Chapter 3

I was in deep thought as I ate my breakfast with one hand and fondled the delicate necklace with the other. The necklace was a gift from my Aunt. She said it was a replica of my mother's. She couldn't actually give me my mother's because it was old and rusty, so she gave me a new version of it. It was a delicate silver necklace with a small sapphire gem at the bottom. The rich blue colour captivated me. It reminded me of my mother a lot. She always looked great in blue and that was my favourite colour.

I was currently alone since my Aunt had to go to work early in the morning. Since she was a nurse, she always worked long hours, but I never complained about feeling lonely. I knew she worked this hard for me so she could provide me with everything I wanted. Also, she would always rush back home and spend as much time with me as she could. I practically occupied three-quarters of her attention and the other quarter was work. I hoped that when I attended university, my Aunt would settle down with someone and would prioritise herself more than me. I just wanted her to have a happy life that didn't require fussing over me so I promised myself to do my best in making her less worried about me.

As I ate, I remembered the dream I had. The same deep voice called the name Elaine again. It wasn't anything weird, just a normal conversation but it was filled with warmth and sweetness. The dream was in a 1st person's view, so he was conversing to supposedly me, but that just made me confused. Who was he? Most importantly, who was Elaine? At first, I dismissed the dream because dreams were random, so I didn't think much of them. But now that I had another dream with the same person in it, I started to wonder if that dream was just a random one or not. If I constantly dreamt of this person, did that mean something?

I ruffled my hair out of frustration and stood up. There was no point in beating myself up with it so I decided to forget about it and go to school.

When I entered school, I heard a lot of girls talking. The word 'new boy' came up everywhere and I sighed. I guess he had a good first impression on them all. After taking some stuff out of my locker, I felt an arm swing around my shoulders.

"Hey Haeyoon!" a girl with short black hair smiled.

"Hey, Captain."

This girl was the captain of the basketball team, a fellow senior.

"Make sure to remember we have a meeting today. I'm going to make sure to tell the others," she said before leaving.

"Oh wait. I forgot, happy belated birthday!" she quickly said before going.

I shook my head. Captain Kim Jisoo was an extreme extrovert and she fit the title of captain a lot. She was an excellent basketball player, and I respected her skills. I've known her for a few years, and she was the one that convinced me to join her club. Fortunately, I did because I ended up taking a liking to basketball.

"Haeyoon!!" someone shouted my name.

I turned around and saw a running Taeyi, charging at me.

"Woah! What's up?"

She stopped before me and took deep breaths.

"Guess what? I found a new novel," she looked at me with her sparkly eyes.

That piqued my interest.

"New novel?"

"Yeah yeah!" she nodded frivolously.

One secret that Taeyi and I shared was that we both enjoyed reading romance, historical, and fantasy novels in our spare time. Whenever we stumbled upon a good one, we always recommended them to each other.

"I'm not up to date yet, but I'm in the middle so far and it's so cute. The female lead and male lead are so cute together. I'm at the romance part," she excitedly said.

"It's ongoing?"

"Yeah. It updates every day. Even though I'm only in the middle, I recommend it. Their relationship is just so pure and swoon-worthy. Also, I hate the Emperor with a passion. He's paranoid and greedy for power and doesn't want his only niece to take his position."

As she rambled on about her hatred for the Emperor, I listened. Seems like the storyline was interesting.

"I'll check it out when I go home," I told her.

"Good, good!"

~

During the lesson, my teacher asked me to get the textbooks from her office. I left the classroom and took my time. Once I picked up all the textbooks, which were quite a lot, I left her office and walked down the hallway. As I walked, my eyes wandered to the windows and I looked outside. I was entranced by the beauty of the scenery before me. Sunrays peeked through the branches of the trees, which had lovely pink blossoms sprouting out. Due to the slight breeze, petals flew and scattered to the ground. It was like a painting. Unknowingly, a small smile was on my face as I was lost in thought.

"Excuse me, you're blocking the way," someone suddenly said, startling me.

When I came to reality, I realised I stopped in the middle of the hall. Quickly, I turned around and I was met with a boy that was about a head taller than me. I didn't really focus much on his face since I was flustered.

"Sorry," I quickly apologised before continuing to walk.

After a few steps, I stopped.

𝘞𝘢𝘪𝘵 𝘢 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘶𝘵𝘦.

I instantly turned back around and saw the back of the boy as he left. It was the same voice I heard yesterday. He must have been the person I bumped into. I didn't recall seeing him before, so I concluded that he was probably the new kid.

~

As soon as I arrived home, I changed out of my uniform and jumped onto the sofa. I whipped my phone out and searched for the novel Taeyi told me about. It was called 'The Princess of Light'. There were a lot of chapters and I was excited to read them. With some light snacks, I started reading it.

Taeyi was right. It was a cute novel. The story was about a girl called Elaine de Osborne, who was the daughter of a Grand Duke. She was the only Princess of the Empire; the Grand Duke was the only brother of the Emperor. The current Emperor of the Caelum Empire came to the throne after killing all of his siblings in the fight for the throne. He left the current Grand Duke alone after he pledged absolute loyalty to him – the Grand Duke didn't want bloodshed amongst his family so he made sure to publicly denounce his right to the throne. The Emperor was happy about that because the Grand Duke was a strong warrior and was even known as a hero as he was the one that led the Empire to victory against other Kingdoms. That was why the Emperor slightly had an inferior complex to him. However, the Grand Duke of Osborne was supportive of his older brother and was his right-hand man in conquest and gave the Emperor no reason to doubt his loyalty.

15 years after Princess Elaine was born in the Osborne family, an oracle came out claiming that a girl in the Imperial Family would be blessed by the Goddess with the power of light and would be the rightful leader of the Empire. The Emperor was furious at the news. He was greedy and despite having a hundred percent loyalty from his brother, he was still paranoid that he might want the throne one day. He knew, currently, the only girl in the Imperial Family was Elaine, but there were no signs of the power of light in her. Since the Church was under his control, he made sure that the oracle was not leaked by killing everyone who knew about it, apart from the Divine Priest because his death would be known across the whole Empire. Instead, he threatened him and kept close surveillance on him to make sure he never told anyone. However, the problem was that the oracle was engraved on a large, polished stone, so he could not get rid of it. It was indestructible, so he hid it deep in the castle where no one but him had access.

When Elaine turned 16, signs of the power of light started to show, but only a little bit. Despite it being only a little, the Emperor kept tabs on her.

When Elaine was 17, a ball was announced in celebration of the Grand Duke's birthday. Elaine appeared publicly for the first time and that was when she met Edmond Calymour, the second son of Duke Calymour. Drawn to her, he asked her for a dance and they fell in love with each other at first glance. There were more sweet encounters before they announced their engagement when they both had their coming-of-age ceremony. He also became the Commander of the Royal Guards. This was where Taeyi was currently at. I enjoyed it a lot and didn't realise the darkness I was in. The sun had already gone down, and I was just sitting in the living room in the dark. I felt light-hearted at the love story between the two.

If only that kind of love was true.

As I was daydreaming, the door opened, and my Aunt came in.

"Hayeoon? Goodness! Why are you sitting in the dark?" she exclaimed as she switched the lights on.

"I didn't realise the time," I sheepishly said.

"I'll quickly make some food for the both of us and we'll watch a movie," she told me before entering the kitchen.