Zeyra wasn't exactly a chatterbox, but apparently, being my piece and my personal attendant gave her some kind of moral obligation to catch me up. I didn't ask for it. But I wasn't about to turn it down, either.
She spoke directly, like someone used to relaying orders on the battlefield. Efficient. Dry. No fat on the sentences. Just facts about myself that should have been common knowledge.
And as she talked, I listened.
Not with awe, not with panic - just a calm, deliberate focus. I let her words settle into my mind, filing them into neat mental compartments. Because even if I couldn't do magic, even if my body felt like it had been run over (which I had ironically experienced before), the one thing I had left was my mind.
And it was running at full speed.
-
So, here's what I gathered from my knight's clipped little info dump:
My father is Alric Thorn - the so-called Drakenthorn. Not born royalty, but a warlord who carved out a kingdom from the frozen wastes with nothing but sword, fire, and psychotic levels of ambition. People feared him. The Empress respected him. He didn't inherit power - he took it.
Of course, a man like that doesn't raise children. He forges them. Into weapons, heirs, or wastes of space.
Guess which one I was.
Apparently, he had several kids, each given capable attendants like Zeyra, and assigned one simple mission: prove your worth to the kingdom. That's it. No coddling. No favouritism. Just results.
And me? I was the mistake. The one who didn't have the talent to become an Ascendant or anything useful, for that matter. No mana, no aura. Despite having access to the best tutors, rarest pills, and endless resources, I came out blank.
A smudge on the royal ledger.
Unsurprisingly, I'd been shoved to the edge of the manor like a shameful secret and left to rot in peace. If that wasn't depressing enough, turns out my younger brother, Auren, was my narrative foil in every possible way.
Gifted. Glorious. Golden child. The future of the kingdom.
The unofficial family heir.
And of course… Zeyra admired him. She said it plainly. No bitterness, no apology. Just facts. Like even she had written me off until… well, until whatever the hell this was.
'So it's the classic setup,' I mused. 'Washed-up prince. Overpowered little brother. A strict and distant father who probably bathes in the blood of his enemies. Oh, and let's not forget the endless waves of monsters and enemies from the north and political tension with the southern empire. Real cosy backdrop.'
But here's the thing.
I wasn't panicking.
It was a lot - too much, really - but it didn't rattle me. I just… absorbed it. Like plugging into someone else's save file mid-game. Weird, yes. But I could work with it.
The world was a dangerous mess, or so that's how it sounded. My position in the family was worse. But all I needed to do was survive. Strategise. Stay two moves ahead.
Zeyra had no idea how helpful she'd just been.
But beyond the lore dump, the most important takeaway was something unspoken:
I had a piece.
A real one. A high-level, fully awakened, shadow-warping knight who was likely trained into a killing machine.
And she was mine.
There was a connection between us. A thread. Not of emotion - not yet - but of structure. She obeyed not because she liked me, but because the system made it so. Because something deep and unexplainable had marked me as her king.
That bond gave me leverage.
But I didn't want to abuse it. Not yet. My instincts told me Zeyra wasn't the leash-and-collar type. If I wanted to use her properly, I had to understand her. Manage her. Protect her.
This wasn't a chess piece.
This was a person.
And people? They were far trickier than inanimate pieces on a black and white board.
After she finished her rundown, I gave her my incredibly profound response:
"Hmm. Interesting landscape to work with."
My lack of reaction was amusing for her, but before she could continue further, I suddenly stopped her.
"Your nose, Zeyra," I blurted out in confusion.
She calmly wiped her nose and was unfazed as she looked down at her bright red blood.
'What's going on?'
I quickly summoned the chessboard that came with the Chess King System and pressed on the knight piece. Zeyra watched as I did so, obviously unable to see what I was doing. But she seemed to have grown accustomed to my unusual movements and murmurings as if I were a schizophrenic.
Everything on her Status was the same, apart from the following:
Condition: Unstable with surging aura and mana threatening to cause internal injury...
She hadn't even flinched once and indifferently began filling me in on things that I should know. But according to the system, her body was basically a war zone. Her aura and mana were clashing due to the sudden surge that came with her breakthrough. If left unchecked... It could even kill her.
Yet she hadn't said a word about it. Of course not. Someone like her didn't show pain, which I was sure she was enduring a lot of.
But I saw it anyway.
Or, more correctly, the system showed me.
"Zeyra," I said quietly. "You should focus on stabilising yourself. You don't have to tell me everything now. I'll figure it out eventually. I'm the loser prince, remember? Nobody expects anything from me anyway."
There was a beat of silence.
I didn't say it to win her over. I just meant it and had no use for a damaged piece.
There was still so much I didn't know and so many questions I had for her, but the answers would come with time - her condition was more important.
'I'll just figure things out as I go along,' I reassured myself.
Meanwhile, Zeyra stared at me, and I could feel something shift in her.
She didn't seem to like how much I could see and how easily I read her.
But that was fine.
Let her be uneasy - uncertainty was better than contempt.
She bowed slightly, expressing her gratitude for my concern, whatever my ulterior motives behind it were.
But as she turned to leave, she paused.
"There's one more thing you need to know," she said.
Her voice was low. Measured. Careful.
I raised an eyebrow, curious.
Whatever she was about to say, it seemed important...