Vol.5 Ch.29.1 – Pompous Prince And Serious Scolding I
Chapter 29: Pompous Prince And Serious Scolding
By the time Melinoe and I returned to Zeus' tholos it had become afternoon. Before bedding Melinoe I had been intent to come back here and giving Alisha and Yume a piece of my mind but the amazing time I'd just had with Melinoe had mellowed out my anger quite a bit. The two of them still had a wallop of a scolding coming but, unfortunately, however misguided their methods had been, they had worked.
The moment we stepped into the tholos I saw that most of the people that had been here were gone. Of the gods, only Hephaestus, Aphrodite, Hestia and Athena were still there and of the Heroes only Odysseus had stayed behind. The Royal Guards, similarly, were nowhere to be seen. And judging from the sounds ringing around Olympus on our way here I had to assume everyone who wasn't here was busy liberating the rest of Olympus, killing the last vestiges of the monsters that had overrun the place.
We were immediately greeted by a very smug looking Alisha, her gaze fixed on the way Melinoe clung to me. It was partly because she wanted to stay close to me and partly because her knees were still a little wobbly from the day's exertion. However, before Alisha could make any snide remarks about it I told her:
“No. You don't get to be smug about this. That was a really stupid thing you did and we're going to have words on it later.” That shut her up. In all honesty I wanted to give both her and Yume a piece of my mind right then but I wasn't going to dress them down in front of an audience. Not only was I not that mad anymore but even if I was I wouldn't have wanted anyone else to humiliate them like that.
Alisha looked down, red-faced and ashamed, not trying to give me puppy-dog eyes and just accepting the scolding. Yume nodded in acknowledgment, understanding perfectly well why I was upset.
“So, what happened while we were gone?”
“Not much,” Anna said. “Hera still hasn't returned but for a while there we heard Zeus' pathetic begging throughout the tholos. And then Albrecht and Odysseus returned.” She nodded over to Odysseus, who filled in the blanks:
“She put his cock in a cage and laid down a new set of rules for him. I can't wait to see how he adjusts to it.”
I nodded. Maybe he wasn't getting off too lightly after all. For Zeus, having his cock locked away would be the worst possible fate, not to mention that being unable to, ah, perform for his congregation would further weaken his standing as a god, at least in the short term.
“After that everyone you don't see here left to clear out Olympus.”
I nodded. “I figured as much.”
“So right now we were more or less just waiting for you to return,” Hestia said.
Melinoe blushed but, against my expectations, didn't make any flustered excuses.
“Well we're back,” I said.
“We were thinking about going back home,” Anna said. “It's not as if they need us right now and I think we really deserve a rest.”
I opened my mouth to argue, then realized that I had no reason to. Home felt infinitely far away but we really were just a stone's throw away.
“You'll still need to collect your reward from me and you still need to collect your boon from father,” Athena said, “but I'm sure he'll be indisposed at least for a day or so.”
“Not to mention I still need some time to work on your sword,” Hephaestus added.
“Alright,” I said. “Then I guess there is nothing left for us to—“
I was cut off by the most obnoxious trumpet sound I'd ever heard and spun around to see a group of knights approaching the center of the tholos. They looked like Royal Guards but... not. Their insignia were all wrong, the crest of the Royal Family changed just enough to be distinct.
At the center of those knights approached a man I had seen before.
“Marcus,” Anna said quietly.
“That is Prince Marcus to you, pea—“ One of the knights began, then shut up real quick once he realized who he'd almost called a peasant.
“Now now,” Prince Marcus said, waving his arm magnanimously. “Today there shall be no need for titles nor ranks. The crown has decided to save the gods of Olympus. Now, where are those foul invaders we heard tell of?”
I raised an eyebrow.
Prince Marcus, second in line to the Trismegistian throne, was the oldest of Anna's brothers and the second-oldest of Anna's siblings, right behind Princess Mariabella, and I had taken an instinctive dislike to the guy the moment I had first laid eyes on him. And that dislike had only grown once I'd learned that the assassination attempt we'd protected her from in Calice had been ordered by him.
Prince Marcus, looked at objectively, was decently good-looking. However, when compared to the rest of his family he really didn't look like much, especially for a guy with ambitions to become king.
His eyes were just a little less sharp than his siblings, his lips just a little too full, his hair neither the pleasant brunette of Anna and Wilhelm nor the golden blond of Richard but an unremarkable shade of dirty blond, but most important was his utter lack of a chin, so clear that even the goatee he wore to hide the fact failed to make it less obvious.
He wore a regal-looking black vest over a white tunic and the shoes he wore looked like a nobleman's parody of the boots a soldier would wear to war. Like Richard he wore a cloak that draped over one shoulder, though his had that same aberrant crest on it that the knights behind him wore. I had to assume that Marcus had recruited his own private army from inside the Royal Guard, beholden to him rather than the crown. I didn't know if that qualified as treason but I sure hoped so.
“The foul invaders have already been stopped,” Anna said, stepping up beside me. “What are you doing here, Marcus?” If I'd had any doubt that she was still upset about learning that he'd been responsible for the assassination attempt, possibly even several, it was gone the moment she'd opened her mouth. I had never heard Anna speak to her siblings like that, her voice colder even than when she'd still been upset with Richard.
“Annabella,” Marcus said, his tone suggesting he'd just scraped Anna off his expensive shoes. The voice, really, was what disqualified him as a king in my opinion. It held none of the authority or dignity that his siblings spoke with, nor did it sound pleasant. It was simply not a voice for giving speeches. “What are you doing here?”
“I just helped save Olympus,” she replied, “while you were busy mustering this sad band of traitors to the crown.”
He bristled at that, though nowhere near as badly as his knights did. “Traitors?” one of them, the one who had almost called Anna a peasant earlier, demanded.
“The crown has been given permission to operate on Mount Olympus,” Anna explained, laying it out for them. “The Royal Guard, sent by the queen, has been hard at work rooting out the evil that has attacked Mount Olympus. Now here you are, wearing a crest that is very emphatically not the crest of the Trismegistian crown, following someone who has not been sent here to help.”
“I am the rightful heir to the throne,” Marcus said, clearly flustered already. Clearly this wasn't going the way he'd thought it would. “If the crown sends soldiers to aid with the liberation of Mount Olympus then surely I should be the one to lead them. The real question is, what are you doing here, sister?” That last part had been asked with a certain snide edge to the words.
“I, alongside my lovers, was asked by the goddess Athena herself to aid with the liberation of Olympus,” Anna said, sounding more haughty than I had ever heard her.
“Lovers?” Marcus sneered. “Oh, you mean this rabble? Of course you do. No decent man would ever have a broken woman like you.”
Anna shrank away at that. That one had stung.
“Watch your tongue, chinless wonder,” I growled at him.
“What was that?” he demanded. “What did you say to the next ruler of this kingdom?”
“You heard me,” I said, stroking my chin for emphasis. “And last I checked Princess Mariabella was the rightful heir to the throne, not you.”
“Not for long,” he muttered under his breath.
“Is that what this is about?” I asked. “You swoop in here with your personal army, earn the gratitude of the Olympians and then cash that in to become the heir apparent?”
His face fell. Clearly I'd guessed correctly. Or at least close enough.
“Bit of a shame you showed up late to the party then,” I continued. “Now Olympus is safe again, without any contribution from you. Now you've simply brought an army onto Olympus without permission, without authority and with no cause.” I leaned in close. “You're so fucking lucky Zeus is indisposed right now. He's in a real murdery mood right about now.” Yeah, that was a lie. Or maybe it was true, who knew? Maybe having his dick locked up meant that he needed to vent his frustration another way.
Marcus' face fell, as did the faces of his knights behind him.
“But none of that explains why I'm late in the first place!” he whined after getting himself back under control. “The official operation was supposed to start in an hour!”
“Oh dear,” Anna said, far too innocently. “It appears the copy of the missive that ended up in the records room got the time wrong by about twelve hours. What an appalling lack of diligence on the scribe's part. We should raise this with mother.” She paused, then gave him a smile. “Or maybe you should raise this with whoever sneaks you copies of the missives that end up in the records room.”
“You did this,” he hissed. “You did all of this to screw me over.”
“Actually, mother did this,” Anna said. “She was worried you would pull this exact stunt, barging in here an hour before the actual operation and ruining our plan by alerting the enemy.”
He seethed silently and I took the moment to ask:
“Didn't we rule out the idea of any Royal Guards being traitors earlier?”
“We ruled out the possibility of any of them being corrupted by the Black Goat,” Anna corrected. “Corrupted by sheer ambition into following Marcus? Apparently not so much.”
“I mean, I can't really blame them for it,” I said, looking at the knights. “If this had worked they would have gotten the biggest possible promotion the moment he's crowned king, becoming the new king's personal honor guard. Now they're just traitors who left their posts to join some wannabe usurper.”
A couple of them actually spun around and ran back the way they'd come. Unfortunately I didn't memorize their faces. The idea of turncoats like that being in the Royal Guard made me sick to my stomach.
“Following the next king does not make any of you traitors,” Marcus told the remaining ones. “The traitors are the ones who refuse to acknowledge me.”
“Go on then, chinless wonder,” I told him. “If we're traitors, try to strike us down. See what happens.” I paused. “Or would you rather send some more assassins after us?”
He bristled at that and Anna's eyes narrowed. Wow, for someone trying to scheme his way onto the throne he had a terrible poker face.
“I mean, the assassins aren't really that effective,” I went on. “Anna can handle any poisoning attempt in her sleep and after fending off an Outsider invasion assassins barely even qualifies as a threat anymore.” I leaned in a little closer. “Of course, you could always try to arrange another tragic accident like the one that deprived Anna of her instructor from the Southern kingdom.”
Yes, his poker face truly was terrible. The way his face fell was all the confirmation we'd needed.
“How could you, Marcus?” Anna asked quietly. “I didn't want to believe it but...”
He started to say something. I didn't know if it was going to be an excuse, an attempt to justify his actions or just a lie. I didn't care. I spoke over him:
“She's last in line and doesn't give a fuck about the throne you piece of shit. You're not trying to eliminate your competition, you're just a fucking murderer.”
“I have never killed any—“
Anna slapped him. The sound rang out through the entire tholos, his head snapped to the side, he was flung off his feet, flew three feet through the air and landed on the marble floor.