Alex sat on the sofa in the drawing room, a grand space furnished with four sofas arranged in a square. He sat alone on his, while opposite him, Princess Eva was seated, and his father, mother, and sister occupied the large sofa to his left.
Alex tapped his foot against the marble floor, his nerves tight with tension. He was extraordinarily anxious about his final result as it would be released today, which would decide whether he would gain admission into the academy or be forced to return to Drakethorne Palace to be confined once more. Though even if he failed, he hoped this time they would not cage him as they once had, that they would allow him to venture out into the world. It was dangerous, yes, but it was beautiful nonetheless.
"When will the butler return, Father?" Ariana squeaked, her small voice laced with anticipation for her big brother's result. Among all the suffocating tension pressing down on Alex, her voice was the most hopeful and comforting sound in the room. It was an indescribable feeling, the way it cut through his dread.
His heart was terribly thumping loudly against his ribcage, threatening to burst free, his chest tightening with every passing second, and he could feel that his palms were sweating terribly.
"He should appear any moment now," their father replied. He sat beside Ariana with his back pressed firmly against the sofa and his arms folded across his chest. He looked no better than anyone else in the room despite the stern face he carried. His hands had curled into tight fists at his sides, a quiet betrayal of the anxiety he was working so hard to conceal on Alex's behalf.
Alex turned toward his mother, who sat beside Ariana on the right. She seemed even more paralysed than the rest of them. She appeared to be biting the inside of her cheek, her knuckles had turned white, and her hands rested stiffly on her knees with her back held straight, her shoulders trembling ever so slightly with the anticipation she was struggling to contain.
Alex had expected that he would be able to rest after lunch, but the moment the meal with his family had ended, he had been ushered into the drawing room. They had not let him leave, though truthfully he had not made much effort to go either. He had stayed with his family, all of them waiting together for the butler who had been sent to fetch the results of the final exam, results which should be published at any moment now according to his father, who had explained to Alex that the rankings would be released the very next day after the battle concluded, since all examinees could be easily ranked by their accumulated points and the time they had spent inside the battlefield.
Alex gnashed his teeth. He had remained until the very end, alongside the elf named Lucian Vaelorian, the highest ranked examinee of the new batch and the prince of the elf kingdom, a fact he had only learned moments ago from the princess, as he knew very little about the other kingdoms. In truth, he knew only a modest amount even about certain noble families within his own empire, and that too only because he was expected to one day inherit the Drakethorne grand ducal house, which meant he had been made to study other grand ducal houses, the extent of their powers as they were widely known, and a handful of nobles who had distinguished themselves through remarkable feats.
But other kingdoms had remained largely foreign to him. Evernight was a boastful empire and the mightiest on the continent, and so the books he had been given never troubled themselves much with the affairs of other kingdoms and empires, despite how deeply curious he had always been about them. He had long suspected his parents were behind this, that they had quietly ensured he learned as little about the wider world as possible, fearing he would grow too fond of it and one day slip away from the walls that caged him.
That suspicion was not far from the truth. The lessons his tutors had delivered had been utterly dull, carefully stripped of anything that might have ignited a genuine hunger in him. Thankfully, Princess Eva had begun to fill those gaps in her own way, painting the world in the colours his books had always refused to use, telling him of the beautiful mountains and rolling hills that sheltered dangerous beasts within their shadows, and of so much more besides.
Thinking of the princess, his eyes drifted toward the sofa directly across from him. Princess Eva sat with her legs crossed, watching him with her black eyes. She raised her eyebrows when she caught the sharpness of his gaze, and he softened it, realising he had been narrowing his eyes at her as though he were throwing daggers. Her hair had been gathered into a small bun at the back of her head, and her eyes blinked at him with the same tension that was eating away at him. Her chest rose and fell with the deep, deliberate breaths she was drawing in to quiet her anxiety, and her fingers were pressed and pinching against one another in her lap.
The princess had not returned to the academy even though her classes would have already resumed today. She had slipped away alongside him yesterday, looking more ghostly and hollowed out than he had ever seen her, and his mother had taken her out on approved leave from the academy. The principal granted permission with an easy smile as though it were nothing. As far as Alex knew, there was a strict procedure governing movement in and out of the academy at night, and students were not permitted to leave the boundaries of the Silverine State that housed the academy grounds without proper cause and were mostly restricted to the dormitories provided by academy.
Suddenly the sharp sound of multiple boots striking the floor snapped Alex out of his daze. He turned his head toward the entrance and felt the breath leave him entirely at what he saw.
A man entered the room flanked by multiple knights clad in gleaming white armour. The man himself had white, moonlit hair that shimmered beneath the bright daylight pouring through the windows, and a build so commanding it seemed to radiate power from every measured step he took. His black eyes appeared to peer through the very fabric of reality itself.
The man looked to be somewhere in his mid to upper twenties, his frame regal and strong without being excessively broad, and he wore a black suit richly adorned with gold embroidery and fine chain. His face was deeply familiar in a way Alex could not immediately place, until he could. The same black eyes, deeper and more mature, the same fair skin that almost seemed to mirror the princess's own.
It did not take long for Alex to find out the man's origin who had so suddenly appeared inside his home with knights.
"Father! Why are you here?" Princess Eva shouted, leaping from her chair and rushing toward him. Her father. The emperor himself.
Before long, his own father, mother, and sister had risen and moved to stand before the emperor, and Alex followed along with them. His father placed a hand flat against his chest and bowed his head. His mother and Ariana followed the same gesture, and Alex followed the etiquette as well.
"Stand up," the emperor spoke, and his voice was commanding and distinguished like he was above mortal lives. It was strong and carried within it a weight of power that Alex had never encountered before, not from his father, not from his grandma, not even from his grandpa. None of their voices could have matched it. The emperor was, after all, considered the most powerful being in the entire empire.
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