, he rolled his shoulders with the flick of a glance toward the sky once more. 

This sort of blue, bordering on audacious in its brightness, proved as rare as it did beautiful back in his homeland. The heat's continued presence, however, ran down his temples as an all-too-wet reminder of the place he had once called home. Fia lifted his right arm and wiped the sweat from his brow with his sleeve.

“Of course not, Your Highness. Whenever you are ready,” Fia replied.

“See? There you have it!” the prince said, gesturing with a wide swing of his left arm before him. He held his sword in his opposite hand, its point carefully aimed toward the ground.

The soldiers stationed along the far wall of the training arena shifted uneasily. Fia took note of the movement, how little of honest intent actually spurred the transfer of their weight, one foot to the other. Their eyes remained steadfast upon him as duty dictated, but nothing else lingered behind their gazes. The unease running through them didn’t spring from him, not anymore at least, but rather, from their prince, driven less by the holding of a volatile temper than a recklessness more suited for trouble. Though, in Fia’s estimation, the trouble Akseli courted tended to err on the side of calculating and rarely showed itself without the discretion needed to make certain the measures gained were worth the costs incurred. 

He didn’t think the prince was looking for trouble now. If anything, Akseli seemed to enjoy their mornings in the arena together. 

Fia raised his sword and leveled it at the prince. He kept his actions measured, slow and unassuming, drawing not even the lift of an eyebrow from any of the guards holding watch over the arena. Only the young man standing off to the side, near a series of stone benches, three all in orderly distance from one another and each pushed against the low wall of the arena, eyed Fia with a concern bordering on open loathing. 

“Enough of that now, Esko,” the prince sighed with a flick of his sword tip toward the benches. “Gods know we don’t need any more heat added to this blasted training ground right now.”

The young man gave a start, then opened his mouth to protest. Seeming to recall himself, however, he took back the step he had nearly made and settled himself once more into the perfect picture of attendance. 

“Yes…of course. I understand, Your Highness,” Esko said, subdued but not broken. His gaze refused to leave Fia. Perhaps a touch less intense than it had been, the look in his eyes still spoke threats, whispered as they now were. 

Fia shifted his weight to tap the toe of his left boot against the dirt. “I didn’t take you for one still of the gods.”

The prince smiled. One to cut, not calm, Fia noted. 

With a shrug, Akseli settled into fighting form, feet neatly apart, his weight shifted toward his back leg, sword at the ready. Not quite committed to the start just yet, but inviting the inevitable clash. “Is that on account of my mother? Or have you developed some other new notion of me this year, Fia?”

“It’s no secret the Empress prefers modern mechanizations to the reliance on old gods and old magics, so you’ll forgive me for observing and implying as much.” Akseli tipped his head in acknowledgment of the fact spoken. Taking the path forward provided by the prince’s silent acquiescence, Fia continued, “I must admit I find it curious that you call upon them as it suits you, only to press forward as though they ultimately matter little to your plans.”

Not once did Fia’s sword tip waver as he spoke. He held it level with the prince’s heart, a true aim and one Akseli seemed to have noted for himself. The slide of his gaze from sword tip to Fia’s face suggested as much.

“Would you place your fate solely in the hands of your god, Fia?” A question asked without malice. But even as he asked it, Akseli crafted a series of circles in the air with his sword, one after another, all in slow motion. Taunting. “Because I don’t see why I should place my faith in one thing alone when this world has shown us we carry more power within ourselves than we realize. The might of men may even be equal to that of the gods, particularly when said gods have chosen silence for decades now. In fact, it makes one wonder if they even existed as we once believed they did. Why shouldn’t we test the boundaries of godhood then?”

“You think the gods dead?”

Akseli stilled the circling of his sword and leveled it once more with Fia’s chest. A mirror image of Fia’s own position. “I think there is much dead in this world, and many things thought dead that lie in wait for the moment of their choosing.” He flashed a smile, bright with amusement. “Though I suppose we shall see who has the better-laid plans.”

The surprise that had surged through Fia’s mind quieted itself to a trickle. He tapped the toe of his boot against the ground again, worked his weight back and forth between his forward foot and rear, then fixed his gaze on the prince once more. 

To call it unheard of — that the gods existed more as dust in memory than breathing titans watching over the world — would have been a lie. The idea had begun to work its way through the cities, one after another, as the empire took hold of the various surrounding regions, one after another. That much was true. Less the workings of the emperor himself, though not without his blessing, and more of the empress’ explicit distaste for the reliance on such traditions. However, to say that all beneath the empire's banner had subscribed to her way of thinking would also be a lie. Too many villages had their roots tangled in the worship of one god or another. Even among Taivaadan's winding streets, one still heard the name of Arkempi invoked by lovers and the spitting out of Kaeutos from the gambling dens. 

If there was one thing Fia could congratulate the emperor on, it would have been his ability to maintain a balance between both ways of thinking, where the so-called progressives who believed themselves unburdened by the weight of the past existed side-by-side with the ones still holding their gods and traditions as close to their chests as their own hearts, all with little to no warring between them. Well, none that would have garnered so much as a glance from the throne, at least. 

When all parties involved were to be faulted in the case of unsanctioned fighting, it easily soured the taste of battle more than most egos cared to try. No right or wrong in the matter, only imperial edict.

Fairness in the hands of the empire.

And some worried about the power held by gods. 

“Shall we see how far your plans get you this morning, Your Highness?” 

The prince barked out a laugh and cut through the air with his sword. “You do enjoy tempting fate, don’t you?”

Fia arched an eyebrow, considering how he should play his take on that today. His shoulders relaxed as he settled into his response. Nothing ventured as they said. Or maybe he simply wanted to draw blood before his blade could. So, he laughed as well, the sound low and sweet. “And I suppose you enjoy playing with collared dogs.”

The corner of Akseli’s mouth twitched. 

“You are out of line, vertniell!” 

Esko, ever the faithful hound. Collared in a completely different sort of way. Fia tossed a glance in his direction. Boldly, he had taken several steps out beyond the edge of the benches, hands clenched at his sides and face contorted with barely checked indignation. Not a look he wore well. Rather, the twisting of his features culled a good deal of his beauty and reduced him to the picture of a petulant child, red-faced and puffed up with tears.

Fia ran his tongue along the left corner of his mouth at the insult, then touched it to the point of his canine tooth. The gesture produced the intended response as Esko sought refuge back beside the benches once more, his indignation giving way to outright disgust. 

“Your Highness, allow me to call forth the Winter Guard and have him removed from here at once,” Esko pleaded. 

To no avail. The prince looked from Fia to Esko, then back to Fia with a pointed lift of his eyebrow. He still held his sword aloft, undaunted by the exchange between his attendant and Fia.

“You know, to my knowledge, I did not think Blood Knights actually devoured blood at all. But please, correct me if I’m wrong, Fia.”

Vertniell. Bloodeater. One who devours blood for the promise of power. Such was the prevailing belief in Aurinon, at least.

“Does it matter whether or not I do?” Fia asked. 

“Well, it would go a long way in improving the perception most have of your kind.”

“And should I care about that as well?”

“That is for you to decide. Though, a little advice: perception may not matter to you, but it matters much in the minds of the public, and last I knew, your clan has not had much goodwill in their eyes since the fall of Clohcrinh.”

Fia craned his neck to the side. The resultant popping of his joints rang throughout the arena. Along the wall, the guards pulled themselves to quick attention. He took a breath, leveled his head once more, and settled his gaze on the prince. “Are we training today, Your Highness, or are you more interested in lecturing me this morning?” 

The prince smiled. It failed to reach his eyes but remained a hard-fixed feature on his face even as he replied, “You’re right. Far be it from me to tell a man about the events he lived through himself.” With an easy roll of his right shoulder, Akseli reset his position opposite Fia. “Come then. Let’s see what you have for me.”