Marked Ones: Advent of the Demon Prince

Rena felt several eyes on her in the classroom which made her sigh for the third time in the past twenty minutes. The reason for her classmates staring at her was thanks to the behavior of her loving husband. He stood slightly behind her as if he was her bodyguard once again.

Ever since she told him about her condition, he had gone to sometimes excessive lengths to protect her or help her. His behavior was endearing of course, but was a little much when in the classroom. Truth be told, she certainly appreciated and relished the special attention she was paid outside of school, but in public things were different.

Lyrah and Jade giggled at her while Natali have her occasional looks of quiet concern. Desmond sat nearby awkwardly and seemed unsure of how to address either Lucius or Rena.

"Love…" Rena said with an even and patient tone. "Can you at least sit next to me? I'm sure the time it would take for you to move to a standing position to defend me from these non-existent threats is less than it takes to blink. Sit."

Lucius sighed and took a seat, albeit reluctantly. She felt his hand intertwine with hers under the desk. With a contented smile, she rested her head on his shoulder while they waited for the professor to enter the room.

A short, old man walked up to the front of the classroom a few minutes later and began his lecture. "As all of you know we have had to initiate a number of changes to the way we do things. So from today, I shall be your instructor for both classwork and practical work.

"Also, classes will be broken down into sections for standard work, Magic Application, and Arts Application. Everyone in this room will stay together for each of these courses."

Jade raised her hand, "What about those of us learning about marks?"

"Professor Carmichael will be busy for some time with other matters. As such students enrolled in his coursework will be presented the opportunity to practice their mark usage during the Magic and Arts Application portions of class. Any other questions?"

No one else had anything to say, so the professor moved on to the next topic which was about the addition of new students to each classroom. Since classes now stayed together instead of moving between electives, they also condensed the number of separate classes.

This meant they were getting an influx of students that they would be seeing every day until the end of graduation. None of this mattered to Rena because she was already spending time with her only friends at the academy, so not seeing a handful of students did little to dampen her mood.

After the professor's announcements, the new students entered the room to introduce themselves. A small number of them were new faces to Rena which was likely due to them focusing on the Arts rather than Magic. However, one of the new students was a rather familiar face.

Lady Briene von Lindtforth introduced herself to the class and included that she was now the fiancée of Lord Thomas von Petra. While Rena felt thankful to the woman for healing her and helping her find out about the baby, she felt her skin crawl that the woman was engaged to her cousin.

Rena also noticed that the gaze Briene had when looking at Lucius was not one of respect, admiration, or even indifference. No, when Briene's eyes settled on Lucius, there was nothing but contempt, disgust, and malice to be seen.

Again, Rena shuddered. If she was this bothered by Lucius, then what did the woman think of Rena? It was likely not a positive set of thoughts which made her decide that avoiding Lady Lindtforth would be a good option moving forward.

After all the technical information was out of the way, they moved on to the actual coursework. Today's coursework was on the history of the Kingdom and the Five Kings Union.

According to the founding documents, the Five Kings Union was founded by a number of different human clans that were running from Alorek. At that time, Alorek controlled the entirety of the eastern part of the continent.

When the human clans found themselves cornered, they fought back with the assistance of the elves and dissenting beastmen, fracturing Alorek into three kingdoms: Alorek, Eroa, and Raleron.

Most of these human clans that led the combined armies against the oppressive Alorek became the leading families of the different kingdoms. The clans in question were Keinydd, Docia, Arcadios, Paede, and the most powerful of them all, Kane. Stay updated via empire

Instead of taking over the land assigned to them, they simply gave control of it to the people who eventually formed the Wisteria Concord. The Kanes kept to themselves for a number of years before disappearing into obscurity.

"No one knows why they vanished from our borders." The professor finished. "It is a great mystery and for a time we thought their line extinct. However, in recent months we have come to find out that this belief may not be correct."

Rena also wondered what the truth was. It was possible that Lucius knew, but she had never asked much about his blood family. There were many things they both still needed to talk about it seemed.

"Lord Kane. Might you be able to shed light on the subject?" the professor called out.

"I am."

"Will you?"

"Hmm…" Rena looked at her husband with a hopeful gaze. He sighed in response before standing.

"House Kane chose to leave the human nations because of one main reason. They were despised."

"Elaborate young man. Why would House Kane be despised for leading us to our freedom?"

The room was dead silent as they waited for his answer. Rena looked to Lyrah who had a sly smile on her face. Lyrah noticed her gaze and gave her a wink. "This is going to go over well." She whispered to Rena sarcastically.

"Many families have lines of succession that differ from the norm. The Petra's for example, require a competition for great deeds. The Carmichaels measure mana capacity. House Kane had the most abhorrent among these rules. Or at least that's how the Five Kings Union viewed it with time."

The entire class continued to wait with baited breath for Lucius to continue.

He smiled and held up his left hand, "The requirement to take over as the head of House Kane is that you must be marked. Man or woman. Elf, beastman, human, or any mix of the above. None of these things mattered. The person with the closest relation to the current head that also bears a mark, is the next in line."

A chorus of shouts erupted throughout the room from the various nobles. Many of them called him a liar and accused him of besmirching the name of a founding house. Others claimed that this strange tradition only happened after the war against Alorek because there was no way such a house would have been allowed to work alongside the other founding families.

Just as Lyrah had predicted, the information went over very poorly. Lucius simply shrugged and sat down, waiting for class to continue.

It seemed like he felt the need to stir the pot more, so Lucius decided to continue from a seated position. "It was often claimed that we were the adventurous sort. That we could not be held down… of course this was a lie. We simply enjoy being left in peace. Everything a Kane does is a response to what was done to them. Take that information to heart."

Rena noticed the last few words contained a barely concealed threat. She also realized that Lucius was glaring directly at Thomas when he said it.