Guardians of the Prince

Endie seemed to have come from the castle’s back gate, and it was closer from here than the front gate, so we all turned in that direction. There was a guard station immediately inside the gate, where they checked our Shin, and I went into the castle with Lemonina and the others.

Lemonina, it seemed, came and went in parts of the castle a lot because of her work, and she strode forward at the head of our party like she knew where she was going.

I followed at a half trot, alongside Mr Kahzam. Endie brought up the rear.

This must have been the area where the guards spent their time, because we passed by a load of people in black uniforms.

We went down a long corridor, and eventually came out onto a scene of walls and pillars in vibrant colors – we must have been close to the heart of the castle, right?

Lahzt came to meet us at the corridor that connected to the main palace.

“Mr Lahzt!”

“Kohme! Are you hurt?”

Mr Lahzt ran over and after touching my wrists and the back of my neck the way Lemonina had, gave a light sigh.

“You seem alright. I’m so sorry we left you behind.”

“No, I heard what happened.” I shook my head.

Lemonina seemed a bit suspicious about something though. “The guards let Kohme into the castle pretty easily, considering all the chaos around here,” she muttered.

Mr Lahzt answered. “Lord Fatido has apparently been laying some groundwork through Lady Solamire.”

Even as I felt a rush of gratitude for Mr Fatido, I impatiently asked Mr Lahzt without any further preamble.

“What about the prince? They said he’s gone…”

“Yeah.” Mr Lahzt nodded and glanced quickly around, guiding us all into the closest room. There was a sectional and a few other pieces of furniture. This must have been what they called a drawing room.

“When we arrived, prince was given to Lady Tellner – to Princess Haluria’s nurse for a while,” Mr Lahzt began, apparently too pressed to even take a seat on the sofa. “We filled out the paperwork for Kahzam’s reinstatement so he could guard prince, and then I went to meet the personnel supervisor to tell him about Kohme. But somewhere in that time, prince went missing. There were some study materials on Shin in the nurse’s room, and it looks like prince did touch them.”

He touched study materials about the seals?

“Lady Tellner said she saw the light of someone invoking a Shiino. Prince must have turned into an animal and run away. Probably so he could go find Kohme.”

The prince transformed himself!?

Mm… That was possible though. The prince was the first child to be raised in the Garden of Stars, protected by the animals and by the god Gaduos, and he’d seen the arts Mr Lahzt used to transform Mr Kahzam. It was no wonder he’d done something so record-breaking.

Making a derisive noise through his nose and turning around, Endie flashed a sarcastic smile from his place leaning against the wall near the door.

“He can transform already, huh, at that age? He really is a viable adoption candidate, isn’t he.”

Endie has been looking for the prince, he must have known, but he didn’t trust us. Which was why he was putting suspicion on me. I didn’t have any proof, so maybe there wasn’t anything I could do about it, but still.

“It’ll be dark before long though, right? Where did he go?”

My head was stuffed with impatience. The prince was already small, if he’d turned into an animal, it would be a simple matter for him to get out of the castle.

Where had he gone? Was he hurt? He had to be getting hungry, right?

And more than anything, he was looking for me, all alone and probably in tears.

“Prince is small, and he doesn’t have a name seal, so we can’t follow him with Shiino.”

Mr Lahzt bit his lip in regret. Just then, Mr Kahzam opened his mouth.

“Kohme. You might be able to look for him.”

“What?” I asked back, flustered. “I don’t have a clue where he could be.”

Mr Kahzam put a hand on my shoulder, to calm me down. “We pulled that plum from your world based on your image, didn’t we? You spent time with prince in the Garden of Stars, you know him best, you should be able to do the same with him.”

Mr Kahzam believed in me – and I had faith in Mr Kahzam.

“I was just about to say the same myself!” Lemonina got to her feet, clenching her fists. “Let’s go, Kohme!”

Between the front gate and the main palace was an extensive garden. In the center of that was a round building, about thirty meters in diameter, like a miniature version of the Shiinium.

There were a lot of royalty and scholars who used the Shiinium on a daily basis. Apparently, this was a so-called Shin Library for those people.

Once we got inside, there was a small, shallow bowl in the center of the building, and something like a hanging lantern made of stone in the middle of that, and above that hung a large, blue planet, like some kind of balance ball. And then every inch of the surrounding walls was carved with seals. The building itself looked like an ancient ruin, and apparently the same seals were carved here in response to those at the larger Shiinium.

We fixed our expressions and went in, and the few people inside looked up at us in surprise. Sorry for the disturbance.

After that, I concentrated on looking for the prince’s image, and was able to find a seal as if it had called for me.

The prince’s unguarded smile, his goofy mischief.

His intense curiosity, the way he worried about me when I messed something up and clung to me with those small hands.

And his voice, calling my name.

They all flashed across my mind one after the other, and I looked for a seal that was close to my image of the prince. Mr Kahzam had watched over us as Morio, and he helped too with some appropriate advice.

Lemonina pressed her hand against the seal I found to duplicate it, but when I touched a few of the characters in the Circle Art to expand it, the seal glowed only dimly, shrunk back down again, and carved itself back into my left arm.

The seals engraved on my arm stood one next to the other, wrapped around my arm like a bracelet.

Something was missing. There were a couple of seals that acted as the clasps of the bracelet, connecting the circle end to end, and it didn’t feel like they were calling to me.

My mind filled with thoughts of the prince, and my tears spilled, and the world got blurry.

I didn’t have time to cry. I wiped my tears, trying to pull myself together, when suddenly I gasped.

Birds were landing on the windows that dotted the building, and on the rim of the ceiling, where I could see the sky.

I could hear their wings, one, and then another one, little by little, their numbers increased.

“Birds…”

Lemonina looked around too.

Next to Endie, who was standing near the entrance like he was guarding it, stood Idine in his ever-present robe. He looked around as well.

“That’s unusual. Don’t see many birds around here,” he muttered, and glanced at me.

I almost gave a shout, but clamped my mouth shut in a hurry.

Speaking of, I had spotted colorful birds sometimes in the Garden of Stars. I wondered if maybe these birds had come from the Garden of Stars, maybe they knew our secret.

“When we were there…” Mr Kahzam muttered, looking around, and I looked up at him from where I was standing beside him.

“Prince and I were by ourselves. I had brought you some things, and you carried it upstairs, Kohme…”

Mr Kahzam looked at me.

Oh, when we were in the Garden of Stars… Mr Kahzam was talking about one of his trips there as Morio. When he said ‘up’ he meant the treehouse.

“Prince tugged on one of my hands. He held my hand, like, to get me to go upstairs with him.”

Mr Kahzam leaned over gently so his mouth was right by my ear and whispered to me so other people couldn’t hear. “My hand, when I was Morio. Normally, people aren’t inclined to walk hand in hand with animals, are they? I think that was the point at which prince realized I was actually a human.”

Mr Kahzam was trying to tell me something, a little clumsily, but still – I was filled with the conviction that I should be able to understand.

The prince had the power to see things that weren’t obvious. To the point that he’d recognized the Shin for transforming someone into an animal and had ended up using it on himself…

“Lemonina, there… That seal!”

I spotted one that meant something like ‘clever’ or ‘discerning,’ words you might use to describe the prince’s mysterious intuition, and pointed to it.

Lemonina engraved that on my arm.

It acted like a keystone, and connected all the other seals.

It became a bridge to the prince.

I touched the seal to expand the Circle, and when the Circle Art gently spread out, the birds that had gathered there all flapped their wings at once.

The interior of the building was filled with the sound of flapping wings.

I felt like they were telling me, let’s go.

“Kohme.” Mr Kahzam called me and headed outside, where there was an anpy waiting right there.

He hopped up onto the anpy, and reached his hand out to me. I grabbed it and he pulled me up into the saddle.

When my point of view got higher, I could see a figure in a dress in the passageway that led to the castle’s main palace, accompanied by several attendants.

She had chestnut hair, and she was far enough away that I couldn’t really tell her expression, but our eyes met… The instant they did, she nodded.

Just as I realized this was Solamire, this was the prince’s mother, Mr Kahzam let out a short yell.

The anpy took off running for the front gate with a neigh. Endie got on his own anpy and followed after us.

The birds all flew into the sky, and flocked towards the sunset.

The anpy Mr Kahzam and I were riding raced through the castle’s downtown in a single breath, and flew towards the town’s outer reaches.

It turned off the main road immediately and passed into the forest. The wind rippled over a grassy meadow that seemed to stretch on forever and turned the windmills that were standing immediately outside of town. The colors of the sunset glittered on a river in the distance.

With the Circle Art still expanded, I clung desperately to the anpy saddle. Mr Kahzam noticed it immediately, and wrapped his arms around me from where he was sitting behind me.

“It’s alright, Kohme, you keep your mind on prince. I absolutely will not let you fall.”

I nodded, and put my thoughts on the prince.

The birds soared around us, before and behind, and on both sides. Just as I realized the power of the Circle Art was headed in the same direction as the birds, a beam of light gushed out of the Circle Art and guided us forward.

Eventually, we caught sight of a small fountain surrounded by several trees and bushes. Branches stretched out over the fountain, sort of like in the Garden of Stars.

Right here, I thought, and the very instant I did, the light that had been projecting from the Circle Art cut off, and it collapsed around my arm again.

Mr Kahzam stopped the anpy by the fountain. I loosened my grip from where I’d been clinging to the saddle, and looked around. I could see the birds that had followed us here all quietly alighting on the surrounding tree branches.

There were several small animals on the roots of a particularly large tree, looking up at the leaves. I followed their gaze and spotted some golden tufts on top of a branch.

Cowering there was a timp – a single, small timp with golden fur.

I borrowed Mr Kahzam’s hand and got down from the anpy, and approached quietly so as not to scare him. The surrounding animals quickly gave way for me like they knew.

“Prince.”

The instant I called out softly, the timp’s little body jumped. Beautiful dark blue eyes looked at me.

Yeah, that was the prince.

“It’s me, little prince,” I called again, and the timp started to shift around like he was trying to get down in a hurry.

Almost instantly, one of the timp’s forelegs missed the branch.

“Ah!”

I could see his little body falling so clearly, like it was in slow motion.

Plop – a splash of water.

Prince!

I jumped into the fountain right there. I didn’t have time to think about how deep it was.

Fortunately, the water didn’t even come up to my waist, but it felt like a terribly long time until I reached the drowning golden mass in front of me.

Just as he was sinking, I finally scooped him up and held him close.

“Prince…!”

When I checked his face, the timp had transformed into a naked little boy. The prince looked surprised for a second, but instantly burst into tears, and I hugged him, gentle but tight.

Somehow, I felt like he’d gotten a bit bigger again. Well, he had been to the Garden of Stars again. He looked like he was past two years old now. I absolutely wouldn’t miss him growing up any more.

“Prince, my little prince, are you okay? I’m sorry I wasn’t with you. You must have been surprised, huh.”

He sobbed and hiccuped. “Kome, waaah!”

Yeah yeah, it’s fine, the prince can call me Kome or indeed anything else.

I was crying too, and stuck our cheeks together, patting his head again and again.

“Kohme.” Mr Kahzam’s voice brought me back to myself. Still holding the prince, I went over to the edge of the fountain, and let him pull us out. Mr Kahzam patted the prince’s cheek and brushed his damp bangs out of his face, apparently feeling relieved too.

Just then, Mr Kahzam glanced back at Endie, who was behind us, and stared at him silently. “Hm,” Endie said through his nose, his scowl not slipping.

It seemed like he was consenting to something, but what?

I was still carrying the shoulder bag with the prince’s stuff in it, so I got it down from the saddle and pulled out a towel, and dried the prince off and changed his clothes. He had a few scratches on his arms and legs, but otherwise he seemed okay.

After that, I showed him one of those egg puffs, and he must have been pretty hungry, because he stopped crying immediately and shoved it in his mouth like he was transfixed, still in my arms. Back to the usual, thank god.

“From now on, I’ll be with you every day, okay. I’ll be wherever you call home,” I promised, as the prince finished eating and clung to me again.

My coming to this other world was something quite extraordinary, but I’d become a staple in the prince’s life as someone from this world – it was a bit of a strange feeling, but you really could think of it like that.

Mr Kahzam took off his jacket, and wrapped it around my soaked lower body, and put me up on the anpy. On our way back to the castle, Endie followed in silence.

The prince had tuckered himself out crying and fell asleep, and his still-damp cheek reflected the remnants of the sunset.