***
The next day, Max was training in the courtyard. The bright sunlight shone down on him. It should have made him smile but he was worried about the message he had seen the night before.
Give up the Throne Or Else....
Who could have sent that? Who wished him ill? Did he have an enemy he didn’t know about?
The archbishop saw him lost in thought. “Your Imperial Highness, you must pay attention.”
Max decided to tell the archbishop about the message in the sky.
The archbishop said, “That sounds bad. I will look out for any more signs and investigate. The best way to remain safe is to develop your abilities so that you could defend yourself. Now, you must focus on the task at hand. Please understand that Purgatorio is a very dangerous place. It’s a dog-eat-dog province. A single careless mistake could cost you your life.”
Max looked at his new guardian. “Can’t you come with me and help?”
“I’m afraid not, sire. I am the Regent and Lord Protector of Occultoria until you come of age. I have to stay behind to look after things here. Besides, you and you alone need to prove to the Nobles and the people that you’re worthy to be the Emperor.”
“But you can do magic. I can’t go magic. Magic could come in handy.”
“Your Imperial Highness has a lot of powers too. I can’t teach you magic, because here in the Supernatural World, we’re born with the abilities we have. We inherit them. We can’t choose them. I was simply born a magician, but I had to work hard to hone my spell-casting skills. Just as Your Imperial Highness will have to work hard to hone your fire ability and other abilities you may have.”
He then instructed Max to continue shooting fire out of his palm and onto the scarecrow on a cross.
Max held out his hand and willed fire to come out.
It did come out, but it spewed all over the place. It was wild and uncontrollable.
Max aimed for the scarecrow’s head, but his aim was off and so the fire grazed a branch of a tree chaotically.
The archbishop held out a golden glove for Max. “Here, try this.”
Gleaming in the sunlight, the glove had a symbol of a hammer on it.
Max took it. It was the coolest-looking glove he had ever seen.
The archbishop explained, “This is the Glove of Vulcan. It once belonged to your father., who got it from his father. It’s a family heirloom I was instructed to present to you.”
Max stared at it in awe. And to think his father had once wore it. He put it to his cheek. He felt closer to his father already. He wondered what his father was like as a child, growing up in the Imperial Palace. Was he a mischievous and unruly child? Was he popular? Or was he a misfit outcast like Max had been?
Max put it on. The glove fit his hand perfectly.
The archbishop raised his crozier. “Your Imperial Highness must point the glove at the scarecrow and then say, ‘I summon the power of fire within me. Flamma!’”
Max clenched his gloved hand aimed it at the scarecrow. “I summon the power of fire within me. Flamma!”
He began to glow a healthy glow.
He actually felt the fire coursing through his body. He loved the feeling of power as it rose with him. It felt so familiar, as though it had been there all along and was just waiting for it to be properly summoned.
The glove grew golden and then fire blasted out of his fist, incinerating the scarecrow, and then causing fumes to rise. The smell of something burning filled the air.
Excitement rushed through Max. He was beginning to have a little taste of success and he like it.
The archbishop beamed. “Your father was a fire god, after all. Your Imperial Highness has simply inherited the power of fire.”
Max began to play around with the glove. He realized that if he concentrated hard enough, he could control the size of the fire. He made it so that it became a gigantic ball as it sailed right into the prenglas tree. The whole tree caught on fire.
The archbishop furrowed his bushy eyebrows. “Careful, Your Imperial Highness. The Glove is not a toy. You should only use it sparingly. It needs time to recharge after every use, so overuse will cause it to fry.”
Max thought it was so cool that his father was a fire god, but he wondered what his mother was.
“And what about my mother?” he asked.
“Your mother was a wind spirit,” answered the archbishop. “Soon enough, you will figure out what powers you’ve inherited, if any. Sometimes, inheritance skips a generation and sometimes, they are in the genes but are not expressed.”
From outside the palace walls, cries of protest and arguments could be heard. Soon, sounds of swords clashing shook the air.
The archbishop adjusted the miter on his head. “Now, we have some more important matters to discuss. Normally, you would be able to raise enormous troops to help you squash a province in revolt, but unfortunately, since most provinces of the Empire have rebelled, you have very few troops to help you storm Purgatorio. As you can plainly hear, we have troubles here in the Imperial Capital. There is great unrest because the people are starving. When the Empress left, she took most of the troops, gold and food with her. That’s why we need as many troops as possible here, to put down the unrest. This includes most of your Elite Imperial Guard. The only available guard left is Eddie Draco.”
Max thought about the dragon spirit that had saved his life. Eddie was nice enough, but he was clumsy and unable to control his fire-breathing skills and transformation. Eddie didn’t particularly inspire a lot of confidence.
The archbishop continued, “Of course, Ariel will accompany you and act as your guide. As I said, I must stay to look after the affairs of government here. You see, when the Empress murdered your parents, most of the noble families pledged their support to the new Empress. And when she disappeared, most of them went with her. But, there was a small number of us that remained loyal to you and your father, and we’re the ones who stayed behind here in the capital.”
Max was curious about this mysterious Empress. As his older father’s baby sister, she was technically his aunt, one that murdered his father, supposedly.
He asked, “Why did the Empress disappear?”
The archbishop shrugged. “I don’t know. When and if the Empress returns, we will deal with her then. Who knows? She might not even come back. She might have just gone on vacation to the Exumas in the Caribbean Islands and enjoyed it so much she decided to stay.”
Max wondered whether it was the Empress who had sent her the threatening message in the sky.
The archbishop said, “Being Emperor is going to be a lot of work. It’s not going to be a walk in the park. There will be meetings of the Imperial Council to attend, masses in the cathedral to celebrate, meetings with your people. But it will also be very rewarding. Come now, young prince. Let me know you a room in the palace. Hopefully, it will inspire you and motivate you during tough times in the battlefield.”
Max had been feeling quite overwhelmed in the past few days. He had found out he was the Crown Prince and had been introduced to a strange and wondrous supernatural world. And now, not only did he have to set out and reconquer ten whole provinces, he also had duties at home in the Imperial Capital.
But he looked forward to those duties. As the future Emperor, he viewed the duties as a privilege. It was still better than living in foster homes in the Natural World. Max knew that he would have to stay in the Supernatural World for a while, so he was glad he didn’t have deep connections in the Natural World, only Jessica. He was dismayed that he didn’t have time to say goodbye to her. She was probably wondering where he had gone. He decided he would send her a note or something. Maybe she could join him in the Supernatural World. Maybe she could even be his Imperial Consort or something.
The archbishop started to walk back toward the palace, but then stopped. He stooped down and picked up a reddish-orange fruit. It resembled an apple.
He wiped it clean on the sleeve of hi
s white robe and handed it over to Max. “I don’t think Your Imperial Highness has ever seen or tasted a prenglas before, have you?”
Recognizing the reddish-orange color, Max nodded. “I have. The servants and Steward brought me a glass of juice last night.”
He remembered his history lessons from school. “Prenglasses are extinct in the Natural World.”
The archbishop grinned. “But Your Imperial Highness hasn’t tasted the flesh of the fruit. It’s delicious.”
Max was beginning to see a pattern to things in the Supernatural World. Like the askeptosauruses living in the moat, prenglasses were extinct in the Natural World too, but here, they were alive and well.
Max smelled it first.
It had a rather fragrant scent, much like an apple.
He took a bite. Juice leaked out of his mouth, reminding him of how good the juice tasted.
The crunchy fruit was delicious.
The prenglasses tasted sweet, like nectar. He liked it so much that he ate the entire thing.
The archbishop nodded in approval. “We have five prenglas trees here in the courtyard. One of your ancestors found some seeds and took great care of the fledging little trees. Now, as you can see, the trees are huge and produce prenglasses. These are the fruits of royalty such as yourself. Only members of the Imperial Family may eat them.”
Max considered himself privileged, but he was also troubled. There he was, living all alone in a luxurious bedroom in the enormous Imperial Palace that was made of fancy materials but his people were poor. He remembered the dirty and tattered clothing of the supernatural beings, his subjects that had formed a circled around him when he first landed.
It bothered him to see such poverty and he wished he could do something about it.
A sneeze caught their attention.
They scanned the horizon and there, crouching behind the palisade fence that separated the courtyard from the city was a little monster girl with green skin and horns on her head.
Max could hear her growling stomach from where he was standing. The noise sounded like the precursor of an earthquake.
Ignoring the cries of protest from his regent, Max walked over to the prenglas tree, grabbed a fruit off the branch and then chucked it across the fence to the girl.
The girl’s eyes lit up as she greedily devoured the fruit.
“Thank you,” she said, smiling.
Then, she went away.
The archbishop finally caught up to the young prince. “That fruit is only consumed by members of the Imperial Family,” he reprimanded sharply.
“That poor little girl was clearly starving,” Max said calmly. “What kind of emperor would I be if I let my people starve?”
The archbishop saw the wisdom in what the young prince had said. “You have the making of a great emperor in you.”
Max nodded. He could only hope he could be half as great as his father was reported to have been.