Inside the almost broken mansion of Viscount Haiel, behind an office room.
Haiel walked back and forth before his desk while keeping his face unknown and hands behind his back locked. After he walked for the unkempt time, he stopped and looked at the boy before him.
"How could you do this, Arthur?"
Arthur standing before him, not as guilty as he should be, protested, "My lord, believe me!"
"Believe what? That something else had killed the boy Gekko?" Haiel said sarcastically and before Arthur could nod he spoke, "There are multiple eyes out there that will testify against you."
"But I'm sure it wasn't me… someone had assassinated Gekko. It was done too fast for me to see." Arthur knew he was innocent and he would fight to the death to prove it.
"And who would assassinate him?"
"I… don't know," Arthur quickly replaced by saying, "but there could be a reason to him being killed."
"What would that reason be?"
"I still don't know but if it's not because of him, they might do it against me. You know they would like nothing more than to cut me up and make me disappear."
Haiel wanted to negate every word that came out of Arthur, because to him it all seemed like poor excuses, but he couldn't deny the possibility of the last one happening.
Haiel knew the truth about Arthur, about how he's the king's son and how the current queen has poisoned the king's mind about his family and got them sent off to a faraway place.
It was right about that time when the king started to show signs of weakness and quickly fell to bed. It may not have been suspicious to many people but Haiel knew the king personally and knew that such a man couldn't just contract a disease and fall on his bed, not like that.
He was a man of war and his death should be at the field. Haiel understood this was the working of the inner court and the evil queen, who as regent took the kingdom for herself.
But Haiel was a loyal retainer of his majesty, he knew that if the king couldn't even save himself then what about his wife and heir? He knew of the good nature of both the boy and his mother, so he couldn't let the queen do whatever she wants and hid them away for a few years.
Even then the queen had searched thoroughly for the boy and his mother's presence, most likely to end them completely. It was also becoming increasingly difficult with Arthur attracting problems around him every day.
But after what happened that day on the field, Haiel knew Arthur wouldn't be safe in this town, not with how hard the queen's dogs were searching him. They would have surely gotten news of this place and would sent people after him.
Seeing no other way to calm this down, Haiel looked at Arthur with pain, "I think it would be best if you run, Arthur."
"What! Never!" Arthur interjected, "How could I possibly do such a thing? That would tarnish my family name."
Haiel wanted to scoff hearing that, his family name was almost as good as gone. He sighed before holding him by his shoulders, "You need to understand Arthur, you family honor… is no more," He stopped Arthur before he could speak, "But, you still remain."
"As long as you are alive and able to become strong again. You will once again get back your families honor and your rightful seat as our future king." Haiel looked him deep in the eyes, "So, think about what I said carefully before denying, this doesn't only affect you but the whole kingdom too, Arthur." The source of this content ɪs NoveIＦire.net
"You are our future."
Arthur hearing Haiel's words, didn't know what he should do. He understood the importance of Haiel's words and couldn't deny any of them. But if he were to do that than his families honor will do down to dust.
Something that his father had told him to always protect. But now he stood at a point where he would have to choose between the thing his father valued the most and the people, who he was born to show a better path.
Believe it or not, the whole journey went out quite nicely. No attack or raid on us.
Even as Jacob sat right beside me and Anna showing daggers at him, it was nice.
Because she didn't say anything. She was completely quiet around the whole journey and Jacob while understanding why she was doing that, ignored her knowing I would beat his ass if he said something.
Alice seeing both Anna and me quiet, also became quiet and didn't say anything. Raven… well the guy was always quiet besides the murmuring about the map being wrong or him going through the opposite way.
So seeing that everyone was quiet and the journey was simple, I slept.
Yep, I said goodbye to common sense and took a nice and long sleep. It was so long that I didn't even realize that we had arrived back at Hyfelia until Alice awoke me so.
"Hmm?" Drowsily opening my eyes, I see myself lying on Jacob's shoulder, "What the fuck are you doing here?"
Hearing me, he instead became angry, "It's you I should ask that, why are you sleeping over me, do you know how heavy you are."
"Oh!... No wonder it felt like a stiff bastard," Seeing Alice beside me I quickly say, "Sorry for my language. Alice have we arrived yet?"
She nodded, "I think so."
I looked around but didn't see Anna, "Where's Anna?"
"As soon as we arrived at the mansion, big sister Anna took one big look at you before getting inside the mansion." Alice then looked at me curiously, "Master… did you fight with big sister?"
"Alice… it's not my fault, it's his." I shamelessly point at Jacob, who looked at me like 'What the fuck!', "But don't worry about her, I'll take care of it."
She nodded and we got off the carriage as Raven unloaded all the stuff on the ground. I look at Jacob and point him towards it as he asked, "Why do I have to do it?"
"Did you forget that you work for me now or are you too prideful for such work?"
He grumbled before taking one luggage but immediately regretted it, "Why the fuck is this bag so heavy?"
"Ann… that's…" Alice wanted to say something but didn't know how to say it. It was as if something was stuck inside her mouth.
"Oh, that's filled with the girl's clothes." I said and pointed to Alice as Jacob looked at me with a deadpan look.
"But why is it so heavy?"
"I just said it to you, don't you understand?" I said as if it was a matter of fact, "It's filled with not only her clothes but also Anna's too."
Jacob's face was indiscernible but he just creased his brows before silently taking the bag inside. Then I saw Redwick coming outside, almost as if he wanted to greet me first.
"Nice to see you too, Redwich."
"Young master… you must see to this immediately." He handed me a letter, "This came from the capital, from your stepmother."
I take the letter and read it immediately as my face darkens.