When Royal Secretary Claris had received the ssage from the Raijun Faction, she had been unimpressed, but had fulfilled her duties to convey the ssage to the recipient.
"Raise your head."
She adhered to his ethereal command as she took a good look at the seated Void Prince with an impassive expression.
His body was translucent under his royal Martial attire, as if he belonged to a higher plane of existence, rely lowering a part of himself down to the lesser world she belonged to. His ethereal eyes pierced through her and beyond, making her feel naked before the weight of his gaze.
The weight of his presence, even when restrained to the highest to avoid disrupting the Royal Palace and perhaps the entire city, pressed down on her, forcing her to put in so effort to maintain her external composure.
She knew he could read her thoughts and emotions, but even so, she couldn’t stop herself from feeling a hint of asured disdain even as she studied him.
His body language was calm and composed, even relaxed as he sipped green tea. She was unable to estimate what had been discussed between the royal siblings, but it didn’t strike her as if anything of import had been discussed from how he acted. At most, he must have rejected her, given how short the eting was.
There were several docunts and blueprints on the table, ones that Royal Secretary Claris had seen relatively recently. Princess Ranea had discussed her proposal with her father, who saw great rit in her proposal, but told her to wait until the war was over.
The thought of Emperor Rael caused a pang of grief to flash through her mind. She had buried herself in work, important work, not to think about it, but coordinating with the Royal Funeral Committee made it difficult not to think about what she had lost.
She had lost her sun.
Her world.
It was not easy being the secretary of the most powerful ruler on the continent. It demanded absolute devotion, and nothing less. She didn’t have a family, she didn’t have a life outside serving him.
And she had been fine with that.
She hadn’t needed anything beyond serving him.
What she felt for him was beyond paltry emotions like love. To her, he was her whole world.
And now, her world was gone.
The only thing that drove her now was to preserve the legacy of her sun, the Emperor of Harmony, and try to ensure that the things that he had built would remain.
Even as she gazed at him, waiting for a response, she couldn’t help but feel profoundly conflicting emotions.
The most favored son of the Emperor of Harmony. She knew Emperor Rael better than anybody, save for Sage Sayfeel, so she knew how much the Emperor loved Rui, a child born of one of the very few won he had ever truly loved.
She also knew how much he was troubled by that sa son. Rui was a source of great joy for the Emperor as a ruler and a father, but he was also a great source of trouble and anxiety. She estimated that Rui added, directly or indirectly, an extra nineteen percentage points worth of work for his father per annum.
He was incorrigible, in many ways, but his contributions to the Kandrian Empire were so extraordinary that even his greatest mishaps outshone the shadows of his derits. Even she had been shocked by all the things that Rui had accomplished that benefited the Kandrian Empire over the years. They always exceeded the disadvantages and the flaws they ca with.
Not this ti.
This ti, he had cost the Kandrian Empire its Emperor, along with a lot of other damage.
He had cost her her sun.
It bred a deep resentnt within her, which she managed to bury so as to prevent the prince from sensing it. If he did sense it, he certainly made no indication of it, for he had been amiable with her the entire ti.
"Say you, would you like to beco my secretary?"
Her eyes widened at those words.
He studied her with an emphatic enthusiasm, muttering under his breath. "I should have figured this out before..."
"Your Highness, I... I’m not exactly sure what you expect from with that," she managed to squeeze out.
Rui snapped his finger, and suddenly, the world around her shifted.
She found herself seated opposite him in the blink of an eye.
CLACK
He closed the door with a twirl of his finger before shifting his attention to her with an eager expression. The light of the evening sun perated through his translucent body, giving him an almost prism-like radiance. A profound atmosphere descended between them as he conveyed his true intentions.
"I will beco Emperor."
He uttered those world-shattering words with a composed but certain tone, leaving her reeling.
She clenched her fists. "Are you... Are you serious, Your Highness?"
"Yes," Rui replied as his ethereal eyes pierced deep into hers. "The throne is mine. As is this empire. I will rule over it as the third emperor of Kandria."
She couldn’t stop the flush of skepticism that erged from deep within her, and she couldn’t stop him sensing it. Rui smiled wryly in the face of her insolent skepticism.
"I know it’s hard to believe, but it’s the truth."
He took another sip from his cup of tea. "I will announce after we have completed the funeral ceremony in the Royal Funeral. That is why I had you gather the whole world at it."
Her expression hardened with seriousness.
If he was going to announce it with literally every major leader and power present, then there was no question that he was absolutely serious about it. The loss of face from doing that and not living up to his words would be devastating even for Rui.
Her eyes sharpened. "If I may be so impudent, may I ask... what has brought about this change, Your Highness?"
"I deed it was necessary, and later a conversation with a friend convinced that it could actually be a very good thing, too," Rui explained patiently. "And so, I will announce my bid for the throne in the Royal Funeral, and then proceed to ascend the throne. I need a secretary to arrange and schedule etings, to inform of developnts within the nation. I also need an insider to Kandrian dostic politics, because I have been out of touch for at least a quarter of a century."
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