"Every 250 years, a shadow wielder is born in the Mistichestor branch of the royal family—"
Xiao's presentation was cut by a playful voice.
"Could be me, who knows?" A grin adorned the teenage boy's face, his jet black hair is a messy mop, and he's due for a haircut soon. He's one of the more rowdy boys, with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows and his shoes on the desk.
The professor gave him a glare, but she doesn't dare to scold him. He's royal blood, after all, doing anything to him would get them in trouble.
"Please shut up." Raxithak mumbled just enough for the prince to hear, and Xiao stood close enough to give her cousin a thankful smile.
Some say they're blessed to have one of the seven princes in their classroom, but Alexander is more trouble than he's worth. Xiao just found out from the cafeteria gossip that the prince's also living in the dorms, and he's rooming with her cousin Raxith. Now the young witch knows who got her grumpy cousin so worked-up every morning. Raxithak himself never admitted to it, and he quickly changed the subjects whenever one of them brought up the topic of roommates.
"Could be him." Xiao decided to humor them a little. "The last shadow wielder prince was born around two hundred and seventy years ago."
No one in the classroom but Alexander himself laughed, loudly and genuinely. Even after a solid ten seconds, he's still laughing, and everyone in the classroom side eyed him. It's also not helping that he's sitting in the middle of class, and the witch swore she saw a vein on Raxith's forehead popped. Yin, who's sitting in front of the professor, turned around and shrugged at Raxith. At the back of the class sat a pair of twins, and they smiled at each other, as if they're sharing a joke only both of them can understand.
Taking the mandatory history class together with all her cousins is fun, yet it's something she doesn't want to do ever again. It's the twins' last year, and they kept delaying the class for years until it's their last. Yin went for it this year because she wanted to join her brothers. Raxith took it this year because his mother told him to join the twins. Xiao took it since everyone's there, and she didn't want to feel left out.
The class is also diverse, but Xiao is the only second year since Yin and Raxith are one year above her, everyone else is third or fourth year. Professor Rubicon tapped her fingers on her desk impatiently, so the young witch took it as a sign to continue even though Alexander is still laughing.
"Anyways..." Xiao clapped her hands together to get their attention. "Or it could be one of his brothers under the age of twenty. Who knows?"
She pointed at the diagram that she drew on the board, showing the timeline of when the Silverin temple was built.
"This is a form of generational curse, and because of this curse, a temple was built five hundred years ago to keep the shadow wielders in check." Her fingers move the chalk, and within seconds, she sketched a rough layout of the temple from above. "The Silverin temple was created in the shape of the Monastery, four towers on each corner and a main tower in middle. Instead of being designed to keep outsiders out like the Monastery, the Silverin Temple was designed to keep whatever's inside inside."
"How do you know?" Jin Qiu raised his hand, his lips pulled into a smile that showed off his dimples. Next to him, his older brother Jacob is noting down something on his notebook. More questions, probably.
'Been there, seen it.' is what the young witch wanted to answer, but she knows she'll get in trouble because students aren't supposed to leave the Monastery's territory. And she went twenty miles outside of it on a broom.
"Weeks of living in the library." Xiao responded, her black eyes looked into his honey brown ones. "I listed all my sources in the essay's citation page. Anyways, the temple was designed to trap whatever's inside, presumably the shadow wielders."
This time, Jacob raised his hand. "Yeah, and they die of starvation."
The young witch shrugged back. "Yeah, we don't know actually. No sources confirmed it because no one checked whether or not the temple is even standing."
And it's only twenty miles away from the Monastery, but it's fairly deep in the darker parts of the woods.
"How about the names of the shadow wielders?" Alexander chimed in, and once again Xiao shrugged.
"I don't know." A lie, but anything else that came after that line wasn't. The young witch does know the demon's name, but other people doesn't have to. "I searched through all the books in relation to the Silverin Temple, and nothing came up." She really did try her best before she decided to end her life and met the monster. "I also went through the Royal family tree records, and still, their names were scratched out. No birth dates, no death dates. The builders of the temple weren't written down either, so I have absolutely nothing in regards to names except the Monastery Abbot who was there."
"Very good, little Devinsky." Professor Rubicon nodded at her. The professor's sky blue eyes scanned the sketch of the temple. "I appreciate that you admit what you cannot find instead of making up information like some people." Those blue eyes glared at Jin Qiu, who chuckled nervously.
Professor Rubicon stood up from her seat, and her height reached the door frame, not including her natural red hair in a neat bun. Her heels clicked softly on the ground as she made her way to Xiao.
"I see your research was very throughout. However, the Silverin Temple is a difficult assignment since there's not much information available on it. You did what you could on a confidential topic." The professor gave Xiao a smile, and she beamed up at the tall woman.
"Thank you!"
With that said, the professor shooed Xiao back to her seat next to Yin. Class passed with relative ease, except when it's Alexander's turn to present. The prince's given topic is about a tiny farming village called Amsther, and he's obviously not pleased, so he made plans to improve the village and went off topic. Professor Rubicon didn't agree with the prince on a lot of things, but they still moved on.
At the end of the day, the young witch looked at the setting sun. Should she visit him again? They had a deal after all.