The Royal Deal

CCLXI - CCLXX

"Don't laugh! I'm still angry," Amethyst grumbled. Alexcent immediately shut his mouth. "Let's invite Pauline and Erina over for dinner," he said, hoping that would cheer her up.

"All right," Amethyst agreed, relaxing a little. They packed up the booth and headed home.

"How are your legs?" She inquired after seeing him falter in his steps a little.

"They're fine."

"I was heavy right?"

"Yes." Realizing his mistake, Alexcent quickly took his word back, "No. You weren't that heavy."

"Yes? No?" Amethyst pretended to kick Alexcent.

"Sorry!"

***

The founding day festival ended, and life started returning to normal. Alexcent kept trying to find a way into Amethyst's heart, but she didn't show any weakness. As he lay in his bed, he pressed into his memory all of the faces she had made that day: smiling, frowning, even glaring. Anything she did made him smile.

The full moon sent silver beams into his room, that flickered on and off as clouds passed by. A strange presence made him suddenly sit upright in his bed. There was someone outside, he was sure of it. He quickly dressed and crept downstair silently, so as not to wake Amethyst.

Deactivating the defense magic, he opened the front door and headed outside. Across the reflections of moonlight, on the river in front of the shop, a shadow passed. And from the darkness the shadow spoke to him.

"It's been a while, Your Majesty."

Alexcent recognised the voice immediately, "Gen?"

Gen stepped out of the shadows and into the dull light of the evening. He hadn't changed a bit.

"What are you doing here?" Alexcent asked in shock.

"I've come to take you home."

"Home?" Gen held out a sealed letter to Alexcent. It was from the Empress and bore the seal of the World Tree. Alexcent broke it open and skimmed the contents. He let out a short laugh when he realized that he was being paroled.

"This is earlier than I expected," Alexcent said, his mind reeling.

"Yes. There are problems all over the empire. The Empress can no longer handle everything alone."

"Problems?" Alexcent had certainly seen a few of them himself, but he thought Belice would be able to handle things a little longer.

"The biggest problem is the sea border with the Boron Kingdom. The problem arose after you were gone. They started to gain control of the sea. The empress did her best to stop it, but it seems a little too much for her."

"What has Roden been doing?"

"Duke Roden is trying to solve all the other problems. Also, the empress collapsed a few days ago."

Alexcent looked at Gen in concern. "Collapsed?"

"She's only been sleeping 2-3 hours a day. Some days, she doesn't even sleep half that time."

Alexcent wasn't surprised. It wasn't easy to monitor every corner of such a large Empire. Even when he was there to take on some of the work, the empress was still incredibly busy.

"I was hoping that everything would remain the way it was, but it appears that everything is going downhill."

"My apologies," Gen said, as if he was responsible.