Two Hearts at Once

“I’m going to visit the back room,” said Prince Henry.

His aide silently squinted at him as they walked past the clock tower. Looking for who, I wonder.

Prince Henry left the Combat Training Ground, as usual, with Lucas following behind him. They had just finished doing their self-training after class.

Once they walked past the Academic Building, Lucas spoke up.

“Are you going to tell them about His Majesty, sir?”

“I’d rather not give them some unnecessary worries.”

“I see. I’m still baffled by how His Majesty could immediately guess it was Esmeraldo who raised the ground,” Lucas said, recalling the time when the King caught them off guard the previous week.

“His Majesty got the report of the guardian incident after all. I believe it’s not that hard to connect the dots,” Henry calmly replied.

“I guess that’s just how terrifying the divine beasts are. Their magecraft is just inhuman.”

Before long, they arrived at the library building. Both of them went straight to the back room after briefly greeting Miss Sophie at the counter.

Just as Lucas was about to knock on the door to the back room, both of them heard a loud voice coming from the inside.

“I told you to stop!!”

“Uwaaaaaaaa…”

“Eeik!”

Both of them exchanged puzzled looks at each other. Their brows furrowed.

“Lucas,” Henry said in a low, serious voice.

Understanding his master’s command, Lucas skipped his knocking and immediately opened the door. The moment the door opened, the crying voice of a woman from the inside could be heard even louder.

“Uwwaaaaaaaa… Why are you so mean?? Uhwwwaaaaaaa….”

“Hah?! You are just too noisy! Stop crying every single time!”

Inside the room, Annette was sitting on the couch with Esmeraldo and Miss Cynthia in silence. They didn’t seem to notice the arrival of the prince and his aide. Their gazes fixed on a man and a woman who were loudly arguing before them. Meanwhile, the young man, who stood nearest to the door, turned to face Henry and Lucas.

“Who are you?” Auvry calmly asked after sighing at the other two.

“Hah?! Who is here?!”

The whole room finally shifted their focus at them as Lucas quickly closed the door behind him.

“Your Highness!” Miss Cynthia rose from her seat.

“Good evening, Miss Cynthia. Hm, may I know who these people are?” Henry shifted his gaze at the three new faces in the room.

Auvrygale’s golden eyes glanced at Miss Cynthia and Annette, who seemed to not know how to answer, and spoke up, “I suppose these people are the prince of this kingdom and his attendant or some sort, am I right?”

“Ah, um, yes,” Annette awkwardly answered.

“I understand. I shall answer on your behalf.” Auvry turned to Henry. “I reckon you have made acquaintance with Esmeraldo here. We are Esmeraldo’s brethren.”

Lucas tilted his head. “Brethren?”

“I am Auvrygale. This tall man here is Fernoville while the silver-haired woman is Aquantine.”

Henry looked at the three guardians with a serious expression while Lucas’s eyes widened in surprise. Who would not be surprised? Right now, inside this small library back room stood another three of the Guardians of the World in their human forms.

Auvrygale had a pretty face. His golden-blonde hair and appearance that looked like a boy in his teenage years made him look like he could be another cousin of Prince Henry. Aquantine appeared like a woman in her mid twenties with long, silver hair and aquamarine eyes. As for Fernoville, he had a tall, muscular build with striking bright orange hair and dark red eyes.

Including Esmeraldo, they were all supposed to be the humongous legendary ancient divine beasts which hadn’t been seen for over six centuries.

“Were you perhaps coming to look for your… brethren, Esmeraldo?” Henry asked.

“We did not even know he was here!” Ferno answered with a rather loud voice.

Miss Cynthia then spoke up, “Annette brought them here not long before you came. We haven’t heard anything yet so would you take a seat and listen to their story with us, Your Highness?”

“I see. I shall accept your offer, Miss Cynthia.”

Henry took a seat on the chair next to his professor while Lucas stood next to him.

Miss Cynthia also sat back to her seat as she continued, “Alright, so… Annette, I’d also like to hear what happened. When I entered this room, the two of you weren’t here, but then you suddenly came back bringing three guests here.”

“It’s, um… Earlier, I was talking about the ghost rumour with Aldo and he said he wanted to check it. So, um, I brought him to the main gate and found these three there. I learnt that they might be the guardians and um… I brought them here before they attracted other people’s attention.”

Aldo? Henry blinked.

Aldo looked at Aqua as he added, “I just thought that maybe it was Aqua who cried.”

“I am very glad you found us, Aldo. Last week, Aqua suddenly visited me crying saying that someone took the Heart of Winter from her. She said that she could feel it was around here but she didn’t know exactly where. And so I relocated and hid the Heart of Autumn then immediately went to find Aldo and Ferno, but neither of them was in their respective dwellings. So I came back to find Aqua when I saw Ferno in front of the gate. That was when Aldo found us,” Auvry fluently explained as Aqua started sobbing once more.

“Yeah!! They dare to take the Heart of Summer from me!! I was about to turn this whole thing to ash had Auvry not stopped me!!” yelled Fernoville.

As Annette silently flinched, Henry looked at Ferno with a very serious face and spoke in a low tone, “So, you were planning to attack the whole campus, Fernoville?”

“Yeah, of cour—MmmMmm!!!”

Suddenly a swirling wind circled around Fernoville and prevented his mouth from speaking.

“We swore not to harm humans. Rest assured, Prince,” Auvry quickly said.

When the wind on his face vanished, Fernoville yelled, “Bah! What do you mean, Auvry?! I will not tolerate mere humans messing with us!!”

Auvry closed his eyes and bitterly smiled before he replied, “You do not want to make Aldo angry, remember?”

Fernoville instantly fell silent then averted his eyes.

“Why Esmeraldo, sir?” Curiosity suddenly struck Lucas. After all, they were all the guardians.

“Hmm, because he is the strongest amongst us all and the scariest when angry. He is the eldest too,” Auvry answered.

“Huh?!” Lucas was puzzled as he turned to the little dragon, who adorably sat close next to Annette. “I… thought he was the youngest.”

“Fernoville here is the youngest.” Auvry raised one hand towards the oldest-looking man in the room.

“Eh?!” The human mages in the room went speechless.

Annette hesitantly asked, “Um, then, are you… the second—”

“Oldest. I’m the second oldest,” answered the teenage-boy-looking guardian quickly.

“Hmm, I see. More importantly, the Hearts of Winter and Summer were stolen during the winter break and hidden somewhere in this campus. That means they have successfully stolen three Hearts. This is not good.” Henry scowled.

“So the Heart of Spring has indeed been stolen?! Those damn humans!!” Fernoville shouted.

“Well, thanks to that, we got to see Esmeraldo in his mighty dragon form.” Lucas recalled the day he had seen the Verdant Dragon come to Athenya.

The three guardians immediately shifted their focus to Aldo and thought the same thing: He must have forgotten that he could transform into a human.

Aldo averted his gaze in response.

Henry raised one of his eyebrows. “Humans? Was it more than one person who stole it?”

“Yeah! There were three people who came at me!! Those bloody humans!!” said Ferno as he stomped a fist to the bookshelf next to him.

“Did you see their faces?” Henry asked.

“Nah! They were covered in black top to bottom!”

“How did they even steal them from the guardians?” Miss Cynthia perplexed.

“They played tricks on me!! Ha!! Two of them suddenly appeared out of nowhere and attacked me!! Just when I was busy making charcoal out of them, another human appeared behind me and stole it, and POOF they vanished!! Gone!! They dare to mess around with me!! I’ll be sure to burn them to ash once I find them!! Hah!!”

“Hm, what about Aquantine?” Henry turned to the woman who had been sobbing.

Aqua slowly spoke up, “Hic, hic… I saw two humans coming to see me… hic… so I just wanted to welcome them, hic, hic… but then they were gone… hic… And when I was about to go back to sleep, I just realised, hic… that the Heart of Winter was goneee… Uwwaaaaaa…”

“Aargh!! Why are you weeping again?!” shouted Ferno as he scratched his hair.

However, it only made her cry even louder.

“Uwwwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaa…”

Annette jolted as she held back her squeak. She had been flinching every time the two guardians made a loud voice all this time. This was definitely not good for her hamster heart.

Meanwhile, Auvrygale let out another heavy sigh.

“I don’t think we can keep these two people here often. Miss Sophie is bound to notice,” said Miss Cynthia nervously.

“They can turn into a small bird and turtle again,” said Auvry.

“Oh! There’s that option, I see. That will be very convenient,” said Miss Cynthia.

“Hm, they seem to move around long distances using teleportation spells. In any case, we should probably redo our search in Athenya’s ground for the Heart from square one. Miss Cynthia, please thoroughly recheck the Faculty Building and other staff areas. Annette, you can check the Magical Study Complex and the dormitory area. Lucas and I will try to check the other area whenever we can. Annette, don’t go to suspicious places alone. As for the guardians, please don’t attract any attention that might reveal yourself. The thieves definitely are hiding on this campus but we still don’t know yet who. If you find anything, please report it to us.” Henry swiftly took command.

Annette glanced around the tiny back room. With eight people now crammed inside, she suddenly wondered if there was even enough room left to breathe.

***

The cold winter breeze blew through the whole campus grounds at the dead of night. Under the freezing weather, a female student stood alone in the shadows. She was staring intensely at the small cabin before her.

There was no single light from the inside, yet she could hear a faint sound coming out of it. It was the sound of someone speaking.

“S-sir…”

How dare you?! How dare you!! She gripped the hem of her skirts, a scowl formed on her face.

The female student then turned around in anger. Before she left, she could hear the faint voice again.

“—heaven!”

I won’t forgive you! She continued to march away, leaving the cabin behind.