The freezing rainwater dripped steadily from Seris's heavy travel cloak, pooling darkly onto the pristine white marble of the Imperial corridor. Her entire body was trembling from the bone-chilling ride through the storm, but right now, the cold was the absolute least of her concerns.
She looked down. Standing directly in her path was an eight-year-old boy, glaring up at her with fiercely glowing, terrifying golden eyes.
"I won't burn you for now, because you protected my nephew," Prince Elian stated, his tiny voice dripping with the uncompromising, absolute authority of Kaelen royalty. He crossed his small arms over his chest, anchoring himself between her and the five-year-old. "But I ask the questions here. Who the hell are you?"
Seris's breath caught in her throat. She was a formally trained royal heir, yet she felt a genuine, instinctual spike of fear looking at this child. The raw, buzzing mana radiating from his small hands, combined with the terrifying heat of the Sovereign Red Phoenix perched aggressively on his shoulder, was completely overwhelming.
Seris quickly composed herself, violently swallowing her pride and bowing her head slightly in respect. "Forgive my sudden intrusion and my rudeness. I am Seris, the Crown Princess of the Jeal Kingdom."
Elian's glowing golden eyes instantly narrowed into highly dangerous, lethal slits. The little red bird on his shoulder squawked aggressively, its feathers flaring into actual, licking flames.
"The Princess of Jeal?" Elian demanded, stepping firmly backward to completely shield Leo behind his own body. "What is the Crown Princess of an enemy kingdom doing wandering around our highly secured palace in the absolute middle of the night? Are you here to kidnap my nephew?"
Elian raised a single, glowing finger, pointing it directly at her chest. "Because let me warn you right now, Princess if you even try to hurt my family, my big brother Zion will absolutely not forgive you. He will personally hunt you down, shatter your armies, and destroy your entire kingdom until there is nothing left but ash."
Seris opened her mouth, but entirely failed to find the right words.
How do I possibly explain this desperate geopolitical nightmare to an eight-year-old child? Seris panicked in her own mind, her heart hammering against her ribs. Should I tell him the absolute truth? 'No, little Prince, I am not an assassin, I am actually here to legally marry your big brother?' Absolutely not! He is going to think I am a total, shameless pervert talking about forced marriage in front of little children!
There is a profound, deeply humbling irony in royal politics: a Crown Princess can spend her entire life preparing to outsmart seasoned warlords and cunning diplomats, only to be completely, utterly paralyzed by the fierce interrogation of an eight-year-old boy protecting his family.
Before the agonizing silence could drag on for another second, the rapid clicking of heels echoed down the stone hallway. A frantic Royal Maid hurried around the corner, her face pale, bowing deeply the moment she saw the young prince.
"Prince Elian!" the maid gasped, desperately catching her breath. "His Majesty the Emperor has been actively looking for you. He urgently requested your presence in the main study."
The maid then turned her head, noticing the soaking wet, shivering girl standing in the puddle of rainwater. "Ah! Are you the Princess of Jeal? Thank the Original God I found you. The Emperor is waiting for you as well, My Lady."
"I see," Elian muttered darkly, the blinding golden glow finally fading from his small hands. He reached out and grabbed Leo's hand tightly, refusing to let the foreign princess get anywhere near the child. "Let's go, Leo. We shouldn't keep Father waiting. Stay close to me."
As Elian firmly pulled him away, little Leo suddenly stopped and dug his small boots into the thick Persian carpet. He turned around, completely ignoring the intense political tension, and looked up at the soaked, exhausted Princess of Jeal with a bright, massive, incredibly warm smile.
"Thank you for helping me, Big Sis!" Leo cheered innocently, his voice echoing sweetly in the cold corridor. "You saved my head from the scary stone! You're really brave!"
Seris's fierce, combat-ready expression completely and utterly melted. The sheer, unadulterated innocence radiating from the boy struck her directly in the heart. She offered a soft, genuine, teary eyed smile to the five year old orphan.
So, this is the orphaned child that the terrifying Second Prince adopted, Seris thought, her royal pride reforming like a warm suit of armor. The cruel political rumors in Jeal confidently stated that the Kaelen royals had adopted a savage, feral commoner from the mud of the slums to use as a political prop. But he is entirely, wonderfully different. He is flawless.
"You are very welcome, little one," Seris said gently, her voice cracking slightly with emotion. She stood up straight, wrapping her freezing cloak tightly around her shivering shoulders. "Well, let us go now. We have kept the Emperor waiting long enough."
The heavy, towering oak doors of the master study slowly pushed open. Seris, Elian, and Leo stepped out of the cold corridor and into the fire lit sanctuary.
But the atmosphere inside was incredibly, suffocatingly tense.
Emperor Aldric sat entirely motionless behind his massive obsidian desk, his giant hands folded together. Twenty year old Crown Princess Seraphina stood rigidly near the frosted window, her arms crossed defensively over her chest. I was standing highly alert next to seventeen-year-old Lyra, who was resting safely on a plush velvet sofa, wrapped in a thick fur blanket to protect her fragile, recovering core.
Emperor Aldric slowly looked up, his icy, glacial eyes bypassing the foreign Princess entirely and locking directly onto the eight year old Prince.
"You are late, Third Prince," Aldric said, his deep, rumbling voice carrying a strict, uncompromising fatherly tone that made the entire room feel heavy. "And why are you bringing Leo into a closed, highly classified political meeting?"
Before Elian could even open his mouth to proudly defend himself, Seris stepped swiftly forward, ignoring her own exhaustion, and bowed deeply before the Emperor of the continent.
"Please forgive him, Your Majesty," Seris intervened, speaking clearly and respectfully. "It is entirely, completely my fault."
Without missing a single detail, Seris quickly and honestly explained everything that had just violently unfolded in the hallway. She described how Leo had tripped, how she had recklessly thrown herself onto the hard marble floor to physically shield his head, and how Elian had fiercely, brilliantly protected his nephew by testing her true intentions with a highly advanced, disguised water-spell illusion.
Emperor Aldric listened in complete, unbroken silence. He looked down at Elian, who puffed his small chest out incredibly proudly, holding Cinder the Phoenix as if he had just single-handedly won a continental war.
Then, Aldric slowly turned his scarred head and looked directly, accusingly at me.
"I think he is becoming exactly, horribly like his older brother when he was little," Emperor Aldric sighed completely deadpan, violently rubbing his temples as if he felt a massive headache coming on. "Overly paranoid, aggressively overprotective, and immediately shooting lethal spells at innocent guests in the hallways before bothering to ask a single question."
"Hey!" I protested loudly, stepping forward and crossing my arms in absolute, defensive outrage. "I was never that bad! I asked questions!"
Seraphina violently snorted from the dark corner of the room, rolling her icy blue eyes. "Zion, do not lie to the Emperor. When you were eight years old, you literally blew up a high ranking noble's carriage with Light magic just because his horse looked at me the wrong way."
"The horse had a sinister, deeply corrupted aura!" I argued, my face turning slightly, embarrassingly red as Arthur who had just quietly slipped into the room through the side door burst into quiet, wheezing laughter.
Lyra giggled softly from the velvet sofa, her beautiful, melodic laugh instantly breaking the suffocating tension in the room. She leaned forward, ignoring the heavy political stakes for a moment, and smiled warmly at the five year old boy standing near the door.
"Leo, sweetheart," Lyra said gently, her voice radiating pure, undeniable maternal warmth. "This is a grown-up meeting, and we have to talk about some very boring, complicated things. Mia, Uncle Arthur, and Aunt Kaelia are waiting for you out in the grand indoor garden. Why don't you go out there and play with them for a while?"
Leo's wide eyes instantly lit up with absolute, uncontainable joy.
"Aunt Kaelia came?!" Leo cheered, literally jumping up and down on the carpet. He absolutely loved Kaelia because, unlike the strict Royal Tutors, she always secretly snuck him extra sugary sweets from the kitchen and taught him incredibly cool, highly dangerous wooden sword tricks when Seraphina wasn't looking. "Yay! I will go there right now!"
Leo waved enthusiastically to everyone in the room and sprinted out of the study at top speed, entirely, blissfully unaware of the massive, continent-shattering political storm brewing inside the four walls of the room.
This is the ultimate, quiet victory of a loving family: maintaining a shield so flawlessly strong that a child can run laughing through the halls, completely blind to the apocalyptic wars being fought to protect his smile.
Click.
Once the heavy oak doors clicked firmly shut behind the young boy, the playful, warm atmosphere completely and violently vanished.
It was as if all the oxygen had been sucked out of the room. The air in the study grew instantly heavy, returning to the suffocating, deadly serious reality of their situation. The smiles faded from Seraphina and Lyra's faces. My chaotic Three Aditya aura flared subtly around my shoulders, recognizing the impending threat.
Emperor Aldric leaned heavily forward, folding his massive, scarred hands on the obsidian desk. He looked methodically at me, then at Lyra, and finally rested his terrifying, absolute gaze entirely upon the soaked, shivering Crown Princess of Jeal.
"Now," Emperor Aldric commanded quietly, the sheer gravity of his voice demanding absolute attention. "Let us come back to the incredibly heavy topic at hand."