The Prince's Script

Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Blade and Wit

The air in the grand ballroom grew heavier, thick with the iron scent of spilled wine, shattered crystal, and now, fresh blood. The shimmering chandeliers overhead, once casting a warm and festive glow upon the elite of the capital, now illuminated a scene of absolute carnage. Guards finally poured through the vaulted double doors, their heavy breastplates clanking in chaotic unison, boots sliding on the slick marble floor.

"Secure the perimeter!" a commander roared, his voice cutting through the panic of fleeing nobles. "Find any remaining intruders! Someone call the palace healer immediately!"

Sartika knelt beside the unconscious form of the assassin, her rapier still drawn, tip resting against the stone floor. Her chest heaved beneath her embroidered velvet doublet, not from exhaustion, but from the searing adrenaline that lingered in her veins. Her eyes flicked back to Kirun—or Lucius, as the underworld called him—who lay crumpled against her knees.

The dark red bloom spreading across his tunic was expanding at an alarming rate. It was not merely a superficial wound; the throwing star was coated in something dark and viscous, a dull sheen that looked alarmingly iridescent under the flickering torchlight.

"He's bleeding out," Sartika muttered, her usual icy composure fracturing at the edges. She shifted her grip, pressing her palm firmly against the wound to staunch the flow of crimson. "Hold on, you maddening fool. If you die here after dodging a blade and a poisoned cup before breakfast, I will never forgive you."

In her left hand, discarded slightly in the chaos, lay the dairy.

The leather-bound journal pulsed with a faint, unnatural warmth, its pages fluttering slightly as if caught in a draft that didn't exist in the enclosed room. Sartika’s gaze dropped to it. She had dismissed it as a distraction, a lunatic's scrawl, but the way it had guided his hands—the way it had predicted the assassin's exact footing—defied logic.

As she stared down, the ink on the open page began to ripple and shift, absorbing the ambient light. New words bled into being, written in a hand that was chillingly steady.

‘The guards are too late. The physician will arrive with poisoned hands. Trust no one in gold trim.’

Sartika’s head snapped up just as the commander of the palace guard rushed toward them, flanked by two subordinate officers. The commander’s ceremonial coat was heavily braided with thick gold embroidery across the chest and shoulders.

"Lady Sartika! Step away from the prisoner," the commander ordered, his voice tight, his hand resting conspicuously close to the pommel of his ceremonial saber. "We will handle the security of the realm. The crown physician is right behind me."

Sartika’s eyes narrowed. She looked from the gold trim gleaming on the commander’s uniform back down to the text glowing faintly on the page. Trust no one in gold trim.

"Stand back, Commander," Sartika warned, her voice dropping an octave into a tone of lethal warning. She smoothly repositioned her rapier, keeping the tip leveled horizontally between herself and the approaching officers.

"Lady Sartika, have you lost your mind? The boy is dying, and you threaten the royal guard?" the commander snapped, gesturing for his subordinates to close in. "Grab the diary. It’s evidence of treason."

"If a single one of you takes another step closer to him, your next breath will be your last," Sartika hissed, the silver blade of her rapier catching the light, steady as a monolith.

Before the commander could bark another command, a sharp, ragged gasp tore from Kirun’s lips. His eyes fluttered open, though they were glassy and unfocused, staring up at the vaulted ceiling where shadows danced like ominous specters.

"Sartika..." he choked out, his fingers twitching against the marble floor, blindly seeking something to anchor himself to.

"I'm here," she said, her voice softening just a fraction, though her eyes remained locked on the advancing guards. "Be quiet and stop talking."

"The... the ink," Kirun muttered, his voice barely a dry rasp. "It's inside me. The ritual... it’s not about killing me. It’s about the bloodline. The blood... is the key."

"You're delirious," she whispered fiercely.

Across the room, the fallen assassin—the one Kirun had struck down with the silver platter—began to convulse. His body stiffened, an unnatural arch forming in his spine, and before any of the surrounding guards could react, black foam bubbled from between his lips. His eyes rolled back until only the whites showed, and with one final, violent shudder, he went completely still.

"Check his pulse!" a guard yelled, rushing over.

"He's dead," the guard reported a second later, looking up with horror etched across his face. "Sir, he swallowed a cyanide capsule embedded in his tooth. They're all suicides."

Sartika felt a cold knot tighten in her stomach. This wasn't a random assassination attempt by a rival house or a jealous noble. This was an orchestrated sacrifice, and Kirun—who had spent his entire life playing the role of the foolish, overlooked scapegoat—was at the very center of a dark web.

"Commander," Sartika called out, her voice ringing clear and authoritative over the murmurs of the trembling nobles trapped in the corners of the hall. "Clear this room. Now."

"On whose authority?" the commander demanded, stepping forward with his hand closing around his sword hilt. "You hold no official command in the royal palace, Lady Sartika."

"On the authority of the person holding the only thing keeping the Crown alive," Sartika retorted, her eyes flashing dangerously. With a fluid motion, she scooped the diary off the floor with her left hand while maintaining her guard with her right.

As her fingers brushed the leather cover, a sudden, piercing shockwave rippled through the air—silent to the ears, but felt as a profound pressure in the chest of everyone present. The torches lining the ballroom walls flickered violently, casting long, writhing shadows that stretched across the floor like skeletal fingers.

Kirun groaned again, his hand clutching desperately at his side where the throwing star remained embedded. The wound wasn't bleeding normal red anymore; the fabric around it was staining a deep, luminescent indigo, pulsing in time with an erratic heartbeat that didn't seem to belong to the room anymore.

‘The boundary thins,’ the diary wrote itself, the words appearing with terrifying speed, tearing slightly through the old parchment. ‘The seal on the lower vaults is breaking. Rise, Lucius. The sacrifice has begun.’

Kirun’s eyes snapped fully open. The confusion and pain that had clouded them moments before were suddenly swept away, replaced by an ancient, heavy stillness. He looked at Sartika, but his gaze felt vast, as if he were looking at her from across centuries.

"Sartika," Kirun said, his voice no longer cracking, but steady, resonating with a strange, harmonic echo. "Get out of the palace."

"I told you, I'm not leaving you here to play hero alone," she replied fiercely, though a shiver crawled down her spine.

"You don't understand," Kirun murmured, weakly raising a hand to grip her gaantlet. His skin felt freezing cold, like winter ice pressed against iron. "I'm not Lucius anymore. Or rather... I never was."

Before Sartika could demand an explanation, the floor beneath them shuddered violently. A deep, resonant chime echoed from the deep foundations of the castle—the great bell of the lower catacombs, a bell that had not rung in three hundred years.

Outside the high arched windows, the clear night sky suddenly fractured. A jagged scar of violet lightning tore across the heavens, illuminating the panic-stricken capital below as the true storm of the prophecy finally broke.