The first thing I did after I got to my room… was to sigh deeply.

It’s just this simple.

Once I had enough influence in the first place, given the circumstances… how easy is it to control a king like that?

All I have to do now is sit back, make sure that Alith matter is resolved, make sure that Adrian and Alysia have official status and identity, prepare the Aronians for the coming attack, gain their trust even more… and I have Eshaware in the palm of my hand.

Simple, isn’t it?

…

I was silent for a while in my room, watching the ceiling.

…

“Haaaaah…”

Well, I must stop talking nonsense.

Faelan Aroniel is a king, a king with many times more life experience than me. He may have been too shaken by his son’s situation, he may have reacted momentarily not as a ’king’ but as a ’father’. But that won’t stop him from analyzing the situation after a while and realizing that he cannot and should not ally Eshaware with Cevilian just because I gave him such critical information about his son.

Politics is not that easy.

Everything I said about Alith is true. But it will simply make the Aroniels wary of me, it will put them in a mentally weakened state and they will try to be much more careful. They will think about their family situation and the possibility that I might try to take advantage of it.

So this chain of events is not going to make me a ’hero’ as it happened in Holar.

I’m not supposed to be, anyway. That is not my plan and never has been. I have no intention of becoming the ’hero’ of another nation.

Adrian is the one who should take on this task. He is the one who will drive out the dark elves, heal the World Tree, make Laute a respected and loved name again… and act as a bridge so that Cevilian and Eshaware can finally become full-fledged allies.

I took my eyes off the ceiling and looked at the watch on my wrist.

How fast time moves, really…

It’s about time.

*******

A few short hours after the meeting, in the evening, just a few minutes after I had checked the time… the doorbell rang in our room.

And on our doorstep, as I expected, were the elven guards.

Adrian, Alysia, and Julian kept giving me very strange looks because I hadn’t said anything to them. But that wasn’t the main thing.

The moment they saw the guards, all three of them stood up and approached me.

But the front one of the guards behind the door stopped them with a stern voice.

“Only Count Aiden Tenebra.”

And with that, the surprise on their faces became clear.

“Don’t worry, it won’t take long.”

I said this to reassure them a little, but… it didn’t seem to do much good as they continued to give me worried looks.

Although, Alysia doesn’t look worried at all… In fact, she gives me a look as if to tell me to go away.

I’m not sure if she trusts me or simply doesn’t care.

“Is this about your… one-on-one meeting with the King?”

“Yes, Adrian.”

“Oh… I see.”

Adrian looked thoughtful for a while, but finally gave me a look of determination, not concern.

“Whatever you’re doing… I hope you succeed, then.”

I stared at him for a moment, then sighed.

“Of course I will.”

Well.

Even if I can’t be sure about Alysia… it’s a good feeling that Adrian clearly trusts me, I guess.

*******

I moved along the corridors with the guards. But this time we didn’t take a circuitous route like before the meeting, but rather walked quite quickly toward our destination.

So, after a short time, I entered a room whose door was quite normal compared to that of the interview room.

And what I found was what looked like a living room with wide and long armchairs on all four sides.

Only… there was a guard in every corner. And that was because there were two people in the room.

Faelan Aroniel… and his daughter, Phloria Aroniel.

As soon as I entered the room and the door behind me closed, I tried to bow to greet them, but…

“No need for that. Just… sit down.”

Faelan Aroniel… had recovered considerably compared to the meeting. His expression was much calmer, even though it was clear from his movements that his mind was in turmoil. There was little trace of his spontaneous reaction. He remembered he was a king.

Before I did as he said, I glanced briefly in the direction of his daughter.

Phloria Aroniel… certainly knew why I was here. I never thought she could give me such a hostile look, but at the same time see the indecision in her eyes so clearly.

I slowly sat down in one of the seats, the farthest one of the two, and took my cane in my hands.

And that’s when Faelan Aroniel spoke.

“I’ll ask you again, Aiden Tenebra.”

His pale yellow eyes and expression were much more confident than in the meeting.

“Are you sure Alith is… a wiera?”

“Yes.”

“And… aren’t you a wiera too, even if you claim to be some kind of hybrid and we can see it?”

“That’s right.”

“Then…”

He paused, his eyes narrowed slightly.

“Is there a possibility that my son could be like you?”

Ah, he is still pushing to see if there is any hope…

Understandable.

But he’s trying in vain.

“I can’t say there aren’t any, but I don’t think so.”

“Why, then?”

“Because becoming a wiera is essentially about the soul. The soul begins to change first, and only after the soul changes does the body transform. That’s why, at the end of the process, the person in control of the body is different.

The soul changes, after all. In short, interrupting the transformation of the soul is the only thing that can create a half-wiera like me. I… was lucky enough to do it at the time.”

After my words, a teal glow appeared over my shoulder, Sith made himself visible to everyone and looked directly at the two elves sitting in front of me. And both elves also toward him, of course.

“Thanks to the spirit I signed a contract with long ago, I had my soul split in two during the transformation, securing my own. Then, when the transformation was complete, I had the two pieces sewed back together. That’s why in the depths of my mind lies a consciousness separate from me. A consciousness I would not recommend communicating or meeting with, of course.”

He continued to stare at me. Silently, indifferently.

“Is there… no way to turn this back?”

I shook my head from side to side, and silence fell over the room again.

“I’m sorry, Your Royal Highness. But… Alith Aroniel is dead. I don’t know how long, but the person in his body is not your real son. And he never will be.”

He took his eyes away from me and turned them to his daughter, who had been silent until now. Phloria Aroniel simply nodded her head up and down without taking her eyes off me.

King Faelan fixed his eyes on the floor after the silent answer to his silent question. Then he closed them and waited for a while, as if lost in thought. He waited… and waited. Then he took a deep, really deep breath.

“I… understand.”

And… when he turned his eyes back to me, he no longer looked sad or hurt.

He had pushed aside and ignored the father part that was burning inside him.

In front of me was a king who knew exactly what he had to do, a king who had hidden his emotions in the most hidden corners of his subconscious.

“If you have nothing more to say… Let’s visit him.”

He stood up slowly, but he did not tremble or show any sign of weakness. He was not even angry, he was simply… calm.

*******

Alith Aroniel’s personal room was not far from where we met briefly. Only a two-minute walk took us to his doorstep.

The guards standing guard at the door saluted their king as soon as they saw him. But King Faelan ignored them, did not even wait for them to open the door, and knocked.

“It’s me, Alith. Can I come in?”

His tone was normal, he didn’t even stutter.

But there was no answer from the other side of the door.

No matter how long the king of the elves waited for an answer, the corridor remained silent.

Finally… he decided not to wait any longer.

“I am entering.”

He opened the door normally, and the huge room was revealed to us.

It was the kind of room I… didn’t expect from someone like Alith, honestly. At least not from someone of his personality.

There was such a calm, peaceful simplicity that it could have been used as a therapy room.

But it wasn’t about how the room looked, but what it looked like.

It was the huge bed in the far corner of the room.

Or rather… the person sitting cross-legged on it, chin resting on his palm, looking coldly in our direction.

As if he was waiting for us.

King Faelan never once took his eyes off Alith, who was sitting quietly on his bed.

“Do not let anyone enter the room.”

The guards outside the door closed it with a salute of obedience.

And the room… suddenly went from peaceful calm to disturbing ominousness.

The calm before the storm, the silence.

“Haaaaah…”

Alith Aroniel was the first to break the silence with the deep breath he took.

“How did you know?”

His words… were to me as his eyes were on me.

“It wasn’t difficult, given the caora that was condensing around you.”

He didn’t look surprised in any way, his expression was quite flat.

“Caora condensing around me, huh… You can feel caora just like that, even when you’re not using it, even when you’re still?”

“I’m a special wiera, let’s say.”

I am, really.

I have something of a ’deal’ with Caora, after all, thanks to the promise I made to Sue after her death, even if it actually was the thing that allowed her to die just so it could make this ’deal’ with me.

“Special, huh…”

He took his eyes off me, turned them to the floor, and became thoughtful.

“I see.”

After a short while, he stretched slightly. This time, he turned his eyes toward his father. When he made eye contact with him, his lips curled upward slightly, not breaking his composure.

“Hi, father.”

I glanced briefly in King Faelan’s direction. I was diagonally behind him so I couldn’t see much of his face, but his expression didn’t even move.

“Ah, there’s Phloria… how nice.”

Phloria Aroniel, though… was different from her father.

Her face was full of surprise, shock, sadness, and… anger.

I guess she never believed Alith was a wiera, even though she could tell if I was lying or not. Maybe she thought it was a misunderstanding, maybe she had something else in mind. It wasn’t hard to find excuses to avoid the truth.

That’s why his brother’s complete acceptance of the situation, his actions and words confirming what I was saying, was a blow to her.

“You didn’t bring mother. Didn’t you tell her?”

He paused, his lips curled a little higher.

“Though… it’s better not to tell her, true.”

“When did it happen?”

Finally, King Faelan’s deep voice echoed through the room and Alith stopped talking herself. She focused on her father again, still not silent.

“About twelve years ago.”

Phloria’s eyes widened. King Faelan’s gaze turned cold. I, meanwhile, couldn’t help frowning at what I heard.

Twelve years?

It’s been… twelve years since he became a wiera?

Alith was twenty-three, now. So, what he said meant that he was turned into a wiera when he was only eleven.

He disguised it perfectly when he was just an eleven-year-old boy? And on top of that, as a complete wiera, he was never caught in any way?

How did he satisfy his thirst for chaos…? Did he suppress it, basically?

“So, you have been deceiving us for twelve years, pretending to be my son.”

Of course, while I was busy with my own questions… King Faelan and Phloria were preoccupied with something else.

They had been deceived for twelve years. One’s own son, the other’s precious brother… killed at the age of eleven and replaced by an imposter.

It was quite a shock for them. It would be strange if it wasn’t.

Alith did not answer the question for a while, he just… waited where he was. And, finally…

“Correct.”

The smile slowly faded from his face, his gaze sharpened.

“I am someone with the memories of Alith Aroniel, with no identity of my own.”

His posture stiffened with every word.

“I am a spy for Saligia, someone who will leave Eshaware in their hands when I sit on the throne. I am a traitor.”

Every word he said drove the two people in front of him, his family, deeper and deeper into a pit from which there was no return. But, he… continued.

“What are you going to do?”

He never once took his eyes off them, his father in particular.

“You’re going to…”

But, at that very moment, for a fleeting moment, the person he was looking at changed.

It was very brief, so brief that maybe nobody but me even noticed it, because it was easier to think that he had glanced around.

But for me it was different.

Because… he looked right at me.

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“You’re going to kill me, right?”

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