—On the night the fate of the former Baroness Heronia was determined, I asked my father to spare some time to confirm facts that remained unclear, despite my best assumptions.
In his private study, I sat across from my father. He reached for a bottle of Kiwis, a golden-hued liquor. This was something he had instructed the butler to prepare before we were alone.
“Shall we grab a drink?” he suggested, raising a glass toward me.
I hadn’t been of drinking age for long and, having spent most of my time in the alcohol-free environment of the academy, had little experience with drinking. However, I had enjoyed the taste of Kiwis from a previous experience, so I gladly accepted his offer. It was Charles who introduced me to Kiwis for the first time.
The night following my birthday last year, Charles decided to stay another night at the palace after joining my birthday party. He expressed a desire to see me drunk and continuously poured me tasty Kiwis. Given that we were in my private room without the concern of being observed, we drank quite a bit, yet I never reached complete inebriation. Although we finished several bottles of this relatively potent liquor, I only felt a mild warmth in my ears and fingertips, suggesting I might have a high alcohol tolerance. I had been eager to discover what it feels like to be tipsy, which disappointed me.
I guess it’s a good thing in a way, since I’ll probably need to drink often at diplomatic events in the future.
“Didn’t we still owe you a celebratory drink for your graduation? I had something special prepared for the occasion.”
Although it felt slightly improper to serve a drink to the king, even if he was my father, I reached for the bottle. Yet, with a playful grin, he offered the glass to me instead. This drink, he claimed, was a toast in my honor.
Realizing it was best not to dwell on formalities, I accepted the glass from him. He joyfully filled my glass with the amber liquid, quickly pouring one for himself as well.
As he waved his hand dismissively, indicating I shouldn’t worry about it, I responded with a wry smile. He raised his glass silently, and when I clinked mine against his, a soft sound echoed between us.
“Congratulations on your graduation! You did great,” he said.
“Thank you,” I replied. Although I hadn’t really done anything particularly noteworthy to deserve such praise, I accepted his words graciously. The old me might have corrected him, but now I appreciated the comfort of this moment and felt no need to dampen it with unnecessary corrections.
We quietly sipped our drinks for a while. As the atmosphere relaxed, my father was the first to speak again.
“The situation with Miss Heronia was quite troublesome. It’s finally resolved now, a true relief.”
“I’m glad that one more complication is out of the way,” I replied.
“Well, you’ll soon be busy again with the wedding preparations,” he said with a hint of mischief in his grin, alluding to the challenges of planning a wedding.
I replied with a smile, “That’s not a ‘complication’ but a ‘pleasure’ for me.”
My father appeared somewhat surprised by my response, then he relaxed and muttered, “Is that so?”
Watching his reactions, I felt my guess inching closer to truth.
“Maybe it’s too late to ask, but Cecil, do you find joy in being with Miss Bertia? Do you think you can be happy together?” His tone was light, but the question held significant weight.
As he sipped his drink, his gaze was focused and probing, laced with concern.
“Yes, of course. There’s no woman who entertains me and makes me as happy as she does… If anything were to take her away from me, I might just accidentally destroy an entire country, that’s how much I cherish her,” I said with a broad smile, sharing my true feelings. Father was momentarily taken aback, then burst out laughing and said, “Is that so?”
“Father, may I ask a question of my own?” I waited for his laughter to die down before continuing to the main topic.
Wiping the tears from the corners of his eyes after laughing too much, he looked at me attentively. “Isn’t that why you’re here? What is it?”
Taking a sip of the Kiwis, which had a unique blend of sweetness and bitterness, I paused before asking my father, “Father, have you noticed anything about the ‘maiden of destiny’ I once asked about?”
Father’s hand, clutching the glass, twitched slightly, causing the amber liquid to ripple. “No, I know nothing about the ‘maiden of destiny,’” he replied, raising an eyebrow and feigning ignorance.
“What about people like me then? Do you know anything about that?”
“People ‘like you…?” he echoed.
“Yes, exactly. About people like me. Is there something you’re keeping secret?”
We exchanged probing looks.
A tense silence enveloped the room, but it did not last long.
“—Where did you learn about this?” he finally asked.
“I haven’t learned it; I deduced it. Remember when I asked you about the ‘maiden of destiny’? You said you didn’t know about her. But I suspect you knew about ‘people like me.’ Your reaction back then struck me as odd, and combining that with the information I have, I made some guesses… And your response just now has confirmed them.”
“… I see,” he murmured, his voice a blend of resignation and curiosity.
In response, my father’s cheeks twitched slightly, and he let out a deep, profound sigh, muttering with a mix of exasperation and resignation, “You really are something, aren’t you?”
“Father, will you talk to me?”
“I guess I don’t have a choice. I would have rather not discussed such matters with my own child, but…”
“Either way, this is information that must be passed on to future generations of the royal family, right? It’s just a question of whether it’s sooner or later.”
Faced with my reasoning, my father grimaced. “Knowing this at a young age versus learning it when one is older could lead to different ways of handling it, don’t you think?”
“Perhaps. There might be some truth to that. Now, please go ahead and tell me.”
“Are you trying to lightly dismiss my parental concerns?”
“I appreciate your feelings, Father. Now that I’ve come to understand these things, it’s better to hear them from you here and now.”
“That might be true… Alright, let’s just get this done.”
“Thank you.”
“Is this what they call a rebellious phase? No, rather, is this just how you normally operate?” He muttered to himself, seemingly bewildered, before slowly beginning his explanation.
“Your guess is likely correct. In our royal line, children with exceptional abilities across the board, like you, are sometimes born. It is said to be the influence of the bloodline of King Torjin, the founder of this nation.”
“The Hero King?”
I remembered the stories of our country’s origins that I had read as a child to pass the time. It was a time when many tribes dotted the landscape, each continually warring to expand their territories.
To bring peace to the land, the son of a tribe’s chief rose up. Excelling in both martial prowess and strategic intelligence, this man quickly united the surrounding tribes and laid the foundation for what would become the modern Alphasta Kingdom.
Eventually, he married the daughter of a chieftain with whom his tribe had established an alliance.
With her, who was also his childhood friend, he governed the nation and is said to have brought peace to this land. Essentially, it’s the typical story of a nation’s founding.
“The Hero King, huh? Yes, King Torjin is indeed referred to as that, but it’s just a postscript,” my father explained.
“A postscript…?” I repeated, somewhat puzzled.
Father nodded. “Children born into the royal family with extraordinary abilities often lack basic human emotions in exchange for those abilities. Simple feelings like love or dislike are foreign to them, and they find little to no joy or interest in most things.”
His description aptly fit my own childhood.
“Because of this, they are constantly seeking something that can spark their interest, something that can evoke their emotions. Once they find it, they become fixated, and it’s hard to divert their attention from it. King Torjin was exactly like that. Although he is now celebrated for unifying the tribes to bring peace, in reality, he simply loved to fight.”
“I see. A ‘war fanatic,’ then,” I reflected, recalling a story Bertia had once shared about someone named Baldroot.
It seemed I might have ended up similarly, if circumstances had been different.
“Yes, ‘war fanatic’—that is an accurate description. However, Torjin was never called that; he became known as the ‘Hero King.’ His wife played a significant role in this transformation.”
Father then began to recount the story of King Torjin and his wife, Queen Arnei. It was the untold truth, a narrative that had been conveniently altered in existing documents and submerged in the depths of history.
—King Torjin and Queen Arnei were both children of tribal chiefs who had fostered good relations and likely aimed to strengthen that bond through their marriage. Since childhood, they were frequently brought together and played alongside one another.
From childhood, King Torjin was a child who showed little interest in anything. No matter what he did, he executed it perfectly but always seemed somewhat disinterested and bored. To him, Queen Arnei, who was always smiling and laughing, appeared to be a mysterious being.