The Raven's Blade

The Warlock & The Prince

It's not everyday that one manages to spill food on a person of nobility. It's not everyday that the person happens to be a prince. Alas, for Rosina, that day happened to be today and she marvelled upon her bad luck as she regarded the prince of her home kingdom — now covered in soup.

"Oh," said Rosina, eloquently. "Oh no."

It was at this point that the entire room decided to stop and stare at this disaster of a moment. The prince of Aprirsa, fortunately, didn't look mad. Rosina was now even more panicked. Oh no indeed.

"I-I'm so sorry, really. Let me get a towel and some water."

Prince Adamo sighed, "It's fine. I'm heading to my room anyway."

Rosina blinked, "Are you...are you sure?"

He nodded and headed off with a half-hearted wave to Rosina.

After that strange encounter, Rosina raced off to find Ilsa and tell her what happened.

"Hey!"

Rosina burst into their room and saw Ilsa at her desk. Ilsa had been reading more than usual lately as Viscount whats-his-name had made Ilsa meet his son and it turned out that he'd had a great interest in plants and was happy to share some of his botany books with Ilsa.

"Hmmm?" Ilsa acknowledged Rosina.

"Ilsa! You have no idea what just happened. I just literally ran into Prince Adamo and spilled so much soup on him."

Ilsa's head shot up, "You what?"

Rosina nodded, eyes wide and carried on, "I thought he was going to kill me but he just sighed and left!"

"Huh, that is...really strange." Ilsa went back to her books.

"I know!" Rosina exclaimed, however she saw that Ilsa was no longer interested, so Rosina decided that the best option was to leave and find out more about the prince.

Luckily enough, she saw him again out in the courtyard as others were preparing for the tournament. Rosina swerved out of the way of sparring knights to go over to where he was sitting on the ground.

"Hi, I just wanted to apologise for the soup incident again. So sorry again."

Adamo looked over at her, "Like I said, it's fine."

She let out a sigh, "Okay good."

Adamo was holding a short sword, which in his hand, looked very uncomfortable. You could peg the guy as a librarian pretty easily, if you didn't know he was a prince.

"This might seem intrusive coming from a random person who recently spilled soup on you but, are you okay?" Rosina asked.

He sighed and looked at the sword. "Ugh its fine but also...not."

Rosina sat down next to him. Adamo looked around anxiously then turned back to her,

"This is going to sound, I don't know, pretentious or something but...I don't really want to do this competition. I'm only here for my father to improve the relations between kingdoms but I know that I'm only going to make a fool of myself. I don't like sword fighting."

"Oh," Rosina thought for a moment. "I don't know if I'm the best person to help but I know someone who might be able to."

Adamo looked up in interest, "really?"

Rosina nodded, "Follow me."

The two of them headed through the castle, getting some strange glances along the way. They eventually reached the library and headed over to Ilsa's corner.

"Hey Ilsa, meet Prince Adamo."

Her book snapped shut and Ilsa spun around, "hello."

"Hi," replied Adamo.

"Adamo here, isn't interested in the tournament and is scared he'll ruin his kingdom's reputation because he's not good at sword-fighting. Any ideas?" Rosina explained.

Adamo immediately gave Rosina's arm a light slap, "hey! Why did you just spill all of my insecurities to this random person?"

Rosina winced, "Sorry. However, in my defence, you did spill all your insecurities to me, a random person."

Ilsa watched this exchange in amusement. "I think I can sort out a solution. What if we managed to get someone else to fight in your place, under the helmet?"

"That is why we came to you, for your genius ideas!" Rosina grinned.

"That-that might actually work." Adamo considered the idea and nodded. "Who would we have fight in my place?"

Ilsa thought for a minute, "I know a guy."

The trio found themselves wandering to the armoury and saw a young man in armour with dark skin in an avid discussion with a chef.

"Theodore!" Ilsa called to the young man, Theodore. Rosina remembered from when Ilsa helped her sneak out of the dungeons that they ran into Theodore's father, Viscount Dominguéz.

Theodore waved to Ilsa. As they walked over, he kissed the chef's hand and waved goodbye with a smile.

"Hey Ilsa! How's those books going?" He greeted.

"Very informative, however I can't seem to find as much of an interest as you can."

Theodore shrugged, "Thats okay. I can't seem to be interested in history or whatever you do."

Ilsa rolled her eyes fondly, "we were hoping you could help us. We need you to keep this a secret."

Theodore nodded, seriously.

"I need a body double." Adamo mentioned.

Theodore, only seemingly seeing Adamo for the first time, exclaimed, "I'm so sorry your highness! I hadn't realised it was you."

Adamo shrugged, which Rosina was starting to realise was his main gesture.

"It's okay. I just need someone to fight in the tournament under my name."

Theodore nodded. "I wouldn't mind helping out, I'll just have to tell my father that I'm leaving on a scouting mission or something for my knighthood."

"We can help sell the story," Rosina grinned.

Adamo breathed a sigh of relief, "Thank you so much. I'm going to be honest with you all but I'd much rather be into medicine than politics."

The four of them spent hours training and preparing for the body double in the tournament, from planning Theodore's 'exit', to making sure no one would see that Adamo was actually not fighting. In her spare time, Rosina also tried to read up on her magic and improve her spell knowledge. She found Ilsa had similar ideas and while it was difficult to make sure that Theodore and Adamo didn't realise that Rosina had magic, they managed to make significant improvement.

Finally, the night before the tournament arrived. Rosina, Ilsa and Theodore ran over to Adamo's rooms to go over and prepare for the plan, but Adamo didn't answer the door. Ilsa frowned. She knocked again. Still no answer. Rosina couldn't magic the door open without Theodore being aware of her powers, but Ilsa said,

"Keep a look out." And began picking open the lock.

After a couple of minutes the lock clicked open and the three of them burst into the room. There, they saw that Adamo was lying, too still, on his bed. 

[Once again - I appreciate comments. Also if you haven't read g_writer528's work: Greenwood Academy, please do so. Very good. Nice plot. 20/20

Have a nice day]