Death After Death

The declaration of war followed quickly after that, but because of petty pissing contests in the wording of the agreement that had to be sabotage, the alliance that Ionar desperately needed took somewhat longer. Somehow, despite the attack on him and a few other scattered attacks throughout Ionar that were almost certainly the work of the Murani, it was months before Ionar officially allied with the Kingdom of Brin to push the invaders back in any real way.

Unfortunately, that turned out to be about how long it took Simon to shake himself free of the terrible urges to use more transfer magic. It was hard to spend time with anyone, let alone his son when he was hopped up what amounted to magical drugs.

In the moment, his actions had been reasonable and even justified, but now there was no denying that it was a budding addiction. This time, he vowed not to let it control him. So, for better or worse, during that time, Simon's life changed almost as drastically as the world around him.

The first and most obvious change was that he was always armed now. For a long time, he’d rarely even worn a dagger unless he was leaving the city. Now, he was always armed with both sword and dagger, and he made sure that Seyom was with a real short sword as well. Simon rarely left the palace after that day, and he never left the city anymore.

Instead, he spent all his time with either the children, the generals, or in seclusion, coping with the withdrawal symptoms of his foolish act and planning for what he could do in the face of the new threats. One thing that his most recent opponent's methods had done was make it clear that there was more he could be doing. Just because he didn’t plan to start using blood magic to fuel powerful rituals didn’t mean he couldn’t use the power of his foes to more effectively eliminate them.

He felt badly for locking himself in his study more often than not, and neglecting his students, sometimes for days on end. Still, these efforts all bore fruit, and as time passed, he felt more and more ready for any surprise. Despite that, it was aggravating that even in failure, the assassins had still managed to shatter the perfect little life he’d been building.

He rarely held lessons in the gardens now, and even those were always accompanied by a detachment of the Queen's personal guards. Worse than that, though, was the fact that his curriculum had become almost entirely martial.

Seyom was only just fourteen, and two members of Simon’s class were only twelve. They were old enough to know their way around wooden blades but far too young to worry about killing or dying. Yet those were now inevitable consequences of what he was teaching them.

It was unavoidable. One assassination attempt would lead to more and next time, he was unlikely to be the target. So, he taught them basic first aid and where the most vulnerable spots on armored training dummies were. He taught the girls to aim for the throat of anyone that they suspected might be a mage, and he taught them all what signs to look for that indicated that magic might be afoot.