Later, after the dinner, the family had scattered to their own chambers and the candles had burned low, while Zaiveil found herself back on the balcony where Zyrcus had first shown her the kingdom, staring out at a sky thick with unfamiliar constellations.
'Five continents. A hundred kingdoms and sects and hidden realms I've never heard of those things before. A power inside me that no one still knows, and there's lot of new things here, that i need to fully understand, so i could survive.' She thought
It should have frightened her. Perhaps, it would have before, but now that she experienced lot's of things in gaia and an otherworldly experience in their travelled through the cosmos, an emotion queitly grew within her, and it's excitement.
But standing here now, wrapped in the quiet hum of a palace that had waited for her return, Zaiveil found something unexpected threading through the uncertainty.
She wanted to see all of it. The kingdoms beyond Celestia's borders, the sects scattered across Creignmeia, even the dangerous corners of Easthemeia she'd been warned so carefully away from.
She wanted to understand this new world before her. A world where charms exist, a world so different from gaia.
Footsteps sounded softly behind her, and she turned her head slightly to find Elder Cryzton approaching, he's leaning heavily on a carved wooden staff, his strength still not fully returned from the toll of the Spirit Flesh Severance he cast before.
"You should be resting instead of being here, Elder Cryzton" Zaiveil said, an unfamiliar warmth of concern threading into her voice.
"And you should be sleeping, my princess, yet here we both are." He settled beside her at the railing with a tired but contented sigh. "Your mother tells me you've had quite learned some things this evening."
"That's right, the Continents and those prestigious Sects. Charmers and their charms. The Elysium ranking." Zaiveil paused before continuing her words. "And the Abyss."
Something shifted behind Cryzton's weathered eyes, it's an eyes that reflected caution and something similar to fear. But he carefully masked it off.
"That is quiet a lot of information but there's more for you to learn. And I'm looking forward to your future in this world, and i'm sure you'll like it here more."
"Indeed, there's still too much to learn in this world" Zai reply
"You will need knowledge, my princess, but not tonight. Tonight, you should go back into your chamber and simply rest. Let yourself relax and feel the belonging of your soul in this world."
"Alright, I'll go back on my chamber now and take a rest. I bet you need to do the same too, Elder Cryzton." She softly said.
After she said goodbye, she turned back towards her chamber, leaving Elder Cryzton alone beneath the dazzling stars of Creignmeia.
While somewhere far beyond the palace walls, across the shimmering stars of Creigmeia. There's something ancient stirred awake, in answer for her return.
The once asleep ancient being is no longer entirely asleep, due to the return of Zaiveil Hyeleux.
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Zaiveil woke up to the sound of a muffled shouting somewhere down the hall, followed by a loud crash, and what sounded like a yelling of Zyver
"It wasn't supposed to do that!!" he shouted at the top of his lungs.
She sat up slowly, blinking at the sunlight streaming down through her window, and found herself slightly smiling before she'd even fully processed why.
'Chaos before breakfast. I need to be used to this, because it would surely happened often' the first things that comes to her mind this morning
By the time she'd dressed and made her way towards the dining hall, two servants she hadn't met before were sweeping something faintly smoking out of a side corridor while whispering to each other in tones of long-suffering resignation.
"Good morning, Princess Zaiveil" one of them said brightly, straightening at the sight of her despite the soot on her apron. She was petite, round-faced, with an easy, chatty warmth radiating off her even at this hour.
"I'm Niri! And this is Nalu." She elbowed the quieter girl beside her, who offered a small, dutiful bow without a word.
"Was that Fourth Brother Zyver?" Zaiveil asked, eyeing the scorch marks along the corridors wall.
"It's indeed Prince Zyver," Niri said cheerfully, as though this were simply an accepted law of the universe.
"Prince Zyver blew up a cauldron in the east wing test kitchen roughly twice a month. So we've started keeping spare buckets nearby just in case it happened again, Princess Zai."
"I see," Zaiveil said, filing this information away with the same seriousness she once reserved for mission briefings.
"The prince always says that it's for the sake of his experiments progress." Nalu added quietly, her first words, delivered with such flat deadpan that Zaiveil find queit amusing.
"You guys do your work, I'll go have my breakfast." Zaiveil said goodbye to them before leaving
As it turned out, the breakfast was a delayed for queit a while, on account of Zyver arriving fifteen minutes late with singed eyebrows and the distinct, defensive posture of a man who knew he was in trouble.
"Don't say anything, just eat." Heriot said before Zyver could even open his mouth.
They are used to Zyver's antics where whenever there's a failed experiments he would sulked and couldn't stop talking.
"I wasn't going to!" Zyver denied
"You were actually ready to talk out loud again, If I just didn't stop you." Heriot replied
Zyver just roll his eyes then focus on his breakfast.
"The formula was.." Zyver then uttered queitly, he's sliding into his chair and reaching immediately for the bread as though nothing at all had happened in his morning. "The cauldron simply disagreed with my theory." he whispered but those words still reach the people closes to him.
"Cauldrons doesn't disagree, Zyver. Those cauldrons exploded because you keep adding one more ingredients after the other. That's the whole reason why those cauldrons keeps on exploding when you're experimenting" said by Herox, contradicting Zyver's thoughts
"No!! That's how discovery works, Big Brother. If i wouldn't do that then what's the point of doing an experiment" Zyver responds.
"And that's how we lost lot's of good cauldrons last spring." Heriot sarcastically said while biting the bread in his mouth.
Zaiveil, watching the exchange with quiet fascination over her own plate, found herself asking, "How many cauldrons have you exploded, exactly?"
The table went momentarily silent as four brothers exchanged guilty glances.
"Zai, there's too many destroyed cauldrons too count, that's why we never tried to coint it. " Zyrcus said solemnly, and Zaiveil's small lips move into a smile and her expression was enough to send Zyver into a triumphant grin, as he personally thought that he accomplished something so remarkable.
"See that? She thinks it's funny." Zyver he said, pointing his fork at his siblings.
"She's just being polite," Herox said.
"Big Brother, I'm not being polite, I really do think that Second Brother clumsiness in his experiments is kinda funny." Zaiveil truthfully said tjat made Zyver grin even wider.