Chapter 4 - THE PRINCESS WHO HAD NEVER BEEN TOLD THE COST
Seraphine vomited after seeing the academy records.
Not elegantly.
Not royally.
She barely reached the basin in the council antechamber.
Elara waited outside.
Aiden stood beside her.
“You hate her,” he said.
“I don’t.”
“You should.”
Elara looked at him.
“I dislike her intensely.”
“More precise.”
“She slapped me.”
“Yes.”
“Ordered me arrested.”
“Yes.”
“Called me a servant like that was an insult.”
“Yes.”
Elara folded her arms.
“But she did not build the siphon.”
Aiden nodded.
That was why he liked her.
He did not say it.
Good.
Inside, Seraphine dismissed her attendants and asked for Elara alone.
Aiden frowned.
Elara said:
“No.”
Seraphine looked startled.
“No?”
“You asked to speak to me. You don’t get to choose whether I enter without someone I trust.”
Seraphine’s face tightened.
Then:
“Fine.”
Aiden came too.
Seraphine sat without crown or jewels now.
Just a young woman in a white undergown, hair half undone.
She looked smaller.
That did not make her harmless.
Good to remember.
“My father says the siphon is necessary,” she said.
Elara leaned against the table.
“Your father benefits from saying that.”
“The storms are real.”
“Yes.”
“The shield saves lives.”
“Yes.”
Seraphine stared.
“You agree?”
“With the fact. Not the method.”
Seraphine’s eyes filled.
“I attended that academy.”
Elara froze.
“What?”
“At eight.”
Royal children trained separately, but one winter Seraphine spent three months at the western academy while the palace wing was rebuilt.
She remembered other children becoming tired during high-shield days.
Headaches.
Fainting.
Teachers said weather resonance affected common-born magic more strongly.
Seraphine believed them.
Why wouldn’t she?
She was eight.
Then she said:
“I never got sick.”
Of course.
Royal blood received the siphoned power.
Did not pay.
Seraphine looked ill again.
“What do I do?”
Elara almost laughed.
“You’re asking me?”
“You’re the First Heir.”
“That is not an instruction manual.”
Aiden spoke.
“What authority do you personally hold?”
Seraphine thought.
“Over academy funding. Some palace appointments. The western regency council if my father is incapacitated.”
“Not the shield?”
“No.”
Elara asked:
“Can you open the academy records?”
Seraphine hesitated.
“Yes.”
“Do it.”
Her face tightened.
“If I expose this, my father—”
Elara looked at her.
“Yes?”
Seraphine closed her mouth.
There.
Choice meeting consequence.
Aiden said gently:
“You ordered guards to arrest Elara because you were humiliated.”
Seraphine flinched.
He continued.
“You can now decide whether being humiliated by your father’s secrets is reason to protect them.”
Seraphine looked at him.
Pain.
Because she loved him too.
Maybe not deeply.
But enough to hear disappointment.
She nodded.
“I’ll open the records.”
Good.
Not redemption.
First correct action.
The next three days transformed the Celestine Palace into a war conducted through archives.
Elara inspected covenants.
Aiden tested alternative ward structures.
Seraphine released academy data to the Grand Council.
Vael contacted independent mage guilds.
King Othric resisted everything.
Then worse emerged.
The western siphon was not unique.
Nine of thirty-two crown covenants contained extraction clauses.
Three were mild.
Four severe.
Two catastrophic.
One belonged to the central Celestine crown itself.
Aiden looked at the maps.
“My kingdom too.”
Queen Maribel went pale.
She had not known.
Othric did.
Again.
The central siphon fed the palace barrier, military communication network, and—most dangerously—the Crown Warden system.
Aiden stared.
“My power.”
Vael answered carefully.
“Partly.”
That struck him harder than Elara expected.
Aiden had trained since childhood.
Bled for spells.
Broken bones mastering ward-fire.
He believed his strength was his.
Now part of it came from an unjust system.
“How much?” he asked.
No one knew.
Elara watched his face.
Shame arrived too quickly.
“That isn’t yours.”
He looked at her.
“What?”
“The blame.”
“I benefited.”
“Yes.”
“I used it.”
“Without knowing.”
“That doesn’t mean—”
“Aiden.”
He stopped.
Elara stepped closer.
“Responsibility begins after you know.”
Silence.
He looked at her.
That sentence would return later.
Good.
They tested his magic.
Aiden voluntarily entered a null circle and asked Elara to suspend his crown-derived channel for one hour.
Vael objected.
Aiden insisted.
Elara did not want to.
Important.
“What if it hurts you?”
“Then we learn.”
“Easy for you to say.”
“It’s my magic.”
There.
His choice.
Elara nodded.
She touched the First Seal.
Aiden’s gold aura dimmed.
Not vanished.
Reduced.
He staggered.
Then stood.
Vael measured.
Almost forty percent of Aiden’s active magical capacity came through crown channels tied to public siphon networks.
Aiden laughed bitterly.
“I’m forty percent fraud.”
Elara snapped:
“No.”
He looked at her.
“You are one hundred percent responsible for what you do next.”
He went quiet.
That night, he resigned the ceremonial title of Crown Warden.
Not the function.
The title.
He placed the gold mantle before the council.
King Othric erupted.
“You cannot abandon your oath.”
Aiden answered:
“I’m not abandoning protection.”
“Then what?”
“I’m refusing stolen fuel.”
The room went silent.
He proposed a temporary reduced ward structure.
Less impressive.
Less centralized.
More local mage participation.
Higher royal cost.
Lower extraction from children.
Not perfect.
Possible.
The palace engineers said it would weaken prestige.
Aiden said:
“Good.”
Elara loved him a little for that.
Dangerous.
Later, on a balcony above the moon gardens, he found her alone.
“You’ve been avoiding me.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Elara looked at him.
“Because every time you do something decent, I become less capable of remembering that loving anyone connected to crowns is a terrible idea.”
Aiden stared.
Then smiled.
“That is the nicest insult I’ve received.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
The smile faded.
“Elara.”
She looked away.
He stepped closer, but not too close.
“Did you think I chose you at the ball because I knew?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“I thought you chose me because you’re reckless.”
“Also true.”
She laughed.
He continued.
“I chose you because when everyone else speaks to me, they are often speaking to a title.”
Elara’s face softened.
“You told me my ward theorem was stupid.”
“It was.”
“It was published.”
“Still stupid.”
He smiled.
Then:
“And you never wanted anything.”
Elara looked at him.
“That is not true.”
“What did you want?”
She almost said:
You.
Instead:
“Freedom.”
Aiden’s expression changed.
“From what?”
“Being found.”
“And now?”
Elara looked through the windows at the palace she had awakened.
“Now I want freedom after being found.”
He understood.
Good.
He held out his hand.
Not dance.
Not claim.
“Can I?”
Elara looked at it.
“Can you what?”
“Stand here with you.”
She almost laughed.
“You already are.”
“Then I’m doing well.”
She took his hand.
Not promise.
Not destiny.
Choice.
Below them, a bell rang.
Emergency council.
The palace archivists had discovered a tenth siphon.
This one did not feed a kingdom.
It fed a prison.
A magical prison hidden beneath Aster Vale.
May you like
The ruined home of Elara’s bloodline.
And according to the records, someone inside it was still alive.
