"The Imperial Army?"
Phestus’ curiosity wasn’t his alone.
Standing at her feet to get a better look at the incoming cavalry of Armoured Knights and carriages was Ciara. Her gaze was laced with caution.
But a subtle nudge from her mother’s hand lted it in a second.
At that mont, she glanced down at Kira who remained motionless. Just like the Jun sisters who literally froze with their gazes still fixed on her.
Ciara frowned, her thoughts reeling in.
’She called the Imperial Army?’
A conclusion she derived from the shift around her Mother.
To so, it may have just seed like a Mother holding her child carefully, but the timing...the tension, it was evident to Ciara that it was a carefully placed ssage.
One ant for her, alone.
But that didn’t an it didn’t pull suspicious gazes.
Thalia, though distraught, had seen that motion, and her entire being bet on the suspiciousness of it.
She would– could have confronted her, but the next announcent didn’t just make her heart sink. It made her entire world turn hollow.
Farther away, marching in an orderly, army line, the Knights ca to a halt and one jumped off his horse.
The King’s Herald.
His voice was loud, and its weight made the morning air still.
"Civilians of the Kingdom!" He began, as movent resounded in the air.
In confusion, the students glanced around, confusion etched on their faces.
Their eyes widened in surprise, so even beginning to chatter at the absurdity of what was happening.
The buildings. Tall. Small. Old. Young.
Housing civilians who had been behind their doors. Sleeping under the dark curtain of the night bashed through their doors in hurried feet.
In silence, they mingled with the students. Ignoring the evident shock on the students’ faces as they lined up the stairs, falling to a knee in perfect unison.
The students observed, so were confused, but many others were beginning to learn to understand.
One by one, they began to follow. Slowly at first, but increasingly with the flow of students.
Those who stood confused were not given the ti to remain so, because the next set of announcents weren’t just words...but a Command.
"BOW BEFORE THE KING’S GRACE!"
Like monotonous statues, the students fell to their feet in hushed Whispers.
Fatigue and confusion quickly erased in that very mont.
Only one thing stood now, and that was clarity.
Realisation that not just the Imperial Army arrived, but a being greater than that.
The Greedy King. King Tyson Swanstorm.
The Herald, basked in his white and silver, lustrous armour, turned his head as he witnessed the scene before him.
His flag held firmly in his grasp as he slamd its tal blunt against the earth with a resounding crack.
The world went silent.
All on their knees before the King, except–
The man stopped when his gaze, hidden behind his helt with a feather stuck on the back of it landed on two figures. Two sisters. The Juns.
A slow groan escaped his lips as his gaze landed on one of them.
The elder one. Rebecca Jun, her blue eyes cold as ice.
Her expression was hidden in a mask, devoid of emotion.
A simple battle neutrality that dared him to speak.
For a second, he contemplated it, but in the next, with the sound of the horses neighing and a do creaking open, he thought against it.
Shifting to the side from his position, he slamd his flag once more as he fell to his knees.
’Foolish girls of the Juns. Watch as the King punishes you for that foolishness, today.’
The carriage, gold and silver, stood behind him, magnificent and regal in its design.
A lustrous statue of a proud stock was anchored on top. An artistry of copper and iron. Glistening with the early rays of the Morning sun.
A leg stepped out of it, and the entire battalion fell imdiately.
"Glory to the King chosen by the goddess."
The king stepped out with a ridiculous aura of royalty. Basked in the words of his people as they chorused in the earliest hours of the day.
The King waved with a bright smile. Satisfaction laced in the depths of his crimson eyes.
His golden hair, frail and wavy glowed like starlight as the sun washed over it.
He turned around, slowly. The ever bottomless taste of superiority made his head swell, until it popped on landing on them. His daughters. That man’s keen.
The Jun’s daughters.
On a normal day, their defiance would anger him. Beacon him to place the heaviest punishnt on their heads, so he would watch their pride crumble before his feet.
But today? It was different. It held weight. A aning, one would never understand.
Why? Because of that child. That boy whom he had sought to trap under his claws...was dead.
So, with a hearty expression, his smile never wavered as he walked towards the kneeling students.
"Children of the Kingdom." His voice bood with enlightennt.
The will of the Kingdom. The embodint of his rule.
The students looked up to him in that mont. Their heads raised slightly to get a glimpse of Royalty.
Many had never had one co close to them. Not like this and not with real Royalty.
The others were simply his keen. Broken versions of the real thing, but as of now, that whole version stood before them.
If they were not awed, they would be completely frightened.
Because his aura held that much weight.
"You have suffered so...thrown in a fate that haunted you like animals for slaughter. Casted in a world you never wanted...a fight that asked for everything within you..."
His words. His voice, its aning. It seeped into the hearts of the students.
It raised questions and brought out hidden emotions. Locked up feelings that threatened to escape.
Then, like an award-winning actor, the King’s voice dropped to a low whisper.
Just enough for the entire street to listen without missing a beat.
"...but you survived. You suffered yet you healed. You set yourself free from the cage...the chains that bound you. That made you small.
Crumbling the weight of the world you once held dear..."
He stopped, sighing dramatically without losing the poise of a King.
"How pitiful you must have felt. How small...but..."
His voice rose, booming with intent as his steps drew closer. One at a ti, and stopped right in front of the sisters.
Thalia’s gaze forever remained stuck on Ciara who was now on one knee with her head slightly bowed.
Her gaze stayed, but her mind had drifted sowhere else.
Rebecca though, stood without a flicker of change. Not a word of worry. Not a pang of guilt as she locked gazes with the King.
For a few monts, King Tyson considered ripping that expression off her face.
He wanted to skin her alive.
The offspring of the man he had hated all his life.
The man who took everything with a strength that ca easily.
He had hated it. Hated them.
Even more so than the rest of the wretched Households.
The Juns were truly a clan of Monsters, and he would wipe them out, completely.
Though she deserved death, he chose patience and continued with his speech, still.
"...I will grant you solace and punish the Shadows that caught your light."
His words held aning. Far more aning than most would hope for.
Because at the end of his statent, sobs broke through the silence.
Tears and trembling bodies of students. Young and old who truly felt the touch in the King’s words and succumbed to the emotions that were once trapped.
The sobs made the air heavy for them all. mories of friends lost, and families who went missing.
For the Great Families...the Royal Households, and the common people.
***
A few minutes passed, and everything had resud as it were.
The people who ca out of their houses to greet the King all walked back in silence. Conversing occasionally with themselves as they headed back to their hos.
It had been tradition to step out on hearing the voice of the Herald’s announcent.
After all, their King was more powerful than any of their activities.
Sleep. Healing. Cooking. Sex. It didn’t matter to the King’s Guard.
They must stop to greet him.
Bound by the laws of Tyson himself.
"What a load of bullshit."
adow muttered as she stood on the sidelines. Her arms folded while Elsie, who had been standing beside her, turned to her with widened, curious eyes.
adow flinched under the attention and turned to her and their gazes locked squarely on one another.
Within each other, they navigated the feelings hidden beneath the surface.
And quite frankly, they couldn’t find anything.
’She’s at least two tiers stronger than .’
That ant it was impossible to read her thoughts.
’I have to work on that during this period.’
adow’s ability was handy, but it lost usefulness once faced with a powerful entity.
’Still...shouldn’t she be...sad?’
Elsie had dated Raph for at least a month after their short trip to find Plum Swanstorm.
’She...loved him, right?’
As if confirming her doubts, a third figure walked into the mix.
"Elsie, why do you seem fine?"
The girls turned to the source.
Rita Vinci stepped into play.
She had just been curious about the Princess’s reaction to the announcent a mont ago.
Raffaelo Jun was dead.
Kira had said it herself. Though, there was no thod of confirming it. The fact alone that it was said by Kira, the Witch of the West made it viable enough.
Elsie though, simply arched her brows as she glanced at them both.
She held her chest lightly...feeling the familiar sensation that gnawed at her.
Faint now, but nonetheless there.
She smiled as she glanced at the two, startling them, but her next statent did more than just startle them. It stunned them into silence.
"Because he’s not dead."
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