The Crown Prince Thinks I'm a Guy

The Storm Part 1

The test was simple. In fact, it came off as a game.

But, let's start from the beginning.

By the time the noontime bells struck, the seeded and non-seeded students were all gathered at the main hall. Much to my amazement, I saw a lot of my Sinus Fidei batchmates, most showing excitement, while others exhibited nervousness.

A select few, however, looked quite bored.

Prince Charles was one of them. Although he didn't look particularly disinterested, he looked as though he wasn't there to take an important test at all. When he saw me enter through the wide, double doors, he immediately made a beeline towards me with a wide smile, as though he was in a royal ball rather than an examination hall.

"Therion!" he shouted, making a few of the people around him to look towards me. I fought back the natural urge to blush in embarrassment.

"Hey, Prince Charles," I muttered back just as he stopped right in front of me. "Better we move away from the entryway. We wouldn't want to hold back other test takers."

"Oh, of course!" he started, and immediately urged me to walk on forward. With me walking side by side with the crown prince of the Empire, I wasn't so surprised to see how most of the other students, including the higher years with higher rings, began to look at me with particular interest. I tried to ignore their stares. I mean, it came easily. After all, I spent a good part of one life being the flower of the ballroom.

Their stares were far more heavily laced, though.

"Who is he?" I heard one student ask.

"Is he a royal? Or a high noble?"

"That's Eleftherion," an older student murmured loudly. "The wonder boy with commoner roots."

The corner of my lips twitched. 'Why do they have to keep giving me such distasteful names?'

"Wonder boy?" the smiling prince whispered beside me. I was annoyed when I realized how much taller he was compared to me. Well, I'll just have to blame it on our age difference.

"Well, I do wonder a lot," I replied with a blank face. "For one thing, I'm currently wondering why a prince would take the Test of Waning on his very first chance."

He blinked down at me, his warm eyes crinkled up in his smile. "I'm seeded, just like you. Well, but I do wonder a lot too. How come you're here, commoner boy?"

I grinned up at him. "It's not only the princes who get seeded, you know?"

He laughed. "I should have known! It would have been quite off if you weren't, with all the ruckus you've been causing."

Sneering at him, I said, "That really might be the criteria for getting seeded, because if so, I now understand why they chose you too."

He snorted, and then landed a small punch at my arm. I was about to retaliate when I remembered where we were and who he was. I could only smile back with evil eyes. "I'll let you go for that just this time, crown prince."

He shrugged with a pout. "Not like you could land a punch, anyway."

I was about to just curse all circumstances and hit him squarely on the face when our examiner teleported onto the center of the hall, where a small platform was erected just for the occasion. At his almost silent, but powerful, arrival, the whole hall mellowed down into stunned silence.

The man looked old, but also quite young... He was the definition of an ageless person, when youth was clearly gone, but time hadn't quite taken its toll yet.