The Evil Emperor's Fragile Heart

King Jaren and Queen Carolina echoed General Aquila, and the crowd settled down.

With their newfound peace, Raven, Mana, Bella, Jules and Fox were able to work on the compound air conditioning spell and figured out how to channel it through the imperial pearl from the Pearl Kingdom within two hours, and suddenly, the sweating crowd of people were wrapped up in a cool, pleasant atmosphere.

"It works! It really works!" someone cried happily.

"Wow, these children are something else!" another one exclaimed.

The five brilliant youngsters received all the praise with great equanimity; they were all used to it by now.

Once the imperial pearl took the spell, Fox attached a little device to it that kept running the air conditioning spell in a loop, so no one had to constantly use their magic to keep up the spell (that would have been too draining anyway).

The group travelled through the desert lands, marking their way towards the capital of the Amber Kingdom slowly but steadily. They tried their best to ignore the pathetic state of the people of the Amber Kingdom as they passed through, and the people of the Amber Kingdom who they passed by also kept their distance, clearly wary of this group of foreigners traversing through their country.

It was a fairly unpleasant journey, overall, and by the time it was sunset, they were still in the middle of a desert.

"How much further do we have to go until we reach the imperial capital city of the Amber Kingdom?" a pretty woman from the Pearl Kingdom asked, fanning herself tiredly.

Thanks to the air conditioning spell, the temperature was under control, but because the children had to modify the spell to be able to use the imperial pearl from the Pearl Kingdom, it was not as effective as they would have liked it to be, and physical exercise naturally produced heat in their bodies, even if it was just riding horses or carriages.

Grandpa frowned slightly. "This route should take us a couple of days, at most," he murmured. "But that also means that we should have been able to cross the desert completely by sunset today."

King Jaren gazed at the horizon in front of them, looking at the endless reddish gold sand stretching out as far as the human eye could see.

"it doesn't look like we are approaching a town or even a village any time soon," he murmured. He looked around and realised that even the sparse thatched huts that they had seen occasionally until now had also disappeared.

There was nothing around them except the desert.

"Could it be that we are lost?" Grandma asked quietly. "Do you remember the route properly, dear?"

Grandpa sighed. "The number of times I have travelled this path…" he murmured. "We are not lost. If we still don't see a town, it would be either because the town that should be here – that was the Red Brick Town – has been demolished and wiped off completely, or because we are trapped in an array."

"Then it is more likely to be the latter, isn't it?" Grandma asked with a sigh. "Even if Red Brick Town was demolished, there would be some ruins left, wouldn't it?"

Grandpa nodded. "I am afraid you may be right," he said.

King Corvus came up to them, followed by Crown Princess Pica and Queen Carolina.

"What is wrong?" King Corvus asked, narrowing his eyes at Grandpa.

The two of them, after all, had been rivals when they were about Jules's age. Back then, King Corvus and Grandpa often met at tournaments and King Corvus had been known as the sly, brainy prince of the Obsidian Kingdom, while Grandpa had been the heroic, flamboyant prince of the Amber Kingdom. They had often competed against each other, and they won as often as they lost against each other. They had been rivals, but they had never been enemies – until Grandpa was schemed against and left the Amber Kingdom for good.

"We are probably trapped inside an array," Grandpa said quietly. "Corvus, do you remember the wheel of dust and shadow from back then?"

King Corvus frowned. "The one we broke back then? But why would King Orion do a stupid thing like this, knowing you and I are in this group?" he asked.

Grandpa smiled slightly. "Ah, but Orion doesn't know that it was you and I who broke the wheel of dust and shadow back then, does he? It was way before his time, and I doubt if his father would ever tell him the truth – he was the one who lost his face completely over the matter at the time, wasn't he?" he said with a smirk, that looked suspiciously like Mana's when she was about to get into some mischief.

King Corvus's face also folded into an evil smirk, and his dark eyes glowed. "Looks like we old men get to show off today, huh, Ducky?" he asked, calling Grandpa by his old nickname from back when they were young.

King Jaren's eyes widened in shock at his reserved and dignified father in law's nickname, and Grandma burst out laughing, while Grandpa flushed.

"Don't embarrass me in front of two generations of our children, Corvy," he murmured, reverting to King Corvus's old nickname as well.

The two old rivals chuckled, remembering the good old days before the enmity between their two countries, and the circumstances around their own affairs had torn them apart.

Crown Princess Pica was quite stunned as well. She had never seen this side of her father at all.

And King Jaren suddenly realised that Raven had actually inherited his maternal grandfather's smile – because in this moment, King Corvus's unfiltered and unrestrained and open smile was exactly like that of Raven, when he would smile in a heartfelt and unhindered manner. It had taken Raven a while to open up that much, but when he did, the three royals of the Emerald Kingdom – King Jaren, Crown Prince Jules and Princess Mana – had been so delighted that they kept trying to find things to make Raven smile like that more and more often.

And if one were to ask Mana, she would swear that she could see flowers blooming all around Raven when he smiled like that.

"So, Ducky – how do you want to go about this? Do you want me to summon the heavenly thunder first, or do you want to reveal the array first?" King Corvus asked Grandpa.

Grandpa rolled his eyes, giving up the matter of his nickname as a lost cause.

"Wait," Grandma said suddenly. "Are you sure that Orion would not have modified the wheel of dust and shadow?"

Grandpa chuckled. "My dear, do you think Orion is talented enough to be able to do that?" he asked. "Who do you think would have the brains to be able to modify an ancient array of the Amber Kingdom? That fool Mars?"

"It won't hurt us to be careful," Grandma said firmly. "Why don't you reveal the array first, and then we can check on it properly?" she suggested.

King Corvus and the others had no objection to that; they all felt that Grandma's words made a lot of sense.

Grandpa, too, thought that Grandma was right, so he cast a powerful spell of fire magic to reveal the array that they were trapped in.

Right under their feet, fiery red lines started to appear immediately, joining together to form an intricate array.

"It really is the wheel of dust and shadow," King Corvus murmured. Then he grinned rakishly, getting ready to show off. The youngsters of their families had been doing all the cool stuff these days, leaving all the elders with an identity crisis of sorts.

Now they finally had a chance to show off.

Suddenly, Azar and Alya, who had been sleeping in King Jaren's secret garden because of the heat earlier, popped up on King Jaren's shoulders. The two little dragons had retired to the secret garden to be in an area with a more comfortable temperature and surrounded by greenery, and it was also boring for them to travel like this, so slowly, when they had the option to play around in the beautiful garden and the fruit orchard of their Grandpapa, and eat as many sweet fruits as they wanted, and they could also keep an eye out on what was happening on the outside.

"Grandpapa, big magic," Azar said, licking his lips hungrily.

Alya, too, looked at the array under their feet, her two eyes of different colours sparkling like gemstones in the dusky light of a desert sunset.

King Jaren resisted the urge to rub his temples at the thought of what to say to the two little magic gluttons that were drooling over the super dangerous and legendary ancient array of the Amber Kingdom that they were trapped in. 

Fortunately for King Jaren, his children seemed to be able to sense his dilemma and came over.

"What's happening?" Jules asked.