It was the dawn of the second day after the bloody culmination of the centennial Banquet, and the eternally storm casted city was, very predictably, still awash with conversation and speculation alike, about it's horrific end; even more so when the topic of the monster and the fool who played the most key roles in the sanguine spectacle was brought up.

And so ever more embellished and hyperbolic rumours were being spun into elaborate tapestries of overexaggerated gossip and hearsay, that all but further augmented my already monstrous reputation into that of near legend, as everyone began to echo my titles of the Bloody Emperor, Mad Monarch and Ruinous Dragon with a far more timid understanding, coily sown and stewed with the ever slightest hints of reluctant reverence within.

Yet surprisingly enough, instead of hearing only calls of self-righteous denunciations against me, the heinous beast of the south, the horrid and vile, immoral lord of the Eclipse Empire for the great sin of drawing so much blood and strife during the blessed times of the Banquet of Concordia, I on the contrary heard a not so insignificant volume of voices defending my actions and instead blaming the whole debacle on the one whom dared raise his dagger before my beloved brother and loyal champion.

Though this unexpected phenomenon, appeared to be mostly due to the people's hate of that half-witted man, which spoke concussive volumes of his atrocious character.

Not that I cared much for all of this meaningless blabber anyway beyond my initial surprise, as Eve, Yara, Abraham, Horus and I, along with a few other disguised Palace Guard and Shade Corps personnel, waited near the gates of Katai-Verta, hidden from plain view in a discreet corner where few ever passed, and dressed not in the fineries and regalia of kings and queens we would have ordinarily been draped with, but instead clothed with simple robes and hoods; whose make and fabric portrayed of us nothing more than the mundane image of a group of foreign merchants on the road.

The kind you would see everywhere in a metropolis such as this, and not bat an eye at.

Our disguise was also further aided by the fact, that the imperial delegation of my empire along with my brothers, Darius and most of my royal guards had already departed by noon the day before, right when the city was at it's most active, with thousands upon thousands of eyes witnessing our supposed departure.

"Is everything set?" I then asked a returned Leonid, who'd just arrived next to us, after going to covertly meet with his long time friend in the Sophentian delegation.

"Rhema and his party will depart within the hour, and we can follow him then; but he also bid me to extend his invitation for you and her imperial majesty to allow him the honour to host you on his personnel carriage, assuring you of it's greater comfort." Leonid answered, as he just barely stopped himself from bowing out of a force of habit, remembering that we were still in disguise and in public.

"If it was comfort I sought, then I would've left within Ardaanin." I calmly said through a short lived chuckle, tapping him on the shoulder as I passed by him to climb into the ordinary looking wooden wagon that we had obtained to further enhance our veils as everyday merchants, before I then silently took my seat beside my Eve.

Leonid nodded in reply, as if to say 'I knew as much.' already foreseeing my stance on the matter, before he then turned to mind his own matters for a moment, performing a final check on his steed, equipment and other miscellaneous belongings, before our imminent departure.

Yet while he busied himself with that, I looked to my most treasured intended, and said in a whisperingly assuring voice "It won't be long now."

She merely nodded in response, her brows obviously furrowed even beneath her silken black eye clothe, a product of her discomfort with the surrounding noise, something she shared with both her current self and the one that resided in my memories.

But then she suddenly turned to me and asked a moment later, with her ever present cold and proud voice that was now mixed with the ever slightest drops of weariness, having sensed my stare not leave her profile since I sat by her side "Is something the matter?"

"Just admiring how gorgeous my bride is." I smoothly replied, as I slowly reached forth and removed an audacious spider who'd foolishly trespassed on her hood that she hadn't yet noticed; something she ordinarily wouldn't have missed, given how vigilant she is, but with the overcrowding of men and animals around us, clamouring to depart the ancient city, due to the winding down of business from the inevitable end of the Banquet, her usually sharp senses were all but overwhelmed with the clamorous cacophony.

"Even in such a dreary garb?" She questioned back, as her slender, pale fingers lightly clutched a handful of her dress' fabric, before playfully rolling it in her palm.

"Without a doubt." I replied, before taking a light kiss from her cheek.

"...I've been thinking this a while, but you certainly do possess a glib tongue, don't you?" She said a moment later with an air of haughtiness to her, though the faint blush did not escape my eyes.

"Glib?" I said in faux indignation. "You wound me, love."

A small, amused smile was her answer to my words, yet before we could continue our newest bout of banter, the rather annoyed cough of someone intentionally clearing their throat sounded out, as Yara, who also sat next to us this entire time, said half in vexation, half in desperation born of embarrassment "Could you please not do that in front of me?"

A resigned, yet ultimately unapologetic smile was her answer from me, while a mellifluous giggle was Eve's, though we did eventually abide by her request, knowing that she was Eve's most perished right-hand woman.

Horus then climbed into the wagon as well less than a minute later, adjusting his hood over his peculiar silver hair, as he carefully made sure not to accidently hit or tap the tightly ravelled object in his hand, all in fear to unwind the white bindings over Iridescent Ideal, his extremely eye catching spear, before saying almost nostalgically "This reminds me of the day we first set out to war that night four years ago."

Eve, who seemed to have grown an interest in his words, quickly asked "Do you mean the campaign that led to the Luminous massacre in the Scorching Desert?"

"Indeed, my la... madam" Horus straightened his posture as he answered her, before he then remembered his given persona of an common hired guard, tasked to defend this small merchant caravan of Eve's, a novice merchant, midway through his words, causing him to stumble over them, before he then quickly corrected himself.

"You left the capital as you are now?" She didn't bother with his slight slip of the tongue and continued questioning him with a new found vigour.

"We did." He nodded, as he leaned forward and whisperingly continued. "I remember their lordships, the Grand Vizier and the Grand Chamberlin both running around the whole capital for hours on end, rushing to prepare enough disguises for the thousands of dispatched men, so that his majesty's plan would work."

Hearing his reminiscent words, she turned back to me with the same, seamlessly graceful movements she always carried herself with, yet I did not fail to notice the almost accusatory intensity laced now within her voice, as well as the other, far darker emotion only just budding in her words, as she said "Now that I think about it, you've never told me any of your war stories."

"What would you like to know?" I smilingly asked, not bothered in the least with the silently forceful request, and if anything I was ecstatic by it, even in spite of the insinuation only she and I caught on to, which was that she wished for me to recount to her the records of battles from our past lives as well.

And the reason for this, which most didn't know, even by she who is currently, and unknowingly harbouring said emotions herself, was that this recent craving to know more about me was a sign of her unequivocally deepening affections for me; doubly so after twinge of acidic jealousy that she mistakenly added to the brew of her earlier words.

She unconsciously grew envious from Horus' words that showcased his knowledge about me, in a field that she herself had very little

The words 'How cute.' were the only things that occupied my fractured mind at this moment, as I continued to look upon her covetous self.

Yet then, as though done in a calculated measure of particularly sadistic glee and cruelty, a coincidence of timing and occurrence so precise it seemed perfectly engineered to tarnish this moment for me whenever I recalled it in the future, with the Gods themselves deeming it right to then have a member of the Shade Corps who was accompanying us on the journey, to scamperingly arrive by my side with a sealed letter, and the words "This was brought by a member of the Hecatomb Corps, sire." on her lips.

Like a well polished scythe wading through withered, dry grass, all irrelevant and jubilant thoughts were reaped from my mind by her words, as I sprang up from my seat to read the delivered letter.

And with each passing passage my eyes swept past on the inked parchment, the more my once eerie eyes became a sickly quagmire of rampant insanity and glutenous bloodlust, while mirages of madness danced demonically upon the central stage of my once round pupils, now elongated slits like a monstrous reptile, surrounded by the cheering shades of the abyssal black and the rising wisps of skeletal white of my roiling divine blood.

"Leonid." I then called out to my champion, before any could ask me anything, with the haunting, enigmatic intensity of an arctic hurricane within the bowels of a heaving volcano.

He then turned to me with the fluid motion of no ordinary hired sword, but with the rigid discipline of a war master, one whose eyes had bore witness to a hundred battles, from the earth ploughed mud and muck of a terrified vanguard soldier, to the high and lofty cushioned seats of a commanding general, and lived to tell the tale.

"Return to the Sophentian and tell him we will need to reschedule the meeting." I commanded, with all prior pretence and caution now purged from within me, and they all understood it, as suddenly the men and women who were parked in an inconspicuous corner of Katai-Verta's wall, suddenly transformed from a ragtag group of merchants and mercenaries, to a cabal of menacing monsters.

"Where is our heading?" It was Eve who spoke then, her tone as coldly sombre as it was unwavering, clearly showcasing her resolve to see the extinguishing of whatever troubles had caused such a dramatic shift within me.

"To the south. Now!" And I answered, with a voice saturated with the grim weight of my newfound knowledge.