I didn’t sleep at all. Every time I was near falling into unconsciousness, I would suddenly jerk awake, my heart racing as if my survival instincts were refusing to let their guard down.
I don’t know why—actually, that’s a lie. I knew exactly why. It was really difficult to sleep when you’re sharing a bed with a literal human supernova who thinks she owns you.
Soon, as I gave up on the idea of rest, the night was gone.
As the first gray light of dawn began to creep through the window, casting long, skeletal shadows across the room, I realized that my goal had changed.
Getting strong wasn’t just about surviving the other siblings or the king anymore. It was about becoming powerful enough to look Elena in the eye and tell her ’No’ without the fear that she’d burn down the world to change my mind.
Knock!
The sharp sound of knuckles against wood startled me. Suddenly, I felt the sheets shift as Elena got up with a fluid, predator-like grace. She didn’t even look back at me as she marched to the door and swung it open.
"What?" she asked, her voice was laced with a hint of the irritation she’d carried from the night before.
The maid standing in the hallway looked like she had just seen a ghost. Her jaw dropped, and she stammered, "P-Princess... Elena?"
"What... are you doing in Prince Rio’s room?" the maid asked. I could practically hear what she was thinking. And I think she was crossing a boundary she shouldn’t, but her shock was simply too great to contain.
"Sleeping," Elena answered bluntly. She didn’t offer a justification, didn’t mention the assassin, and certainly didn’t care about the scandal she was brewing.
"S-sleep..." The maid repeated, her eyes widened even more. Her gaze darted past Elena, landing on me, still tangled in the sheets.
"What? I can’t?" Elena tilted her head, her eyes flashing with a dangerous glint that suggested the maid should choose her next words very carefully.
"Y-yes, of course you can! I apologize, Princess!" The maid bowed. "I was just... I was sent to inform Prince Rio that breakfast is being served. And... the King has requested his presence."
I felt a cold pit form in my stomach. If the maid was this shocked, I could only imagine the explosion that would happen once the gossip mill started churning. Elena, however, just shrugged.
"Tell them he’ll there soon," Elena said, her voice dripping with an effortless authority.
She closed the door before the maid could even respond. Then, she turned back to me, the early morning light catching the sharp, beautiful angles of her face.
"Get up, Rio," she commanded, walking back toward the bed. "The sun is up, and we have work to do. I hope you’re ready to bleed, because I’m not going to be gentle."
I sat up, running a hand through my messy hair. "Elena, you do realize that by tomorrow, the entire palace is going to think... well, they’re going to think we’re more than just siblings."
She stopped by the edge of the bed and leaned down, her face inches from mine. "Let them think what they want," she whispered, her hand reaching out to tug on a strand of my hair. "I will deal with it. Now... get dressed."
Elena then stood up. "I will also go and change. See you at breakfast," she said, before turning on her heel and walking out of the room as if she hadn’t just nuked my social reputation.
She just added salt to my already precarious situation. Now, I wouldn’t just be seen as a Pervert; I’d be seen as something even worse—a deviant who shared a bed with his own sister.
The door clicked shut, leaving me in a silence that felt heavy with the weight of the coming day.
"Great," I muttered to myself, staring at the indentation on the pillow where her head had rested. "Yesterday I was just a loser. Today, I’m a loser with a scandalous secret."
I dragged myself out of bed, my muscles were stiff from the lack of sleep.
As I caught my reflection in the full-length mirror, I noticed the change again. My skin was clearer, my posture naturally more imposing, and those eyes... Huh?!
My eyes.
They didn’t look the same as before. They had transformed into something far more ancient and predatory.
The standard black irises I had before were gone. In their place were two fractured violet suns, glowing with a deep, radioactive intensity. The pupils had narrowed, surrounded by a crystalline pattern that looked like shattered amethyst, radiating outward in electric veins.
The sclera had darkened into a deep, abyssal charcoal, making the violet glow pop with an ethereal, haunting light.
It was mesmerizing and at the same time it was terrifying.
"What the...?" I whispered, leaning closer to the glass. I could see the mana in the air reacting to them, swirling in tiny, desperate eddies around my face.
Then, as quickly as the transformation had arrived, a sharp throb pulsed behind my temples.
In a literal blink, the violet fire vanished. The shattered crystals dissolved, and the abyssal dark receded. My eyes reverted to their dull, unassuming black.
I blinked rapidly, rubbing my lids until I saw spots. "Was that... a side effect of the the Void Gaze?"
Whatever it was, I couldn’t afford to have my eyes turn into cosmic anomalies in the middle of breakfast. Not with the King watching.
I dressed quickly in a simple, dark royal tunic, skipping the overly ornate jewelry. If I was going to be "training" with Elena later, I didn’t want anything that would snag when she inevitably threw me across a courtyard.
Leaving my room, I noticed all the maids in the hallway would stare at me longer than needed. Its only been a few minutes and the words seem to have already spread.
I made my way toward the dining hall. As I reached the clattering of silverware stopped instantly.
At the head of the table sat the King, his expression like a mountain before a storm. To his left, Elena sat with perfect poise, sipping her tea as if she were the picture of innocence. And at the right side, Aries was there, his face partially healed but still sporting the faint, purple bruises of Elena’s "lesson."
His eyes met mine, and for a split second, I felt that violet heat flare again behind my black irises.
It seems the eyes react to bad intentions. However now was not the time for this. So, I just suppressed the feeling and sat in my chair.
Let the games begin.