Crowned Prince | hendery

38: Lost Resolve

The Academy has never looked this daunting until now.

While the count stands behind the three. He was contemplating, while his body followed the princess' plans. For the longest time, his ideas and beliefs were built by the academy. His knowledge of war, mathematics, and the sciences was built upon the same academy that might have orchestrated the largest war in the recent century.

As his foundations came crashing down so did his–

"Count Illia!" The princess stopped walking and he was now standing in between the three.

"Yes, Your Highness."

"Is there something that distracts you?" Her eyebrows knit together as she gives him a good look.

The count blinks his eyes a couple of times. "There is none–"

"Whatever it is that bothers you," she pauses, gives him a stern look, "you are given all the time to think about it once we are safe behind the walls of your home." She turns around and continues leading the group. "There is no need to increase the number of dead."

♕

From the upper deck that watched over the walls of the academy, the guards do not catch a glimpse of the four as they enter into an entrance only known by the kids who went to the academy when Hendery and Illia were students, a path the two created in hopes to escape during the evening.

A manifestation of their youth and rebellion.

As Taeha watched the count whose mind began wandering since the princess' questions of the academy, moved rocks off the ground by the walls of the academy, the princess couldn't help but look up at the image of the place she had always dreamed of.

"It appears other students have not found this path." As the count lifts a sheet of woof odd the ground.

"Why are you so sure?"

"The wood is free from vandalism."

Taeha catches a glimpse of the flimsy piece of wood that the count was holding. On top of it, there were a few names written on it, but there was one that stood out. 'Guangheng,' a name he only used out of formality, but one that not even his people call him. It was written in a handwriting that both resembled his handwriting and no longer resembles his penmanship. She was trying her best not to allow emotions to get to her, just as it was when she abruptly left the camp earlier.

A blatant reminder of how she was rescuing a possibly lifeless and beaten-up prince.

♕

The Gallant Ali was behind the whole uprising of Farox– it was not the kingdom alone, but the whole conspiracy of the academy simply to get him back. It was not the kingdom's own doing.

As he runs this through his head multiple times as he continues to play dead, he could not believe it himself. What sort of evidence will he have against the academy, when people of the highest decision-making bodies in the whole continent believe much more in the words of an unfavored crowned prince over the scholar that molded their capability to analyze, think, and re-evaluate– yet it seems that all of that was a mere front to the deep dark back it carried.

Then he heard the door swing open, quite aggressively as it hit the wall with the impact that it nearly made him jolt and blow his cover.

"Your Highness," a soldier or someone that serves him speaks as if he is catching his breath, "the west side of the capital is being attacked."

"Then seize them just as you have always done! Bring in backups–"

"That is not possible, Your Highness." The panic was so evident in his voice. "As I called on back up for the west from the southwest camp, they too were under attack."