Before long, Alex was put to sleep by some spell or skill his father had cast, and his tear-filled eyes fluttered shut as the punches he had been throwing against his father's arm grew weaker and weaker until they stopped altogether. His father's arm remained locked tightly around his waist the entire time, unmoving, unbothered. Alex had already lost whatever strength remained in him the moment he saw the emperor walk out of the drawing room. After that, whatever his father had done simply made his eyelids grow too heavy to fight against, and in the very last moment before sleep took him completely, his lips parted and he whispered, barely audible, "I can't live without her," and then he went still in his father's arms.
When Alex opened his eyes, he found himself waking up in his own bed, in his bedroom filled with every sort of luxury, with twinkling white marble floors and a chandelier hung from the ceiling and pale light streaming in from outside the window. The room that had always felt familiar and peaceful now felt daunting and haunting to Alex in a way it never had before.
And before Alex could throw himself out of the bed, he found his hands being tightly held by his mother, who was sitting on the bed beside him with her legs crossed, her azure hair falling messily down her back, uncombed and tangled, and her azure eyes had red veins threading through the whites, and her face was filled with a deep, quiet sadness as she sat with her lips pressed shut, not uttering even a single word.
"It is too late," Sera said in a voice heavy with resignation and regret, and she added, "The emperor has already left. There is nothing you can do now."
"No, that can't be. I know if I plead to her majesty, the empress, then she might be able to resol..." But before Alex could finish his sentence, his mother pressed her index finger gently over his lips, silencing him.
"You cannot, Alex. Stop this childishness," Sera said in a voice so low he nearly missed it, her tone torn between what to say and what to keep to herself, and she added as she tightened her grip on his hand, "You are a grown man now. You have to move forward and look toward the open possibilities that life still holds for you."
"But what about our feelings? What about what we want?" Alex screamed at his mother, unable to understand why she was being so passive instead of fighting against such a sudden and arbitrary decision made by the emperor without asking the wishes of those directly affected by it, those being Alex and the princess herself. He added desperately, "Please, do something, Mother," and he jerked his mother's hand away and joined his hands together and bowed his head toward her, unable to understand why his parents were no longer standing for him, why they had allowed the emperor to void the marriage agreement without raising a single word against it.
"I don't have the power to do anything. The emperor is too powerful for the likes of us," Sera said with a voice drained of all its usual warmth and strength, like something hollow had taken root inside her chest, and she patted his hand and ruffled his hair the way she always did whenever he was sad or crying, and she drew his head gently down onto her lap to soothe his nerves, and she added, "The vow binding the marriage has already been broken, and the princess has been engaged to the prince of the elf kingdom."
"What!" Alex shouted, lifting his head sharply from his mother's lap, his eyes blinking in rapid succession as he struggled to absorb what he had just heard. His head began to ache and before long he felt his chest tightening painfully, his heart hammering against his ribcage, and his hands growing cold and slick with sweat.
"Call the healer," Sera called out immediately, turning sharply toward the door of the room, and the maid who had been standing guard just outside ran away at once to fetch one.
"Take deep breaths, son," Sera said, trying to calm him, and she pulled him into a tight hug and began to move her hand slowly and lovingly across his back, her other hand resting gently on the back of his head as she pressed his face against her shoulder. "Long, deep breaths. Inhale slowly, and then exhale."
Alex wanted to push his mother away and demand to know how it was possible that the princess could already be engaged to someone else when just a few hours ago she had been engaged to him, as the marriage agreement had just been broken. It was just too sudden that Alex felt his head would explore wrapping the reality in his mind.
He wanted to ask what had become of her feelings and of his own, whether any of it mattered at all to anyone. But then, as though a dam somewhere deep inside him had finally given way, tears began to roll down his face, and unable to stop himself any longer, he sobbed quietly against his mother's shoulder, shaking in her arms.
"You have to be strong now and handle yourself, son," Sera soothed him in words that were calm on the surface and yet carried beneath them a current of sadness and frustration, the frustration of a mother who understood deeply how much Alex had treasured his bond with the princess and yet could do nothing at all to mend what had been broken.
"Also," Sera said after a long moment, her voice lifting ever so slightly with something cautiously close to happiness before it dimmed again, "your results for the final examinations are out." She paused and then added, more quietly, "And your classes will be starting tomorrow."
Alex barely heard the first part, but when the second part reached him, it was as though a hammer had been struck against the side of his head, and slowly the realization of it settled over him, and he asked in a hurried, breathless voice, "How long was I asleep?" His voice caught and broke on the words, and his tears had not stopped, not even upon learning that he had been accepted into the academy he had always dreamed of joining and that his classes were beginning the very next morning.
It should have made him smile, it should have filled him with the excitement he had carried for years at the very thought of it, but none of it registered, none of it reached past the grief and the pain sitting heavy in his chest, the hollow ache of having lost the princess from his life.
***
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