PeaceMaker

Boris and Adia stayed in eye contact for a few seconds before he turned back to Kalmin, flashing him a smile. "Then I guess it must have been a very boring wait with nothing to do in here," he teased.

"More reasons why you should get more familiar with baths and shorten your time when taking them. I swear you were gone for like half an hour," Adia groaned, "I was about to fall asleep over here."

Boris rolled his eyes and he began to collect some of the papers on the desk, "Come on, I'm sure I didn't take that long right? Was probably like 25 minutes max right?" he replied looking at Kalmin, "wasn't it."

Kalmin shrugged, "I'm not sure, I just got here a few minutes ago and met her waiting in here."

"Ah…" Boris muttered, turning back to Adia, "so what did you do while I was gone? I simply refuse to believe that someone as curious as you would put down the chance to go through the stuff in this room. And judging by the open map, I seem to be on the right track here."

Adia giggled, "Observant eyes you got there your highness," she teased, "would you like to guess what I did?"

"Read," Boris replied, shuffling the papers together and picking up a pen from the table, placing it in his breast pocket. He locked eyes with Adia, "right?"

She grinned. "Correct." 

"What did you read?"

"The book you and his royal highness seem to adore the most out of these…" she turned to the bookshelves, "walls of books. He was quite a reader, Prince Dominic. He has so many books here, did he read most of them?"

"Not sure," Boris chuckled, "I'm supposing the ones he placed in the fiction sections were all read though, that was his favorite type of books to read. What book was it that you read?"

"Forest Green," Adia comments, picking up the book from the table before her and waving it back and forth. "A pretty thick book if I do say so myself. Well… even though I haven't read most of it yet."

Boris chuckled as he looked over some papers, his eyes looking up and down from Adia and the papers in his hands. "Book Three in the series Ash Grey," he noted.

"And a good book too. I was so interested in the middle that I almost decided to just read through it all," Adia chortled, "I was about to start Ash Grey too."

"I can lease it to you just for your stay here," Boris proposed, "you might have to spend the rest of the week reading since I don't think I can give it to you out of the palace. It's-"

"Written by the Prince's sister, right?" Adia completed his sentence, "can you imagine having that much talent in your family? Having the genes, money, power, and even now talent? The entire family is overpowered."

"I'll make sure to tell his royal highness that when he returns," Boris grinned, as he picked up a stamp and pressed it into the sheet of paper, his eyes looking up at kalmin. "I'm done with the papers now." He looked at Adia and then back to Kalmin, "Shall we go now?"

Adia nodded her head as she slid off the table, thrusting her fist into the air. "To the first meeting of the day!"

Boris laughed as he stood up from his seat and walked towards them, "Maybe you should just take over all of my work, since you seem super excited to do everything."

Adia flinched and lowered her hand immediately, "Gosh did I tell you about how I feel so depressed these days? And my hand hurts a lot…"

"Pfft-" Boris stifled a laugh.

"Are you laughing at my pain?" Adia huffed, puffing her cheeks and hitting Boris lightly on the shoulder.

"Of course not, my lady I would never do that," Boris shook his head immediately, glancing at Kalmin who was already at the door, "though we may not have enough time to debate your problems as we must report to more serious issues."

"Thank you, your highness," Adia bowed as Kalmin pulled open the door. She waited for Boris to pass before turning to Kalmin and locking eyes, "thank you head council."

Kalmin nodded his head quietly as he closed the door to the room when everyone was out. "You're welcome."

*

The day followed its usual schedule for Boris. Meeting first thing in the morning with the first heads of the council, then moved on to breakfast. After that, he followed Kalmin to his daily studies in which he enjoyed and hated the most. It was really nothing but going through books, learning more about the kingdom, revising topics that he had previously learned, taking tests on the subjects, and then telling Kalmin about a fraction of the things he knew about the kingdom.

It was supposed to be all of the things he knew about the kingdom as if anyone in the palace was more likely to know about the temporary predecessor, it would be Kalmin, but Boris only told a fraction. 

He wasn't even sure of all the things he knew himself. 

Right now he was at the second to last part of his daily studies, taking his 15th test on the kingdom.

He sat in the middle of an empty room with Kalmin in the front, watching him intensely as he looked over all of the questions once before he started doing the test. Boris held his pen lightly as he began to check off answers and answer open-ended questions. It was easy. 

The test consisted of 30 questions about things that they had studied and then 10 of things related to what they had studied, but things Boris was not supposed to know yet as he hadn't studied them. They were randomly placed in the test to mess up Boris or slow down his rate of answering all while Kalmin watched intently, jotting down things in his own notebook that he kept to himself but held guided discussions to help answer notes he had written down. 

Boris checked off another answer and then another and then another and the- his hand paused when he saw the question. It wasn't because he didn't know the answer, or because it was confusing or hard to understand, but because it was a new question. For these he had to stop his hand in Kalmin's gaze, to hesitate for a moment before checking off a box. He continued on with the test and several minutes later, finished it. 

He looked at his completed test and went over his answer, making sure all of the answers were… correct, before turning it in. They were never all correct. 

And for the time being, they would never be.

"I'm done," Boris called out to Kalmin who immediately stood up from his chair and walked towards Boris' desk to take the test papers from him. 

"Thoughts on the test this time?" Kalmin asked as his eyes ran over Boris' answers once as he walked back to his chair and began to mark the test. Boris watched as his hand lowered o a question to mark it. 

It was incorrect. Kalmin only marked incorrect answers, leaving the answers that were correct empty.

"It was good, as usual," Boris shrugged, leaning back in his chair and stretching, "is it just me or are those questions getting longer and longer every time? 3 weeks ago I'm sure it wasn't this long."

Kalmin didn't answer as he marked down another question, then looked down lower on the page and marked another question. 

"Did you add new questions to the test? More than 10, maybe?" Boris pressed as he leaned forward onto his table, laying out his hand straight on the table. He closed his eyes and listened to Kalmin's movements for his answer. Only shuffling. The last shuffling.

Boris looked up from his desk, laying his chin on his desk as he looked at Kalmin. "Are you done?" he asked to which Kalmin looked up at him and locked eyes. 

"Yes," he replied, standing up and handing his test back to Boris, "you got a 36 out of 40."

Boris smiled as he received the test papers from Kalmin, "That's good! 90%"

Kalmin nodded his head silently as he watched Boris look over the test again, his eyes observing his every move, a hint of frustration and dust of confusion in his gaze. "You got one question wrong in the 30 revised works and 3 wrong in the 10 random questions."

"That's not bad right?" Boris grinned, setting down the test on his desk. 

"Not for the council members. They expect to see full improvement from you, a perfect score on the next test and perfect scores after that," Kalmin muttered and he looked down at Boris and locked eyes with him.

"A perfect score?" Boris asked with a reflecting expression.

"Yes," Kalmin replied, picking up the test and gazing into Boris' eyes.. "I know you can."