Elysium's Multiverse-Chapter 320

Allie was having none of it, but she supposed that this was her fault as well. Getting his hopes up like she’d done only to use him as a manipulative piece in her own troubled game was probably something she should avoid doing in the future, and it made her realize she had a lot of growing up to do.

“Queen Thane!” Adam said, shooting Lady Shovi a dismissive look before beaming back at Allie’s sitting figure below his standing shadow. “I was hoping to have a moment of your time for a dance! As you suggested earlier-”

“I suggested nothing.” Allie cut him off with a shake of her head. “I’m afraid I’m in a private conversation, and if you haven’t noticed - I’ve already selected a dance partner. You’re a good looking man, Adam. I’m sure you’ll find someone else here to dance with.”

The young man’s face fell, and he tried but failed to suppress a significant degree of frustration by the way his eyebrows twitched, his jawline hardened, and his lips turned at the edges. “Do you speak of the Lucio boy? Lahn, was it? If I may be so bold, may I ask why him?”

Shovi’s fingernails dug into the tablecloth, and her gaze darkened, but she let Allie do the talking for them both.

“Why is it any of your business who I choose?” Allie asked curiously, tilting her head to the side and putting on a small smile. “I’m the most powerful person on this planet according to Elysium’s rankings, and I can do whatever I want. Who are you to question me?”

The young man was nothing if not persistent, and furrowed his brows while trying to think of how he wanted to phrase his next sentence. “I just believe you could do much better, and for someone of your caliber I believe that I could-”

“Is everything all right, Allie?” Lahn said, coming back from the tables and setting down a few drinks - with two servants setting down three trays of food along the table. “You look agitated. Is he bothering you?”

Sipping on the remnants of her third wine glass and pushing it to the side, Allie gave Lahn a buzzed grin and shook her head. “Nothing I can’t handle, Lahn.”

“Yes, Lahn. Your betters are talking.” Adam sneered. He was obviously enraged about being cheated out of a dance and perhaps more with Allie after Lahn’s untimely intervention, and the way he spat the words made Allie realize there was alcohol on his breath.

Perhaps that’s why he was being so blatantly aggressive about this entire situation.

Otherwise he may have had the mind to know better.

“My betters?” Lahn repeated, eyebrows raising in surprise as the dance in the background continued on. The laughter and drinking and flirting was going on in abundance all around them, though there were certainly a few people watching the scene unfold as Lahn got up in Adam’s face with a scowl. “What gives you the right to harass my girlfriend like this? She’s the ruler of this entire continent, you dimwit! Take your drunken stupidity somewhere else before you do something you regret.”

“And are you going to make me regret it?” Adam said, taking out a handkerchief from his pocket and reaching out before slapping Lahn across the face with it. “I would challenge you to a duel of men, to see which of us is better suited for someone as esteemed and beautiful as the queen herself! I’ll have you know that she was going to be my date tonight until you, who was nothing but a cripple, showed up and spilled your honeyed words!”

Allie was drunkenly gazing Lahn down during the exchange. She very much could have handled the entire thing herself, but was enjoying the fact that Lahn was standing up for her despite this. It made him look rather sexy, instead of backing down like he would have once upon a time. He was growing as a person, but she also couldn’t have him enter some ridiculous duel either.

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Lahn’s face was a bright red now, enraged, and his fists shook. “How dare you! I accept your duel-”

“No you won’t.” Allie said, getting up and swaying slightly before forcefully drawing him down into a seat. “Fimrindle, be a dear and take this drunken man away. I do not like being harassed, and doubly so for Lahn.”

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The scarecrow reaper materialized out of thin air, quickly bowed, and smashed the blunt end of his scythe into Adam’s gut.

The young nobleman projectile puked onto the floor with a gasp, before he was forcefully dragged out of the ballroom and onto one of the balconies. He began flailing and screaming something Allie couldn’t make out before he was promptly thrown off the balcony and down the slope of the hill this palace was built on. Some of the others on the balcony visibly winced when the man let out a scream of pain upon landing, but given Allie’s reputation no one made to go help the man either.

“He’ll be fine.” Allie said, using her hand to rub the spot that Lahn had been slapped. “Maybe. I don’t really care either way, I’ve killed people for far less and his actions were nothing if not stupidity incarnate.”

Shovi looked a little bit surprised at the quick turn of events, but she nodded her approval and leaned back in her chair despite the horrified looks of some of the patrons who’d witnessed the attack. “There’s a saying where I grew up: A good man is only three drinks away from ruining the rest of his life. Though I don’t think that Zrinski brat is going to die with that kind of fall, the hill is sloped. He’ll be fine, and it was a good toss. Thank Fimrindle for me.”

“Indubitably.” Allie agreed, nodding sagely and hiccuping before pushing her chair up next to Lahn’s and giving him a blissful smile of perfect white teeth. “What’s that look for? Did I upset you somehow?”

Lahn was grimacing and staring the way Fimrindle had dragged Adam out. “No, not you. I just feel…”

He held out his hands, clenching them and unclenching them repeatedly. “Like less of a man, when I’m not even able to dissuade jerks like that guy from harassing you. I wish I was stronger, and more respected. People sometimes still see me as the crippled boy I’d always been growing up, and they look down on me for it.”

“They never looked down on you for being crippled, Lahn!” Shovi exclaimed. “Not most people anyways. Those that did were terrible to begin with and not those who you’d want to associate with.”

“Like my siblings and father?” Lahn retorted with a dubious glance.

Shovi’s jaw snapped shut, and her eyes hit the table. “I… I guess I can’t blame you for saying that. You know I’m on your side, Lahn, but I’m also trying to keep this family together.”

“Why bother?” Lahn asked, leaning forward and taking some cheese and meat off one of the nearby trays. “I’m not interested in rekindling anything with my siblings after they involved themselves in that attack that nearly killed me at the academy campus. Father is almost as bad.”

This… was obviously a conversation Lahn and his mother had often. The mood was also growing sour with it, so Allie was rather thankful to be saved from that line of talking when Mara emerged from the dance floor with another young man latched around her arm.

“I see you and Lahn worked things out then.” Mara said with a wink, bringing her dance partner - a tall and lanky fellow with a very symmetrical face - over to nervously stand beside her. “I had my suspicions you two wouldn’t kick the bucket on that budding relationship of yours. You’re just too cute together.”

“We are, aren’t we?” Allie said, amused, while wrapping her arms around Lahn’s waist. Her eyes flicked to the lanky young man with white hair. “Who did you manage to trick into dancing with you?”

“I did not TRICK anyone!” Mara shot back, smirking and coming around the table to sit at one of the empty seats. “Allie, Lahn, Shovi - this is Bernus Lackoy. Bernus sit down sweetie, you’re making the queen nervous. She may throw you over the balcony too if you keep standing there like a dolt!”

The young man named Bernus swallowed audibly, avoiding Allie’s gaze, and shakily sat down beside Mara before reaching for a flask in his left buttoned pocket. Chugging a large quantity of it in one go, he let out a gasp and snapped it back closed with a nervous smile. “H-Hello! Bernus Lackoy of House Lackoy, at your majesty’s service. I hope I’m not intruding-”

“Oh no! Not at all!” Allie said with a wave of her hand. “I’ve been wondering whether or not Mara was into girls, so it seems that I now have my answer. You know, I was just harassing her about who she’s been seeing - if anyone at all. Have you two been dating for a while? Or did she just pick you up here at the party?”

“H-Here at the party, your majesty.” The young man said with a curt nod, eyes staring at the tablecloth ahead of him. “I’m sorry if I sound a bit stiff, I think I’ve had too much to drink.”

Mara rolled her eyes, and let her long black hair swish out to the right when she tilted her head to look at him. “Bernus has an enchanted flask with extra-potent alcohol in it, and it keeps a lot more of the stuff in there than what you’d think. It’s any alcoholic’s dream.”

“I am no alcoholic!” Bernus protested as the others at the table laughed, but he handed the flask to Lahn without being asked. “I merely enjoy the harder stuff! And knowing King, er, Duke - Arthur Brix, he prefers the juicy flavors that taste nice rather than the stuff that’ll rock you hard with a single swig.”

“That’s Hellfire Brandy, isn’t it?” Lahn asked, eyes going wide. “Bernus, this is illegal!”

“WAS illegal. And don’t try to pin that on me in front of the queen!” Bernus corrected with a bright smile, chuckling under his breath and tapping his fingers together. “It was only illegal back before Panu was even created with the merging of the three worlds. The duke retracted all previous illegalities concerning ways to create alcohol after the third month of integration, so we’ve been selling gallons of this stuff weekly. You should try it!”

“Do you two know each other?” Allie asked curiously, seeing the smirks cast between the two young men. “You seem awfully friendly.”

Lahn chuckled and nodded, but refrained from taking any swig of the brandy much to Bernus’s disapproval. “He and I know each other to a point, we were friends growing up but he moved away because of problems with his father’s company. Is that right?”

Allie was enjoying the banter, sipping on her drink and rubbing a hand under the table along Lahn’s thigh, when she noticed an old man approaching the table. He was in the getup of a servant, but held himself in an odd way that she couldn’t quite place. His features were plain, his posture slouched, and he carried something in one hand tucked beneath a tablecloth while avoiding eye contact.

A pulse of mana out from her body revealed something with an enchanted and potent signature underneath that cloth, and given the shifty appearance he gave off as he drew closer - her eyes began to narrow in suspicion. Slowly, lines of power began to build around her all along the ground - and though she only had a few seconds to prepare, it was more than enough.

Only a moment later and she realized that the man wasn’t even really undead, but rather dressed up to look that way with makeup and a false overlapping soul over his own soul aperture.

Not five feet away from where she sat, the man dropped the tablecloth to reveal some kind of celestial bomb clenched between his fingers. His eyes were wide with madness, and a toothy grin lit up his face as white and gold light roared to life within his grip.

“FOR THE EMPIRE OF DYING SUNS, YOU WILL DIE HERE TODAY!” The man screamed, and then he flung the bomb at the ground at Allie’s feet. “LONG LIVE THE QUEEN!”

The flash of Fimrindle’s scythe streaked through the air. In the next moment, the entire room was engulfed with bright white flames. A cracking boom accompanied by a palace-shaking explosion caused the night sky outside to light up, and then there was only silence.

The assassin’s attempt on her life… had failed.