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Chapter 5

My mouth was wide open at this point. A brother who I was looking over would rat me out. How much did he actually see? What did he hear? How long was he waiting for me?

“Earth to Immyria! Hey! You in there?” Tiberius was snapping in front of my face. I snapped at him. “Please tibby don’t tell mom! I finally got the one thing I’ve wanted that I’m actually good at!” I was almost begging him at this point. That’s shameful. I’m a princess begging to not be turned into my own mother by my only brother. Tiberius pulled me out of my thoughts, “Relax Immy, I just followed you down here because let’s be honest here. You don’t dance. You hate it. And you? Settle for just watching a tournament? No, that would never happen. But you’re good at this. And I’m honestly happy father finally let you do something with it. I’m not going to tell mom.”

I couldn’t wrap my head around it. He wasn’t being annoying for once and was trying to encourage me to keep doing it. I’m not sure if he had an endgame in mind after all this but I guess I’m going to have to ride this out and see what he wants out of it. “So what do you want for your silence?” I ask my brother. We were walking down the hall back to our rooms when he finally opened up, “Okay, I’m struggling a lot more than I said I was. I can’t disappoint mom and dad. And that’s all I’m doing at this point.” He started to trail off and I saw the sadness on his face. He’s the first born male heir, the crown is his by birthright. But I’ve also seen how they look at him when he’s not looking. They’ve been disappointed for a while. He hasn’t even gotten past the second course and barely passed the first.

I sighed and put my hand on his shoulder and stopped us from walking. “I know what it feels like. Trust me. I’ve been the same way. You are our crown prince. And one day I hope to also be able to protect you when you are crowned king. But you can’t give up.” I pulled him into a hug and he hugged me back tightly. “Don’t worry, I’ll help you however I can. And we will make sure to outshine everyone. Alright?” I asked. He looked back up to me and we shook hands on it. “Thanks sis. You have no idea how much I need that right now.” We walked back to our rooms and dropped off our stuff then headed to the library.

The library is one of my favorite places. It’s huge windows make the area look even bigger than it is. We have a fairy as a librarian and she does this thing with her magic that has green specs floating everywhere. They disappear as they get close to the ground but it feels so magical in here because of her. Aria flew over to us, she was a little shorter than me, she had blonde hair in a bun and a purple outfit on today. Her eyes have always been the best part of her. As a fairy her iris’s fade into the white behind but hers are a pretty combination of yellow and green. Her wings always looked beautiful in the sunlight. Like a beautiful rainbow of colors!

“Can I help you find anything today your majesties?” She asked us. “No thank you aria, we are just here to study a couple books today. Can we use my favorite corner?” I asked her. Tiberius looked at me funny. I’ve never shown him my corner before.

“Of course! I just finished cleaning it for when you’d come back princess! Let me know if you need anything!” Aria said quickly. “Thank you!” I said as she started to fly away. As we were walking Tiberius asked, “So you have a corner? All to yourself?” I looked at him. Since we open our library to schools and the public I guess it was a bit weird to have my own corner. When we got there my brother gave me a confused look again. “We are staring at a picture? Aren’t we supposed to go to a corner?” He asked. “Yes” I said and continued, “but it’s not really a corner. It’s more of…” I trailed off and pulled the portrait open like a door and continued with a smugness in my voice “it’s more of a secret room that I use to study and get things done in so no one bothers me.”

His eyes went so wide I could have mistaken them for a full black eye like wargs have. I laughed and motioned for him to go inside. When we sat down I started explaining the room to him, “ aria made this room for me when I had problems with my studying too. She enchanted the room so that when you need something, you just have to ask the room and it will appear. For example,” I sat up straight and continued. “May I have a cup of tea please?” And with a splash of sparkles a cup of my favorite tea appeared for me to grab.

Tiberius’s eyes went wide again and he made a request, “can I have a plate of fruit?” The room gave him a plate of fruit for him to hold. “This is so cool! I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about this before!” He said excitedly. “Well what good is a secret room if people know about it? Besides there are plenty of times where I stayed the night in here while studying. This is how I coped.” I explained to him.

“Thank you Immy, this will definitely help and I’m really glad you’re here to help too.” He gave me a quick hug and we got straight to work on his studies.

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