The Evil Emperor's Fragile Heart

After the photography session was over, the group returned to the imperial palace of the Sapphire Kingdom.

As soon as they stepped out of the room where they arrived, though, they found that the Captain of the Imperial Shadow Guards of the Sapphire Kingdom was waiting anxiously for them.

He bowed as soon as he saw Queen Carolina.

"What's wrong?" Queen Carolina asked, narrowing her eyes at him. "Dispense with the formalities. We are with family at the moment."

The Captain nodded. "Your Majesty, the imperial library was broken into and one book was stolen," he said quietly. "We caught two of the thieves, but the third one escaped with the book. However, before we could interrogate them, they committed suicide – both of them."

Queen Carolina frowned. "Which book?" she asked. "And were you able to find any clues about the origins of the thieves?"

"The blank book that was gifted by an ancient master to the first monarch of the Sapphire Kingdom – that was the book which was stolen today," the Captain responded. "We don't have any definite clues, but all the three thieves used fire magic, so it is likely that they are from the Amber Kingdom."

Mana and Raven exchanged a meaningful glance, and so did Jules and Bella. It looked like their precautions from earlier were not taken in vain.

However, unlike the children, Queen Carolina and King Jaren and the others didn't know that the original book was safely kept in the shared secret space of Mana and Raven already, and what had been stolen away by the thieves was simply a blank fake.

King Jaren's face had lost all colour by now. "The blank book – is it – is it the one Mana and Raven were reading earlier…?" he whispered.

Queen Carolina's face was equally distressed as she nodded. "That one is the only blank book that we have in our imperial library," she replied, rubbing her temples. "I should never have bothered about imperial etiquette and simply handed the book over to Mana and Raven at the time! This is terrible!"

Mana and Raven moved close to King Jaren and took one of his large hands into their own smaller ones. King Jaren's hands had turned alarmingly cold.

"Papa, don't worry," Raven said quietly. "I read everything about the magical device, and Mana and I took proper notes. It is fine even if we don't have the book."

"Yes, Papa," Mana said, rubbing her father's hand with her own, trying to bring some warmth to the man with the warmest heart that she knew of. "Please have some faith in Raven and me. We won't let you down. We will bring Ma back, I promise."

King Jaren drew a shuddering breath and some colour returned to his face and some warmth returned to his hands as well, much to the relief of Mana and Raven.

"Thank heavens that I have two amazing children like you," he whispered. His emerald eyes shone with tears.

Mana and Raven could only pat his hands to reassure him. This was not the time when they could reveal the truth about the book to him and also tell him about the tracking spell they had left on the book.

Jules and Bella also exchanged a glance with Mana and Raven.

Queen Carolina, too, looked very relieved by the words from Mana and Raven. She turned to the Captain. "Spare no efforts in tracking down the thief and retrieving the blank book. I have promised Mana and Raven that they could use that book whenever they want, and the word of the monarch of the Sapphire Kingdom cannot be broken because of mere thieves! We have to get that blank book back, and when we get it back, I want that book to be officially given to Princess Mana of the Emerald Kingdom and Prince Raven of the Obsidian Kingdom, to be jointly owned by them, and to be bequeathed by them to their children as they please," she commanded.

Mana and Raven were taken aback, and Bella smiled at them in encouragement. Now that the book had already been given to them by the monarch of the Sapphire Kingdom, they didn't need to harbour any knots in their heart about not revealing the truth to Queen Carolina and King Jaren.

To King Jaren, of course, Mana and Raven would find an opportunity to reveal the truth to – but they felt that it would be prudent to wait until they were back in the Emerald Kingdom, where they were much safer and didn't need to be on their guard constantly. Or, perhaps, they could have Azar and Alya bring King Jaren to their magic castle, and they could speak there. That was definitely a super safe option.

"Azar is the child of Mommy and Daddy!" the little black dragon spoke up suddenly. "So, will Mommy and Daddy leave the book to Azar?"

Raven glanced at Mana, and she nodded with a smile.

"We will bequeath the book to our little Azar, then," Raven said, smiling at their adorable dragon child.

Azar hummed happily.

The Captain of the Imperial Shadow Guards of the Sapphire Kingdom took his instructions from Queen Carolina and left.

Queen Carolina started to apologise to King Jaren and the children, but her apology was waved off.

"There is no need for you to apologise, Mother," Jules said. "As Raven and Mana said, they have already taken down notes for everything they need, and Raven has an eidetic memory as well."

"Raven is really a treasure bestowed by the heavens on our family," King Jaren murmured. "Thank you, child."

Raven flushed. "You don't have to thank me, Papa," he said softly. "As your child, I should do this much anyway, right?"

King Jaren hugged the boy in response.

A pleased flush crept up Raven's cheeks, and Mana smiled to herself. The open and generous affection bestowed by King Jaren upon all his children and grandchildren was most needed by Raven, who had grown up without parental affection, and thus appreciated it more than anyone else.

"Are we leaving for the Amber Kingdom tomorrow?" Bella asked her mother. "If we delay any longer, we will not be able to reach there on time."

Mana wanted to say that they should delay their departure on purpose just so that they would miss the main banquet – but she wisely kept her mouth shut.

Queen Carolina frowned and turned to look at King Jaren, silently asking for his opinion.

King Jaren nodded. "We should," he said. "It would be unwise to delay it any further."

"All right, then," Queen Carolina said. "We will set off tomorrow morning after breakfast. We will use a large passenger array to take us to the border town of the Sapphire Kingdom, and then, from there, we will have to travel without any magical array up to the capital city of the Amber Kingdom."

General Aquila rolled his eyes. "Looks like King Orion really wants us to traverse through half his kingdom before we get to the capital city," he murmured.

It was probably meant as an insult, Mana thought, but then, in the future, it would probably prove to be a bad decision on part of King Orion. Because, if their mixed group consisting of people from the other four kingdoms travelled through half of the Amber Kingdom, they would get familiar with the lay of the land and be able to navigate the lands if a war broke out in the future. Especially when they had Raven on their team, who could remember anything with one hundred percent accuracy after taking a look at it! This journey would mean that Raven would know the lay of the land for half the Amber Kingdom, and they could sit down and draw a detailed map later. With General Aquila's battle expertise and Raven's extraordinary memory, if it ever came down to an outright war between the Amber Kingdom and the other four kingdoms – this would be a tremendous advantage for them!

Raven, who had the same thoughts as Mana, glanced at her, and the two of them shared a secret smile.

General Aquila, King Jaren, Queen Carolina, Jules and Bella, too, had similar thoughts running in their heads. It was a rally stupid decision on King Orion's part. Even if they were attacked by bandits or by King Orion's people pretending to be bandits, the power of this group was not small by any means, and there was no doubt that they would be able to reach the capital city of the Amber Kingdom in the end. However, King Orion would have lost a significant strategic advantage.

Of course, it could be that King Orion had laid such dangerous traps on their way to the capital city of the Amber Kingdom that he didn't mind losing out on this potential strategic advantage which would be gained by the people of the other four kingdoms – but if that was indeed the case, then wasn't King Orion taking the most powerful people in the world all too lightly?