"Please, Father, release me!" Alex shouted, punching his fist against his father's arm that had wrapped tightly around his waist. He wanted nothing more than to be freed from that iron grip, but his father had lifted him clean off the ground and held him so firmly that he could not slip away even by an inch.
"I don't want to be separated from him!" Princess Eva screamed at the emperor, clutching his hand with both of hers, her lower body pressed desperately against the floor. "I hate you, Fath—" Her words stopped in their tracks and did not find their end. The Emperor did something, some kind of spell or skill, and her eyes rolled shut as she crumpled. Before her head could meet the cold floor, a knight appeared swiftly at her side and caught her with a steady, practiced hand.
"We are done here." The Emperor turned on his heel and spoke in a voice that carried no warmth, no room for argument. "From this point forward, your son is free, exactly as you always wanted, Shane."
The emperor gathered his daughter into his arms and began walking toward the door. His steps were slow and steady, full of an unhurried calm, as though a great and suffocating burden had finally been lifted from his shoulders. His knights fell in behind him, their armour clinking with each stride, their boots striking the floor in a rhythm.
"Please, Father, let me go! I will make His Majesty change his mind, I swear it!" Alex screamed at the top of his lungs, his fists hammering against his father's forearm in a desperate, frantic rhythm that refused to stop.
But Shane's arm did not move, not once, not even slightly, despite the relentless blows raining against it. Alex knew his punches were weak, knew they meant nothing to a man of paragon rank, a warrior whose body had long since been hardened beyond anything Alex could break as a level 1. But he did not stop, because stopping meant surrendering, and surrendering meant losing the only friend he had ever made, the one person he had held close to his heart.
Then, from the corner of his eye, he caught sight of his little sister.
Ariana was running toward the emperor with a force that spoke only of urgency, her small legs carrying her so fast that her knee clipped the corner of the sofa and nearly sent her tumbling to the floor. She did not stop. She did not even slow.
Before any of the knights could think to intercept her, before even one of them could reach out a hand, she vanished from her spot like a shadow dissolving into darkness and reappeared directly in front of the Emperor, her arms thrown wide to block his path. Her cheeks were soaked with tears, her small eyes blazing with a fury that seemed far too large for her little face, and everything about her expression said that she would not move, that she refused to allow whatever nonsense was unfolding before her to continue for a single moment longer.
"You are a bad person!" Ariana screamed, her small fists clenched at her sides, her eyes screwed shut so tightly that deep wrinkles formed around them. "I won't let you make my brother cry!" Her voice was startlingly loud for a child her age and it thundered through the closed room, bouncing off the walls and echoing back at them again and again.
And then something happened that was far beyond anything that could be considered natural.
Before anyone could do anything or even stop it, a black, ominous aura began seeping out from behind her, curling and swirling around her body like smoke given a will of its own. It circled around her at a pace so rapid that it wrapped her entirely and swallowed her from view. When the smoke thinned and her form became visible again, she had been transformed completely.
Her hair, which had always been a shade of blue, had darkened to a black so deep and absolute it resembled a night sky without a single star, the kind of darkness that seemed to pull at anyone who stared into it too long. The ribbon that had held her hair in place fell away, and her locks spilled free, fluttering and swirling around her face as though caught in a wind that existed only for her, the dark strands trailing wisps of the same black smoke in their wake. Her eyes, when she opened them, were no longer her own. The black of her pupils had been replaced by a silver star, sharp and luminous, and the white part of her eye had bled into darkness like ink dropped into still water.
"How beautiful." The Emperor regarded her with something that was almost wonder, and then his expression shifted, settling into a quiet, unmistakable regret. "You have been chosen by Ceira, the goddess of darkness. How truly wonderful. If even a fraction of your talent had resided in your brother, I would have gladly allowed this marriage to happen." He shook his head slowly, as though he had tasted something deeply disappointing.
"You will regret this." Ariana's voice had changed. It no longer belonged to a seven year old girl. It was deep and unhurried and carried the kind of weight that only years and suffering could place behind words. Her feet left the floor as she rose into the air, her clothes and hair billowing around her despite the complete absence of any wind. "You will regret this, Emperor James." She spoke with her eyes gazing deeply at the emperor, and her voice filled the room like an announcement rather than a threat.
Then, as suddenly as it had begun, it was over. Her dark hair bled slowly back to blue. The fluttering of her clothes and the wild dance of her hair went still. She descended from the air in silence, and Sera rushed beneath her just in time to receive her gently in her arms.
"Regret?" The Emperor repeated the word as he turned toward the door, something almost scornful settling into his tone. "Gods should live in their realm and not bother with mortal affairs like they always do." He resumed walking without another glance behind him, and this time no one moved to stand in his way.
But Alex kept screaming. He kept pleading. His voice tore through the room and not a single person acknowledged his pain. His agony. As though it did not exist, as though he was not there at all, as though they were deaf to him.
"Don't take her away," he begged. "Please, just give me a chance to prove myself." He knew why this was happening. He knew it was because he was weak, because he remained stuck at level one while the rest of the world moved ahead, advancing their levels one after another, and because of that weakness alone, the princess was being taken away from him.
Alex wanted nothing more than to wrench himself free, to run after the emperor, to drop to his knees before him and press his forehead to the floor and beg him with everything he had, to promise the emperor that he would grow stronger. That he would reach the heights expected of him, that one day he would become someone worthy of the princess.
But he was given no such chance, no such moment, because his father would not release him, and Shane's arm remained locked around him like an iron bar that no amount of tears or fury could make him loosen the grip.
The Emperor passed through the doorway of the drawing room with the princess cradled against his chest, and his knights followed behind him one by one, their armour clanking softly with each step.
Alex felt his chest tightening, his breath growing shallow, his heart pounding so hard against his ribs that it almost hurt, screaming at him to chase, to move, to do something. He shoved and pulled and clawed at his father's arm with everything he had left, and still his father did not move, did not speak, did not offer him even a single word of comfort or explanation no matter how much Alex cried and begged and broke apart in front of him.
And then the last of the knights stepped through the door.
No one turned back. The Emperor did not look over his shoulder. Not even once.
His parents did nothing, they said stayed silent. They offered him no answers to his plea. They had colluded with the emperor, and Alex had never felt so utterly and completely alone in his life.
***
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