PENUMBRA // Tamaki Amajiki x Reader Royal AU

Chapter 32

When the carriage came to a stop, Tamaki made a swift exit, leaving me alone in the dark box. My instructions were to wait for about an hour, after which the carriage should have been taken to the stables and the room vacated so I would be free to leave.

It was exactly as the prince had told me and I quickly picked up on his presence in the castle. From the lives I could sense inside the place, it was larger and busier than the Amijiki kingdom's castle but it seemed a lot easier to navigate.

Teleporting to Tamaki's location, I appeared in a chamber far more suited to a prince than the tower he spent years in. The bed was similar but the rest of the room was more lavishly furnished, it was nice to see him have such luxuries that he did indeed deserve.

"There's a guard standing outside." Tamaki whispered as he noticed your presence while you were taking in the room, "there will be one stationed outside my room twenty four hours everyday."

I snapped my fingers, "Well it is a good job you have a sorceress for a g... good friend. I've soundproofed the room, we can talk as loud as we want."

"But you need to be careful, this isn't like my tower, this room is along a corridor where anyone could walk in at any moment - I think the staff have been instructed not to but still." He only raised the volume by a fraction.

"How fortunate it is then, that I won't be around often enough for them to catch me?" Both of our faces fell and the room went silent. It did not go unnoticed that it could have been the last time we saw each other for a while. Eventually I spoke up, "Have you learned anything knew in the past hour?"

Tamaki shrugged, fallen face unchanged and not making eye contact, "I only know as much as you do, but I don't think the king intends to execute me yet, I also don't think the king's brother or nephews know about my quirk."

"How can you be certain?"

"I'm not certain, it's just the way the king avoided the subject of why the staff weren't to go in my room, I think he wanted me to have more isolated chambers but without explicitly telling them about my quirk then he had no good reason to give me one."

"And the war?"

"The king's brother says that if we have no kingdom to go back to when the war is over, we can't stay here."

That was not much to go off but it sounded like Tamaki would have been safe for a little while at least so I tried to smile but I did not think it came across very well, "do keep your ears open for any important information, the soundproofing only works one way. Stay safe. You have the means to protect yourself and if it comes to it you must use your quirk."

"What will you do?"

"I shall protect the kingdom to best of my abilities while laying low at the same time and continue searching for more information. If an emergency strikes up I shall immediately head back here." I stepped closer to him, "and Tamaki?"

"Mm?" He finally looked at me. His eyes were teary.

"I'll miss you." I whispered faintly before wrapping my arms around him.

His words were broken by sobs as he clung onto you just as tight, "I'll miss you too."

-

Before I retired to Tamaki's tower for the night, I did a quick once-over of the kingdom but nothing seemed to be out of sorts. The same went for his tower, everything was in its proper place.

Hesitantly I made my way over to the bed, it felt like I was invading his privacy even though he had given me permission to sleep in his bed. It seemed like I was treading on forbidden land, like this was as scandalous as him being in the bed at the same time.

Although the mattress was hard and the bedsheets were worn and thin, it was ultimately a comfort to me since Tamaki's presence had made its mark - he'd clearly slept there because it smelled distinctly like him. When I closed my eyes, it was easy to imagine he was there and not in some distant land where I could not protect him.

Eventually sleep overcame me and I rested a lot better than I had in days, better than I had had in weeks no doubt.

The night passed smoothly, no explosions or battles or - god forbid - no servants coming into the tower in the middle of the night. Of course they had no reason to but it was still a worry I had to think about.

It almost felt too peaceful. Like so much had gone right in the past twenty-four hours that there had to be something that went wrong. For no reason at all I was starting to get suspicious, if something was not happening here surely something must have happened to Tamaki or at least have been happening in the Helios kingdom.

I felt a little guilty for hoping that if something had indeed happened, or was about to happen, then it would occur in the Amijki kingdom rather than Helios. Though I did not want to anyone to suffer, I secretly wanted Tamaki to be safe above all else, especially when I was in no position to help him.

All I could do to ease my needless worrying was think about how far he had come with his quirk development, there was no doubt he could protect himself against most enemies - the question was, did he have the mental fortitude for that? And that was not even the worst part, although it seemed that this would not happen I was still concerned about the king. If the king tried something there was no way the prince would go against him.

Trying to push the idea of returning to an executed Tamaki out of my mind, I did my routine once over of the kingdom and of course, my intuition was right.

Approaching district four, about three miles away, were a group of soldiers with significant numbers, not significant enough to take over the kingdom but definitely enough to cause harm to the people in the village.

After two warning shots having already been fired, I knew they weren't there to make peace. With a flick of my wrist all fifty soldiers flew into the air and started screaming. When I let them down they continued there screaming while scrambling back the way they came.

My goal was to be quiet and non-violent so the kingdom would not find out. If they knew what happened it could have driven them into a state of panic and that was something I opted to avoid, not that it would have affected me, I should not have even cared, that was the king's job but obviously the king was not there to do his job.

Maintaining a safe distance behind the terrified soldiers, I followed them back from whence they came, expecting them to lead me to some kind of encampment. This they did but it was not the kind of place I was expecting.

After they had been running non-stop for half an hour, they slowed to halt and started murmuring amongst themselves. I was too far away to hear what they were saying even if I heightened my hearing but at some point one of them seemed to direct the rest and they kept going in the same direction.

The soldiers must have set off before dawn broke out because their march back took three hours. Before they even arrived I could see and smell where they must have camped out because thick, black smoke was billowing over the top of the forest canopy.

As they reached a clearing which by all accounts, should not have been there they regrouped with only a dozen soldiers that were posted there. It seemed a low number but I considered myself lucky that there were not more and I would not have to fend off a larger scale attack, one that might have been more difficult to hide.

Looking over the camp, it seemed as though they had no weapons on them other than their rapiers and I wondered if they had really carted off the catapult all the way back to the kingdom.

I ignored their conversations since again, I could not hear them - which was something I was going to need to figure out how to do - and looked to the far side of the clearing where the smoke was coming from.

There were a few trees still smouldering, the remains of what looked to be a blue flame simmering down.