CHAPTER 34
That question had once been whispered into the silence by a boy far too small, too broken, to understand why the world had turned so cruel.
And so, he did. He stopped crying.
That night, Azi knelt beside the window, knees bruised, his cheek still stinging. He looked up at the stars with hollow eyes, his tiny fists clenched, and whispered, "Why me?" But the stars, like everyone else in the palace, remained silent.
The next morning, the Emperor visited. Not to comfort nor to care.
He had been in a foul mood, and Azren, unlucky, unnoticed, was simply there.
A vessel to pour his rage into. With heavy boots and heavy hands, the Emperor dragged the boy down to the basement, a place no light ever touched.
The punishment came swift and unprovoked.
Azi didn't understand what he had done wrong.
But perhaps, he thought, existing was offensive enough.
He was not the heir they had hoped for. When he was born, the court had awaited the silver hair of the royal line, lustrous, gleaming, the symbol of divine right.
But instead, he was born with soft, raven-black hair and deep oceanic eyes, bright, piercing, as if he held the entire sky within them.
Too pale for a commoner, too dark for a royal.
A contradiction in the bloodline. His father had stared at him with thinly veiled disgust.
His mother had gone pale, lips trembling not with sorrow but fury.
But he wasn't. Not to them.
From that moment on, the Emperor lost interest.
And without the Emperor's favor, his mother's affection quickly turned to resentment.
Every failure she endured in court was redirected to him.
Every cold glance from the Emperor, every whisper from other nobles, she blamed it all on Azi.
His mere existence, his black hair, his quiet demeanor. All of it was wrong in her eyes.
And so the bruises came and whispers from the others.
He remembered wandering the halls at seven, too quiet to be noticed, only to overhear nobles laughing with their wine-stained lips.
He ran. He didn't know where to. Just ran.
Down gilded corridors, through side passages, until his small body collided with a servant in one of the lesser wings.
She looked down at him, unfamiliar, impatient, and when she saw no crest on his clothes, no guards trailing him, only bruises and tear-streaked cheeks, she struck him.
'Why does it have to be me? Why do I have to be born with this black hair? Why?'
From then on, he learned to smile without joy, to laugh without light.
He mimicked emotions, wore masks better than anyone else.
To the public, he was the gentle prince, the calm, soft-spoken son of the empire.
A porcelain boy with raven hair, ghost-pale skin, and a voice like snow falling in a storm.
But the nobles, the ones foolish enough to challenge him in the courts of power, knew better.
Behind his smile was a strategy. Behind his words was a manipulation.
The kind prince was a master of the game, and he played it well because playing was the only way to survive.
Still, he was never crowned. Never chosen. His mother's hope to make him the next emperor faded with each passing year. He remained a prince, not for his merit, but to preserve the illusion of a complete dynasty. A placeholder. A symbol. Nothing more.
He dyed his hair because seeing how black it is feels like suffocating to him. The Emperor never cared for his actions and so did her mother.
And yet... despite all that, something in him began to shift.
Ever since he met her.
She, who was defiant. She, who was unbroken.
She, who smiled not because she had to, but because she chose to.
Azi watched her like someone watching sunlight dance across a battlefield-wild, untamed, and breathtaking.
He had watched her stand before a Dreadmaw with fire in her eyes.
Watched her collapse after a confrontation no one could explain.
He didn't know the truth about her powers.
Not yet. But he wished he did. He wished he knew how to protect her from the weight she carried, the danger she walked into so recklessly.
And then, as fate would have it, he saw her, Sorayael, standing in the corridor just ahead.
For the first time that day, Azi smiled. A real one. Subtle, brief, but real.
And he walked toward her.
...........
The trouble had been dealt with swiftly, brutally, and without much fanfare. The upperclassmen now knew better than to provoke Sorayael or her group again. As they walked away from the rarely visited part of the Academy, tension dissolved into light laughter and familiar teasing.
She only shrugged, "They asked for it."
Kieran, shaking his head with a small grin, added, "Remind me never to get on your bad side, Sorayael."
Their banter lingered as they returned to the main halls, the sunset casting long shadows over the stone floor. But even as her friends laughed and teased, Sorayael's mind was already elsewhere.
'Where should I start searching for a job? What kind of job?'
.
.
Night had cloaked the Academy in a hush, shadows stretching long beneath the glow of crystal lanterns and moonlight. Sorayael crouched near the outer wall, scanning the grounds like a seasoned escapee.
'No allowance, no savings, and definitely no charity from the oh-so-grand Aethenroths. I need a job,' she muttered internally, adjusting the hood over her head. 'I'm poor!'
??_?? - Sorayael.
She braced herself to leap when-
She froze.
Turning around slowly, she met the unimpressed gaze of a certain someone leaning lazily against the wall, arms folded, the usual smug grin plastered across his annoyingly handsome face.
She flinched.
Azi blinked, then laughed. "Oh stars, you're serious."
Sorayael scowled, but a flicker of amusement crossed her face. "You're so annoying."
She shook her head, a smile tugging at her lips. "Fine. Tag along. But don't blame me if you end up scrubbing floors with me."
She raised a brow but didn't push it. As they slipped out under the stars, the night air was cool and crisp, Azi glanced sideways at her at the spark in her eyes, at the fire in her steps.
'She has no idea,' he thought. 'No idea who I am, or what I've done. And yet... she walks beside me like I'm just some guy.'
And maybe for tonight... that was enough.
Azi walked beside her, hands tucked into his pockets. He said nothing more, but as they slipped past the gates and into the quiet town beyond, he glanced up at the open sky and thought:
'Right.. unlike the suffocating walls of the palace, this... this freedom under the stars, this is where I was born to be.'
And this time, he wasn't walking alone.
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