All I Need ✔️

Epilogue

Kurzon sat back down on the throne, interested.

"This information is about Cassius then?" he asked.

"Yes your majesty."

"Go ahead."

Edward cleared his throat. "I would like to...ask for some protection first. A place to live."

The emperor eyed him, amused. "How about this for protection? If you tell me within the next minute, I won't have my guards slice you into pieces."

Edward gulped. "Okay, yes, that sounds fair," he stammered nervously. "Safania is Prince Cassius's weakness. He would do anything for her and he can't think clearly if he thinks she's hurt or upset or in danger."

"So the King cares for his Queen. Fascinating," Kurzon said sarcastically, staring at Edward with his dark, unblinking eyes.

"There's more!" Edward replied quickly. "There's more. Safania is marked. Like in the legends."

The Emperor exchanged a glance with Uigen. "Does the King ever share her with other men?" the Emperor asked.

"Never," Edward replied.

"If he isn't using her to her full potential, it's not that much of a threat," Uigen said to the emperor in Iradian.

"If you're talking about using her to get powers, I think that's a myth," Edward interjected, also in Iradian.

"You speak Iradian?" the emperor asked.

"Yes, your majesty."

The emperor raised his eyebrows. From what he had heard, Alterius hadn't required his men to learn Iradian. The cocky little bastard had been so sure of his superiority, he thought learning Iradian was beneath him.

Kurzon, on the other hand, knew it wasn't about superiority-it was about knowledge. Any advantage you could get over your opponent, like being able to understand what they were saying, could be the difference between defeat and victory. It appeared that Edward shared that philosophy, which in Kurzon's mind already made him smarter than the master he had served.

"Explain," Kurzon demanded, curious as to what Edward meant.

"King Alterius tried about every way you could to get her abilities. Then he let some others of us try. None of us were successful."

The emperor burst out laughing, making Edward extremely confused.

"I'm sorry," Kurzon told him. "That's just too funny. And honestly sad."

"What?" Edward asked, confused.

"If none of you were able to gain abilities from Safania, my only conclusion has to be that Perians are terrible at sex. Marked women transfer their powers during climax," he explained.

Edward froze. "How...how do you know that?"

Emperor Kurzon smiled. Then moving almost too fast for Edward to see, he leapt off his throne, ran to Edward, picked him up easily, and tossed him across the room. Edward fell to the ground, wheezing, the wind knocked out of him.

"Firsthand experience," the Emperor said with a smirk as Edward rose shakily to his feet. "We took Eir to try to capture the marked women who were rumored to live there. We let the other kingdoms think that we had failed, that it was all only a legend. But it was real – many of the women on Eir were marked."

The Emperor began walking slowly back to his throne as he continued. "Unfortunately most of them either died in the fighting or took their own lives upon capture. We got fewer than a dozen out of hundreds. You can imagine our disappointment. That was until we realized something. Do you know what it is we realized?" he asked Edward, surveying him closely.