She put a hand on her aching heart as she listened to him, when she looked at his face she felt an intense pang of guilt.
She had hit too hard, the right side of his face was completely swollen and they could hear his jaw creek and click with every motion of his mouth but he still dutifully told them his plan without so much as a wince of pain.
When he was done he left the room and went to get his jaw treated by Antanasia, she didn't say much, she could tell that it was from a slap and the severity was much more intense than any other time in the past.
She was just mildly surprised, after what happened she thought the empress would be cuddling Lirian like a fragile doll but it seemed that like always he managed to do something that aggravated her majesty.
---
A month later, Lirian was standing on a podium with thousands of cameras all pointed at him and rows of chairs spread out in front of him with thousands of reporters occupying the seats.
The news was supposed to be big this time and it had people coming in from all over the system to get the first scoop.
School was the most annoying part over the last month, as soon as he got to school, he had to deal with a crowd and once he finished getting through the first another crowd would be waiting, all of them screaming in his face, desperately trying to get the first scoop.
A story like this was rare and as the days passed the crowds only grew larger and his communicator was beeping every second of the day, he was actually impressed with some of the offers made to him.
If he wasn't so busy already he would have been glad to accept many of the interviews, just to get what they were offering, then feed them a bunch of crap.
Needless to say that today Lirian was happy that the arrangements behind closed doors were finally completed and he could get rid of the annoying crowd, that did not know the meaning of giving up.
This event had left another big mark on his record and the world was referring to him as a golden child for surviving the attack of a seventh-grader.
It was the most ridiculous thing he ever heard, from the way many of the media outlets had told the story, they made it seem as if he took on the full brunt of the attack, using energy control.
And just when it seemed like he was about to give in Anya appeared to rescue him, but since all interviews with aides were a strict taboo in the empire they weren't even allowed to have their pictures taken to keep their confidentiality.
That was part of the reason why Anya always vanished using shadow spells when it was time for him to leave the limo at the academy.
In short, Lirian had envied her position over the past month, she was lucky to not have her communicator ringing all day every day.
As he walked around on the large platforms, the press did a sudden double take when they saw several new figures arriving on the stage.
On that day, he was not the only VIP present, as the press saw the other three members walking up the steps they lost their minds, and held onto their cameras with shaking hands this was an enormous scoop.
The empress of the empire herself stood alongside Lirian and directly opposite them Lady Elizabeth Jane the leader of the Jane family and Alastor Jane the instigator of the trouble came forward.
The press only had an easy time on high worlds, in the advanced and super worlds the only press that existed was the press that those powers wanted there, so everyone from the private networks were overwhelmed with joy to be able to get so many important figures in a single event.
An advanced world leader on one side, who they'd usually have to pay exorbitant figures to if they wanted a short word with her, and on the other side was her majesty the empress, whom they couldn't pay to get an interview with.
Then there was a prince candidate, whom many nobles pay good money to see, it could be said that the media industry was so great on high worlds mainly because of how much nobles invested in them so that they could see as much as they liked of their favorite candidates.
Lady Elizabeth came up to the podium with her lips pulled into a thin line, she was dressed in elegant white robes and a gold cape on her shoulders, she waited for complete silence before addressing the crowd sternly.
"The Jane family has made a large mistake, and for that we are deeply regretful, we would like to start off by apologizing to Empress Taliyah Clovis and her son the prince candidate Lirian and we would like to thank them sincerely for their generosity in dealing with this situation..."
Her speech went on for a full hour as she proceeded to apologize to the Xelia family and residents of the planet for the accident that could have taken tens of thousands of lives, and she promised compensation to the many people whose lives were endangered.
As she finished the list, she looked at Lirian, "To the prince candidate Lirian, I have prepared a small fleet of cruiser ships from the galaxy series and hope that he will come to enjoy them in the years to come."
She did her best to hide her unwillingness to give him such a thing, because just between the Jane family and the household of the empress, they knew what was really on that fleet of cruisers.
Lirian smiled brightly for the camera's and he could hear the hearts of every reporter melt as they looked at him, the cruiser fleet was a small part of his demand the other part was left unsaid in the public, it came equipped with the Jane families best military-grade warp drive, a photon cannon, and shielding system.
It was extortion of the highest level but he refused to budge an inch on their technologies, more than a few high-ranking members were now without a doubt seething with fury at the fact that they had to give away their best technologies.