12

Viaan was searching for a book which

had information about rare types of

magic. He was still shaken from what

they had concluded about his dearest

brother. His brother was using large

amount of life threatening magic and

nobody knew. Something was clearly

bothering Vivaan. Viaan knew his

brother wouldn't bow down to threats

or anything like that. And he also knew

that his brother would never betray

his family. But he didn't know why his

brother was using magic and keeping

this all secret. If anyone had any hint,

it was his sister. And she never set foot

in the library. He cursed his sister's lazy

habits. The place looked same and yet

it felt different to Viaan. Viaan wasn't

moving as carefree as he once moved.

Now there were consequences for every

small action of his. He could get his

identity revealed and his friends would

pay for his folly. He couldn't spread all

the books on his table and not put them

back in their places. Viaan got up and

quickly put the book he was perusing

back in the high shelf. There wasn't a

known restricted section in this library

but knowing how many secrets the

palace had hidden from him, Viaan

wouldn't be surprised if he found a

secret library inside this library. He

was expecting many more secrets in his

kingdom and he knew that he would

find them sooner rather than later. He

migrated to the other part of the room

and striked the spines of the books there.

They were all hard bound and looked

very heavy. The other thing was they

didn't have any titles on the spine. He

had to remove each of them to read the

title. And to his surprise, the titles were

only numbers. The books were placed

in haphazard way and he itched to right

them but controlled himself. He picked

out a book in a random way and opened

it. It had all types of magical and non

magical properties of herbs and stones.

He only read one page when he found

Vidyut standing before him with a

morose expression. He plopped on the

chair beside Viaan and opened a book

on palace architecture. Viaan didn't see

anything alarming in place architecture

so he didn't know what made Vidyut

that much sad. Vidyut produced a note

and Viaan read it thrice to be sure. It

only had three words. Vi Sorry Help

It didn't need a genius to figure out who

wrote it. Viaan knew that kinda loopy

handwriting which he always tried to

imitate. He broke into cold sweat. There

was only one implication of the letter.

His brother knew that Viaan was back.

Viaan didn't know if it was good or bad

that he knew. Viaan thought back to

the stressed out man who didn't notice

his brother's presence earlier. Was that

all an act? Viaan massaged his temple

with his fingers. His threshold for

headaches had changed. "Your brother

is suffering." Viaan looked at Vidyut who

was frowning deeply. He had no answer

to his statement. He kept quiet. "I know

how much a person suffers when they

are using their magic for something

bad." Viaan looked at him after a long

sigh. "You mean dark magic?" Vidyut

shook his head, "Magic isn't dark or light

in my view. It's how a person uses it. You

use for good, you are a light magic user,

you use it for wrong purpose, you are

a dark magic user. Simple. Sometimes

you need to use something for the bad

for it to become good eventually. It

doesn't mean there was a light way to do.

Situations demand everything." Viaan

saw that Vidyut was in some faraway

place. He never asked Vidyut about his

home life or his family. He had to know

what terrible thing had happened to him

that made him live with the group alone.

Why his family didn't like him painting?

But it wasn't the time for his questions.

Vidyut would tell him when he wanted

to. Viaan could see him hesitating to talk.

"Let's see if our eavesdropper found

something!" Vidyut looked happy for the

subject change. They stepped out of the

library and moved towards the common

civil area. People were all talking about

whatever was the gossip then. It made

a perfect cover for their conversation.

No one would mind a group of young

blue robed apprentices. They waited

atleast fifteen minutes before she came

back. Viaan found her gliding through

the throngs of people in a gathering. She

moved with quite ease and superiority

unlike anyone he knew. She sat beside

him and took a deep breath. "Do you

know a guy called Samvanth?" "What

does the name even mean? Vidyut

answered her. She had all her attention

on Viaan. "Um, no." She huffed. "Why do

you look like you want to hit us?" It only

made her attention shift to Vidyut with

a harsh glare. Viaan found it amusing

that Vidyut was grinning at the other

side of the deadly glare. "Will you tell

us what happened?"Viaan brought her

focus back to the matter at hand. "I was

moving in the lower levels of the main

palace, you know, where there are

assistants and others. I saw two guys

in violet moving very fast. Obviously, I

was intrigued so I followed them." She

held up a hand when she saw we were about to interrupt. "Yeah, I was careful.

They didn't know about me. I heard their conversation. Apparently a guy called Samvanth was threatening one guy. He wanted to find the prince as soon as possible." "You think it's me?" Viaan asked her. "Well, who else could it be? Your brother is the king. That makes you an only prince now till your nephew grows. And also I deduced that one of the guys was the assistant of high secretary. And I think he is involved in whatever that was happening in this kingdom. And..." she abruptly stopped. It was not her way to stop speaking suddenly. She was very eloquent and that meant her forthcoming words were somehow important and that was how she dropped the bombshell. "They talked in a tone which made me intercept it as

that they wanted you

dead."

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