Celestial Clans: The vampire prince's origin

The King & his Palace II

20th July, 1974

7:23PM

Outside the royal palace/castle

Bloodhaven, Havana

“Everyone should leave immediately, get out there and give the right orders to your men. Don’t just sit in here pretending to decide anything important, leave deciding the hard decisions to me and focus on getting my palace safe and secure.” Darien said as he sat in the empty chair at the entrance to the tent. He just sat there and watched as the soldiers hurriedly left the tent in a single file; they remained disciplined at all times which were a thing of pride for him. It was normal for the higher ups to discuss strategy while the soldiers awaited orders and as King he knew that very well, he was just venting out his annoyance at the moment. He sat in the chair for some seconds and then got up and began pacing the now empty tent when Julian who had still been following him this whole peeked into the tent without stepping in for fear of the king’s fury and spoke.

“Your majesty I think there is an easy way to find the person masterminding this coup and controlling the teleportation of Kravians into the palace.” Julian said with his head in the tent but the rest of his body still outside.

“Say it Julian and be fast about it. The earlier we can get to whoever this fiend is, the earlier we can assure the safety of those dozens still in the palace.” The King said now sounding more interested than angry; this little good news was already making his bad mood a more pleasant one. “Well your majesty I know that there are anomalies with the way celestial essence flows in some people, but I know it would be impossible for any normal mage to have the celestial essence required to form a barrier round the entire royal palace and hold it up for minutes while teleporting numerous large sized Kravians into the very heart of the Palace. That means whoever is doing this has to be draining or diverting so much celestial essence from someone or somewhere else filled with outrageous celestial essence and then channeling it here.” Julian said and saw the king smiling for the first time today.

“That is easy; we just have to remember all the places in Havana that houses celestial essence. If our process of elimination works perfectly then we should be in front of our enemy in no time and put an end to this fracas.”The king now leaving his standing position and taking his seat before speaking another word. “Come in Julian, we have to take time into account and try to find the place soon.” He said with calm authority and Julian obliged immediately and got into the tent taking a standing position in front of the seated King.

“Your majesty if we were to guess, then I honestly has to think the place in all Havana that would have high concentration of celestial essence would be between the cities where we mages reside. The mage capital would probably have the most concentrated celestial essence presence.” Julian said and then paused to notice Darien’s expression. His expression was one of disagreement that Julian could read from his face instantly.

“The catacombs below the royal palaces here in Bloodhaven and in my wife’s home city of Crimson would definitely have more untapped celestial essence swirling around than you would be aware of, don’t forget how strong vampire royals are. Our bodies don’t get corrupted even when we are placed in coffins, kept underground and let to fall into the everland sleep. This means that the celestial essence of the old vampire kings and queens don’t totally die off even when they go to sleep, a little part of it remains. If we were to add up all that little remnant of celestial essence from the thousands of vampires that get cremated as well as the royals that get buried it would mean a strong concentration of celestial essence. What do you think?” King Darien explained then looked up at Julian.

“You are right my liege, the celestial essence in the catacombs would be immense as well. I feel no mage would be able to access the underground sections of the royal palaces, at least not without being noticed.” Julian said

“Yes you are quite right about that.” Darien said with an affirmative nod of his head. “You mages protect your cities even more than you protect mine though.” He added with a soft laugh. “I think it would be harder for anyone with bad intentions to get into your cities.” He concluded still looking at Julian.

“I agree, but sire. Would it be totally impossible for anyone in the mage council to be behind this? If they were, it would explain why it was easy for them to get into one of the places with concentrated celestial essence without anyone finding it suspicious.” Julian said obviously thinking fast now. Darien was impressed by his sharpness of thought. The king however said nothing else for a while, in no time he seemed lost in thought. All of Havana knew King Darien was a wise man in all ways, he was fabled to have knowledge on all matters of strategy as well as military tactics and some even said he received training from his father himself instead of the scholars who normally attended to the vampire Prince waiting for his time to reign. There were once rumors of a brewing revolt by one of the other great vampire families years before but it had led to nothing, the King had immediately changed their ancestral city and succeeded in giving them a region that was constantly under attacks from Kravians to keep their armies occupied as well as cutting them off from their ancestral home and centuries old base of power. Julian was watching a vampire with a supposed mega mind force his mind to work and waited quietly to see for himself if there would be any results of this King’s legendary brainstorming.

King Darien opened his eyes suddenly and there was a smile on his face that got the young mage excited. “What have you deduced my liege?” Julian asked and watched silently as the taller vampire rose from his chair with all the grace of a king which he was without saying a single word.

“Enough of the honorifics for now Julian, I think we are getting to the stage of friendship already. Just call me Darien.” King Darien said without turning to look at the young mage, his mind clearly still whirring and thinking.

“Yes your majesty.” Julian said still forgetting the instruction he had just received and soliciting a short bellowing laugh from the Vampire King who only shook his head in surprise of just how much awe he always stirred in everyone who met him.

“It will take some time, but try to adjust soon. The most important thing now is that I know where my enemy is. I know where the mastermind of this violence against my family is and you are going to take me to them this very moment my young friend.” King Darien said no longer smiling; he had a cold glint in his eyes now. Vengeance and retaliation slowly but steadily fueling a rage deep within him he had not felt in decades, he would not spare whoever had made him separate his newly born son from his wife. He wanted to kill whoever was responsible for this and kill them right away so he could go back for his son immediately and go to his Queen as well.