Sink!
A metallic door swung open and the sound of footsteps echoed through the corridor—faint at first, but with each passing second they grew closer and closer, until...
"Here is your lunch," said a gruff voice.
The young man seated in the cell lifted his head, his eyes falling on a pair of leather boots. Above them stood a guard wearing a dark brown shirt tucked into black fitted trousers. The man had a thick beard that nearly hid his lips, which were fixed in a perpetual scowl. His eyes, filled with disdain, stared down at the blond-haired prisoner.
The young man didn't respond. His head dropped down again.
Clank!
The cell door opened and a tray containing a piece of meat was flung toward him.
BAM!
It collided with his head, but he didn't react—just kept quiet.
"There is your feast. A piece of advice: eat up. This might very well be your last day in this world," the guard scoffed before walking away.
The young man turned, his eyes falling on the piece of meat. "Hah," he laughed bitterly. To think it had gotten to this point. To think it had become so serious. He always knew his life in the palace was in constant danger given how fond the third princess had grown of him, even with all his attempts to avoid her.
"Maybe I had just..." he tried to say, but stopped.
He sighed. What happened had already happened. He picked up the piece of meat—probably the only decent thing he'd had to eat in the last ten days—and sank his teeth into its flesh.
"Ugh!" He threw up instantly.
"What the actual hell is this?" He tossed it away in disgust. He couldn't explain what it tasted like, but he was sure he felt blood and something wriggly inside it.
"Sighs," he exhaled, running a hand over his head. "I can't die... I still haven't gotten my revenge on these bastards... damn it... DAMN IT!" He pulled at his hair, frustrated at how everything—EVERYTHING—he had planned and built until this point had crumbled because of some desperate psycho.
.....
.....
"Isn't that... Lumiea?" a voice asked in hushed whispers as the palace butler walked with quiet elegance beside the soldiers who pulled a blond-haired young man through the expansive hallway. Maids and butlers stole quick glances but never lingered too long.
"Tch. What really happened? I still don't understand what he did," another maid asked her colleague in hushed tones as they rushed to the kitchen.
"I don't really know the full story, but according to... Eanar," she said, when the other interjected.
"Oh~ Your sweethea—" she was about to say, but a hand quickly stifled her mouth.
"Keep your voice down, idiot," the first maid hissed, then released her grip. "This loud mouth of yours is going to get us in serious trouble one day."
"Sorry. So... what did he say?" she asked, rubbing her mouth.
The other maid looked around cautiously, then whispered, "It seems he... read a book... in the imperial library."
The second maid's face paled.
....
....
Now, kneeling before a man seated on a throne was the blond-haired young man, his face downcast. Behind him stood two guards with grim expressions. After a deafening silence—silence that only amplified the dread of the young man with each passing second—the king spoke.
"What is the rule of slaves in the royal house?"
The young man remained silent.
"SPEAK," commanded the butler, and suddenly blood crawled up the prisoner's throat. His head felt dizzy under a pressure like nothing he had ever felt before.
"The... Royal slaves... should never disobey the masters of the palace," he managed to say. "The royal slaves are nothing but tools... and should always be ready to sacrifice themselves... for the masters of the palace." The man seated just stared. "The royal slaves... should never... acquire knowledge from the library," he reached the point the king needed to hear.
"Did you read a book from the library?" the king asked.
The young man tensed.
'A'? Not 'The'? he thought, biting his lips.
The slave's mark prevented him from lying, and that was a major problem. He hadn't read the book he was framed for reading, but being a slave who stayed at the library, there were of course moments—in fact most of the time—when he stole and read books about this world, Syphas, magic, and the system of Ether.
So the answer, given the phrasing of the question, was simple: 'Yes.' But he didn't say that. He kept quiet, ignoring the overwhelming pressure the butler mounted on him.
"Sighs... Take him away. He will serve as a lesson to everyone else with such motives. There is a reason the rules are made," the king said, and the young man was dragged out by the guards.
After a while of silence, the king tilted his head toward the still-bowing butler. "What are your thoughts, Wilfred?"
"It seems he played right into the hands of a rather well-thought-out ploy, Your Highness," was the reply.
The king nodded, but he didn't care. This was how the world worked—the weak groveled before the strong, and the strong before the cunning with power. The slave was a fool to fall into a trap in the first place, and such a fool did not deserve to live.
Suddenly—
"Your Highness," called a voice from the end of the hall.
"It's Princess Ariana. She demands to see you," the guard said with a rather pale expression.
Wilfred had turned to leave, but if one with very keen eyes stared ever so closely at his mask of indifference, they would see it—the amusement he tried so hard to hide. It seemed the plan had worked without fault. At this point, he would only watch it all play out. The nuisance had been removed from the picture.
"Let her in," the king said.
BAM!
"Father!"