“That’s it? That’s the end of the story?”

  Mother’s eyes gleamed in delight. “Of course not, sweetheart,” she said, putting the book down on my desk. “But that’s how far we can go right now. We’ll read through the rest of it when you’re older.”

  A muffled grunt escaped me as I slumped to the ground. “Come on! I’m twelve already, how much older do I have to get?” I groaned.

  Twirling her immaculate, white hair around a finger, she gave me one of her motherly, annoying, warm smiles of hers. “That we will see. Besides, aren’t you a bit too old to have your books read to you still?” She joked.

  “You read better than me, Mother,” I admitted, pulling myself up and leaning against my bed’s frame. “You get me more hooked on the story. When I read it, it always finishes too fast.”

  She messed with my hair one last time before reaching for the door. “That’s what experience does, Arda. It makes you better at the things you do.

  “You’re talented, sweetheart. Take one step at a time and your feet will bring you anywhere.”

  “As long as it’s far from the living room,” I mumbled.

  “Be sure not to have Lud wait for too long this time, okay?” She stifled a giggle and left.

  I listened to the sound of her steps fading in the distance, eventually replaced by the chirps of birds singing just out of my window.

  Life as a noble came with its own set of perks, starting from an awful lot of free time. But my parents had always been clear about that: I had to enjoy it until it lasted, because soon enough I wouldn’t have had any left for my own leisure.

  To be honest, I didn’t care at all about my family’s status. Whether we were aristocrats, simple merchants or farmers, it wouldn’t have made much of a difference to me. As long as we could be together, I was fine.

  Unlike what most people imagined, my family wasn’t the type to live in excessive luxury.

  If I truly needed something, it was provided for me, but always within reason.

  ‘Not everything you want will always be yours, noble or not.’

  That was what my parents had always told me. It was an easy lesson to learn, an easy one to understand, too. Yet there were far too many nobles that stubbornly refused to accept it.

  The world was vast and full of different kinds of people, sure. But seriously, if some of them put their brains to work a little more, that wouldn’t hurt either.

  With a sigh, I hopped on a chair.

  Why do I keep putting my stuff on this shelf? For a twelve-year-old, I was already taller than most kids my age, but that didn’t change the fact that a stupid shelf could still get the best of me.

  I shoved the things I needed for my next class into a bag and hurried to head towards the living room. Nose deep into the same book Mother had been reading me, I wandered the empty hallways of our manor, unusually cool despite the summer haze outside.

  Aside from a few rare exceptions, these books had been the only way out of the grey monotony of a young noble’s everyday life.

  Feeling poetic today, aren’t we? I thought with a chuckle.

  In a world of magic, monsters and adventures just like mine, I could have been a hero, a mage, an explorer… heck, even a cursed child would have been something.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  But nope. I was just Arda, the boy forced to take useless, boring classes because “I could make great use of those in the future,” when I’d be expected to replace my parents as the lead of the Veldya region, the second largest of the Ardelar Empire; much to my disappointment, the empire hadn’t been named after me. What a missed opportunity.

  I’d got baited with the promise of sword classes and magic classes, instead all I’d got was Ancient Elvish, etiquette and Geography classes.

  At least Baryon, my master, was an interesting man. Weird? Yes, but still interesting.

  My eyes jumped across the lines as I read through Knight Albyon’s last moments. Eventually, I reached the point where my mother had stopped.

  Using the magical metronome Mother had gifted me as a bookmark, I stared intently at the book.

  There’s more than half still to read, I mused. I wonder what’s coming next.

  The tales of heroes and adventurers of the past had always held a special place in my heart, maybe that was why I could never read enough of them.

  “This is the kind of life I want to live,” I exclaimed, raising the book up over my head.

  Of course, I had been a child back when I first decided it, and there would have been plenty of time for me to change my mind. Obviously, much to my parents’ disappointment, I never did. Even now, I was certain. I wanted to set out on an adventure, see with my very eyes how the world was outside the safe bubble that was the Empire.

  The only obstacle between my dream and me were my parents.

  Perhaps they don’t want me to share Prince Tayron’s fate, I mentally grumbled.

  They had called him “Tayron the Lion.” Originally, he was to inherit the throne of Exalos, one of the Age of Heroes’ great kingdoms of the north, but instead, he had left it to his brother. He had abandoned his noble house and become an adventurer.

  Just a year later, he’d fallen off a cliff and died. His brother, instead, had ruled for nearly a decade. But I had the feeling he too had died for some dumb reason.

  Did he trip over a rock while out hunting? Or did he blow himself up in a failed magic experiment? I couldn’t remember. But that's beyond the point.

  Tayron hadn’t been the most famous—nor the luckiest—of adventurers, but, like me, had been born into an important family. And he had been able to live his dream. Like him, many other nobles had answered the call of adventure, leaving the safety of their homes to journey into the unknown.

  So here I was, meant for incredible adventures, but forced into the astonishingly boring life of a noble kid.

  “Why can’t I read this?” I turned the book in my hands, flipped it over and let light seep through single pages; I tried everything my mind was able to come up with. and yet the pages remained frustratingly blank.

  Too busy trying to figure out the weird book to watch for my own footing, I almost tripped over the carpet that had been unrolled across the hallway.

  The metronome slipped from my hands and crashed on the floor with a shrill sound.

  Instead of breaking, however, it just flicked on. An unnerving clicking sound echoed in the air as the slender hand of the metronome swayed back and forth on the ground.

  Paling, I knelt down to retrieve it and put it back safely among the pages of the book.

  “What the–” I had to avert my eyes from the bright light that came out of the book. After a few seconds, the light subsided and with it the metronome stopped working.

  Tentatively, I reached for the metronome, in hopes that a light flick might be able to fix its hand. Much to my surprise, my fingers curled around empty air, and went past the metronome, straight inside the book.

  “Easy there!” I squealed in surprise, jerking my hand back. “I still need this hand.”

  When it got fully out of the book, the page my hand had slipped into started writing by itself.

  Paper that had been blank until that very moment was now filled with the elegant calligraphy of the rest of the book, matching new illustrations of the earlier chapters inked by the same invisible hand.

  A blueish fog started crawling out of the page. Struck with a sudden wave of panic, I slammed the book shut and slipped it in my bag; soon, of the weird fog it remained but a little cloud that dispersed harmlessly in seconds.

  That’s what you get for being too curious, I mentally chided myself.

  Lost in thought after the bizarre events, I almost crashed into the door behind which my next class would take place.

  I knocked twice. The sound echoing through the empty hallway.

  “You may enter, young master Arda.”