The Evil Emperor's Fragile Heart

"What does it say?" Jules asked curiously.

Raven grinned. "The ancient master came from another land beyond our kingdoms, a peaceful world where there were no wars and no kings and there were machines which could do everything – even things like flying in the sky or speaking to someone halfway around the world while looking at their face! But that place had no magic in his time, because humans had depleted all the magic of the world many years ago by destroying nature. Thus, the ancient master and a few of his friends chose to research into reviving magic for their world, and during an accidental experiment, ended up here. When they came here, they realised that they had regained the magic powers which their ancestors had lost, but their magic was different from each other. Two of the ancient masters could use all five magical elements, while three others could use two elements each, and the remaining five could only use one element. Thus, they decided to distribute their tasks accordingly. The single magic elementals went out into our world and set up the five kingdoms. Two of the three dual element magicians became healers, and the third one became an inventor. They travelled across all five kingdoms, helping whenever necessary. Finally, the inventor settled down in the Sapphire Kingdom, and the two healers settled in the Pearl Kingdom and the Amber Kingdom. The five elemental magicians remained in isolation for the longest time, researching magic, and would only meet their friends and no one else. Finally, one of them went to the Obsidian Kingdom and the other went to the Earth Kingdom. However, the one in the Obsidian Kingdom had a disagreement with some of the officials there over a research project involving poisons and dark magic, and was driven out. He returned to this cave and spent the rest of his life here. Only his inventor friend knew about his location, but died before him, leaving him all alone in this remote location. He stayed here for many years, researching magic and recording his findings. When he realised that he was about to die, he sealed his work such that only a successor worthy of his legacy would be able to break the seal and inherit it."

"And you just broke the seal?" Fox asked, grinning ear to ear.

Raven shook his head. "It's a five-layered seal. I just broke the first one and absorbed the language."

Jules frowned. "That explains it for you, with you five elements, it is natural that you'd be able to inherit the ancient master's legacy. But why on earth is Mana familiar with this script?"

Mana shrugged. "I don't really know how to answer that, Big Brother," she said lightly.

"Never mind," Fox said. "Let's hurry and find the other four seals so that Prince Raven can gain all the work left behind by the ancient master!"

Raven's rainbow eyes glowed with excitement. "Let's see the second cave your father found, Fox," he suggested.

The four of them followed the path marked by Fox's father and soon found the second cave. There were more writings on the wall here – but the script was different.

"Kanji," Mana murmured. "Could this have been the inventor…?" By now, she was almost sure that this team of people had come from earth, too – and somehow ended up in the ancient times here, and had actually established the kingdoms! Did that mean that there were more people like her here? Could Liam be…?

Jules and Fox stared at her in shock. "You can read this strange language, too?!" Fox cried.

Mana nodded, quickly gathering her thoughts to the present. She decided that she would figure things out as and when she could instead of worrying unnecessarily and said quietly, "Big Brother, use the copy machine. I have a feeling that this writing will disappear too as soon as Raven touches the walls."

Jules immediately got to work.

"Can you read this, too?" Mana asked Raven.

Raven shook his head. "I can't, but it feels familiar, just like the other one."

"These are notes of the inventor, it seems," Mana remarked, looking up at the walls. "Besides breaking the second seal for you, we should be able to find something related to the inventor that Fox will find useful."

Fox's blue eyes sparkled.

"All right, I'm done," Jules said. "Go ahead, Raven."

Raven put his hand on the wall, and it glowed with a bright blue light. Again, knowledge flooded Raven's mind – much, much more than what was there in the first cave. Raven fell to his knees, enveloped in the blue light until all the writings on the walls faded.

As soon as the light faded, Mana, Jules and Fox rushed to Raven's side. Raven was very pale, and his face was scrunched up. The three of them hadn't wanted to touch Raven while he was still glowing, afraid to interrupt the magical transfer in case it caused harm to Raven – but now that the light was gone along with the writings, they had no such qualms. Jules immediately gathered Raven into his arms and Mana massaged his head with gentle fingers until his expression eased and he opened his eyes.

"Give him something to drink," Mana told Fox.

Fox quickly opened a bottle of vanilla milkshake and helped Raven drink.

"Thanks," Raven said hoarsely.

"We can stop here now," Jules said. "Let's go back today. We can always return later and undo the rest of the seals one by one."

"Big Brother is right," Mana said. "All of them at once is too taxing for you."

Raven shook his head stubbornly. "We must finish it today," he said firmly. "These caves will collapse once the writings are gone, so if we leave now, we'll never find the other three again!"

The other three frowned.

"Are you certain?" Jules asked.

Raven nodded. "By tomorrow, the caves will be gone."

Mana sighed. This was too harsh – Raven was only twelve, and this was something the others couldn't really help with.

"All right," she said. "Fox, stay here with Raven and have him eat something to gather his energy. Big Brother and I will go scouting for the third cave."

"I'll go with you," Raven said immediately.

"No," Jules said. "You stay here and rest. We'll call you when we find the third cave."

Raven opened his mouth to argue but Jules flicked him on the forehead.

"Listen to Big Brother," Jules said sternly. "You rest and recover here for a bit. We can't help you break the seals, but the things which we can help with, we'll do that. There's no need to overexert yourself, got it?"

Raven flushed and nodded.

"Good boy," Jules said and ruffled his hair affectionately.

"Besides, you just absorbed the inventor's knowledge as well, so you and Fox can have a good chat," Mana remarked. "Make sure to eat something. Fox, look after my fiancé, please?"

Fox grinned at Mana. "Of course," he said. This was the first time in his life that he had been tasked with looking after someone – and even better, this someone was the boy he had admired for years now!

"Don't fuss," Raven murmured half-heartedly.

Mana laughed and kissed him on the cheek. "Be good," she said and ran off with Jules before Raven could respond.

Fox burst out laughing. Raven sighed helplessly, but was secretly very happy that Mana and Big Brother cared for him so much.

"These Emerald Kingdom royals are crazy, I think," Fox said. "But in the best way possible!"

Raven could only nod in agreement. Taking in strays from all over and even trusting them – he couldn't imagine a royal of any other kingdom behaving like this at all.

"She's poisoned, isn't she?" Fox asked suddenly, rummaging through the food bag and finally pulling out some cakes and light sandwiches.

Raven was startled. "How did you know?" he demanded.

"Hey, don't get angry," Fox said, throwing up his hands in a gesture of surrender. "I'd always heard that the second princess of the Emerald Kingdom was sickly and dying before I came here – remember how I asked about that when we first met?"

Raven chuckled. "You were lucky it was us – if it had been a member of the royal family of any other kingdom, you'd have lost your head that very moment!"

Fox shrugged. "I am what I am," he murmured. "Anyway, she said that she was earlier, but not anymore, and that you saved her." He tapped his chin. "I thought about it. You're not a physician – I mean, even with your talents, it would be too much if you were a physician as well, right? But the Obsidian Kingdom is known for its poisons – even I know that. If you were able to help out a princess who had been sickly since she was born so much so that she was suddenly up and running about like an almost healthy child…isn't it reasonable to think that it is some exotic poison from the Obsidian Kingdom? And I can tell that it's not fully gone yet because all of you are overprotective about her, and there's a senior Physician Kale who's living in the imperial summer palace and monitoring her constantly." He smiled slightly. "And I've heard her complaining more than once how she wasn't allowed to eat something she really wanted to – why would a bunch of people who usually indulge every whim of hers not let her eat stuff? It could only be that her treatment was not complete yet."

Raven patted Fox's shoulder. "You really are very clever," he said quietly. "But I need you to promise that you won't speak a word about this to anyone except us. Not even your parents."

Fox's face turned solemn. "There's still danger?"

Raven nodded.

"I promise," Fox said seriously. "If there's any equipment or devices that I can make which would help…please let me know." He smiled shyly. "I've never had friends before, you know? And now that I do, I want to do everything I can to help them."

"Me, too," Raven said softly.