Royal Secret: I'm a Princess!

THE ROYAL Treasury was on fire.

Nero clenched his hands tight while looking at the pink flame embracing every single shelf in the treasury. Fortunately, the treasures weren't on fire.

[Not yet, at least.]

<"Your Royal Highness, I apologize but I can't put the fire out.">

It was Mira, the Water Spirit he gained when he stayed at the Spirit World a few years back.

Nero turned to Miraâ€" a Water Spirit the size of his palm while riding a mini wave of waterâ€" who was floating in front of his face. "Do you what kind of flame it is? It's the first time I saw a pink flame."

<"It's red flame dyed in pink, Your Royal Highness. And if I'm not mistaken, the red flame is from an adult dragon.">

Mira was a high-level Water Spirit. Hence, her hunch should be correct.

He frowned when he realized Neoma had a dragon for a Soul Beast.

[And yet she didn't use her Soul Beast when she fought me? Was she looking down on me, hence the Elemental Guardian?]

But he couldn't really say much.

After all, Zeru still lost even though Neoma only used the White Lion to fight instead of her dragon Soul Beast.

"We should keep this a secret from everyone else."

Nero turned to Calyx.

Because his older brother was only a guest of the chosen heir, Calyx's feet didn't even touch the ground. The First Prince was inside a semi-transparent sphere that was preventing him from touching any part of the Royal Treasury.

No one could force the rightful heir to the throne to bring them inside the Royal Treasury. If the heir felt threatened, the Royal Treasury would never open.

Hence, the fact that Nero brought Calyx inside of his free will made his brother a guest.

"Yeah, we should keep this a secret from everyone else."

Nero answered mindlessly since his brain was still busy thinking about another person.

[Neoma didn't force me to bring her to the Royal Treasury, and she wasn't treated like a guest. Her feet touched the ground, and she even stole some items before she set the treasury on fire. So how did that happen?]

Nero clenched his hands tight as an ominous feeling took over his system.

If any de Moonasterio could come inside the Royal Treasury normally, then Calyx should have landed on his feet when they arrived there. But it didn't happen.

[Why does the throne recognize that girl as an heir, too?]

Come to think of it, even Neoma's Soul Beast that was in his human form was able to walk around the Royal Treasury normally.

"Calyx, I'm going to send you out now."

"You'll be staying here longer?"

Nero nodded before avoiding his brother's gaze. "I need to check which items were stolen."

He had already memorized the list of all the items stored in the Royal Treasury.

Normal people would have a hard time memorizing the entire list because it was VAST, but he wasn't a normal person. His brain was built for things like that since he was meant to take the throne.

[In short, I was born to be the next emperor.]

"Alright, you do that," Calyx said, smiling at him. "I need to personally take care of our precious guest anyway."

"Ah, right," Nero said, nodding. "The new saint has finally arrived."

***

"THAT DAMNED princess."

Calyx cursed under his breath while walking in the hallway leading to the room of their esteemed guest.

Since the guest was very special, Nero lent the entire third floor to him.

The entire floor was heavily secured by his people. He was talking about the crows, of course. Even the servants who were allowed to serve the esteemed guest were their people.

"Ah, someone is angry~"

"Did the royal princess empty the Royal Treasury?"

The two people guarding the esteemed guest's room were his cousins Owen and Rowena.

[Yeah, they're siblings and they're currently posing as royal knights assigned to protect me.]

"Princess Neoma didn't empty the Royal Treasury," Calyx said, sighing. "But she took all the items that originally belong to the crows."

It took him five years to find all the items that they needed in the Royal Treasury.

Of course, he had to gain Nero's trust first.

It wasn't easy to do, so he would always ask his brother to bring him to the Royal Treasury as a birthday present. During those times, he would look for the items in the list that His Excellency had given him. It wasn't easy to search for them since most items were placed in the classified area.

But he still succeeded to memorize where the items he needed were stored.

And he was supposed to harvest those items this year.

"All the important items are gone," Calyx said, shaking his head. "I wonder how Princess Neoma found out that those items belong to the crows."

"The royal princess isn't a bone in our throat for nothing," Rowena said while shaking her head. "She has already lived quietly for the past five years with her parents. They should have just continued living quietly. Why did they have to return just when Prince Nero is about to seize the throne?"

"It's alright," Owen said, putting a hand on Rowena's shoulder. "The curse hasn't been broken yet. Even if Princess Neoma has returned, she can't do anything since the Royal Palace and the majority of the nobles are already in our hands. Moreover..."

Owen and Rowen both turned to the door of the esteemed guest's room and spoke at the same time. "We have the new saint by our side."

Calyx smiled and nodded in agreement. "Open the door, please."

His cousins nodded politely before opening the door for him.

"You're here?"

Calyx smiled at the ten-year-old boy with rose-gold hair and clear blue eyes. "Were you bored, Dustin?"

Dustin was the new saint that the crows created.

[And this child would help me cement my position as the empire's real First Star.]

"How long do I have to stay in here?" Dustin, who was plopped on the sofa while eating grapes, asked in a bored tone. "I want to play outside, and I also want to spend time with the Crown Prince."

He raised an eyebrow at the child. "Why would you spend time with Nero? He's mine."

Calyx almost sacrificed his life completing the curse that would make Nero forget about Neoma in order to monopolize his time and affection.

[I won't let this child steal Nero from me.]

"Prince Nero's divine power is unbelievable. Whenever he's near, I feel like he's filling the missing void in my soul."

"Child, stop being dramatic."

"I'm being serious," Dustin said, then he put a hand over his chest. "I'm an incomplete saint. I need more divine power to complete me. Every time I see Prince Nero, I'm tempted to eat his divine power since he already has too much of it."

Calyx scoffed. "Nero will kill you once you try to "eat" his divine power. He's not a generous person."

"I know!" the child agreed while nodding eagerly. "He doesn't even greet me properly even though I'm the new saint! He looks at me as if he's above me..." He trailed off, then he shook his head. "No, that's not right. Prince Nero doesn't even look at me as if I'm not worth his time. He calls me an "esteemed" guest and gives me all the special treatment possible, but the way he looks at me is disrespectful."

Calyx smiled, happy with what he heard from the saint. "I'm the only person Nero respects here."

"Pfft!"

His smile slowly faded.

[Did this child just laugh at me?]

"Prince Nero isn't disrespectful to you, but I see no warmth in the way he looks at you, Calyx."

"That's not true."

"Sure, I won't burst your bubble if it makes you happy."

Calyx let his bloodlust leak. "Dustin, you may be the new saint. But the crows can replace you anytime we want."

"Right," Dustin said, shrugging. "But do you have time to create a new saint when Princess Neoma is already backâ€" and she's probably with the REAL saint at the moment?"

***

[THEY ALL died at the same time.]

And it was gruesome.

Glenn clenched his jaw when he realized he was covered in blood from head to toe. Of course, it wasn't his blood.

"It's the Oath of Silence."

Glenn turned to Warren Fletcher and nodded his head. "And it's a powerful one."

He didn't enjoy torturing people even though they were enemies, but he had to do it this time to protect his family and their kingdom since it was their home.

The Fletcher Twins, among the Paladins, were the ones who were good at torture.

They successfully "convinced" the prisoners to speak, but all of a sudden, the assassins caught EXPLODED one by one. Only their blood and some flesh were left.

"It seems that they made the Oath of Silence collectively. It's the type where if one opened their mouth, then the others would die with him at the same time," Wyatt Fletcher agreed with him. "I bet the remaining assassins died already."

Right now, Glenn was in the torture chambers of the palace with the Fletcher Twins.

That was where they brought the twenty leaders of the thousand assassins that tried to infiltrate Hazelden's capital.

[Yes, we caught them all.]

Of course, the majority of the assassins already died during the fight.

[Juri Wisteria is a little... uhm, let's just say she deserves to be on the vanguard.]

The remaining assassins were in a different prison with Jeanne Audley and Geoffrey Kinsley.

"Now that they're dead, we can't gather the evidence we need to prove that Calyx Dalton sent these assassins to create a conflict between the empire and the Hazelden Kingdom," Glenn said, sighing. "The crows are more meticulous than we thought."

The Fletcher Twins nodded in agreement.

"Your Majesty, leave the cleaning to us," Warren said, addressing him by his title even though he told his friends it wasn't necessary. "I can feel Princess Monik's presence outside."

Wyatt nodded in agreement. "You can't greet the princess while you're covered in blood, though."

Glenn was about to ask the Fletcher Twins to bring him some new clothes when, all of a sudden, his chest tightened. Then, for some reason, Skylus' image entered his mind. "Skylus," he whispered to himself worriedly. "Are you alright, my son?"

***

"EOMMA, Prince Skylus' fever isn't coming down."

Neoma looked at Skylus, who was covered in sweat while sleeping on the bed, and rolled the sleeves of her blouse.

When she returned to the hotel room that Greko and Skylus were using, she was surprised when her youngest pulled her inside in a hurry.

That was when she realized the situation.

"I fed Skylus medicine suited for his age, but it's not working," Greko said worriedly. "Eomma, it's not a normal fever, isn't it?"

"Yep, it's not a normal fever. But don't worry since it's not life-threatening," Neoma assured her youngest, then she turned to him. "Greko, dear, leave the room first."

"Eomma, may I know what you're going to do with Prince Skylus?"

"I'm going to return what originally belongs to him."

Greko fell silent for a moment, then he gasped softly. "His divine power?"

"A portion of his divine power, to be precise," Neoma said, placing a hand on Skylus' chest. She frowned in worry when she noticed that the baby saint's heart was thumping hard and fast against his chest. "Tsk. Why does a child have to be in pain just because he needs to be the representative of a god?"

Neoma didn't care if the said god was her ancestor.

Tsk.

[Dear gods, if you're going to make children work, then at least make sure they're not going to be in pain!]

***

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