It had been a week since JiYeong began training. They followed the same schedule: breakfast if she managed to wake up early enough, laps around the castle, lunch, combat training and then dinner. It was repetitive, but she honestly didn’t mind it too much. Routine brought some normalcy to her new life.

Helping was the fact that she and Mathieu got along better than she'd originally anticipated. Even though she hadn’t exactly given the best first impression, they were becoming fast friends. They interacted like they’d known each other for years. It certainly made training much easier.

Unfortunately, her body hadn’t quite gotten used to the sudden change in her exercise habits, and even with the daily baths it was incredibly difficult for her to move her body at the end of the day.

At least the bed was comfortable, something JiYeong was more than happy about. Her bed back at home had been a very cheap mattress, feeling more like a pile of rocks than anything. It was nice to come back to her room after training and actually relax.

As comfortable as her room was, JiYeong would eventually have to force her body out of bed. Silvvyr and Iridia had gone back to their respective homes days ago, their mission complete. She had no idea what Mathieu did outside of the training sessions, and she was sure the Sylphs were getting tired of hearing her complain about her body aching.

The library was discovered the same way she'd found the stables. Wandering long enough led her to the giant doors.

Reading wasn’t something JiYeong had done on Earth very often, her time being spent either at work or playing games. But she did enjoy a good book every now and then.

Browsing the thousands of books gave her several options to read, and eventually she came upon a small section on Magick. The history of Magick, the dangers of Magick, any subject one could possibly think of had a book.

Seeing the Magick books, particularly one about spells, brought her thoughts back to home. That ever present guilt hit her almost full force. Home hadn’t been on the forefront of her mind while she’d been focusing on learning her place in Allumia. She once again found herself wondering if anyone had noticed she was missing. JiYeong drew in a breath, forcing it past the sudden tightness in her chest.

There had to be a way about getting home somehow. If they summoned her to Allumia, surely someone in the past would have figured there was a link between the two worlds, or had a spell of sorts for this type of thing.

JiYeong plucked the spell book from the shelves, settling into a rather comfortable looking chair to skim through it.

"What are you doing down here all by yourself?"

The voice startled her and her head snapped up, a barely audible gasp leaving her lips. "Prince Piers! I'm sorry I didn’t hear you come in."

She quickly closed the book she’d started reading, tucking it in the space between her thigh and the chair.

"I didn't exactly announce my presence." Piers chuckled lightly, shaking his head. His eyes fell to the book. It wasn’t a small book by any means, so it must have looked odd to him poking from beneath her leg. "Also, I'd hope we were past the formalities."

"Oh, yeah I suppose so. We haven't really had much time to talk just the two of us and you are the future King and all."

Piers smiled apologetically, lowering himself into the chair next to her. "As you can imagine, despite my mother not divulging as much information with me as I would like her to, being Crown Prince gives me responsibilities that often require my full attention."

That was actually a surprise to hear. JiYeong assumed that because Piers was the heir to the throne he would know as much as Adaora did.

Though it made sense. Despite being a Lord Knight Mathieu didn't seem to have very much information about what was going on, either.

“She doesn’t tell you what’s going on?”

“She’ll give bits and pieces but I think she is trying to handle this on her own as much as possible. My mother is a strong woman, and for pretty much all of our lives has had to handle everything by herself.”

“Don’t you guys have the Council or whatever to help?” JiYeong was still very unfamiliar with the way things worked in Allumia. Pulling from what limited knowledge the game afforded her, the longer she stayed the more she realized just how little she knew.

“We have a Council of sorts, made up of the different Leaders of Allumia, though getting them together is always a headache. And we have a board of Advisors, and that isn’t to say mother doesn’t use them.” Piers settled into his chair, letting out a sigh as he attempted to relax. “She consults with them, obviously, when the need arises. But there hasn’t been a need really for them in quite a while. There have been small issues that pop up here and there of course, but none on the scale where gathering the Council or consulting the entire board of advisors is necessary. And I think having Mathieu and I around during all of this…mother is having a difficult time relinquishing some of her responsibility to me...to the both of us” He paused again, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “Something this big, the threat of DoHyeon, hasn’t happened since before mother took the throne. Allumia isn’t perfect but at least we had peace.”

JiYeong watched Piers, unsure of how to respond. He and Mathieu were twins, and like his brother Piers didn’t seem twenty-five years old. Right now Piers seemed a lot older than he should have. Though he wanted more responsibility and to help his mother out, JiYeong could see the stress of the situation was getting to him. It made her heart ache.

That pang of guilt hit her chest when her mind wandered back to the book under her leg, and she shifted a bit. He wanted so desperately to be of help and here she was training for what? To abandon them and find a way back to Earth?

She let out a breath.

“Do you think she doesn’t trust you?”

Piers was shaking his head before the question was fully formed. “No, that isn’t it. Mother trusts me, and she trusts Mathieu. If she didn’t we would have even less information than we do now. I think she is trying to keep me more of a Prince than a King as long as possible. With Mathieu it’s too late, he decided long ago he was going to be a Lord Knight and not just a Prince, but seeing as my future entails being the King…” He trailed off with a shrug.

“Have you tried talking to her?”

At that Piers laughed, shaking his head again. “There is no talking to mother. I suppose I will just have to continue with my other responsibilities and hope she lets me in more than she has been. She will have no choice soon.”

JiYeong didn’t see why he didn’t just ask Adaora why she was being so secretive, but decided to keep that thought to herself. For all either of them knew, Adaora had a good reason for not divulging much information. And she’d already angered one Prince by sticking her foot in her mouth. It was best not to make it two for two.

“So,” Piers began. He’d settled back into his seat, looking the most relaxed she had seen him since they’d met. He had one leg crossed over the other, his elbow resting on the arm of the chair. “How is training with my dearest brother going? He isn’t being too hard is he?”

“I think he believes he isn’t being hard enough.” JiYeong huffed, glad for the change of subject. The guilt making room for slight annoyance as she crossed her arms. “He tacks on more and more things every time I see him. And he can tell if I haven’t been training while he’s away. It makes me feel bad for the Knights he’s in charge of.”

“He is Lord Knight after all. Training is his job. If he couldn’t tell there would be a problem.” Piers laughed.

“Well yeah, but making me run two extra laps on top of everything else because “otherwise I’ll get out of shape” is ridiculous.”

Piers laughed again and JiYeong found herself smiling at the sound. Unlike Mathieu’s surprisingly boisterous laughs where it came from his belly, Piers had a quieter laugh. More of a chuckle than anything.

“Come now, it can’t be that bad.”

“I’m still convinced he’s trying to kill me, but I guess it isn’t too bad.”

Piers shouted with laughter, his head falling back. This time he sounded like Mathieu did. “Would that not be counterproductive of him?”

“It wasn’t literal! He’s doing his job perfectly fine. I’m just not used to doing this much. Back home I sat around a lot and did nothing.”

“Home? You mean Tariadene, right? I cannot imagine there isn’t much chance for you to sit and do nothing, even as a Guardian in Tariadene.”

“Ah yeah, well. But it has been quite a few months between my last mission and coming here. My body has gotten used to not being on high alert all the time.”

Piers had that knowing look on his face again, but she couldn’t tell if he’d accepted her cover-up or was just going to brush past it.

“Mathieu got like that too, the first time he came home from the Academy. You should have seen him, he was so scrawny.” Piers was back to smiling and laughing and JiYeong found herself once again smiling with him.