Ready to steal some hearts

The Golden City of Xenia, named after the goddess and our first empress, was the Alexandrian Capital and the place the Cyan Palace was located in, the place I spent the first ten years of my life in. I hadn't been here in seven long years, but not much had changed. Dusk was already approaching and the suns colored the whole city in beautiful shades of the sky. It was as busy and lively as ever. People were working hard, shouting orders from one side to another, children were fooling and laughing around as their older siblings and mothers told them to behave and the aromatic scents of food and spices were dancing with the wind directly into our carriage. I sighed. I didn't even realize how much I had missed this familiar place.

“Are you ready, Your Highness?”

Meilani was standing behind me, brushing my hair into a high ponytail. I smiled at her through the mirror in front of us and adjusted my clothes. The white clothing made my bronze-colored skin stand out a lot. What I was wearing could be called the elegant, pretty version of a bathrobe. I wasn't even kidding, other nations liked to call it that because they didn't wear such things. Here in Alexandria though, it was a very common piece of clothing. As far as I knew, people of the First World once called it a yukata or something like that. I couldn’t quite remember. I hummed a song whose lyrics I had forgotten and put the earrings that once belonged to my mother on. The woman's skeptical eyes were stabbing my back and I raised an eyebrow at her.

“Prince Zian, do you not have something...”, she paused for a second to find the right words. “Something that does not expose this much of your skin, perhaps?”

I giggled, faking ignorance. She wasn't wrong, the clothes were a little too big for me and ended up exposing a fair amount of my naked skin. “I don't know what you mean.”

She sighed. “I am not trying to be rude, but this makes you look like a male concubine.”

“Does it? I'll just take that as a compliment then. Those concubines are, for sure, a sight to behold.”

Meilani shot me a strange look, asking herself what had gone wrong with me. I turned around to smile at her and casually patted her shoulder.

“Don't worry, don't worry. This will make getting into the palace easier.”

I winked at her, mischief visibly glowing in my eyes. I hadn't told anyone that today would be the day of my return on purpose. I wanted to avoid huge masses of people greeting me, causing such a useless commotion. Really now, I couldn't understand them. If I weren't one of the Imperial princes, they wouldn't be treating me like that. This was why I was now preparing to sneak into the palace without others noticing who I was. I was even able to convince my teacher into playing along, something she wouldn't have agreed to if she hadn't hated things like that as much as I did.

“Let's go steal some servants' hearts.”