𝐖𝐌𝐌𝐀𝐏: 𝐒𝐞𝐢𝐳𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐞

10: Athanasia, 'what is the key?'

Never give up on knowledge, it is the key to everything.

Athanasia eventually tells the emperor that she wished for her lessons to continue after that day.

She grips his sleeve and looks up at him as she holds Claude's hand. "F...father. Would you find us a replacement teacher?"

The emperor looks at her with an incredulous look upon his face before pride overtakes it. It seems he had changed quite a bit since she had come into his life, and with it, new emotions.

"Cyrene, dearest...and Claude," he adds Claude like an afterthought and albeit, clumsily, Athanasia catches at the corner of her eye, a shy- and happy- Claude.

His father had acknowledged him that day, and even now, and these little moments made Claude all the more expressive.

He had taken to trailing her around, calling her, "Elder sister!" and had stepped up in his other studies, if the reports to the emperor were anything to believe.

Claude hadn't always been shy in being intelligent during his studies, but bad experiences with teachers and his brother being wary of him possibly being better than him had Claude shrinking back, not any longer.

And Athanasia?

She didn't want to call too much attention to herself. She didn't want anyone to pay close attention to her at all.

But the fact of the matter was, she couldn't just leave it be. She didn't want him to feel as if he were alone in the world because- he wasn't.

So even if...even if her tremendous mana was called to question, she was going to stand by him.

And if her mana was looked up and down, who was to say they wouldn't send people to check herself over? 

If anyone looked too close, saw a single waver like there was too much heat upon the surface of her skin, she would be ripped apart until there was nothing left to research.

She couldn't go back to the hell that was waiting for her in the future, she had already tried. 

However, what if...what if, hell wasn't waiting for her, and was something she already held deep within her heart as the scars of her past?

Did it make her who she was today? Did it make her stronger? She couldn't deny that.

"I'm...proud that you two have decided to take up that subject again. I'll be sure to find a much more reputable and respectable teacher, so don't ever worry about such a thing happening ever again."

The empress' seat remained empty and no one at the table sought to mention this fact to the emperor who didn't give it any mind, not even Anastasius who was busy passing a napkin to Claude.

Athanasia gives the space a sly side-eye and pokes her fork into a bit of fruit, the juice spurting onto the white dessert plate like blood on snow.