Chapter 3: A welling feeling of pride.

Nearly four years had passed since that moment, the four emperors ruling each of the four great continents had sought out and discovered the thirteen destined heroes along the one whom was to be king amongst them. Three were found in the Irretrean continent under the rule of Emperor Peltas, five were found in the continent of Eashrah under the rule of Emperor Sentis, four were found in the continent of Osscia under the rule of the Empress Lagertha and the king was found in the continent of Earleya under the rule of Emperor Timothy.

Politics ensued at this discovery, the two strongest Empires wanted the King of heroes whom had been born to the weakest of the four Emperors for themselves, they put pressure on Timothy to hand the King over but were forced to take a step back at Lagertha choosing to ally with Timothy. Though this new development could have been solved if both of the two strongest chose to ally against them but none were anywhere near willing to based on personal factors and so the Earleyan continent would fortunately not become history although some minor petty acts from both Empires would ensue here and there but never crossing the limit.

But what almost no one knew was that even without the alliance of Lagertha with Timothy there existed an outside much force greater than all four combined that would not allow the balance between the great continents to be broken.

Great Mages from each of the four empires worked tirelessly in coming up with new and much better ways to protect themselves, they also asked for help from the goddess herself and she aided them with both blessings and artifacts, a new phenomenon begun happening to the world also.

Great valleys and tombs begun appearing all over the planet and in them were great unbelievable treasures of wealth and power of which the great empires immediately capitalised on and largely monopolised amongst themselves with barely anyone being able to voice their opinions on such an action, their world also had begun getting larger in size everyday that passed and with every new landmass, sea or ocean that appeared came new incredible creatures also, Magic had also become incomparably much stronger than it ever was and with this the era of interdimensional conquest had been reopened after a fifteen year hiatus following a meeting and agreement between the four Emperors so as not to get in each others way and cause unnecessary losses.

A pair of generals were chosen from each empire along with an army of ten thousand for each of the eight generals that were chosen, the great Mages opened the gateways after picking which strong worlds from specific realities to send them into and it is there they still remain till this very day.

One of the generals that had been chosen for this conquest was Maeve under the declaration of Emperor Peltas, it had been nearly two years since her departure but before she had left she made sure the boy had been legalised as her adopted son and therefore a prince of Garuda bearing her family name of Von Schafer.

Her sister's court had of coursed protested against this as the prospect of one who is not of a royal bloodline bearing that name was almost blasphemy, they had instead suggested her majesty create a new family name and assign to him the title of a Duke and not a prince, but unfortunately for them Hestia was not on their side and had allowed for the boy to fully become a part of their family thereby keeping to her words.

The announcement was made public and was received fairly well by the people, but one thing still remained the same for the boy though he had become part of the royal family. He had zero rights to compete for the throne and for this at least the court had found a sense of solace, Maeve had granted unto the boy the name Emrys and had raised him for two years until the time she was called up for her mission of conquest.

Emrys was handed over to his aunt the Queen to be in her care and Maeve departed, but before she left she made sure to take the little fairy with her as it was too much of a wild card to be left alone with her son and family, though it took a lot of effort she succeeded in taking it along with her. Hestia cared for the boy as she did her daughters, they too were introduced to him and it didn't take long before the siblings were able to hit it off. Emrys was intriguing to both his aunt and cousins, his intelligence was something monstrous for his age as was his body's constitution as someone who hadn't even awoken yet.

By accident they had discovered about the boys monstrous regeneration abilities that rivaled that of a phoenix, but it was by this accident that a small fear of the boy had arisen. Emrys had gone to watch Rachel's training process as he had done many times before, but Rachel who was training her control over her flames was having a bad day so her emotions were quite unstable and this too had a direct effect on her flames which were tied to her emotions.

At some point her frustrations had gotten the better of her and so she spread her flames out in a wave, Emrys being the innocent bystander as always was caught in that wave and lit up from head to toe in nearly an instant, Rachel sensing that her flames had come into contact with life turned around to find a burning skeleton.

Her scream reverberated throughout the entire palace and Hestia upon hearing it teleported herself to her daughter immediately only to find her on the ground looking ahead in pure horror with tears running down her cheeks, she turned around around to find the burning skeleton also and knew in a second that it was Emrys.

Terror flowed through every last bit of her body and soul as she exerted her authority over her daughters flames and put them out, thousands of thoughts were running through her head at this moment as she knew not what to do and just froze there, this was like the nightmare of nightmares.

But then right before her eyes and that of her daughter nerves, muscle, organs, blood and flesh began returning to the skeleton and in six seconds the boy was fully healed, that incident truly served as the most intense both had ever witnessed. Ever since that day too Rachel had become noticeably different when it came to Emrys, her behaviour of behaviour could not be called cold or anything of the sort, she treated him just fine and well but now it seemed like she quite literally had to be there for him all the time or she would die.

Hestia, Leah and Emrys noticed quite easily when it begun and were worried, Hestia talked to Rachel and tried to convince her that she did not need to feel so guilty about the incident of that day as nothing was her fault and Emrys was fine. But every time Rachel would reply that her behaviour was not as a result of that incident, the same reply would be given to Emrys when he would ask her the same and only Leah as someone who had not been told the original story would believe her. Both knew not what to do as Rachel just didn't want to budge at all in the slightest and options were running thin, at some point they had stopped questioning her and decided to let her continue with hopes that at some point soon she would feel like she had atoned enough.

Emrys loved reading, it had become a most favourite hobby of his and so since the past two years he had been the palace library's most regular visitor, it was a place in which he found a most soothing solace from. Another reason was because it was perhaps the only place he had left which could save him from Rachel's hounding, if there was something Rachel could not stand it was books. Now Rachel was not dumb, far from it even as she was a genius in both Magic and academics but she just could not bring herself to bear reading a book, being in the presence of them alone always made her feel like a sleeping spell had been cast on her.

But Leah on the other hand;

The doors to the library burst open and right on cue Emrys had sighed as great burst of sir assaulted both and the entire library, luckily he had placed a hand on the page he was reading as precaution lest it flipped over undesirably.

"RAVENNNNNN!!!!".

She yelled at the top of her lungs assaulting his poor eardrums, if not for the fact she was a princess the librarian incharge would have banished her long ago from this place but alas there was nothing that could be done to stop Leah. As Emrys had no access to Magic yet he could not fix the chaos around him so the poor librarian had to silently use hers to fix the result of Leah's chaos from behind the scenes, he looked up to meet the gaze of his older sister who stood before him slightly levitating in the air.

"Yes" he replied in a flat tone.

The excitement in Leah's eyes died a little "tsk, you used to be such a huge ball of joy a year ago".

"Mhm, and then I grew up".

Leah's lips quivered as she tried her hardest to hold in her laugh but she just could not and so the flood gates were opened.

"to be three" *Ahahahaha...

Her laughter continued on a little longer and Emrys could not help but feel embarrassed as he puffed his cheeks a little, a three year old claiming himself to be grown up would definitely make anyone laugh no doubt. She pinched both his cheeks and shook em a little "so cute".

"Speaking of age you just reminded me of my original reason for coming here".

"Your birthday's coming up in two days–

He froze for a moment but said nothing and let her continue.

"And that'll be the agreed day of your awakeninggg!" she jumped around in the air all giddy and excited at the prospect of seeing just what his awakening would be, she just knew it was going to be epic.

Though it was already fairly obvious he was not part of the phoenix race like her entire family, Raven was definitely something just as awesome. Why? No reason other than this was just how she felt, in her mind he was already much too awesome now that the possibility of his magical aspect failing to live up to her expectations and be even better just did not exist in the mind of the innocent little ten year old Princess.

"You're excited right? Please tell me you're excited!" She shook him rigourously.

Emrys smiled and closed his book "yes sister, I am excited".

"Good good, mother is already preparing a banquet for you on that day" she announced.

This came as a huge shock to Emrys "aunty? Why".

"It's basically tradition, it was done for everyone of us. As our bloodline has only ever been one that birthed geniuses there's always reason to celebrate the birth of a future important powerhouse".

"Right now the greatest genius our bloodline ever birthed is the current Queen and it's greatest anomaly was your mother".

"Of course, I mean that in a good way and not–" she clarified lest he misunderstood her words but Emrys just smiled and assured her he knew what she meant.

She sighed in relief and then got all giddy again "pray the goddess makes time flow much faster, I can't wait for you to shut up those foolish old men around mother forever".

"I can already see the looks on their faces, pricelessssss!" She grinned so idiotically and happily lost in her fantasies, but unknowingly to her with every word Leah uttered and the higher her excitement climbed the heavier his heart got.

He couldn't bring himself to tell her that as of right his position was an uncertain one, it was because of this that he still remained confused as to why his aunt the Queen would make such an expensive gamble as there was no way she too did not have the same thoughts he did, was there possibly something else he was missing.

Normally age four wasn't a normal age to try awakening, the best bet was usually either from age six & nine, an awakening was a very intense process and if done too early before the body has been properly moulded and tempered by the mana in the air through the years then it could lead to terrible consequences for the individual when an awakening is attempted, in some cases even death. Emrys knew quite well he was incredibly abnormal already for someone who hadn't awakened yet, according to his aunt he was proving to be an even greater abnormality than his mother so the decision to have his awakening at age was still not quite the problem here, the bigger reason was because of something else entirely.

The twelve destined heroes and their king to be would be having their awakening at the tower of Magic, by great coincidence he shared the same birthdate with all them and age four was the same agreed date the empires decided they would be having their awakenings and by default the entire focus of that day would have to fall on them, it was a no brainer that neither of the Emperors would take a no for an answer from any of their invited subjects on such a most celebratory of days in all of the world's history.

Someone as important as and well known Queen also choosing this same day to host a banquet could be seen as a slap to the extremely petty Emperor's face if this results in her not going to celebrate at the main palace, since she's also bound to invite other royals on this day what sane person would choose to attend hers over the Emperor's in the prospect of invited to both, perhaps only a few royals would not receive an invitation from the Emperor and if these few royals were to receive only hers instead they would still be able to easily figure out the weirdness of the whole situation and most probably still not attend would they not?

There had to be something he just wasn't seeing yet because what exactly could she planning with this, before he could sink any deeper into the sea of confusion Leah had suddenly grabbed onto his hand and pulled him up "come, I have something to show you".

Emrys was dragged not of his own will by his older sister to her room and left right at the door as she rushed in to find something, he sighed and walked in through the open door to find her right on the floor and under her bed searching for something.

Joy flashed on her face the moment she found it and pulled it out from under the bed, what rest in her hands was a small wooden red box with inscriptions. She placed a hand on the box and infused some mana, a magic ring was revealed spinning slowly around the box, with a little twist of her palm accompanied by the sounds of a lock turning the ring burst into millions of tiny pieced and faded away.

Leah smiled and brought to the box towards Raven, she placed it in his hands and took a step back "open it" she said.

He complied with her request and opened the box to see a ring, it seemed to be one made of the purest gold with some thin red lines running along it. On it's crest was a crimson red gem with something in it's core that seemed to pulse with life, he raised the ring up to his eye level and examined it some more.

"Ahem"

Leah's fake cough achieved it's purpose of drawing his attention and Emrys felt a chill run down his spine seeing the look in her eyes, almost immediately he set himself on the right course to appease her lest she burns a hole right through him with those eyes of hers.

"I quite it a lot sister, it's beautifully crafted".

A sigh a relief was expressed in his heart as his compliments seemed to have done the job of getting him out of trouble, Leah began smiling again and this time even wider than before while beaming with incredible pride.

"Hehe, I'm glad you like it. I made it myself as a gift to you".

"Huh, you can craft?" Expressed a genuinely flabbergasted Emrys.

"Yup" she added proudly.

"Although for the magic inscriptions I had the mages do it for me since I'm not at that level yet".

Emrys examined the ring again, though he knew not how to craft he had seen more than enough high level crafted objects and weapons to recognise that this ring was definitely one of the same rank, but surprisingly what caught his attention even more than Leah's surprisingly gifted ability for crafting was what lay in the crest of the ring.

"You really are a genius sister, you might possibly reach or surpass the level of the Empires number one craftsman at this rate".

"Thank you for making this". Emrys's praise this time was spoken directly from heart and with no ulterior motive in mind, there was absolutely no way he would not be joyed by the fact his sister's path to greatness just got even bigger, very few people in this world get to boast the privilege of having a genius craftsman as a sibling.

Leah was so over the roof with joy with her brothers words but-- "I have no interest in crafting".

"Eh?" It was like a bomb had just been dropped on his world with that reveal.

"I took up crafting two weeks ago while worrying about what sort of gift I wanted to prepare for you and since I did not want to just buy the gift like nearly everyone else would I decided to make it myself".

"To me it's value is much greater this way and I'm glad to see that you like it".

"That is your birthday gift Raven, I just couldn't wait any longer and decided to give it you now".

Emrys did not know what to be more shocked by, the fact that it had only been two weeks since she took up crafting and yet reached such a high level in that short of a time or the fact that his sister really could care less for crafting and only did it for sake of which admittedly was making his heart beat with so much love right now for his sister but that was besides the point.

In the end all he could do was just sigh and shake his head while smiling, somehow right now she had just become incomparably more awesome in his eyes and this was a win he could live with. Yeah, this was definitely a win he could live with.

EnD.