The rhythmic, thunderous sound of standard imperial boots echoed across the shared central plaza, but beneath that noise lay a much sharper, terrifyingly quiet sound.
*Swish. Crack. Sizzle.*
Cassian stood on the overlooking marble dais of the training grounds, his arms casually crossed behind his back. His sleep-deprived crimson eyes tracked the absolute precision of his secret underclassmen cult. During the three-month time skip, he hadn't just given them modern fitness regimes; he had taught them tactical, non-traditional squad movements, combat spatial awareness, and lethal mana-compression techniques that flew completely in the face of the empire's rigid, slow spell-casting rules.
Leo was at the vanguard of the formation, his hands glowing with a condensed, hyper-focused elemental light acting as the tactical anchor, coordinating the junior prodigies with subtle hand signals.
"Formations tight! Drop the academic theatricals!" Cassian's voice cut through the courtyard like a razor blade. "If your casting takes longer than a single heartbeat, you aren't a mage—you're a corpse. Redo the sequence. Speed-run the mana cycle."
"Yes, My Lord!" the underclassmen roared in perfect, chillingly fanatical synchronization.
"Hah! Is this what the soft-skins call military genius? It looks like a synchronized dance for courtly maidens."
A booming, arrogant voice violently shattered the discipline of the plaza. Thoris Madurai sauntered out from the archway of the West Wing Annex. The First Blade of theHorde had completely discarded his formal attire, wearing nothing but loose leather trousers and heavy iron bracers, his massive, jagged greatsword resting carelessly on his bare, heavily tattooed shoulder. A few of his rugged barbarian delegates trailed behind him, sneering at the polished academy grounds.
The underclassmen instantly froze mid-spell. Leo's eyes narrowed, a dangerous, defensive heat flaring in his palms. Honda's hand slipped subtly toward the hidden daggers at her waist. Nobody insulted their lord's teachings.
"Prince Thoris," Cassian drawled, not even turning his head fully to address the intrusion. His default deadpan facade was entirely locked in.
"I believe the ministers of the Academy, and the professors explicitly defined the boundaries of your annex. Wandering into my private training grounds without a formal invitation is a swift way to get classified as a moving target."
"I got bored, Second Prince," Thoris purred, his amber eyes locked onto Cassian's lean, tightly packed frame with predatory intensity. He planted the tip of his jagged greatsword into the pristine cobblestones, fracturing the marble.
"Back home, we don't learn combat by waving our hands at the sky. We test it against meat. These little birds of yours... they look like they'd break if the wind blew too hard. How about a real spar? Let my men show them what an actual horde looks like."
Cassian's lips curved into a tiny, freezing, and thoroughly dangerous smirk.
'Oh this stupid dumb shit, he thinks they're standard academy nerds. He has no idea he's looking at a highly brainwashed private militia of mine. These kids a prodigies and they are strong.'
"Oh well if you are so eager to hospitalize your entourage, Prince Thoris, far be it from me to deny you," Cassian said, his voice dripping with an effortless, aristocratic arrogance. He flicked his wrist lazily toward Leo and Honda.
"Squad Alpha. The guest wishes to evaluate your 'dance.' Treat him to the standard introductory routine. Do not hold back."
"With pleasure, big brother Lord Cassian," Leo whispered, a dark, utterly fanatical smile breaking across his face.
One of Thoris's senior barbarian delegates, a towering brute scarred from a dozen tribal wars, laughed boisterously and stepped forward, drawing a massive iron battleaxe. "I'll try not to make the little princelings cry—"
Before the brute could even finish his boast, Honda gave a sharp hand signal.
*BOOM!*
The underclassmen didn't chant. They didn't draw long, elegant magic circles. Using the modern mana-compression Cassian had beaten into their muscle memory, Leo instantly materialized a condensed, blindingly fast shockwave of compressed kinetic force right under the brute's feet. The explosion erupted with the speed of a landmine.
The barbarian brute was violently launched into the air. Before he could even recover his gravity, three junior prodigies executed a flawlessly synchronized flanking maneuver, their movements an erratic, modern zig-zag pattern that completely bypassed the barbarian's line of sight.
Honda appeared from the blindspot, a compressed blade of localized wind magic resting precisely against the brute's jugular before his boots even slammed back onto the ground.
The entire sequence took exactly three seconds.
The remaining barbarian delegates violently reached for their weapons, their faces turning completely pale with shock. These weren't academic students; these kids were moving like a highly trained, lethal assassination squad.
Thoris's amber eyes widened, a sudden, electric jolt of absolute adrenaline shooting straight down his spine. He looked at the kids, then stared back up at Cassian, his breath catching in his throat.
'He didn't just train them... he built a private army inside the school. The Second Prince is a monster.'
"Incredible," Thoris gravelly whispered, his grip tightening on his greatsword as a wild, unhinged thirst for battle consumed him. He took a heavy step toward the dais, looking directly at Cassian. "Screw the lackeys. Spar with me, Cassian! Let me see what the commander of these vipers can actually do!"
"That is an honor you have far from earned, barbarian."
The cold in the plaza dropped past freezing in an instant. Sir Lucien Arden stepped out from the shadow of the Command Tower, his silver armor pristine, his ice-blue eyes burning with a terrifying, unhinged holy bloodlust. His broadsword cleared its scabbard by three distinct, agonizing inches. "If you take one more step toward His Highness... I will dismantle your horde before the evening bells."
"Sir Arden, stand down," Cassian commanded, his voice a sharp, authoritative snap that effortlessly broke the suffocating pressure cooker. He shot Thoris a cold, profoundly bored look.
"The spar is over. Prince Thoris, return to your den. Your men require medical attention, and I have a financial ledger to audit. Do not make me waste more time on your amusement."
Cassian turned his back on them, his royal cloak billowing as he walked away. Behind him, Thoris let out a long, breathless laugh, his obsession with the Second Prince officially reaching a point of no return.
*****
It was well past midnight. The grand bells of the Academy had long since signaled the mandatory curfew, and the only sound across the campus was the rhythmic, distant clinking of Lucien's Holy Vanguard patrollers making their rounds.
Inside his private bedchamber, Cassian had discarded his stiff uniform for a loose, comfortable black silk nightshirt. He was sitting at his grand mahogany desk, illuminated only by a single mana-lamp, reviewing complex spatial-magic arrays and calculating the cost of upgrading his underclassmen's training weapons.
'If I can stable the spatial coordinates of the lower vault, I can start smuggling modern alloy—'
*Tap. Tap.*
Cassian's mercenary instincts instantly flared. His hand flew beneath the desk, his fingers gripping a hidden, dark-element dagger. He slowly raised his eyes toward the grand balcony window.
There, perched casually on the stone railing like a giant, dark panther, was Thoris. The Barbarian Prince smirked through the glass, entirely unbothered by the fact that he was currently trespassing in a royal prince's bedroom three stories above the ground. Before Cassian could even activate a localized silencing barrier, Thoris smoothly slid the window open and stepped inside, the cool night breeze rustling the velvet curtains.
"You have very tight security, Cassian," Thoris purred, his voice a low, gravelly vibration as he walked into the room with absolute, boundary-crossing confidence. His amber eyes locked onto the open collar of Cassian's silk shirt, tracking the lean collarbones beneath.
"Your holy knight has guards on every corner. I had to scale the outer wall using the brick crevices just to get a private word with you."
"Are you entirely suicidal, Thoris?" Cassian snarled, not moving from his chair, his voice a freezing, quiet whisper. He didn't rise, putting on his best old Cassian arrogance to mask his internal corporate panic.
"If I make a single sound, Sir Arden will be inside this room in four seconds, and your head will be rolling across the lawn before you can draw that oversized cleaver."
"Then don't make a sound," Thoris smiled ferally, stepping directly into Cassian's personal space. He leaned down, placing both his massive, calloused hands on the arms of Cassian's chair, effectively trapping the prince between his towering frame and the desk. The raw, heavy scent of Eastern cedar and leather overwhelmed the room.
"I just couldn't stop thinking about what I saw today. Those kids move like ghosts. And you... you sat there looking at me like I was a peasant asking for scraps. In the Steppes, when a woman or a man looks at an alpha with those eyes... it means they want to be conquered."
'Excuse me, I am a seventy-nine-year-old grizzled mercenary syndicate leader, you absolute muscle-brained toddler!' Cassian's modern soul was violently screaming in sheer, unadulterated disgust.
'I don't want to be conquered, I want you to get a psychiatric evaluation!'
"Your northern-east primitive psychology is remarkably tedious," Cassian hissed, his crimson eyes flashing with a dangerous dark magic as he subtly raised the dagger beneath the table. "Get your hands off my chair before I personally surgically remove them."
Thoris's grin widened, his face dropping mere inches from Cassian's. "Make me, My Prince—"
*BANG!!!*
The heavy oak double doors of the bedchamber didn't just open—they were violently, catastrophically blasted off their hinges by a blinding, explosive wave of pure holy mana. The wooden splinters rained down across the luxurious carpet.
Standing in the shattered doorway, silhouetted by the cold hallway light, was Sir Lucien Arden. He was in full silver armor, his broadsword fully drawn, the holy light radiating off the blade so intensely bright it cast monstrous, twisting shadows against the wall. His ice-blue eyes were completely unhinged, bloodshot with an absolute, murderous madness.
"Remove your filthy hands from the Prince," Lucien spoke, his voice no longer human, but a deep, demonic vibration of pure Swordmaster executioner wrath. "Now!."
Cassian slowly closed his eyes, leaning his head back against his chair as his internal soul completely gave up on life.
'Great. Excellent. Right on time and my bedroom door is ruined, the timeline is collapsing, and I am definitely going to be featured on the front page of the gossip columns again tomorrow.'
*****
The following morning, the atmosphere in the private courtyard pavilion was so thick with passive-aggressive tension that the poor servant attempting to pour the tea was visibly vibrating from fear.
Cassian sat at the head of the white marble table, wearing a fresh high-collar uniform, his face an immaculate mask of absolute exhaustion. He had spent the remaining hours of the night supervising the reconstruction of his bedroom doors while preventing a literal duel to the death on his balcony.
And now he just wanted a quiet, simple breakfast.
But he didn't get one.
Sitting directly across from him, entirely uninvited and once again bare-chested despite the crisp morning air, was Thoris. The Barbarian Prince was casually leaning back in his delicate iron chair, which groaned under his massive weight. He had completely ignored the elegant fruit platters and pastries Cassian had ordered; instead, he had brought his own raw, smoking slab of fire-roasted tundra-beast meat, which he was aggressively slicing into with a hunting dagger.
And standing directly behind Cassian's chair, looking like a terrifying, silver monument of doom, was Sir Lucien Arden. The Knight Commander hadn't taken his hand off the pommel of his holy broadsword since 3:00 AM. His ice-blue eyes were locked onto Thoris's throat, his holy aura subtly radiating a freezing pressure that was causing the dew on the nearby rosebushes to instantly turn to frost.
"You should eat more red meat, Cassian," Thoris spoke casually, skewering a thick, dripping piece of the roasted flesh with the tip of his dagger. He extended his arm across the table, thrusting the meat directly toward Cassian's face in a traditional northern gesture of intimate courtship. "You soft-skins survive on grass and tea. No wonder you are so pale. Here. Take a bite from my blade."
Before the meat could even get within a foot of Cassian's face, Lucien took a sharp step forward.
*FROOZT.*
A localized wave of freezing holy mana exploded from Lucien's aura, slamming directly into the skewer. In a split second, the smoking, hot piece of meat was entirely encased in a solid, sparkling block of thick, blue ice. The frost crept up the dagger, forcing Thoris to break his grip before his fingers froze over.
The block of frozen meat fell onto the marble table with a heavy, solid *thud*.
"His Imperial Highness does not consume unrefined, unsanitized wilderness carrion offered by trespassing nomads," Lucien deadpanned, his voice a freezing, lethal echo. He stepped closer to Cassian's chair, his armored shoulder practically brushing the prince's hair as he marked his boundary. "If the Prince requires nourishment, the imperial chefs will provide it under my strict supervision. Remove your weapon from the table, barbarian."
Thoris looked down at his frozen breakfast, then slowly raised his amber eyes to meet Lucien's murderous gaze. A dangerous, low growl vibrated in his throat.
"You are very loud for a lapdog, Knight Commander. Last night, I let you slide because we were indoors. But out here... under the open sky... I can format your silver suit into a coffin before your vanguard can run down the path."
"Try it," Lucien whispered, his sword clearing the scabbard by an inch, the holy light violently singeing the pristine white tablecloth. "I have been looking for an international excuse to purge the Steppes for a decade now."
Cassian slowly lifted his teacup, his crimson eyes staring blankly at the frost forming on the porcelain rim. He took a slow, agonizingly quiet sip of his jasmine tea, entirely ignoring the two towering lunatics who were currently preparing to start a continental war over a breakfast platter.
"If either of you discharges a single drop of mana near my tea," Cassian drawled, his voice dropping into a low, profoundly venomous aristocratic rasp that instantly caused both men to stiffen, "I will personally use an advanced spatial dislocation array to dump the both of you into the bottom of the Academy's sewage filtration system. Sir Arden, step back. Thoris, put your shirt on or vacate my pavilion. I am trying to enjoy my morning peacefully, for once."
Both alpha predators temporarily paused, looking down at the utterly unbothered, intensely annoyed prince. Thoris let out a delighted, gravelly chuckle, slowly pulling his frozen dagger back, while Lucien stiffly retreated a half-step behind the chair, his jaw locked tight.
Cassian set his teacup down with a soft, precise *clink*, staring out toward the training fields.
'Three months,' his internal soul wept in absolute, corporate despair.
'I just have to survive three months.'
*****
The second night at the Academy brought a suffocating, dense fog that rolled in from the northern mountains, swallowing the spires of the Academy in a shroud of white fog.
Inside the West Wing Annex, the atmosphere was dark, illuminated only by a single dying hearth. Thoris stood by the map table, a wicked, unhinged grin playing on his lips as he looked at his closest, most trusted tribal aide—the scarred warrior, Kaelen.
"The silver hound is smart," Thoris murmured, his voice a low, gravelly vibration as he traced a finger over the layout of the Academy. "Lucien Arden doesn't sleep. He shifts his Vanguard patrols every two hours, and he keeps his personal radar locked onto Cassian's balcony. To get inside tonight, we need to completely blind him."
Kaelen grinned, his rough hand gripping the hilt of his twin daggers. "The tundra-beasts are already restless from the change in climate, My Prince. If one of our handlers 'accidentally' allows a high-tier war-beast to break its iron restraints near the Command Tower... it will trigger the Academy's automated defense arrays. The Holy Knight will be legally forced to personally contain a rampaging creature to protect the campus."
"Do it," Thoris purred, his amber eyes flashing with a dangerous, obsessive heat. "Keep him occupied for at least thirty minutes. That is all the time I need."
"Yes my great prince"
Ten minutes later, the quiet of the night was violently shattered.
A thunderous, monstrous roar echoed from the northern stables as a massive, heavily armored tundra-beast "escaped" its enclosure,and its frozen mana violently cracking the stone pillars of the Command Tower. The Academy bells began to ring frantically, signaling a high-alert security breach.
Down in the courtyard, Sir Lucien Arden's ice-blue eyes snapped toward the disturbance. His holy broadsword cleared its scabbard with a terrifying hum. He glanced back toward Cassian's dark residential window, his jaw locking with intense frustration. He knew it was likely a distraction—but as the temporary Marshal of the Academy's joint defense, he could not ignore a rampaging Class-A beast threatening the main gates.
"Vanguard Squad Three, secure the perimeter of the Second Prince's quarters!" Lucien commanded, his voice a freezing baritone that cut through the panic. "If anyone approaches that building... kill them on sight. I will handle the beast myself."
With a burst of blinding holy speed, Lucien launched himself toward the stables, his silver armor cutting through the fog like a shooting star.
With the silver hound successfully baited, the perimeter guards were simple enough to bypass. Thoris moved through the thick fog like a phantom of the Steppes, completely soundless despite his massive frame. He didn't use the stairs; he scaled the stone crevices of the outer wall with fluid, predatory agility, slipping over the balcony railing of the royal suite.
The bedroom doors had been hastily re-hung after the previous night's destruction, but the balcony latch was easily bypassed by a thin blade.
Thoris stepped inside, gently sliding the glass shut behind him to keep out the biting winter chill.
The room was completely dark, save for the pale moonlight filtering through the fog. Silence hung thick over the velvet furniture. Thoris's amber eyes instantly adjusted to the gloom, locking onto the grand four-poster bed at the center of the room.
Cassian was fast asleep.
After months of grueling modern military drills with his underclassmen, navigating the toxic political minefields of the imperial court, and dealing with a pair of hyper-aggressive alpha suitors, Cassian's 79-year-old mercenary soul was entirely, profoundly exhausted. He was sleeping like an absolute log, buried deep beneath a mountain of heavy fur blankets and silk sheets, his breathing slow, deep, and completely rhythmic.
His jet-black hair was scattered messily across the down pillows, and the high collar of his silk nightshirt had fallen slightly open, exposing the pale, smooth skin of his collarbone and throat.
Thoris let out a low, breathless chuckle, a possessive, territorial warmth blooming in his chest.
'Look at him,' the barbarian prince thought ferally.
'So fierce and venomous during the day... but completely defenseless in my hands at night.'
Discarding his heavy leather boots and iron bracers, Thoris quietly approached the bed. He didn't hesitate. With a slow, fluid motion, he lifted the edge of the heavy fur comforter and slid directly into the bed covers alongside the sleeping prince.
The sudden addition of Thoris's massive, heavily muscled frame caused the mattress to sink, but Cassian merely let out a low, unconscious mumble, turning his body slightly away as he burrowed deeper into the warmth.
Thoris smiled, entirely unbothered. He shifted closer, his large, calloused hands reaching out to pull Cassian's lean body flush against his bare, tattooed chest. The sheer mass and weight of the Barbarian Prince effectively smothered Cassian beneath the covers, locking the sleeping prince in a heavy, inescapable cage of muscle and northern heat.
"You run a beautiful game, Cassian," Thoris whispered against the quiet room, his gravelly voice dropping into a tender, obsessive purr.
He leaned his head down, his lips brushing softly against the exposed skin of Cassian's neck. He began to leave a slow, deliberate trail of soft, burning kisses along the prince's collarbone, his rough jaw lightly grazing the delicate skin. Cassian shifted slightly under the heavy, suffocating warmth of the embrace, a faint, annoyed crease forming between his eyebrows in his deep sleep, but he was far too exhausted to awaken.
Thoris buried his face directly into the jasmine-scented strands of Cassian's hair, tightening his arms around the prince's waist with an absolute, unyielding grip.
'Let the holy knight fight his monsters in the dark,' Thoris thought, his eyes closing as a deep, feral satisfaction washed over him. 'Tonight, the Second Prince belongs to the Northern-East.'
The dense northern fog pressing against the balcony glass seemed to trap the sweltering heat inside the bedchamber, turning the space beneath the heavy fur covers into a private, suffocating sanctuary.
Thoris's amber eyes burned in the dark as he watched Cassian's face. The soft, teasing kisses against the prince's collarbone had already sent a deep, foreign warmth radiating through Cassian's exhausted body. But the Barbarian Prince had no intention of stopping there. Wanting to permanently imprint his touch onto the Valemont heir, Thoris slipped his large, calloused hand beneath the silk of Cassian's nightshirt, sliding down to one-sidedly and intensely please the sleeping prince beneath the heavy layers of the comforter.
In the deep, heavy depths of his slumber, Cassian's subconscious completely misfired. His rational modern brain was too exhausted to register the physical reality of a trespassing barbarian in his bed; instead, his mind translated the intense, localized friction into a vivid, hazy dream.
"Ngh..."
A low, involuntary gasp escaped Cassian's lips. His head shuddered backward into the down pillows, his black hair spilling across the fabric as his spine arched slightly. He was entirely trapped in the illusion, his body instinctively reacting and leaning into the heavy, calloused warmth of Thoris's hand. To his sleeping mind, it felt like an incredibly realistic, intensely satisfying dream—an escape from the endless stress of the timeline.
Thoris let out a low, growling chuckle against Cassian's neck, his pace turning more deliberate, more possessive, as he felt the prince's uncharacteristic, soft vulnerability underneath his hold.
But the sheer intensity of the sensation quickly built to an undeniable crescendo. The sudden, overwhelming urge to release violently snapped Cassian's eyes open.
His crimson pupils dilated in the darkness. The hazy dream instantly shattered, clashing violently with the sudden realization of a heavy, bare-chested, tattooed body pinning him to the mattress and a large hand stroking him beneath the sheets.
'What the—?!' Before Cassian's brain could even process the absolute catastrophe of the situation, the biological fuse exploded. It was already too late. A sharp, breathless gasp caught in his throat as his body violently convulsed, a wave of intense release crashing through him under the covers, leaving his mind momentarily short-circuited and his muscles completely spent.
"Good morning, My beloved Prince," Thoris whispered right against his ear, his voice dripping with a smug, ferally triumphant satisfaction.
Cassian's eyes violently widened in pure, unbridled horror.
'THORIS?! This wasn't a dream?! You absolute, boundary-crossing, psychopathic—!'
But the universe wasn't done punishing Cassian's timeline.
*CREAK.*
Before Cassian could pull his dark-element dagger from beneath his pillow to castrate the barbarian prince, the heavy, reconstructed oak doors of the bedchamber slowly, ominously swung open.
The cold hallway light cut a long, sharp path across the carpet, illuminating the room. Standing in the doorway was Sir Lucien Arden.
The Knight Commander was covered in a light layer of frost and the dark, metallic blood of the tundra-beast he had just single-handedly butchered at the gates. His silver armor clinked softly, but his holy broadsword was already drawn, resting loosely in his hand as he stepped inside. His ice-blue eyes were dead, devoid of all human emotion, locked instantly onto the unmistakable silhouette of two large shapes tangled together beneath the heavy fur comforter, and the thick, heavy scent of raw pheromones that now saturated the air.
The room froze. The atmospheric pressure dropped so fast the glass on the nightstand cracked.
Cassian lay completely paralyzed beneath Thoris's heavy frame, his face turning a ghostly shade of white as he stared directly at the grim reaper standing in his doorway.
'I am going to die,' Cassian's modern soul wept into the absolute void of despair. 'Timeline Fifteen is over. Somebody please just shoot me.'
*****