Chapter 81
Chapter 81
It was high noon at the Royal Palace. The sun was out. The guards were bored. Abby (me, the actual knight) was halfway through sword training in the yard, tossing lightning bolts at training dummies and trying not to vaporize my instructor again. When suddenly—BOOM—something exploded near the front gates.
It was… purple?
Everyone turned.
And there she was. Standing proudly atop a wooden apple cart she had commandeered, wrapped in glittering violet robes five sizes too big, with at least eleven glowing artifacts around her neck — one of which was literally a tea kettle she thought was cursed.
"BEHOLD!" she screeched like a goose possessed, “I, Lady Algebra MacMayer, have RETURNED!”
Silence.
A hawk cawed.
Some servant dropped a pie.
One of the palace guards coughed.
Then she threw down a smoke bomb… that immediately blew upward into her face and blinded herself.
"ACK! WHY IS IT—WHERE’S THE SMOKE?!” she shrieked, stumbling off the cart and landing face-first into a basket of turnips.
I walked over, arms crossed, sword casually sheathed at my hip.
“You okay, Algebra?” I asked sweetly.
“Don’t talk to me, traitor!” she hissed from the ground, flailing as turnips rolled dramatically around her. “You’ll regret scorning the TRUE heir of MacMayer! I have summoned the lost magic of Volcarth!”
“Volcarth?” I blinked. “That’s not even a real mage. That’s a vegetable stew.”
She ignored me and tried to cast something.
“KLAH-ZOOMIA EXPLODIUS!” she screamed, flinging a glowing orb at me.
It fizzled.
Then turned into a frog.
A confused frog, who croaked once and hopped straight into a nearby palace fountain.
One of the guards, Sir Helgo—an older knight with half a beard and a big belly—squinted. “Was that a frog spell?”
“No,” I said, completely deadpan. “It was revenge.”
Algebra screamed in frustration, stood up (with turnip in hair), and tried again.
This time she yanked a scroll from her belt, bit her thumb for dramatic blood, and shouted:
“INFERNA BLASTIA—”
It exploded in her own face.
Her hair lit on fire.
Again.
She began to run in circles, screeching like a cat stuck in a wine barrel.
“MY HAIR! MY HAIR! YOU EVIL WITCH, YOU CURSED ME!”
“I didn’t do anything,” I replied, tossing a lightning spark lazily into the sky. “That was all you and your discount magic scrolls from the black market. Who even sells those? Goblins?”
“THEY WERE ON SALE!” she shrieked, trying to pat her smoking hair down with a golden scroll that promptly caught fire too.
By now, a crowd had gathered.
Servants giggled behind gloved hands. Knights were openly laughing. Even Prince Theo leaned out of the balcony with a goblet and shouted, “Is that a new jester audition or just Abby’s deranged sister again?”
“NO, IT’S A REAL ATTACK!” Algebra cried. “GUARDS! ARREST HER!”
The palace guards blinked.
Then looked at me.
Then at her.
Then shrugged.
Two of them marched forward and—without hesitation—grabbed Algebra by the arms like she was a toddler about to throw another tantrum in the candy aisle.
“Wait! I AM A MACMAYER!” she wailed. “I DEMAND MY NOBLE RIGHTS! I DEMAND—”
“You demanded with a frog spell, ma’am,” Sir Helgo said dryly. “That frog now has more dignity than you.”
“PUT ME DOWN! YOU PEASANTS! I’LL CURSE YOUR TOENAILS AND TURN YOUR CHINS INTO TURNIPS!”
“Good luck with that in the dungeon,” I called after her.
“I’LL WRITE TO MY FATHER! I’LL—OH GODS, IS THAT A RAT?!”
Palace Dungeon – Two Hours Later
She was locked in Cell 3B. The one with pink graffiti on the wall that read “Gregory was here <3 – he regrets everything.”
She tried to use a summoning spell on the rat.
It stole her socks instead.
I sent her a little care package the next day: one bar of soap, a sparkly wig, and a note that said:
“Try NOT to light yourself on fire again. Love, your actually successful sister.”
She screamed so loud I heard it from the throne room.
And just like that, Algebra’s revenge plan was officially renamed in palace records as:
“The Great Turnip Explosion and Frog Rebellion of Midweek.”
A truly tragic failure.
10/10 would watch again.
The next day.
The Grand Throne Hall was oppressively quiet, the kind of silence that came before lightning struck.
I stood before the royal dais, my boots still scorched from sparring practice, a bit of soot on my sleeve from deflecting a misfired spell earlier. I hadn’t even been given time to wash off the battlefield dust before they dragged me in here.
Across from me stood Lord Butterfuss III—a pompous noodle of a man with a mustache that looked like it had been glued on by a blind squirrel. He adjusted his lace collar and gestured dramatically toward me like he was about to faint from offense.
“She threatened a noble family, Your Majesty!” he boomed. “She burnt Lady Algebra’s hair—again—publicly! This lightning menace is an embarrassment to the knighthood! She must be stripped of her title before her savagery scorches the entire court!”
Gasps echoed like ripples on water.
I raised an eyebrow. “You mean the same 'noble lady' who stormed the gates with a turnip cart and tried to curse me with a frog?”
Butterfuss turned purple. “Irrelevant!”
“No. That’s exactly what I am,” I said, voice calm and steady. “Relevant. You people just don’t like that I don’t curtsy when you lie.”
The king shifted in his throne, stroking his beard and smiling. The Queen sighed and whispered something to him behind a fan. And then…
The voice that silenced the room.
“I object,” came a calm, commanding tone.
Every head swiveled. Prince Damian Lucien—seated beside the throne, regal in storm-blue robes with a silver sash—stood slowly, one hand resting on the pommel of his ceremonial blade.
“If you lay a single accusation against Lady Abigail,” he said clearly, “you do so against me.”
The court collectively forgot how to breathe.
“I beg your pardon?” Lord Butterfuss stuttered.