𝐖𝐌𝐌𝐀𝐏: 𝐒𝐞𝐢𝐳𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐞

3: The Emperor, everlasting time.

The emperor, yes, what was his name again? 

She looked at his beard, the signature blond hair coming to his neck, the peerlessly bright blue gem eyes. 

Aevum. 

She wanted to scoff, maybe roll her eyes a little. Her name was much better. 

She wanted to give a reassuring look towards Claude but found herself unable to move when she finds the emperor right in front of her with a crazed look in his eyes.

"I thought you were dead!" 

"!?" Athanasia's shoulders were gripped with two large hands, gently however, but it rendered her small body immobile as she was forced to stare right into the eyes that were the same as hers. 

Did she mess up somewhere? The emperor had known of her existence? Had there really been another child that he had sired out there? 

"Eileen- where is your mother, child!" Athanasia was ever so glad she couldn't see the empress' face behind the emperor, she could imagine the rage she had in her eyes like fire from a dragon's maw. 

Athanasia didn't stutter her words as she told her story, but tears came to her eyes as she explained her sob story. 

"Mother and I were kidnapped by pirates a week ago, being kept hostage until grandfather could pay for our ransom but, but.." she burst into tears.

"Mother realized everyone in the family was dead except for us, and they were going to sell us as s..slaves!" 

A gasp fills the room as the emperor's mana slowly built in the room, a heavy dark golden colored haze descending upon the people's view of the scene in front of them. 

"They dared to murder and kidnap a ducal family's members in Sycansia...We thought their country was better than this when We let her go back then.." his gaze returned to her. 

"..and then?" his question was hard, furious. 

Athanasia didn't know much but with the information that her supposed mother was a daughter of a duke's family in Sycansia, she ran with it. "M..mother gave me time to run when the ship docked, I didn't want to but she blocked a mage's attack and..and .." 

Athanasia's shoulders hunched over, slowly being cradled by the emperor. "She gave me time to escape but mother- when I looked back, mother was already..!" 

She peeked at his expression through the tears, and noticed the blackened aura around him, electricity crackling off his uniform. 

A small smile crept onto her face and she moved back, and he tried to hold her again but she grasped his hand instead.

His hand that had blue electricity escaping his fist and he tried to pull back, in fear of hurting the child he hadn't known was still alive, then stares in absolute joy at how his newly found child brought forth blue crackles of her own. 

"The Imperial mana! At such a young age you've already...such is my daughter!" 

There were some murmurs in the background, for even if her fake identity was that she was born in the union of the emperor and a duke's daughter, it looked like her mother had never wed the man. 

Born out of wedlock, she was an illegitimate child, still a princess, but illegitimate.

Claude's mother, though a concubine, legally wedded, was of low status, not even a noble. 

In all technicality however, Claude's rank is still higher than hers, and the title conferred to her would most likely be on the lines of third princess instead of going by birth and saying second, or saying first for being the first daughter in the imperial line.