Marked Ones: Advent of the Demon Prince

Lady Voltara al Famyn sat in her chambers sipping on an expensive glass of wine. It had been aged for nearly two hundred years in a cliff by the ocean. A very rare vintage.

Unfortunately, the glass of wine did not do much to assuage her frustration at the outcome of the peace talks. Alorek was only paying ten percent of their yearly revenue to the Union and of that ten percent, Wisteria Concord's lands were only given a fifth of it.

Even though the majority of losses incurred over the course of this war was the Wisteria Concord. It was their land that was attacked first. It was their fortress and towers that were damaged. It was their fields that were ransacked.

By all rights, Wisteria deserved a bigger piece of the restitution. The Kingdom of Arcadios devoted a large portion of the forces that held Alorek off, but the other three nations scarcely sent a single percentage of their available men.

"Worthless old men, the lot of them. Aleksander is the only one who doesn't utterly infuriate me. They will need the funds to rebuild their lost forces, as will we for our army and our lands. However, Paede, Keinydd, and Docia… they will simply be resting on their laurels and padding their treasury."

Voltara was a vindictive creature by nature. She was self-aware of that fact and would not argue it with anyone. After all, knowing oneself was very important. It was because of her vindictive nature that she was currently looking over plans to 'interfere' with the three fat nations who did nothing but watch the war from the sidelines.

There were several options to choose from. She could go as far as assassination if she wished, but disrupting leadership immediately after the war ended would be a poor decision. Instead, the more likely scenarios for her to choose would be things that disruptive the flow of coins to level the playing field as it were.

"But what shall we do…"

As she was pondering her next moves, her eyes glanced upon a stack of reports and requests from other nations. Since the Wisteria Concord was a nation well known for its information gathering and spy networks, their allies had been making requests for searching for any details regarding strange psychopaths.

When she remembered that, she hit upon a wonderful idea. She could hit two birds with one stone. Immediately, Voltara began drafting letters to the kingdoms of Docia, Paede, and Keinydd. The letters would indicate her acceptance of their requests to investigate the incidents of random attacks by deranged citizens.

In her mind, she could hit two birds with one stone. While she was investigating the source of these attacks, she could also instigate other forms of civil unrest within the rival nations while essentially being given a free pass to do so. Her agents would have royal authority to operate within their borders and could do many things unhindered. Enjoy new stories from m-v l'e-NovelFire

Voltara giggled to herself at her genius plan. When she finished drafting the responses she pondered once more. Her eyes were resting on a few documents. One was an invitation to the upcoming Senior Exhibition at the Arcadios Royal Academy. Several of the best students from other nations in the Union would also be in attendance, including the top seniors at the Wisteria Academy for Arts and Magic.

She had yet to give a response to the invitation, so she figured that she would go ahead and grace the event with her presence. It was likely that she could get some time to speak with Aleksander regarding the behavior of their fellow Union rulers.

The other matter she needed to address was what would she do with Eroa's request… they already had quite the formidable information network known as the King's Shadow. Though, they tended to operate less on the information gathering side of things and more on the opposition elimination portion of this line of work.

King Verdayl requested for some of Wisteria's information specialists to work alongside King's Shadow… Voltara's thoughts drifted to the masked Shadow that was at the signing of their non-aggression pact. According to her sources, that man was the person in charge of the assault on Alvora and was the one behind the destruction they witnessed inside the walls.

When she had first arrived outside the city walls, she had already heard whispers of the devastation, however seeing it in person was quite different than reading reports and hearing rumors and gossip.

As the gates opened, the first thing that had hit her was the smell of ash and charcoal. Though the buildings were primarily constructed from stone and other sources rather than wood, the fact remained that fires had broken out. Some parts of the city had been subjected to such intense heat that the sand and ground had been turned to glass.

The sheer amount of heat to cause such an effect was staggering. Though Verdayl admitted to providing his King's Shadows with the resources required to accomplish such a feat, he did not detail what those resources were. According to him it was all done under the order of one of his commanders, codenamed: Titan.

Titan's presence was striking. His mask covered his face and his cloak hid the shape and size of his body. However, one thing remarkable about him was that there were no obvious beastman features that could be seen. Titan had no animal ears, nor a tail, both of which would be seen even under a cloak.

"If I assist with Eroa's information gathering I could figure out just who this 'Titan' is… If what happened at Alvora was their doing, then he is certainly someone to avoid at all costs." Voltara muttered to herself. "Eroa is certainly blessed.

They have a King Rank warrior who actually defends their borders in war… and the king has a capable fighter personally at his beck and call in the form of this Titan…"

She felt envious of Verdayl for his luck. It was as if the gods themselves had blessed him with excellent subjects. But it was no matter. She had come to a decision. The Wisteria Concord would comply with Eroa's request as well, though with only a small portion of the requested agents.

They would work on the side to uncover Titan's identity and see if there's anything that can be used against him to prevent him from coming after her nation.