“Again, My Liege! You are doing very well,” Ghayth The Fierce encouraged Karam.
Karam panted, and used his magic to pick up his training sword.
“No, My Liege, you must train your body, and not your magic right now,” Ghayth reminded him.
Quickly Karam grabbed the sword with his mouth and snapped his wings into position.
Ghayth stomped once, loudly.
A few servants rushed in and fixed new appendages on the training posts for Karam to attack. As soon as they were gone, Ghayth stomped one of his Camel hooves twice, and Karam flew into action.
Flying between the dummies, Karam sliced and kicked at them, cutting off wooden boards and clumps of stuffing as he went. Soon he had circled all around them and returned to the starting point in the training room.
Panting once more, he stood there on all fours, with his wings half- opened, waiting for the next exercise.
All together it had been two weeks since the assassination, and Karam was training himself hard.
As the Chief Advisor of Defense, Ghayth, who was a brown Camel known for his prowess in the arenas of his youth, decided to put Karam on a strict training regiment to fortify him in case somebeast tried to exterminate him with something other than poison.
On that subject, Kamal the Faithful had fired everybeast who worked in the kitchens and replaced all of them to ensure that nobeast would attempt to poison Karam.
It seemed that they were innocent, but just to be safe he fired them all.
Barely any of them made any complaints under the circumstances.
After that, extra food tasters were instituted to taste anything and EVERYTHING that Karam was about to eat, and guards were placed all around the dining areas in order to survey everything.
While Kamal ensured his protection from poison, Ghayth encouraged him to train hard in order to assure his protection from physical and magical harm.
While training under Ghayth’s command, Karam did his best to be strong physically, magically and also emotionally.
Unfortunately, he simply did not know how to handle his own emotions.
Although he wanted to cry, he held back the tears, pain, and fear, which led to him wearing a harsh, stoic mask every day.
The best way he found to let out that building stress was to attack the training dummies with everything he had. Every day he became more and more fierce, and it helped him to survive.
Thanks to Ghayth’s orders, Karam survived day after day.
Meanwhile….
“Once we have his confidence, we’ll start casually asking for more power; he’s so young and heartbroken he won’t be able to disagree,” Afzal the Tactician whispered to his partner-in crime.
“How long do you think that will take?” Heydar the Great snorted.
“Patience, Heydar--the best plans often take time,” Afzal replied smoothly.
Afzal was a grey-pelted Pegasus Pony whose talent for strategy manifested on his flank as a battle map Destiny Mark.
His black mane and tail were always groomed neatly, and his green eyes were sharp enough to notice the slightest details in the expressions of others.
His partner in crime, Heydar, was a maroon-colored Unicorn Horse with a deep brown mane and tail that was also neatly groomed.
Known for his magical prowess, Heydar had long ago decided that it was time somebeast other than an Alicorn ruled, and was glad to find that Afzal felt likewise.
Although they worked together, it was clear that Afzal had the most ambition, and would stand at nothing getting in his way. Heydar could tell it was best to never oppose him, so instead he joined him gladly, hoping to get his fair share in the coup which had already started.
The two had studied writings of radicals who declared that the nation should be ruled by a dynasty of a beast who was native to the area, and not by the Alicorns who were descendants of outsiders.
Over the years, Afzal believed more and more that he should be that leader, for Khayri had always asked him for advice the most, and everybeast knew that Afzal was the one who was most clever.
Surely, if he was the wisest, if even the kings valued him so much, then he should have the throne himself. He could probably do a better job ruling than any Alicorn could. Indeed, Karam had no idea that Afzal and Heydar were planning on making him a puppet king as they slowly took over, planning to kill him at the last moment.