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The maid was good with words, painting a damning narrative against Winter. But the emperor was not a stupid man, he knew this was just the machinations of his wife. Now the question plaguing his mind was what to do?

The illness of Sir Gregory was too strange and the maid sneaking into the barracks made a mockery of the palace’s security. Rising to his tall stature from his office desk, Helio knew he wouldn’t be able to get any work done until he went to go see everything for himself.

His heavy footsteps quickly alerted the doormen of his impending exit and the twin doors to his study opened. His face had his permanent scowl, further accentuated by his dour mood over the events that had passed within the palace. It was events such as this that made him hate the imperial palace, his home, to his very bones. He almost yearned for another uprising or rebellion to quell, just so he could leave the cold halls that still seemd to mock him years after he had paid the price of blood and won the throne.

A distant figure approached Helio as he stepped out of his palace building with his small retinue, the smallest number of people he was required to have tail him as the sovereign of the Erudian Empire. And even when he went out with them, he never lessened his killing aura so that they would be forced to stay several feet behind him.

“Your Majesty,” Sir Wolfgang drawled and Helio’s drawn expression loosened a tad.

He nodded solemnly, his version of a greeting.

“We are headed to the barracks,” he ordered. Knowing what it was about, the Mad Dog’s devil may care attitude similarly dimmed, revealing the shrewd commander underneath.

.....

“You know that this was all mostly Katya’s doing, right?” Wolfgang started as the two, tall men walked towards the royal guard barracks at a brisk pace. Wolfgang was smart and never referred to Katya as Helio’s wife and empress, always calling her by name or ‘that woman’.

“That woman has her claws sunk deep into the place. Makes me sick.” the young lord remarked with a sour expression, “I was shooting arrows with Julian a little while ago and the number of eyes on us could not be counted in the single digits.”

Beside them, the luxurious marble tiles and gold filigree were traded for grass freshly stomped by heavy, male boots.

“I know.” Emperor Helio replied. They both looked up at the brick buildings that housed the main forces of the royal family, the afternoon sun casting a long shadow towards them.

A young knight that had been wandering outside startled suddenly as he looked up to see the Emperor and the commander of the royal guards standing before him.

“Y-Your Majesty! Sire!” he cried, dropping into a full bow with one knee planted on the grass and a fist on his chest.

“Rise,” Sir Wolfgang said, knowing that his friend and ruler would not bother to say anything, having already stalked past the young sprig into the musty building.

The barracks was a place that housed men, one whiff was enough to inform anyone of that. However, both Wolfgang and Helio had grown up in conditions such as these, they’d even shoveled through the outhouse with their bare hands many moons ago when they were much scrawnier and weaker. It did little to phase them.

Surprised knights mingling within the barracks during their downtime when they weren’t taking shifts around the palace cried out simultaneously, “Your Majesty!”

Even one that had been extravagantly tossing sunflower seeds into his mouth dropped on his knees, crying out with the rest of his peers before tilting his head back and catching the seed.

Emperor Helio had a domineering presence, and it wasn’t just from his killing aura. Before he had entered, Helio had deliberately diminished his aura but even without it, the dark-haired killing angel had stained his sword many times with blood and it could be seen with one glance.

Helio did not engage with any, but the starry eyes did not lessen as the emperor moved down the hall to the end where Sir Gregory, the interim commander when Sir Wolfgang was not present, lived. A few of the younger noble lads who had recently joined and had only heard the famous stories of the emperor, could not help but gasp to themselves in awe. Seeing their fearsome sovereign automatically made them want to work harder to prove themselves within the most prestigious regiment of knights in the Empire.

An attendant that had been beside Helio rushed to open Sir Gregory’s door for the emperor, but Helio was long accustomed to doing such things for himself. Without any prelude, he walked in, startling the Duchess who still had tear tracks on her face.

“Y-Your Majesty!” she cried, her maid helping her up from a wood stool to drop into a curtsey. It could be seen that her son’s injuries had hit her hard, for Duchess Taylor, who always presented a bold, yet reserved image was now in shambles, her dress several seasons old and her face looking like it had aged 10 years in two weeks. Both she and the room stunk of medicine.

“Please exit the room as His Majesty meets with Sir Gregory,” a faithful attendant requested with his head bowed. As Duchess Taylor knew it was an immense honor for Emperor Helio to visit one of his subjects, she did not tarry any longer and quickly left. Her hands viciously grasped the folds of her skirts as the reverent expression she had held disappeared.

She greatly hoped that the emperor would be able to see what havoc his demon spawn daughter had wreaked and pass a swift and decisive punishment. Her son was her bottom line, her reason for waking up every morning. For an unfavored little witch to dare to plot against him, Duchess Taylor knew she wouldn’t be satisfied with anything less than death! She had already urged her husband, Duke Taylor, to also push for this punishment once the emperor returned to government proceedings.

Helio was rather sensitive to others’ intentions, it was a trait that had helped him survive his perilous childhood. He felt the dark anger boiling within the aging woman, but dismissed it as he turned to look at the knight before him.

The two of them were roughly the same age, and while the emperor had no enmity with Sir Gregory, he also didn’t have any fond memories. The interim commander lay in his bed without moving, looking pale and wan, unlike the many tanned and healthy knights of the royal guard. If it weren’t for the faint rise and fall of his chest, one could assume he was dead.

Wolfgang whistled slowly. “That crazy maid must have had personal resentment with this man, for him to be so badly injured.”

He turned to a cowering aide standing in the corner. “What did the doctor say about his injuries again?”

“S-Sir, the doctor said that he doesn’t know what happened to this k-knight. He hadn’t ingested anything from her as far as their deductions could tell and he did not have any apparent wounds.”

“How mysterious,” Wolfgang said with a mocking smirk. He was incredulous of this doctor’s report and wondered whether those rats had been coerced by Katya to give a lackluster medical report.

The emperor did not seem to be listening though, his hands imposingly held behind his back as he observed the unconscious knight. He crouched, gaining a closer look at the side of Sir Gregory’s head before his eyes narrowed menacingly.

Wolfgang had seen that look before. He ushered the trembling aide out, only to raise his brows in surprise as Helio sent him out as well.

“Me?” he said with surprise.

There was no mirth in Helio’s icy gold gaze. “Yes.”

The Mad Dog was smart enough to similarly exit, though he was bewildered by the circumstance. What could have made the emperor so uneasy he would force everyone from the room and stay with Sir Gregory alone?

Within the room, Emperor Helio was burning with cold rage, the shock of the matter making it burn even hotter. A rush of memories soared through his head and his hand folded into a fist. Faintly hidden in the curls that fell down Sir Gregory’s neck and missed by the doctors’ subpar inspection, there was a faint bite mark at the top of the knight’s throat where the head meets the neck.

It had bruised and was a stark purple color that stood out against the man’s now pale skin. He had seen this mark long ago and recognized it for what it was.

The bite of one of Akira’s spawn.

It was likely that even the empress did not know what had done this, but this revelation set Helio’s teeth on edge.

“Someday boy, you will encounter an enemy you can’t pummel into the earth or kill. Then what will you do? Brute force is a gift, but also a curse if used too heavy-handedly,” Lord Bromley had once warned him long ago when he had held that deceitful man in his confidence.

But Helio hadn’t listened. He too had made a deal with the devil, exchanging the life of someone he loved for the ability to strike fear into the hearts of all his enemies. And he had paid its price that fateful night years ago when the original Rose Palace had burnt to the ground with his heart sleeping inside it none the wiser.

Feeling the painful memories bite at his heels like a ravenous dog, Helio punched the wall beside him hard, leaving a crater from the force. Looking down at this injured knight that had been dragged into Empress Katya’s scheme, he felt like his past was mocking him.

The large man folded onto the stool previously occupied by the duchess, his face buried in his hands. Within the heavy silence of the bare room, his killing aura slowly absorbed the energy within the comatose Sir Gregory, drawing it deep inside where it would only be seen when he carved his bloody path through a battlefield. Now that he knew the culprit, he didn’t realize how he couldn’t feel Akira’s taint within the room when he initially entered. The malevolent energy, the same one he had embraced with open arms to claim a throne that was never supposed to be his, churned within the body of the knight beside him.

Did he regret making the deal with Akira all those years ago as a young boy trying to survive the deadly military camps? Did he regret that his literal presence pushed away everyone from except for those related by blood? Did he regret losing the only person he had ever loved, a woman he loved more than his own life, in exchange for incomparable power?

His face was terrifying blank as he considered his answer. For, in fact, the young emperor did not regret any of the decisions that had given him his current power. And that was what frightened him. The throne was him and he was the throne. They were one and the same, as he reminded himself often. Even if the Holy Church disagreed with this notion, Helio’s grasp on imperial power was too firm for those nonsensical believers to shake.

But Akira putting one of his creatures in his palace was an anomaly Helio did not account for. After he had received the great demon’s power and conquered the throne, the presence of Akira seemed to slither out of Radovalsk, disappearing into a corner of the Empire far enough for him to look the other way when strange things and disappearances occurred. It was a being that enjoyed the taste of suffering and torment, extracting a fair debt from Helio before vanishing. Thus, in Helio’s cunning mind, he could find no reason for Akira to return after having already gotten what he wanted.

The sovereign sighed slightly, his mood growing darker and his presence flaring as he stood up, once again the picture of a fearless tyrant. For answers, Helio would have to seek out his estranged mentor, the one he swore he would never turn to for help again.

“You can’t stay away, can you boy? In the end, you always need my help to keep the throne,” Lord Bromley echoed in his ears, words from a decade ago.

The door to Sir Gregory’s room opened with a bang, startling those waiting outside.

“Your Majesty, I-” Duchess Taylor said again, wanting to express her gratitude and subtly inquire about what was to be done.

Helio strode past her without a word, his long strides forcing Sir Wolfgang to jog to reach him.

An aide stopped beside the bewildered Duchess. “A statement of the situation will be issued shortly, please be respectful of His Majesty’s busy schedule.”

She watched as the tall, imposing man and felt her knees wobble.

“My lady!” her servant wailed as Duchess Taylor nearly fell to the ground.

“I’m fine,” she replied calmly. She prided herself as being much stronger and valiant than other noblewomen due to her past of wielding a sword with her father and brothers as a little girl. But all her fortitude was for naught as she nearly collapsed like the popular caricature of a feeble, overly pampered noblewoman. This kind of person, Duchess Taylor noted with satisfaction, would not be lenient even with his own children.