Martia went back to her previous routine.

  She started training more rigorously, but her studies stopped. After the training, Promanthae would call her and discuss all the decisions he wanted her to take and make plans accordingly so that Promapple could be more prosperous and powerful and also about the strategies to dethrone King Coaleme. But each and every moment, the Prince was on her mind.

  She felt like he was now living within her.

  While training, she observed Arigue watching her with hope in his

  eyes. A hope that she would take a different decision from what she was.going to take now.

  Now watching Arigue, Martia could feel a sense of family, and for the first time, she could also see some affection in his eyes for her. She started looking at him like her brother or father, which Martia could never feel with Promanthae, even though he had declared himself her ‘parent’.

  All her emotions—like wanting to see the Prince desperately, seeing

  Arigue constantly hopeful that she would listen to him, and the constant burden from Promanthae of taking up leadership quickly and making Promapple more powerful—were overwhelming Martia to the extreme.

  She started feeling more lost with each passing moment and was unable to organize all these intense emotions. But she tried to be as calm as she could, because feeling powerless about anything was totally unacceptable to her.

  Promanthae then called her on one day and said, “I thought to train you for a few more years, but you always surpass me with your strategies. You will have a fight with me tomorrow, and if you defeat me, then you will be chosen leader the day after tomorrow.”

  Martia paused and asked, “If I win, will you give me three days of rest before the designation?”

  Before Promanthae could ask why and deny the request, Martia said, “After that, I will make your dream come true. I will dethrone Coaleme, kill him, and make our village the center of administration. But before that, just give me three days to talk to everyone. After that, I will be secluded, like you and never let anyone be close to me, and make people continue to fear this post as they do now.

  Promanthae replied in amazement, “This is the first time I have

  seen you talk humbly and maturely. You want three days to yourself? Okay, defeat me and spend those three days with your friends. Just.remember, if you accept a dare out of impulse again or fail to return on.the fourth day, the punishment will be so severe that you won’t be able to handle it.”

  Martia cautiously said, “Okay.”

  She then spent many hours in training.

  Unable to keep her mind calm, she went to see Arigue.

  Arigue, seeing her, said, “Good luck for your fight with Promanthae.”

  Martia wryly said, “Promanthae really does share everything with you, doesn’t he?”

  “He knows that I will never betray him,” replied Arigue.

  “Yet you always advise me to rebel against everything and everyone.”

  Arigue protested, “I am not asking you to rebel this time, right?”

  “Exactly!” Martia exclaimed. “What happened? A few days ago, you wanted me to run away.”

  “That was before you agreed to Promanthae’s terms. Now if you rebel, they all will feel betrayed, and you will have a very powerful village as your enemy. They will find you and . . .” He continued, exhausted, “I don’t want to see you die in front of me. I have enough trauma to live with already. So after defeating Promanthae, go to the person you met and bid him a final goodbye. Give your heart a last chance to feel any kind of affection and come back to this dark abyss and become the worst version of yourself.”

  Hearing this, Martia looked a little troubled and said, “I am so

  distracted that I think I will lose. If only I could keep my mind calm, so that I can concentrate.”

  Arigue said calmly, “Then stop fighting with yourself and accept your feelings. Accept that you are no longer alone. He is now going to be a part of your mind and heart as long as you are alive. I know this feeling; I am living with it. No matter how far the distance is or how impossible this togetherness is, you will always long for him if you do not go to him. Problem solved.”

  Martia said, annoyed, “What problem solved? What exactly got solved here?”

  Arigue smiled and said, “Use this emotion as a strength not as a burden. You want to see him again, don’t you?”

  Martia smiled faintly at this but then turned hopeless immediately

  and said, “I can’t concentrate, Arigue. Defeating Promanthae like this is impossible. Out of all the people I have to fight, only Promanthae worries me, I don’t know why. Maybe because, deep down, like all the Promapplers, I also see him as undefeatable. I find him so powerful, not only in fighting skills but also in using tricks and manipulation. I feel like there is still something I haven’t learned from him. And also, the distraction because I miss that person. The fact that I don’t know if I will be able to see him again is also troubling me.”

  “Troubling you?” Arigue laughed and said, “I know you never cared about being a leader of Promapple or being like Promanthae. You stayed here because you had nowhere to go. Just be the emotionless, ruthless version of yourself, and you will see that defeating the whole world will be easy for you. Promanthae is nothing. Now go and sleep if you can.”

  Martia went back to her house. She could not sleep, as usual, and ended up watching a star the whole night from her window.

  Morning came, and Promanthae announced to everyone that the fight would take place at midnight. Hearing this, Martia went to her room to rest and calm her mind. After resting the whole day, she woke up in the evening, got ready for the fight, and took her sword. She was neither excited nor anxious. She was just completely lost and distracted.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  When she stepped out, she saw it was raining heavily. She walked forward in total darkness towards the ground where the fight was to take place and stood still after reaching there, unable to see anything, but she was aware of the presence of many people there. When there was a flash of lightning, she saw Promanthae holding a sword, standing in the middle of the ground. And within a few moments, he disappeared in the darkness.

  She knew that to defeat Promanthae in this situation, she would need complete focus, which she did not have. She also knew losing this fight meant losing her life as Promanthae would not show any mercy. She closed her eyes to calm herself, but she ended up seeing the Prince, smiling and happy in his own little beautiful world that he had made for himself.

  The moment she opened her eyes, miraculously, she felt calmness and peace in her mind.

  She thought, Does the Prince also feel the same way after remembering me, or is it a horrifying experience for him? This again started bothering her.

  She then thought, Whatever it is, I will find out about it later.

  With this, Martia went forward with enthusiasm and focused energy as she knew what she had to do now.

  Promanthae was standing and waiting for her.

  Reaching him, she tried to hide the little doubt she still harbored. She couldn’t help but wonder whether she would be able to defeat the man who might have killed hundreds of people throughout his life.

  Sensing Martia lost and distracted, Promanthae took a step back and said in a loud voice, for everyone to hear, “I am old now; defeating me will be easy. This fight will not take place between me and Martia. It will take place between Martia and twenty assassins, who have been preparing on the same level as Martia and for as long as her.”

  Hearing this, Martia became confident, which she had not been when visualizing Promanthae as her opponent.

  Martia was now assured that nothing could stop her from seeing thePrince one last time.

  Promanthae went to Martia and tied a white ribbon on her wrist,

  which every Promappler knew belonged to the leader of the village. He then wished Martia the best and gave her his sword too and told her that the moment she reached him, after defeating everyone, that moment she would win the fight. And then he disappeared again into the darkness.

  Martia heard the footsteps of a few assassins and counted them as five. They surrounded her in a small circle. She found herself standing in the center with swords in both her hands, waiting for the signal to get started.

  After getting the signal, which could only be seen by the assassins,

  all five started attacking her simultaneously. After getting slightly injured, Martia got hold of the situation and very easily defended herself, attacked them, and harmed them as little as she could because, the moment the assassins were injured, they had to leave the fight. Martia then found her way to the bigger circle of assassins.

  She then defended herself from continuous assaults from what she counted as ten assassins. But their invisibility was irritating her.

  She then broke her resolution to not harm them severely. and found her way to each of them and started slashing them, while keeping her injuries to the minimum. She was thus able to successfully break the circle by injuring eight of them a little more than she wanted to. She then ran towards the Promanthae’s house, and after reaching there, she stood and waited for the next attack.

  Within a few moments, three of them attacked her, but now, already having a plan as to how to defend and attack, Martia decided to end it quickly, so she didn’t give them much time to fight with her. She attacked them very precisely and injured them severely, making them leave. Then she herself guessed the location of the fourth assassin, and without giving him a chance to attack her, she slashed him too. She then tried to guess the location of the final assassin but failed. She heard footsteps behind her and defended herself from the attack of the fifth assassin but lost her balance a bit. He took advantage of this and continued to attack her. While defending herself continuously, she was unable to find the time to attack him back, and eventually, he led her to lose her sword. However, she still managed to dodge all his attacks. She went up to him, held him, and threw him on the ground. She then stood on his hand, making him let go of the sword, which she threw far away. He got up and started fighting with her again. Martia, impressed with his persistence, defended herself, fought him vigorously and injured him as severely as she could while successfully managing to keep her injuries to the minimum. She then kicked him again to the ground. Giving him no chance to get up, she ran towards him and hit him continuously on his face, making him nearly unconscious. She took out her knife and pierced him just a little on his neck, just to stop the fight. . She then stood up while straddling him and focused on trying to locate Promanthae.

  The moment she stood up, the assassin found one of Martia’s swords lying near him and got up a little and tried to slit Martia on her neck. Martia sensed this at the last moment and dodged the attack and was surprised that he had tried to kill her.

  Within a second, she put her one knee on his chest while his hand

  was pressed against her knee, and with agility, pierced the knife she was holding, slashed his neck deeply, and killed him without any mercy.

  Seeing him dead and bleeding, she was aghast at herself that she had killed one of her own people. She stood up immediately and let go of her knife.

  Another flash of lightning lit the sky, and in that light, she could see some of the villagers looking at her in fear. Trying to understand what it would mean now, she froze, then she heard Promanthae’s voice. “You will only win if you reach me here. It is still not over.”

  Hearing this and unable to comprehend the situation, she started

  moving forward and stopped after reaching Promanthae.

  Promanthae then stood up and announced, “Villagers, this is your

  new leader. And she will protect you from all external aggression and give you your deserved place in Absyleous. In return, your responsibility is to respect and follow her. Because, as you can see, any defiance or rebellion can also be handled by her very easily. So, make sure you always follow her, irrespective of the situation. After three days, the designation ceremony will be held.”

  Promapple was again lit to the maximum, and Martia was able to see everyone bowing to her in respect and accepting her as their leader. But she could still see the fear in each of their eyes.

  Ari, Acastius, and Minver, who had talked to her casually and dared and argued with her, were now looking intimidated. And the moment they saw Martia look at them, they started looking down.

  Martia understood that her future would be a lonely path, just like her childhood.

  She went into the house with Promanthae and asked, “Did you instruct him to kill me? Did he just follow your orders and die?”

  Promanthae replied emotionlessly, “He came to visit me two days ago, asking me why I think you deserve to be the leader of this village and the future of Absyleous. He told me that he has been training from the same time as you, so why don’t I consider him as a leader. I then told him that if he was able to kill you, then I would make him the leader. He died notbecause of following my order but because of ignorance. Ignorance that whatever is taught is enough to win in life . . .”

  Martia completed the rest of the sentence, “What we teach ourselvesalong with what’s taught is what puts us ahead of others who are learningon the same level as us.”

  Promanthae smiled proudly. “Exactly. You deserved to be the leader exactly at that moment when you breached the security made by me and found your way out of this deep forest, then breached the security of the king and escaped alive, and then came home in front of everyone, without caring about the consequences. Just because you wanted to see if all the hatred that I taught you towards King Zarek was worth it or not. Who was that assassin to challenge you? I know in the test, if you had decided to kill everyone, you wouldn’t have taken this much time to reach me. I did seeyour patience was getting thin at the end, but I am happy you still didn’t kill anyone before the final assault on you. That’s true leadership. Now you can go. Live the three days the best you can as you have a very difficult task ahead of you.”