The sky was dark the sun had long since fallen down replaced by a shining moon instead with the stars covering this curtain of night over my head as I walked this paved stone walk in front of me.
The city was quiet not entirely quiet as to say rather filled with sounds of snoring and faint breathing people were already sleeping very soundly,but not every person was doing so the walk I walked on wasn't entirely empty either with people still walking around through the dark.
Some of these people were wobbling around blabbering incoherent words to themselves their noses and cheeks dyed red while also reeking heavily of alcohol these kind of people I could see very so often sometimes one or even up to three jumbled together having a good time making this night lively for themselves enjoying their lives as it was.
Of course drunks weren't the only people walking around if I had to list them all there would many different kinds of people that walked these streets in the night some of which wouldn't even dare to show their faces in bright daylight people who were attached to the dark more then the light and felt comfortable with it lurking in the shadows doing their sort of work that left you something to be desired with.
In either way I didn't care much my eyes were only directed down towards the ground concentrating on my feet while walking straight aimlessly following the road up ahead of me trying to back track all the way back where I originally started from,my mind vaguely drifting towards the words the knight had shared with me in the abandoned alley way.
The knights are sworn to their blades promised to protect and serve the empire they were loyal subjects to the nation and never considered any thought of betrayal towards their homeland giving an oath to follow the royal decree meaning the imperial family which they needed to protect no matter what so the empire could continue striving forward from any danger or cause by also following their orders no matter what.
These three knights could be considered incredibly unlucky that night as they had been ordered by the prince himself to escort a different royalty and that specific royalty without surprise turned was sera as she had some kind of business in the other part of the city that she needed to do for some reason,these knights never asked questions they weren't supposed to as they were simply bodyguards who were only there to protect that important someone with their life they didn't know what was going on only following orders as he said,quite useless in terms of information,but he did tell me that this business was private even hidden from the emperor himself meaning that the prince didn't want him to know that he escorted the princess to the outer part of the city for some reason.
The case was getting a bit foggier,the pieces were only getting confusing the more I tried to put them together and this so called prince of the empire had his hands in a lot of shady parts of this puzzle my current knowledge was just too insufficient to make a clear deduction,but one thing I knew...if I can catch this prince and question him then I am sure I won't need to reassemble the pieces myself.
Considering the prince himself I knew a few things about him,on the way here scar had told me about the imperial family the prince particular is the person she hates the most with a good reason,she knows him very well as she had met him more then a few times when she lived in the city in the aristocratic streets meeting the emperor himself together with her father a few time inevitably also encountering the prince.
His name was malkarin bahan he is the first prince of the empire and the elder son of the emperor previously he was the crown prince who was supposed to succeed the throne after the emperor,but after sera came back the emperor quickly changed his mind and de-crowned the prince making sera the next successor to the empire for some odd reason.
The details weren't very clear,scar herself didn't know the reason for why the emperor would do such a thing the whole population of the empire was set into the dark in this area and the emperor himself refused to give his reasons as to why he decided to do such a thing,this event is actually very fresh since it had been only close to a week since sera came back to this realm.
In either way another notable thing to keep in mind is that malkarin and sera aren't from the same mother,the emperor throughout his reign had married two individual woman after succession these two woman are also individually malkarin's and sera's biological mother's the first woman being of course malkarin's mother also the first empress called vaneshia bahan.
There was not much known about the first empress,in my knowledge that is since scar hadn't quite touched me up on the topic only telling me a small amount being that the empress herself didn't seem to be a very important person,she was originally supposed to be a law keeper inside the imperial castle keeping the other nobles in line so they wouldn't cause any havoc or do mischiefs and also regulating other ground imperial work while the emperor was away on his own work trips through the empire,the empress had never shown herself that often she had been mostly confined inside the castle making it so that not many had seen her face she seemed awfully secluded as scar described her to be very shy of other people rarely coming to participating in banquets or other pleasantries,nonetheless the emperor seemed to be still very happy with his wife at the time scar remembered that when she and his family would visit the emperor he would always have that big smile on his face no matter what,sometimes even brag about his wife who seemed to be one of the most beautiful woman in the whole nation at the time also incredibly proud of his son...at the time scar herself did't much think of malkarin as anyone bad or hated she even seemed to have been on a pretty good ground with the prince when they were young of course scar detested this idea the most as she had a completely different opinion of this so called prince now.
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Fast forward a few years later a tragedy occurred,the first empress was taking a ride with a carriage to another major city it was one of her first times to actually visit another place other then the capital city which was the place she was born in,her anxiety was strong and she seemed to have not been in a very big opinion of leaving the castle for simple entertainment she was a hard boiled woman who couldn't stand still at one point without doing anything,she worked very hard and the emperor himself was getting worried about his wifes mental and physical health so he suggested her to take a break instead and relax herself,it was said that the place she was visiting was very widely known to be a location of pure entertainment and relaxation in the end even the wife couldn't just go against the words of her husband the emperor himself nonetheless she submitted,but still didn't seem to like the idea a lot as if she had a bad premonition to what was going to happen next.
At the time her own son malkarin the prince was also in the carriage with her wanting to spend some more quality time with his mother who was busy all the time,the major reason why the first empress even agreed to go on this trip so willingly was largely because of her son which she adored,but didn't have time to play with even though she was a empress she was also a mother foremost caring for her child was a matter of course so she also wanted to have good memories with her son.
With the way scar told me about the story it seems like the emperor to this day regrets to have had send both his wife and son away,it was not like it was his fault for what happened that day,but he blamed himself largely and needed a lot of time until he could recover from that hit.
That day when the first empress was being transported a army of bandits suddenly appeared out of nowhere charging towards the royal carriage.
Of course the carriage wasn't just escorted without a single guard the carriage was protected from all sides with powerful and royal knights who would be willing to sacrifice themselves for the imperial family they were all harshly trained elites some of which had personally undergone the emperors training themselves hailed as the most strongest and powerful from their kin ranging from all kinds of races that were both dark and white skinned,from tall to small.
It seemed as if the bandits were simply nothing in compared to the royal knights something to be easily slaughtered by the knights,but sure enough that wasn't the case.At the time when the army of bandits were attacking,the knights had effortlessly slaughtered their bodies in two the fight seemed as if it was won,but that quickly changed as one particular bandit out of the thousand soon started to rampage killing knights in tows all of a sudden slashing once and killing four in a cleave sometimes even killing its own companions without any single sign of hesitation.
The battle was bloody,the knights were shockingly suppressed by a single mad powerful bandit who crashed and slashed their defensive lines making his way to the royal carriage finally meeting his goal by piercing the heart of the empress with one thrust.
It was devastating,the knights could only watch in horror and shame as the person who they had sworn their lives protect had been literally impaled from their eyes that particular powerful bandit in turn also died soon after in a anticlimactic moment he seemed to have been possessed at the time by a power not even the knights could handle someone who had wished for the empresses death.
It seemed as if the while empire ran quiet for a small amount of time when the empress had been killed,the knights who were supposed to protect the empress all willingly kneel'ed in front of the emperor and asked their own heads to be cut off and be hung in front of the city walls in displace of punishment they were shamed to a level of utmost insanity some even straight out killed themselves not being able to cope with the consequences many families seemed to have been eradicated that day.
But the emperor was still,quiet,indifferent sitting in his throne room ignoring the sound outside his gates from his crying knights showing a very blank look in his eyes contemplating about the death of his loved one it isn't know what really happened to the emperor,but is known that it took a very long time for the emperor and the empire to recover some bit as it was a hard time,but in the end the emperor pulled it together being incredibly generous he forgave every knight at that day when they were supposed to protect his wife,he didn't say much and only told them to return to their post demoting every single one of their titles of a royal knight to that of a ordinary foot solider without even punishing them with death or anything else,it was a shock the knights couldn't quite handled very easily,but also a show of kindness of the emperor as these very knights once again swore to never betray the empire the emperor again it was said that almost all of these knights had soon after a few years once again climbed the ladder and became royal knights under the emperors service.
Scar also commented that at these times malkarin had changed the most as mentioned that day he was also in the carriage and probably witnessed how his mother was ruthlessly killed in front of him....
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