Chapter 101: The years, the assets.
"He really cured you?"
"I still don’t believe it myself."
"He seemed like a dangerous one, that little boy."
"I can tell you better than anyone else you might hear this from but he is more than just dangerous."
Rainin and the Serulian patriarch had found a spot in a corner of the balcony for themselves.
-Swiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiish.
Winds blew around them, the fresh night passing with several low mummers of the couples who had found themselves some corners of privacy.
They were away from the common eyes, away in their own little world. And as aphrodisiac as the delicious dishes their hosts had prepared for them, their courtesy extended to several rooms of the castle as well.
Romantic rendezvous were common among the nobles. Many things happened besides common chatters many times, but there were rules, laws, and precautions in place as well.
Even if the young lords and ladies found themselves in the company of a certain charming individual, they weren’t indecent enough to romanticize their personal attraction in public... but all that was of no concern to this duo.
"Father, that young boy is beyond his age."
Rainin trusted the Serulian patriarch more than he trusted his own mother.
As they looked below, they could see the various familiar faces.
"You don’t say..."
There were individuals from noble families indebted to them, there were business partners, there were people who needed to pay them back, there were people who were raising in certain sectors... there were Sungrade talents and there were their hosts.
There was a dance going on, there was music down there, there was good, amazing alcohol, but what was not there was the imperial family.
The emperor was gone with the prince and the princess and those who followed the two of them were gone as well.
He had a feeling that the quiet rebellion that was going on these past few months wasn’t going to remain the same anymore.
"What do you think this means, Rainin?" After some observation, the Serulian patriarch’s cerulean eyes found a hooded figure making his way to the outside.
It was a hidden figure but, to the observant eyes of the patriarch, that individual was none other than the prince.
"..."
Rainin followed after the patriarch’s eyes and he, too, found certain figures making their way out of the open hall.
While he didn’t catch the presence of the prince, he undoubtedly recognised a few figures that followed after him to be the vice captain of the imperial forces and those who followed after the prince.
"The Emperor’s presence changes things, father."
He was able to guess it as well: something had happened between the imperial family.
"The emperor..." the Serulian patriarch, as a sailor, had seen countless illnesses and kinds of deaths present around the world.
He had seen people dying from getting cut by a coral and he had seen people dying from inhaling strange smoke.
The creatures of the mainland were nothing compared to the blue horrors that he had witnessed and along with that, the survivors of those horrors were people that one does not see on the mainland.
There is a completely different kind of fire in the eyes of those who had almost given up on life. He had been one of those who walked beyond the gates of life and yet was fortunate enough to make it back.
And when he saw the emperor, he had no doubt that, even as a mainlander, the emperor had experienced one such horror.
Perhaps, an even darker one.
"How do you think the emperor made it back, Rainin?" The Serulian patriarch asked his son and not just a knight of his family.
This question, as the boy could tell, was more than just a simple inquiry.
"Think logically, instead of thinking about the evidence. Who have you seen to be the most unique in your time with the Sungrades?"
He had been living with them for a while now. He should have observed them closely, helped them and learned with them.
As the people on the far east of the empire, their struggles were unique as well. They were also guardian protectors of the empire.
There were no blue horrors in the east but there certainly were demons, creatures far more, if not as terrible as the creatures of the deep sea.
They have been here for longer than the Serulians have been rich. So, they weren’t an ordinary family.
Salamanders were one strength but their experience, and their unique freedom that one doesn’t even find in the south, made them more special than someone that was simply rich.
"You don’t mean..." At the patriarch’s question, the boy’s eyes went directly in a certain direction.
There, he observed the boy who was sitting alone with his brothers, enjoying a brief supper.
As someone who had been by his side all this time, he had come to admire the young boy.
There were so many layers to him that even right now, it was difficult for him to explain his character.
One thing, however, he was certain of: the boy was a myth.
Mystic arts, legendary techniques, magic, medicine, there were few even in Stanox as well versed as him in all those disciplines.
If he was the one behind it, then, his father might not be wrong.
"It is possible."
He nodded to his father, looking back at him only to find a strange smirk present on his face.
"The emperor’s presence only means one thing, son." Taking a brief pause, the patriarch looked back at his boy. "Change."
The rebellion on the smaller scale caused by the dark forces wasn’t going to stop on its own, but the mutiny that was happening would very well come to a stop.
The various plans that the two of them might have had for the future of the empire would undoubtedly crumble, and from here on out, the people who were a friend or foe in their eyes would change their positions.
The emperor, as smart and capable as he was, would know that his ways until now were not right.
He would also not subject his children to the same fate as the ones in the past, so, he would plan something else.
’Whatever he plans, however, will include the rest of the masses.’
There won’t be a war on a battlefield, but if he was right, there would be a competition.
A competition between the heirs.
-Swiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiish...
The winds are nice here.
"Stick close to him, Rainin. Watch him, learn from him, and put your life on the line if you must."
There are few that appear in a generation that you would die for. Someone who would lead his people to the greatest highest imaginable.
Someone unparalleled, and reckless, and kind... and logically ruthless.
The Serulian patriarch, a Sailor of the [Ghost Fleet], had experienced the endless tragic sea.
But this was the first time he was seeing a Purple Firefly on the land.
’Regrettably...’
He wasn’t a Serulian.