15.5

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Rory and Aurora soon after left the room and sat down to a full royal breakfast. Aurora was astonished by the variety and amount of food that was meant for her and the prince to share. Fried and boiled eggs, cuts of pork and sausages. Butter toasted breads, tomatoes and other fruits. Bowls of yoghurts and other luxuries. Even more shocking than the food was how much food the prince was capable of eating. He was not even seven years old yet, but she surmised that he could eat more than her father.

Aurora had eaten as much as she could and was now slumped back in her chair happily. The food of the palace was definitely of a higher quality. She looked up at Rory who was dabbing the sides of his mouth with a handkerchief when a question popped into her mind.

"Prince Rory, are we scheduled to do anything in particular today?" She asked curiously.

Rory responded with a grin and a twinkle in his eyes before he confidently said, "I'm taking you out of the palace."

"What, really?" Aurora's eyes widened at his declaration. Although the palace was magnificent she found it very hard to relax there. She could not get over the feeling of not belonging. So the idea of possibly going into the city very exciting.

Rory nodded happily seeing the excitement in her eyes. "There is a shop that I think you will like very much."

Rory stood up from his seat with a smile on his face. "I'll quickly go change then we can get going." He was still in his white pyjamas after all.

"Alright." Aurora replied.

"I'll only be a moment, but there's a drawing room through those doors if you want to take a look while you wait." Rory motioned to the white doors before swiftly exiting to his bedroom where nanny Zelda was waiting for him with a change of clothes.

Not wanting to just sit idly at the table, Aurora decided to explore the room the prince was talking about. Drawing rooms often had interesting books and some drawing paper to play with after all.

She gently pushed open the door wide enough for just her head to slip through. She took a peak inside and was happy to find that this room was positioned well, the late morning light was filtering into the room making it a few degrees warmer than the dinning room. Seeing as it was empty, she gladly set foot inside and made her way over to the far table next to the large windows where she could see something gleaming brightly.

It could be a jewel, or a piece of metal, or something else entirely, she simply could not tell because it was reflecting the light so strongly into her eyes that she could not make out the shape of it.

She excitedly skipped over to the table, eager to find out what the shinning object was. Aurora had never been one for weapons because when she had lived on the Wetern mines the threat of bandits wielding sharp machetes and jagged daggers was a very real danger, which had kept her from peaceful sleep for many nights. Especially knowing how her mother had died, her fear of any kind of weapon grew, to the point that she avoided weapons whenever she could, a habit that stayed with her even after she came to Azlantean. It was very common for students of the academy to watch the famous combat tournaments between the highest ranking individuals in the academy, however she could not be any more repulsed by such things. She would always go hide in the library out sneak out to the gardens and find someplace where the sounds of clashing metal could not reach her.

However, as Aurora stared at the half-covered silver long sword laying on the table, she found that she was not afraid of it. In fact, it was almost the opposite, as she found herself drawn to it. It was such a mighty but somehow elegant weapon, nothing about it inspired fear in her, as if it was not a weapon at all. She used to think of weapons as horrible things, things that brought pain and suffering and worse of all death, but this sword seemed different somehow. Surely this majestic longsword was not meant for such filthy things. It felt like it was meant for love and peace, and best of all, justice.

Before she knew what she was doing, she slowly reached down and tentatively swept her index finger across the cool metallic surface. Suddenly in the surface of the blade she thought she a figure, a great knight covered in pristine metal armour looking over her shoulder. She got such a fright that she spun around, terrified to confront whoever was standing behind her. To her dismay she found that the room was completely empty, only the door was slightly ajar but that was just the way she had left it. She turned back to the sword to look into the blade again, however the knight she had seen was gone. All she could do was frown and wonder if the richness of the food had made her hallucinate.

Aurora was about to return to the dinning room when she noticed sometime next to the long sword. The long sword was half-covered under a large cut of dark blue satin, it seemed that laying next to the longsword was something else, but this something else was entirely covered by in silk. She curiously reached over the table and began to uncover whatever was hiding from her underneath. She frowned as she began to realise that someone had gone through the trouble of wrapping the long thin object in another cut of blue silk. Now she was far too curious too realise the significance of the second layer of wrapping, instead she continued to unwrap the object.

She was so focused on her task that she forgot all about etiquette and caution, and could not seems to realise that she was actually in danger. Just as she was about to pull back the last fold of silk, Rory's had suddenly caught her wrist.

"Stop!" He commanded with a cold serious expression on his face that frightened Aurora. He had never looked so stern before, and he never talked to her like that before.

Aurora froze on the spot, staring up at Rory, unable to recognise the playmate she had just been laughing with. Without a word, Rory walked over to the table and began to rebind his katana in silk.

The terrifying spirit he had accepted into the katana sword was still fresh in his mind from his time in the spirit realm. Since he had fallen unconscious as soon as he had gotten back from the well, he did not know his two swords had been placed in the drawing room opposite the dinning hall, the same hall he had sent Aurora into. He had only found out when he had asked nanny Zelda about the whereabouts of his two spirit weapons while she was dressing him for the day. That was when Nanny Zelda recalled to him the disturbing incident that had happened while he was asleep. The previous night, while he was being put to bed in his recovery room, miss Reverie, one of his maids had been instructed to put the swords in the prince's treasury room. It was a simple task and nobody had thought something would go wrong, however, when miss Reveries did not show up for dinner with the other staff, the figured out that something had gone wrong.

After a short search Miss Reverie was found laying on the floor in the prince's quarters with her right hand cleanly sliced off and the katana blade laying in the blood. Miss Reverie was only just alive when she was discovered, but thankfully the others had rushed her to the emergency treatment mages while she was still breathing. Rory knew without a doubt that it was the work of the dark spirit he had made a contract with. Leopold had told him before about powerful spirits sometimes being able to act outside of its contractor's will in the human world if the spirit felt disrespected. Rory immediately rushed to the drawing room to hopefully arrive before Aurora got into real danger. As soon as he opened the door his heart sank. Since it was his contracted spirit weapon, he could see what the others could not. The thick smokey black aura spewing out of the wrapped katana was covering Aurora's body like a funeral veil. If she were to touch it, there was no doubt in Rory's mind that it would try to hurt her, the same way it had hurt me poor miss Reverie.

He caught Aurora just before she touched it and commanded the Katana to 'stop' and release Aurora from whatever hold it had on her. Thankfully the darkness flowed back into the blade, and Rory quickly rewrapped the katana, wondering how he could keep everyone else safe from the deal he had struck with what was turning out to be a devil.

He looked down at the frightened Aurora, realising that she probably thought he was shouting at her and not his sport sword.

"I am sorry for raising my voice just now..." Rory quickly tried to apologise wondering if he had just undone the closeness he had just achieved with her.

'In times of conflict the best thing to do is to explain yourself clearly and concisely'. Leopold's lessons for nobility came in handy as he scrambled to think of what to say to the obviously wounded Aurora.

"I don't know if anyone told you, but I was in the spirit realm last night looking for a spirit to contract." Rory began by calmly taking Aurora's hand and leading her to the ivory sofas in a cozy nook of the room.

Aurora nodded her head remembering Nanny Zelda's words when she first arrived. "Yes, Nqnny Zelda told me."

"Well my journey was successful. It went really well in fact because I managed to contract two spirits."

Aurora looked up at Rory in awe at what he was telling her. At the academy the module they were currently focused on was spirit weapons. So for the past few weeks everyone had been studying for the end-of-year event in which the entire class would venture into the spirit realm in order to retriever spirit weapons. During this learning period it had been drilled into her head so many time by the teachers that the success rate for retrieving spirit weapons at their age was no more that 5%. So she found it incredible that Prince Rory, who was three years her junior and had been able to form not one, but two spirit contracts.

"The first contract I made was with that silver longsword." Rory pointed to the sword that Aurora had been enamoured by a few moments ago. "She is a brave resilient spirits who wishes to uphold justice and bring peace..."

As Rory said those word, Aurora remembered the gallant knight she had seen in the reflection of the blade. "The knight..." she whispered.

Rory frowned at what she had said. He had not said anything about the spirit being a knight and yet Aurora somehow knew.

"Yes, a righteous knight is my first spirit." Rory smiled seeing as the smile returned to Aurora's face. "But how did you know that?" He questioned her.

"For a moment there when I was admiring the sword, maybe I imagined it, but I thought I saw a beautiful knight reflected in the blade." Her smile grew bigger as she understood the figure she had seen earlier.

Rory was impressed by this, if what Leopold had told him about spirits and their contractors was true, it would take someone very gifted in spirituality to have seen a spirit in the human world that was not bonded with them.

"You're amazing Aurora. When the time comes for you to get a spirit weapon I bet you will be the star of your class." Rory smiled brightly, knowing that Aurora might be a really talented spiritualist. After hearing about her poor standing at the academy from his maids, Rory hoped that his words would give her some confidence.

His complement certainly has an impact on Aurora, her face immediately flushed an embarrassing shade of red. She looked down at the floor so that he would not see the affect he had on her.

"Anyway, the second spirit I bonded with in the spirit realm is the opposite of my first spirit. The second spirit is darkness and from what nanny Zelda told me it is prone to malice. Last night one of my staff members, miss Reverie, was seriously injured by that spirit while she was transporting it to my wing. When I realised you were in the same room as the spirit, I got anxious about your safety and rushed over to make sure you were okay. I am sorry that I shouted at you, it was not because I was angry at you, it was because I was really scared that something might happen to you."

Aurora recalled the way he had shouted and caught her hand before she touched the blade and understood everything now. Although she was not aware that spirit weapons could act on their own without the approval of their human, she full heartedly believed in Rory's words.

"Please don't apologisePrince Rory. I should not have touched things that did not belong to me in the first place." She smiled up at him awkwardly. "Thank you for explaining everything so well, and I hope that your staff member recovers." She frowned wondering what kind of injuries the spirit sword had inflicted upon that person.

"Thank you," Rory marvelled at Aurora's trusting nature, but then his smile dropped as he realised that he would have to cut their time together short. "Unfortunately, I think we will have to reschedule for another time. I need to go and apologise to miss Reverie."

Rory thought it would be incredibly shameful of him to go out and enjoy a happy day with Aurora when Miss Reverie almost died because he was not able to control his spirit weapon. He would have to go and apologise to Miss Reverie and reschedule with Aurora.

Although Aurora had only spent a short time with Rory that day, she honestly felt like it had been the most fun she had in ages. So much fun that it ached when she knew she had to go. The two made plans to meet again next week, only this time Rory would fetch her in a carriage and take her to the place he had wanted to take her today.

While the pair waited for Beth, Aurora's nanny, to come to fetch her, the two sat under the eternal blossom tree on Rory's terrace and talked. Aurora told Rory all about the magnificent mines and all the precious metals she had dug up by hand, then Rory told her all about the small forest village where he had grown up. The time flew by and soon Beth arrived to fetch Aurora and the betrothed children were waving goodbye.

As soon as Aurora left, Rory headed for the medical department to apologize to Miss Reverie, but straight after that, he was headed to the king.