Something bad is coming.
Aslan's heartbeat became faster and faster as the princess looked at him with a puzzled face. How could she not? Aslan seemed so scared. Suddenly, his heartbeat returned to normal, and his sweat stopped flowing. The feeling of danger subsided as a little noise was heard behind the door.
Then a man came into the room. It was Sir Galerion. He walked in hastily toward the prince, checking the prince and the princess for any injury. This smell... it is blood! Aslan thought.
"Are you two okay?" said Sir Galerion while checking Aslan and Arya.
"It seems that you are... Your Highness, I will now escort you both to the main ballroom," he said before grabbing them into his arms, his other arm used to cover their eyes. Thus, Aslan and Arya were walked to the ballroom, back to their parents.
In the ballroom...
Sir Galerion walked into the hall toward Emperor Darius. The Emperor's expression became tense. The Emperor... he is angry! Aslan judged by seeing the Emperor's face.
"So they did come. I didn't expect them to actually do it," the Emperor said, his face hiding incurable rage.
"I know it… You already anticipated them, right? I could feel something off earlier, as if something was watching us," Emperor Aethan added.
"Yes, I did. You must have noticed it during our conversation, a high amount of bloodlust suddenly rising and then disappearing," said Emperor Darius.
"So you separated us from the children," Empress Liliana added.
"We were expecting 20 assassins sent just in this ballroom alone. I sent them away to a special room, guarded more easily than this open space. 18 of them died here," Emperor Darius explained.
"To think that Darius would still be this sharp," Emperor Aethan sighed.
Were those maids also knights? Would it be possible? Aslan thought, questioning the possibility. He'd also noticed that the maids stayed outside, not inside—perhaps to prevent someone from entering. The room itself was almost closed. It didn't have a window, yet it was so bright. Perhaps it was also magic.
"Would you dispel the illusion of magic around us, darling? I think we ought to end it here," Emperor Darius said to Empress Liliana.
Thus, Empress Liliana dispelled the illusions clouding the people's view. From the people's POV, the Empress and the Emperor had done nothing but talk, and even their conversations were masked, turning them into camouflage. Yet Aslan realized some of the faces he had seen before were gone—18 of them—meaning that while everyone was unaware, the Emperor must have dealt with them, perhaps through hidden knights.
The Emperor then walked up the stairs before saying loudly, "Thank you for your presence today. I trust that with the current time, it is the right time to end today's meeting. The knights will see you to the palace exit. We also prepared some food made by the Empress herself. Again, thank you for your presence."
The Emperor's announcement sounded abrupt, but regardless, the crowd did not question it. Some even agreed that the day had become late, so perhaps it was time for them to return.
In Aslan's room...
So this is what it means to be born into power—danger follows like a pondered shadow, Aslan thought.
The Emperor had left with Aethan; now it was only the Empress, Aslan, and the Princess alone in the room. Both mothers were still cautious due to what happened earlier—truly, mothers' minds are alike. Both sat on the sofa inside the room, facing one another, Empress Liliana holding Aslan and Empress Aurora holding Arya. Empress Liliana then spoke, her voice soft.
"It is rather cold tonight, isn't it?" she said.
"Indeed, it is," Aurora said while carefully combing the Princess's hair.
"I thought it was done with us…" Liliana said, her face down. Aurora understood what she was talking about right away.
"I too felt the same. I thought that finally we could drop all of the problems away and just live as a happy family," she said.
"And yet time proved us to be wrong again and again. Life is like a wave relentlessly chasing us down," Liliana said while caressing Aslan.
"Peace created by violence was always temporary. Alas, the choices laid before us—none of them are without it," Aurora said, continuing Liliana's words.
At the memorial of the 3rd Imperial War…
Darius and Aethan stood among all the flowers in front of the memorial, on which four thousand names were inscribed. Aethan was holding flowers in his arm. He touched the memorial and then bowed before gently placing white flowers in front of it.
"I have not visited this since then," Aethan said.
"Last time you were here? Was that six years ago? How time flies," said Darius, now sitting in front of the memorial—no dignity of emperor to be held here, just him and his friend.
"You know, I hoped for at least our children to be spared any of this, to not be in circumstances we found our butts in years ago," said Aethan, before joining Darius, sitting beside him—two emperors sitting in front of the memorial with bottles of alcohol beside them. A rare sight, honestly.
"Yeah, despite knowing it, I still wished it would not happen, praying to God that my feelings were all just my thoughts taking hold of me, praying for once I'd be wrong," said Darius, before drinking a bit of alcohol from the bottle.
"Well, we could always count on our dear world to screw us over now and then," added Aethan, while taking a sip from the bottle.
"Well then, cheer for this stupid world," Darius said while hailing the bottle up.
Both of the friends spent their time there beneath the canvas of night in the cold wind, just drinking and cursing fate along the way .Even in such a predicament does that friendship stand, such is the friendship between them.
Two emperors, two old fools, laughing at a world that had never once laughed back.