Chapter 9

Oh yes indeed. It’s time for revenge. But only after this song.

I close my eyes and sway to the music. The melodic hum of small hand drums accompanied with flutes and fiddles wafts playfully through the air. A sound mage songstress with the singing voice of a lark bellows out the song Dúláman, and I can’t help but be carried away. Katherine, too, sways with the music. All around us the good people of Âme Kingdom dance together brimming with peace and joy. Yet my desire for revenge is undeterred by the merry festivities. Thus, I begin to form a plot in my head. I will not be denied my revenge. However, I don’t want to make a scene here and ruin the festival for everyone else. That wouldn’t be my style; I’m more of the considerate troublemaker type.

Promptly, the music stops. At once, I move to carry out my plot.

“Katherine stay here!” I order.

Immediately, I begin to push my way through the crowd. I reach as far as the halfway point between the crowd and Princess Mathilde’s elevated platform when the music begins again. Except this time the music takes a dramatic shift. Now there are trumpets blaring accompanied by a piano and stronger drumbeats. I recognize this music. It’s soul music! Soul music is my jam! Heck, it’s in my name! I race back to Katherine as quickly as I can. “Katherine do you know how to dance Northern Soul?”

Her lovely brown eyes gleam with intrigue. “Do you?”

I stretch out my hand to her. “Shall we?”

She takes my hand and I lead her into the crowd. We have to be careful because Northern Soul dancing involves kicks. I’d hate to have to jump on top of someone because they accidentally kicked Katherine in the face. Yet thankfully, we find a place in the crowd where we can do our thing. I catch on to the rhythm of the music and begin with footwork. I swing my left leg behind the right then vice versa followed by three quick shifts of my feet. Smoothly, I glide to the right and then to the left getting closer to Katherine. Then finishing off my dance flurry, I fire off two quick spins as Katherine stands near me observing.

Her face lights up with a radiant smile. It seems the lady approves. I goad her with my hands, beckoning her to join me. She removes the purple witch’s hat from her head and places it in her inventory bag. Then Katherine begins with her own footwork.

She matches my pace, sorting one leg behind the other and then alternating while making little shin high kicks. I respond with two big kicks of my right leg followed by a dip into a half split, immediately rising to my feet with a spin. Let’s see how she deals with that!

Katherine responds by narrowing her legs and then widening them three times in quick succession followed by a tuck of the left leg behind the right, a switch, a half turn dipping into her left knee, and three spins with her hands on her head with her elbows out and her hair flying in a picturesque rotation.

My oh my! The girl can dance!

That’s hot.

Alright Katherine, let’s go! Time to bust out the sweet stuff! I make three wide spins followed immediately by footwork. Then I make two kicks of my right leg connecting straight into a left split. I transition from the split into jutting my knees out while touching my ankles with both hands. I rise from that with three quick narrow spins then go back to basic footwork while swinging my arms up and down. Shakapow! Who’s the man?

Katherine smiles cheerfully then gives me the business. She spins twice, kicks, then falls with her knees out and hands on her ankles. From there she shifts into a half split and rises into three spins.

Alright, alright, not bad. But now it’s my turn. I jump into the air with my knees out, land in that position, and then pulse up and down twice in a split before I spin up and continue with footwork. Katherine claps to the music twice. Then she speeds up the rhythm and complicatedness of her footwork. I can’t quite keep up with what she’s doing. Finally, she tops it all off with a super fast series of six spins.

Wow! I don’t know how she did that one. Easy Soul. You might want to calm this thing down before you get dusted out here on the dance floor in front of all these people. With that, I stop trying to show off and just have fun moving to the music. Also, since we’re dancing together, I feel it’s fair play to feast my eyes on Katherine. She looks so beautiful and carefree while she dances.

She runs her fingers through her hair and then winks at me playfully before twisting into another spin. I’m really enjoying this moment. She and I will have to dance again someday. But in the meantime, we only continue dancing for another two minutes until the music stops. With the song over, I get back to the task at hand: revenge.

The crowd cheers and applauds the musicians. While they bow and blow kisses to the crowd, I easily slip through the dance floor. As always, Princess Mathilde is swallowed up in a slew of bodyguards. They won’t let me just walk up to her. But I have a trick for that. Keeping my hands low against my hips, I focus my mana and cast the Invisibility spell, immediately followed by the Stunt Double spell. I time it so perfectly that nobody catches me vanish for the split second between the two spells. Now that my spells are up, it’s time to carry out the next phase of my plan.

Invisible, I walk just slightly ahead of my stunt double. I hop up onto the elevated platform with my double mimicking the action behind me. As planned, the guards rush my double while I walk right pass them. I stop in front of Princess Mathilde and kneel. As soon as the guards try to get rough with the fake me, he vanishes. I then intentionally release the Invisibility spell and reveal myself. Mathilde is startled by my sudden appearance; however, I kneel with my arms and head lowered to let her know that I’m no threat to her. “Who are you?” she asks slightly intimidated.

Carefully maintaining a reverent tone of voice, I answer, “Good Princess Mathilde, my name is Souladonis. Perhaps you remember me?”

I lift my head to allow her to take a good look at my face. Speaking unsurely, she says, “I’m sorry. I don’t seem to recall.”

I laugh to myself. Of course she doesn’t remember me. What a thing it would be if she did! After all, we only met once. But she may remember what happened that day. “We were much younger when we met. It would have been five almost six years ago. We were in the park together. You said that you wished you could fly like the birds, so I cast the Levitate spell on you.”

Her face sparkles. “Ah yes! I do remember you. You were a sweet boy. I’m sorry for what my guards did to you that day.”

She should be. I have no qualms about taking advantage of her guilt. “If you’re really sorry, then you can make it up to me.”

Her face fills with concern. “Oh? And how is that?”

“With a dance.”

Still kneeling, I offer her my hand. Her guards watch me livid. I don’t know whether they’re more angry at me having made them look like fools, or because the Princess actually accepts my offer and takes my hand. I walk the Princess to the edge of the platform. There is no music playing because the musicians, and everyone else down below, are watching us up here. I whisper to Princess Mathilde, “Let’s dance to a slow song. Tell the musicians to play one for us.”

She raises her hand into the air commandingly. “Maestro please play a slow song for us to dance to.”

The leader of the musicians, a Symphonist sound mage, shrugs his shoulders and complies. The musicians then begin to play the kind of simple slow song that a couple can just sway side to side to throughout the entire song. That’s what I was going for. I have some questions for the Princess. I wouldn’t be able to ask them over more strenuous music.

I make a tiny leap down from the platform. Then I offer my hand to Mathilde and help her down. The people of Âme part to the side and allow us to walk directly to the center of the dance floor. I take Mathilde by the waist with my right hand and interlace the fingers of my left with those of her right. She rests her left hand upon the upper portion of my right arm. Settled into formal position, we begin to step slightly to the left, then slightly to the right, and ultimately remain more or less in the same position.

Mathilde and I stare each other eye to eye at the same level, which is noteworthy because I’m six feet tall. When we had met in the past we were the same height back then as well. I just assumed since we’re adults now that I’d be taller. I guess when your father is a powerful man of barbarian descent, you grow up to be uniquely big and strong regardless of your gender. But that’s not to say that Mathilde is unattractive or masculine looking. In fact, the opposite is true. Princess Mathilde has naturally red hair pulled back into two pigtails tied with green bows, her face is lined with freckles over her cheeks and the base of her nose, and her eyes are voluminous green emeralds. She speaks with a muted voice and an air of sadness perpetually lingers over her.

“I’m having a wonderful time at your festival. Happy birthday Princess Mathilde.”

“Thank you.”

“Might I be so bold as to ask your age?”

“You are indeed bold Lord Souladonis; bold enough to pass by my guards, bold enough to ask me to dance, and bold enough to ask a lady much less the Princess of Âme Kingdom her age.”

I don’t respond to that. Rather, I simply keep my hand firmly planted on her waist and stare into her eyes unabashed. We step to the music regarding one another in silence. Finally, she gives in. “I am eighteen years, and you my lord?”

“Twenty-one,” I tell her. “I was fifteen when we met. Fifteen when your guards beat me savagely and threw me out of the city.”

For the first time her eyes lower and we break stare. “I really am sorry about that.”

I squeeze her left hand gently. “Don’t be. I’m here for revenge.”

Her eyes snap back up in alarm. “Relax,” I say calmly, “I don’t mean against you. I have no ill will towards you Princess Mathilde. I just need to know before I attack whether or not the men guarding you today are the same ones as back then. I do not wish to harm innocent men.”

She starts to look over her shoulder towards her guards, so I step out widely to the left while swinging my hips to the right. This movement causes her body to change direction and prevents her from looking towards her guards. “Don’t look at them like you’re scared, or they’ll come attack me right away. Just answer my question please.”

The expression on her face is now one of mild panic. I feel guilty for frightening her; nevertheless, I shall not be averted from my intention. She answers, “If I say that they are then you will attack them, so by that logic shouldn’t I just say that they are not?”

I reply sternly, “No, because if I think that you’re lying or if you refuse to tell me, then I’m going to hurt all of them. So please tell me the truth.”

I lock eyes unblinking with Princess Mathilde. I need her to know that I am completely serious and not making idle threats. She sees my resolve and submits to my demand. “Do you see the four knights who are draped in a blue mantle with the king’s coat of arms over their armor? Those are my elite personal bodyguards. Three of them are the same men as before. The other is a replacement for one who passed away from illness two years ago.”

I look at the men to whom she is referring and take a mental snapshot of their appearances. I can’t see their faces because of their helmets, but I’ll remember their mantles. Princess Mathilde and I continue to dance to the music. I listen carefully for the moment that the music begins to whine down. Once it does seem that the song is ending, I tell the Princess, “I want you to tell the three guards who beat me that day to follow me to the park and attack me.”

“They can’t just attack you for no reason,” she protests.

The last note of the song fades away. I join in with the crowd applauding the wonderful musicians. What an outstanding job they’ve done. They even ended the song at the perfect moment. When the applause dies down, the people turn their attention to the Princess and me. “I’ll give them a reason,” I tell her.

“What?”

“This.” I cease the Princess by the waist, pull her close to me, and plant a fierce kiss upon her sweet supple lips. To my great amusement, some of the people in the crowd bawl in horror at my rash action. What a masterfully dramatic way to start some trouble! Well-played Soul. Bonus points for that one. I imagine that her guards are outright pissed at me now.

“Take care of yourself Mathilde,” I say to the Princess. Then I shoot through the crowd pushing people aside one way or the other as I move towards the park.

While I go, I hear Princess Mathilde order, “Quentin, Killian, François, go after him and teach him a lesson! The rest of you remain here with me!”

Perfect. Thank you Princess Mathilde.