𝐒𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐈𝐆𝐍𝐓𝐘 ━ 𝚠𝚖𝚖𝚊𝚙.

Chapter 22.

22一 gems or stars? they both glimmer like your soul

༻𖥸༺

For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.

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RETURNING TO THE PRINCE'S chambers from the mess hall, Hector found His Highness there quite alone. He was sitting on the carpet before the fire, with his feet playing at the edge of the hearth, and in one hand he was holding close up to his face a golden jewel; peering hard into its reflection, meanwhile humming to himself in his absentminded way.

But being now interrupted, he put down the precious rock; and pretty soon, going to the table on the far side of the room, took up a large book there, and placing it on his lap began reading the pages with deliberate regularity; at every fiftieth page stopping a moment, looking vacantly at the page before him, and giving utterance to a long-drawn sigh of tiredness. He would then begin reading again at the same fifty.

With much interest Hector sat watching over him. Overly polite though he was, and hauntingly beautiful about the face, yet he had a something in it which was by all means disagreeable. (You cannot hide the soul.) Through all his unearthly masks, the knight thought he saw the traces of a simple honest heart; and in his large, deep eyes 一fiery blue and bold一 there seemed tokens of a spirit that would dare to stand before a thousand devils. And besides all this, there was a certain lofty bearing about the imperial, which even his gentle manierisms could not altogether conceal. He looked like a man who had never cringed and never had had an opposition.

But the underlying issue of all this was not His Highness' personality. It was the fact that many looked upon him and saw a man when, in reality, he was barely stepping into adulthood. A child, by all means, whose shoulders carried a heavy and unnecessary burden.

Was this what Kassian had sought to show him? The discrepancies between the two faces of the prince? The portrait of a pure, young leader who was known for his innocence to the common people and the truth behind all of those masks一 a boy too tired of the world. It wasn't just the bone deep tiredness seeping from His Highness, but also an otherworldly wisdom shining in his eyes, a knowledge of the world that ruined the teenager's sense of self. His already tentative prospects at a normal childhood一as normal as one in his position could get一had often been interrupted or cut short by this or that. And, with any and all failed attempts at having the same thing as the other children, His Highness resigned himself with taking over the duties of his title.

"Your Highness." He gently called out, voice soft as to not startle the teen out of his readings. Jeweled eyes snapped up and focused on him, glowing in the dimming light of the room. "Perhaps it is time to rest." There was pleading in his tone, an unearthed desperation at having this boy stop trying to ruin himself.