Somewhere else, a prince was sitting by the eastern window of the library and stared into the black night sky. This was not only his favourite reading spot, but also the best place for stargazing, at least when it came to rooms he was actually allowed in. (There was a rather spectacular tower he had liked to climb, but ever since his brother betrayed his very valuable trust and ratted him out to their parents, it was off limits to both of them).

The light of the full moon illuminated the treetops of the thick forest stretching out into the eastern side of the kingdom. Not a single cloud was in sight. Luciel had already identified most of the constellations formed by the stars against the darkness. An astronomy book lay opened before him on the table he was resting on. Very idyllic, if he did say so himself.

Studying the sky was not the reason he had come here though, at least not tonight. There was something in the air, distant but dangerous, and he didn't like the feeling of it at all. 

He couldn't quite place it.

"Luciel! What are you doing here at this hour?"

The prince flinched at the sound of his father's voice behind him. When had he come in?

I bet my brother told him I wasn't in my room, that snitching little... UGH!

The king glanced at the open book and scoffed.

"Really?That is how you waste your time when you get the chance to?"

Luciel hated how his parents dismissed his interests, but at least he could use it againts them now. He certainly wouldn't tell his father why he had really come here.

"I am sorry, father", the prince answered in the sweetest, most inoffensive voice he had trained himself to fake, "but this is the best time of year to watch meteor showers". A rather tame lie, Luciel tought – the most ideal months to observe shooting stars had just passed – but he knew that his father had absolutely no shred of common knowledge about astronomie and wasn't  interested in fact-checking what his son talked about in the slightest. Luciel might as well have claimed the sun were just a really shiny mirror reflecting light from the moon during daytime.

"Quit boring me with whatever's in that book!", the king interrupted him, as expected without questioning a single word. In a way, it made Luciel feel a little bit better about himself, knowing how easily he could outsmart his father.

"You will return it immediately and go to your room."

"Yes, Father."

He closed the book after putting in one of his sketches as a bookmark, gloomily carried it to the geology shelf – which was not the one he had found it on (he'd get in trouble if anyone found out where he'd actually snuck it from) and plugged it right next to a book creatively titled "Earth", his father watching carefully from a distance.