After the events that transpired, Valindra fainted.
The guards that had found her took her and brought her to the palace.
Waking up in an unfamiliar bed, Valindra looked around and realized that she was inside a room that looked a lot better than her room back home.
She was wearing a simple green dress that the maids of the palace probably dressed her in while she was asleep.
And even though she was the emperor's daughter and one of the Elvish princesses, there was nobody around when she woke up.
The guards had completed their orders when they brought her back, and the emperor was too busy drinking alcohol in his bed filled with women.
Slowly touching her face, Valindra could feel that her eyes were still wet.
She wished that everything was just a nightmare, but looking around and feeling her tears, she knew that everything that had happened was undoubtedly a reality.
Getting up from her bed, Valindra wanted to know the answers to her questions.
Who was it that had ordered her to kill her family? Why would anyone try to kill them when they lived a peaceful life?
She had questions but no answers, so she wanted to find someone in the palace and ask him.
Opening the door to her room, she peeked out and noticed a long hallway with a red carpet. The walls had candles and various pictures depicting forests or mountains.
Valindra then walked outside the room and started trudging through the long hallway.
There were some maids running around, but they would always run away after seeing the color of her hair.
She walked and walked without any sense of direction.
Suddenly, she heard shouts, and walking closer to them, she noticed that they were behind a wooden door.
Opening it, Valindra peered inside to see what was happening.
"HA! HYA! HA!"
As soon as Valindra looked through the gap, she saw tens of guards swinging their weapons and training their bodies.
In front of those guards stood an old elf who had gray strands in his golden hair, and because he wasn't wearing anything to cover his chest, his battle scars were visible.
The elf probably used to be handsome, but because of a vertical scar that he had on the right side of his face, he looked a lot scarier than the other elves.
Valindra wasn't scared of him, though. She may have been just a child, but the things she had seen happen to her family had changed her so much that scars weren't enough to scare her anymore.
Hoping to finally talk to someone, she opened the door and walked in.
CREAAK
The door made a sound, and all of the guards immediately stopped and turned their heads towards Valindra.
"What are you doing here, princess?"
The scarred man was first to open his mouth.
He placed the spear that he had been training with on the ground and walked over to her.
Valindra, who was wondering what to ask first, noticed that among the guards that were looking at her, there was one that she recognized from that horrid night.
"I- IT'S YOU! GIVE THEM BACK! GIVE MY FAMILY BACK!"
Immediately screaming, she began running towards the guard, whose eyes were filled with despair, as if he already knew what was making Valindra so upset.
"Whoa there!"
However, the scarred man picked her up before she could get to him.
He grabbed her by her armpits, and even though she flailed about, she couldn't get away.
"Calm down, princess."
"H- He… took them…"
Unable to leave the man's grip, her anger turned into sadness, and she began crying.
The scarred man didn't like the emperor, nor did he like his stuck-up children, but seeing a little girl cry still made him uncomfortable.
So he looked at the guard that Valindra had been screaming at and opened his mouth.
"Felias! Tell me what happened."
"But captain! It was a classified mission, and the emperor told me not to tell anyone about-"
The guard, Felias, wanted to explain that he promised to stay silent about everything, but he was swiftly cut off by his captain.
"I don't care about what that guy said! I am your captain, and if you respect me, then you will tell me!"
"…Alright."
Giving up, Felias then began talking about how they had received information about the wife of the emperor who had run away and how they were tasked to "clean everything up."
He also mentioned Rodias, a former guard who was well-liked by all due to his friendly demeanor, and a young boy, no less than fifteen, who was most likely Rodias's son.
The group of guards he was with that night killed these two and didn't even spare the young boy.
Felias didn't know the name of the emperor's wife, but the other guards were forced to kill her too because if they didn't, their families would get killed, and different guards would murder her later anyway.
After the massacre, Valindra was found hiding, and she survived only because the color of her hair was silver and not gold.
Once she was brought back to the palace, Felias talked about how all of the guards that were with him were executed for touching the emperor's wife, and he was the only one to survive because he hadn't killed anyone, but he was forced to promise not to tell anyone about the events that had happened.
He was a new guard, and it was his first mission, so his guard friends decided to be the ones to kill so that he wouldn't have to live with the blood of innocent people on his hands, and because of this, they had unknowingly saved his life.
The reason for their execution was extremely stupid, but the emperor just wanted them dead, so he thought of a random thing to execute them for, and touching the emperor's wife seemed like a decent reason to him.
Him not killing anyone helped a lot, but the real reason Felias actually survived was because he was the brother of one of the emperor's wives, and she begged the emperor to keep her brother alive.
Felias did promise to keep quiet, but it was eating away at his conscience, so he couldn't keep it bottled up any longer and confessed that he might not have killed Valindra's family, but he hadn't done anything to stop it.
Finishing the story, Felias had his teeth clenched because he always dreamed of being a guard, but now that he was one, he was forced to do inhumane things just to please the rotten emperor.
The other guards around him also had a bad history with their emperor, so they didn't blame Felias, but every time something like this happened, they felt their hatred towards the emperor rise.
But they couldn't do anything about it because even if they were to create a rebellion and kill the emperor, one of the emperor's kids would have to take the throne, and all of them were spoiled, evil brats, so the situation would remain the same or might get even worse.
They also couldn't just place an elf with golden hair on the throne because the first Elvish king had cast a strong spell that would kill any non-royal elf who would dare to try ruling the elves.
Meanwhile, the captain of the guards just nodded his head with a frown, but nobody knew what he was thinking about at the moment.
Placing Valindra down, he kneeled down in front of her and placed his hands on her shoulders.
"I am sorry for what happened to you, but we have all suffered injustice in our lives. Some won't ever know your pain, and some have a fate even worse than yours. But remember this! It is important to not grieve the past but fight for the future!"
The captain of the guards tried to make Valindra feel better, but he didn't know if a little girl would understand a motivational speech like that.
"…Can you tell me where I am and why I am here?"
Valindra calmed down a little, and she decided to first assess her situation before deciding what to do.
That was because the guards around her didn't look like bad people, so she wanted to know what was really going on.
So the captain then told her about the royal palace and how the emperor Morrsath sat on the throne.
He also talked about how Morrsath was the worst leader their continent could have asked for.
Normally, the other elves would be scared to talk about the emperor in the open like this, but the scarred man introduced himself as the captain of all the palace guards, Raeran.
And because he had such a high position, Raeran wasn't afraid to talk behind the emperor's back because he was the one tasked with taking care of the people who badmouthed the emperor.
Raeran also told Valindra about the social structure of the palace.
The wives of the emperor didn't have any real power and were only regarded as livestock used for breeding.
This was because Morrsath didn't want his wives stabbing him in the back, so he created a rule that said that the queens of the Elvish continent wouldn't have any say in the decisions of the king.
Then there were the emperor's children.
They had more power because they would inherit the throne if Morrsath were to die.
Of course, they didn't have any real power at the moment because Morrsath was still healthy and had a long life ahead of him.
But these princes and princesses created four factions, and the leaders of those factions were those who were most likely to inherit the throne.
This didn't mean that the others didn't also aim for the throne, but they rallied behind someone because acting alone in the huge palace could end up with them being assassinated, and nobody would even notice.
The first faction had the prince Arun as its leader, and he was a prodigy with swords. He was a faction leader because there were no siblings who rivaled his combat prowess.
The second faction was ruled by another prince, prince Folwin, and he was the smartest of all his siblings. He loved to stay in the library, and some said that he had already read everything in the humongous library of the palace.
Princess Soliana was the head of the third faction, and she was regarded as the most beautiful princess. This also meant that she had a lot of connections with the male nobles, which would help her get the throne.
And finally, the fourth faction was ruled by prince Jassin. This prince was similar to Soliana because he had a lot of connections too, but with female nobles instead. He also loved to attend parties, and he was very charismatic.
These were the four factions that influenced the palace from the shadows, but the emperor didn't feel threatened by them, so he didn't do anything to stop them.
He thought of it as a children's game, so he just waved his hand and continued drowning himself in pleasure.
But the fact that the emperor's children were split into four groups, that every emperor's wife wanted their child to take over the throne, and that the emperor was in charge of everything but refused to do anything made things in the palace very unstable.
The internal structure of the palace was like a house of cards that kept swaying in the wind, and if someone were to push a little too hard…
All of the cards would topple to the ground.
Valindra, who was clenching her fists after discovering that her "real" father killed her family only because of his fragile ego, suddenly smiled when she heard the captain of the guards, Raeran, talk about how weak the internal structure was.
She was always extremely smart, so a plan started formulating inside her head, and she had taken the words that Raeran had told her to heart.
Valindra planned to not grieve the past but rather look towards the future, and she swore to herself that the future she would work for wouldn't have the current emperor inside it.
Looking at Raeran with determination filling her eyes, she opened her mouth.
"Please teach me how to fight!"