Marked Ones: Advent of the Demon Prince

Natali rushed up the tower with Lyrah on her back. They had heard of an intruder in the castle that had gone after the King, but they were concerned for Rena and the child. It was possible it was a distraction. As they had feared, Grandpa Wally was pulled from his self-appointed post at the base of the tower.

Natali did not even wait to check if the door was locked or fully latched. She slammed through the doorway, shattering some of the wood. Inside, four startled women almost jumped out of their skin at the sudden intrusion. Mylene, in particular, looked upset with her daughter.

"What in the world did you do that for?" Mylene demanded.

"We heard…" Natali struggled to explain while gasping for breath from all the running.

She had run at full speed to the castle the moment they heard word about the incident. Natali did not wait for Lyrah to respond before she scooped her onto her back and ran out of the academy with her. No doubt they would receive some sort of reprimand, but Natali was not concerned about that.

She had promised that she would protect Rena for Lucius. Gods be damned if she would not see that task through to the end, even if at the cost of her own life.

"Rena, are you okay?" Natali whispered.

The redhead smiled gently and nodded. "Yes, of course. Nothing happened. We simply had a messenger deliver a gift for the baby and a letter for Lucius."

"Who was it from?" Natali questioned.

Rena's face took on an expression of confusion. Adellia also looked confused, as if they could not recall who had given them these items. "Some sort of messenger. I imagine the letter says who it is, but it is for his eyes only, so I have already hidden it away until his return."

Natali said nothing. She found the circumstances to be strange, but she was in no position to ask too many questions. She was the head wife, after all, and to get on her bad side would work against Natali in the end. Instead, she simply accepted the information as it was given and apologized for the damage.

The damage to the door would be easily fixed, and they would be able to have it repaired before the end of the evening. However, she was unable to escape her mother's harsh lecture about her actions. It reminded her of when she was a child and had gotten into trouble for breaking something.

After almost an hour of lecture, Natali was once again free to do what she needed. She decided to head to the barracks for training. While Mylene had been lecturing her, the search for the black-haired elf had ceased without them finding any clues to her whereabouts.

Though she did not want to, given the possibility of this person still being at large, Rena was allowed to join her for her training. Lyrah also insisted on coming, and it soon turned into a group trip to the training grounds.

Several different weapons were attached to the wall for practice purposes, but she preferred her own weapons for practice. After all, they were made of mithril and were nearly indestructible. Not only were they insanely tough, but they held up almost forever. The targets were also simple wood and would not even leave so much as a smudge on the beautiful blades.

Lyrah chose to stay close to Rena the entire time and basically supervised her every move while she practiced her magic and cast spells at different levels of strength. On a few occasions, Lyrah would lecture Rena for overdoing it, but overall, it seemed to be going well for them. It also brought the faintest of smiles to her face.

After watching the two friends of hers for a few moments, she turned her attention to the targets. She launched her two daggers in rapid succession at the first target, the blades sinking all the way to their hilts. With a simple snap of her fingers, each blade instantly materialized in her hand.

Natali repeated the attacks dozens, then hundreds of times. With each throw, she got faster and stronger. She was finally getting into her rhythm. Every attack shook the entire target until it eventually shattered, and she instantly moved to the second target.

"Faster…" She muttered as she increased speed once again.

The sounds of Rena's spell practice faded into nothing as the space between Natali and the target became the only part of her reality. The daggers became blurs after a few more minutes. It became almost impossible to tell when a blade was in her hand, in flight, or in the target.

"[Dagger Arts: Illusory Blade]!"

The daggers began to glow and dozens of weapons appeared around her head in a ring. They flew towards the target and acted as though they struck. Even though many of the daggers were simply illusions created by the Art, it became even more impossible to tell which daggers were real and which were illusions.

Natali then pulled out another trick in her sleeve. She added several daggers from her storage ring. She had been working on speed-equipping items from it and had started to master being able to summon the weapon into her hand in mid-throw.

A cacophony of thuds and splintering wood reached her ears. One by one, the different targets became useless. They were either peppered with daggers or completely shattered. By the time she finished, Natali was covered in sweat and a veritable sea of daggers sat on the other side of the range.

"Damn," Rena said while letting out a low whistle. "That's the skill you used to hit Lucius, right? No wonder he took a hit… That was insane, Natali. How many weapons do you have in that damn ring?"

"I filled it to the max with only daggers. This ring is only for daggers." The maid answered plainly.

"I-I see…" Rena stuttered in surprise. "Scary…"

Natali felt a blush creep into her cheeks. She could not completely tell if it was from joy or exertion. No matter which one it was, she had to clean up after herself. Being able to store the weapons was the worst part of the technique. She had to pick up each of the daggers before storing them in her ring, which meant she had to manually clean up two hundred and fifty daggers.

"You're getting stronger, Natali. I daresay you might be close to ranking up to Advanced!" Lyrah said excitedly. "Wow, you are getting so strong."

"He's still stronger…"

"I mean, you like that don't you?" Rena pointed out.

"Yeah…" Natali answered, "Hey, Rena could you tell me again?"

"Tell you what?" Rena asked innocently.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

"About what he's like, you know…"

"And with that, I am out of the conversation. This is not information I think I need to know. If you need me, I'll be up in the tower." Lyrah shouted before covering her ears and running upstairs.

"Don't pretend. Last time we talked about this, you kept saying 'that sounds like my brother dearest' and claimed it was in his blood to be good in bed." Rena said in a flat, judgmental tone.

"Oh, that's right, continue!" Lyrah giggled.