The Demon Lord and his Hero

"Syryn, I should apologise. I was hatching a murder plan with you on the dying end," Drevin confessed to the mage who eating from a bowl of sea fruit.

"How would you have killed me?" He curiously asked the silver-blue mer. "Your jellyfish toxins? They won't work on me. I'm immune to the toxins found in oceanic creatures." 

Drevin had a moment of understanding. Now he knew how Syryn had been so cocksure during the jellyfish stinger game he had played with the guard.

"So you were never in any danger." 

Knowing what Drevin was talking about, Syryn shrugged. Why would he gamble his life away like that? 

"You know," he said as he lifted the corner of his lips in a smile of disdain. "If that mer guard had had the balls to face his death in the game, he would have survived. I may have pretended that I was acting but the third sting was loaded with poison. It hurt like a bitch in the first few seconds that I was stung." 

Drevin silently took in the revelations. How unfortunate, he thought. That mer guard was going down in history as a coward when he could have become a hero. Then again, he surmised, it was a natural conclusion for one who was a spineless cruel coward from the start. The guard's cruelty towards Syryn had not gone unnoticed by the silver-blue mer when he was still a prince. 

"What would you have done if you were in his place?" Drevin asked the mage. "Would you have played the game to its end knowing what waited for you?" 

Syryn shook his head. "Contrary to how I portrayed myself that day, I wasn't just playing a game for my amusement. It was a sentencing for the king who at the end was swapped out for the unlucky guard. Of course, being the kind-hearted man I am, I also made a way out for them if they were lucky enough. So there's nothing that the guard could have done to avoid his death unless he followed the rules obediently. As for me, there's no way I would have fallen into such a dire situation if I was in that guard's place. I'd have never messed with me, Drevin." 

"That sounds very arrogant." The silver-blue mer softened his words with a smile. 

"But it isn't false, is it? I had a history that everyone had gossiped about. I was present during the murder of a prince which involved mysterious circumstances. I survived being attacked by blue-ringed snakes and then by infinity worms. It's not arrogance to think that a smart person would see the flags and avoid unnecessarily provoking Syryn. The asshole deserved what he got." 

"I suppose you're right," the prince tactfully replied. "But tell me about those mysterious circumstances. Did you kill Grifan?" 

"It wasn't me," Syryn replied. That had been the Sage's handiwork. "But it also wasn't his friends who had murdered him. They just took the fall for the third party who killed him." 

"But why?" Drevin asked with a frown. "Why kill him? And why would those two take the fall for this murderer?" 

"Listen, I know he was your stepbrother but he was trying to force himself on me. I don't feel sorry about his death at all. As for why they took the fall, they were compelled to." 

Drevin could see that Syryn was unwilling to give him any straight answers about that day. He wanted more time for conversation with the mage but it appeared that their time was up. The mer could see a blond head appear at the door. Syryn's lover was here. 

"Rowan, where did you go?" Syryn asked the blond. The man had slipped away unnoticed after the 'blood tournament'. 

"Just took a look at the wares that Silisia was selling," Rowan replied. "The mers were more than willing to open up their stalls when I showed gold." 

Syryn wasn't surprised. His fiancee, he had come to learn, liked reading and spending money. 

"Did you get anything?" 

Rowan's dimensional bag was deep, deeper than Syryn's. If the anti mage had wanted to, he could have bought out half of Silisia and Syryn wouldn't have been the wiser. 

"A few trinkets. Nothing that'll interest you," Rowan replied as he took a seat beside the mage. "Now what's this about a prince trying to force himself on you?" 

Drevin felt goosebumps on his skin when Rowan suddenly began to talk about Grifan. It was the way the blond's whole aura flipped from friendly to malicious in the span of a second. The silver-blue mer had known that Rowan was dangerous but now he knew better. Syryn's fiancee was just as sinister as the man himself. They were a pair of friendly and nice-looking humans hiding the depths of their powers. 

"He died, Rowan. There's no need to slander a dead man," Syryn hypocritically - as noted by Drevin- said to the blond. He had just been slandering the deceased guard just a few moments ago.

"Who killed him?" Rowan asked. 

"Someone," Syryn gave Rowan a look that asked the blond to stop questioning him. 

Rowan in turn raised a single brow but did as the wife bid him to. He had unintentionally eavesdropped on the duo and what he had heard made his blood boil. 

"Anyway, it's time we time. Where is Enkansh?" Syryn turned to the silver-blue mer.

"In his room, packing his worldly possessions." 

Drevin had talked to the siren and they'd shared a hug despite Enkansh's reservations about it. The silver-blue mer had always known that the siren had a soft spot for him but they weren't meant to be, just as his budding feelings for Syryn wasn't meant to be. Drevin had nipped those feelings in the bud when they appeared. 

"Farewell then, Syryn. Come back when you want your crown," he told the human, knowing very well that Syryn intended to permanently dump the duties of ruler on his shoulders. Drevin neither liked nor hated being king. It was just something he had to do because if he didn't, one of his other siblings would have to take up the crown. His father's disastrous decisions had cost them all heavily and it led to the silver blue mer wanting to change the kingdom's policies. And such changes would come only if he was in power.