The carriage came to a halt and broke the sleep of hades and Esmeralda. the carriage was now standing before the castle door and there were numerous maids and butler ready to welcome the new emperor. Esmeralda got out of the carriage first, and raised her hand to help hades get out, then soon she realized that the traditional roles were reversed. She started to retract her hand in embarrassment, but hades had already grabbed her hand and descended from the carriage. The servants of royal castle then made their way to pick up the bags and then Esmeralda asked hades “you didn’t have any bags with you sir hades?”. Hades turned towards Ruben who was pulling the carriage, “his highness’ bags are with me, we were given these when we passed through the lionheart duchy madam”. Of course, that was a lie, no one in the kingdom was capable of space magic like Ruben who always had the bag in his ‘space’ ready. Relived Esmeralda moved in the castle and hades followed. Inside hades greeted the servants that gathered to take a look at the new emperor. The maids especially, when met their gazes with hades, were mesmerized, no one was safe from hades’ starry eyes. His eyes were known throughout the kingdom. The head maid who was similar to ‘Berta’ however clapped and broke the dazed maids. Then hades talked to the servants “thank you for your help”. Meeting their gazes, the maids who were on younger side just couldn’t help but stare again at the eyes of their new master. Esmeralda however pouted, she grew a little jealous and grabbed hades’ hand and pulled him in.
“aren’t you hungry sir hades?”
“Yes sure” hades answered
Hades followed Esmeralda to a long table where she took a seat at one side, hades instead of sitting at the far side of the table, dragged the nearby chair and bought it closer to the corner of the table and sat there. He wasn’t dense guy and proactively took initiative to make the empress blush more. Esmeralda was very embarrassed by this and while hades maintained an innocent smile on his face inside, he was immensely enjoying the proud woman’s blushing face.
‘Making you blush more will be very enjoyable Esmi’ hades thought to himself. He had already chosen a nickname for his woman.
Hades got up, the head maid bowed to him and started leading him. While following her the head maid spoke “my name is Zena, sir please don’t hesitate to ask for my help”
“Yes, thank you” said hades innocently
The Zena stood before a room and pointed towards it, “I will have the empress join you shortly”. Everyone in the castle seemed to be aware of the marriage and its rushed nature.
Without any expression hades entered the room. Zena closed the door and rushed towards Esmeralda. She reached there to find the empress finished with her dinner, the she said “your majesty do have something to wear?”
Esmeralda face had gotten all red with embarrassment. She wasn’t uninformed on the matter of consummating the marriage, then Zena took her to her room, many maids were already there. Reaching to Zena’s room the maids unveiled a provocative dress to Esmeralda and she exclaimed “I have to wear that!”
“yes”, said Zena in a very stern voice. It was no use arguing, Zena wouldn’t have rested until Esmeralda wore the dress. She was then covered in bathrobe and escorted through the corridor to the royal bedchambers. They pushed her in while Zena forcibly removed her bathrobe.
Esmeralda then entered the bedchambers and found a hades staring at her in a changed nightdress. Esmeralda was changed in a babydoll dress with same colour as her hair, maroon red, her body was clearly visible, the ample breast and the toned muscles she had due to living a warrior lifestyle. Her stomach had four abs showing, her body wasn’t overly muscular but lean and tight. She had big breasts and hades clearly was staring at them, embarrassed she walked up to him, got on the bed and as hades decided to make a move on Esmeralda who was staring into her knees, she said “let’s put off the baby till everything was sorted”. Hades immediately backed off, the realization of his Esmi still not loving him came to his mind. A lot of work had to be done to make Esmeralda his Esmi, he thought. On the other hand, Esmeralda was having a hard time believing hades could actually be interested in her. Her mind was filled with the ideas noblemen had put up about ideal women and since she wasn’t ‘that’ she thought that hades was forcing himself to smile through it all. It was true though hades did force himself to smile but the world couldn’t handle his real menacing nature.
“Until then don’t hesitate to bring some other woman to your bed sir hades,” said Esmeralda
The smile on hades’ face disappeared, Esmeralda was talking about concubines which were common among nobility for men, but hades simply didn’t look at other women as potential bed warmer, to him they were nothing, other than his mother and Esmeralda all women till date could be easily let go off for hades. Then he felt a sudden urge to reassure her, and moved his head closer to her face and kissed her. It wasn’t like the previous one where lips simply touched though both kept their tongues to themselves, hades made sure to make his lips touch the inner border of Esmi’s lips. He then backed off and said “my house has no concubines, so I cannot allow myself to have one now your majesty, so I will be waiting for you” then he turned his back to her and an expression of intense panic was on his face.
It took a second for Esmeralda to make sense of what hades did, the she thought ‘wait!! No concubines, so he was willing to go all the way with me, I am such an idiot!’ Esmeralda was very disappointed for coming to conclusions herself and cried herself to sleep.
The next morning Esmeralda woke up and found herself snuggled up to hades, her face buried in on his chest, while he was sleeping on his back Esmeralda was sleeping on his arm with one leg on him. The woman was extremely shocked and surprised, she got up and ran out of the room in the same nightdress she wore yesterday. It was a mischief of hades who woke up in middle of night and slowly turned her over, he was using calming magic to not break the empress’ sleep. It was still time till he would wake up as today was the first day his mother won’t wake him up. No one in the castle dared to wake the king up, most were of the opinion that he had worked hard yesterday.
Esmeralda came to her room and went straight to the open-air bath; she had rung a belt and her personal maids along with Zena had come to prepare her for the day. After the bath was done, Esmeralda asked to be left alone with Zena, she explained Zena all the conditions of the marriage and how she had retained the authority as a ruler still. Hearing this Zena said “so you bought home a wife”. In Frontera ruling was considered a man’s job and while there was no law obligating it, it was a common consensus and belief.
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Hades woke up and found a maid waiting for him. She escorted a still sleepy hades to the royal bath chambers, hades was surprised to see maids there to help him get clean and while it looked tempting, he decided to bathe by himself and sent all his aids out. It was a start of a newly married life but hades knew it was not for soon as the paladins of holy kingdom could arrive anytime for the co-ordination and peace talk summons.
Hades got ready and wore his regular all white outfit and made his way to a balcony and a small violet sphere emerged from his shoulder, the sphere grew a eye and two bat like wings, it was a familiar as small as a pearl. It went up in air and then set its eyes on the paladin caravan which had just arrived on the castle gates. “it’s finally starting, huh!” said hades.
There was a caravan of ten paladins in all white Armor, led by a blonde men. He had a squarish face, short hairs and on his chest area of cloth was a tree. The tree’s trunk descended down to form a sword while its handle extend upwards and outwards on the sleeves of the robe. It was the regal outfit of a high-priest in the holy kingdom. The paladins and high-priest were granted access and were led to the courtroom, where Esmeralda was waiting for them. When reached the courtroom only the soldiers of Frontera were allowed in, all paladins stood outside in the hallway. Since royal family didn’t follow the tree goddess’ faith which was also the holy kingdoms’ supreme deity; she could stop the paladins from entering before her with weapons bound to them. The high-priest entered the court and greeted the young empress beside who stood a man in all white.
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Before getting to the royal capital
The caravan of paladin had made a quick stop to rest up. Then one of the paladins made way to the high priest “lord Arkwright, scouts have revealed that Frontera is currently absorbing schwarz, the war seems to have ended”
Another paladin then joined in “what!! They ended war in just a week.” All paladins started to discuss among themselves about strength of Frontera.
“You are overthinking, knights. Their war is our skirmish, don’t expect such small kingdoms to wage real wars”
Hearing this, the paladins began laughing but the paladin beside Arkwright didn’t join in. Arkwright turned to him and said “we need that empress, pronto”
“But why lord” inquired the standing paladin.
“After absorbing schwarz, even if the new Frontera is smaller than the holy kingdom, it’s enough to warrant problem, not to forget that long schwarz coastline.”
“And how would we do that?”
“The ruler of Frontera is young lady, we can coerce her into marrying her with a priest from our kingdom, then the child can be taught in holy kingdom and later be absorbed as a vassal kingdom of the holy kingdom, our region would become the biggest kingdom on Sicaria and control the most demon towers too.”
“Would she agree to this after the peace talks sir”
“All kingdoms would talk about trade, after the peace talks, we would simply give her very favourable terms in turn for marrying into our kingdom”
“We play quite the long game, don’t we sir”
“It’s not like we can invade AFTER we hold peace talks, can we knight” the high-priest was laughing manically.
The break was finished and the caravan proceeded to the kingdom.
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Present
High-priest Arkwright stood before the empress Esmeralda and passed the letter from holy kingdom to her. The letter was taken to her by hades whose identity was still unknown to the high-priest. He concluded him as a secretary of the empress. The empress was dressed in her regular yellow laced tight cloth outfit while hades was all white as always. After reading the letter the empress in a cold tone said “isn’t this too soon, we just wrapped up a war priest”
“I am well aware empress, we just found out about it when we entered the capital, but a month ago all towers experienced a break and simultaneous breakout of demonic beasts so right now we assumed we are late as it is” the high priest answered
His statements held the truth, it was the break from the one tower in Frontera that killed the royal family. Esmeralda didn’t die because she was with the knights, training while her father, mother and twin princes had to lose their life. Their loss also resulted in the emperor position to be pushed on Esmeralda.
“Is everyone coming to these talks” it was a fruitless question for the letter had joint seal of the three biggest kingdoms on the continent, the holy kingdom, misteria kingdom and the kingdom of sicaria; the oldest and the strongest kingdom on the continent. Sicaria once spanned the whole continent and therefore the continent and the world itself was called as ‘SICARIA.’ If the big three were coordinating everyone had to come.
“While I don’t know about the west, due to rushed nature of this decision, all eastern kingdoms are coming” answered Arkwright while keeping his head bowed the whole time. The statement didn’t mean much because other than the big three only one kingdom remained, the union of zodiac kingdoms; it was made of three kingdoms, Pisces, ramus, and tauro.
In a very uninterested voice while staring at the window and in a casual tone empress said “not like I can oppose when these seals are on the letter” the seals were more like threats when placed together, forcing the sheeps to follow the three big Shepards or fall. “We will leave with your caravan tomorrow priest”
With that the invitation was over, the priest decided not to bother with schwarz kingdom as it didn’t exist anymore. the paladins and priest were accommodated in the outhouse, though they were called to stay at the nobles’ house who followed the church, they declined the offer.
As the night descended, Esmi changed into a proper nightgown. Zena was massaging her legs, while she had to leave tomorrow for the holy kingdom, she was mostly thinking how she had rejected hades yesterday and was a little depressed. Suddenly hades came into the room with a pillow.
“Why are you here” the empress questioned hades
“Married couple sleep together my queen”
“What! Everyday?” the empress looked at Zena for explanation
“It happens in commoner’s house mam, since they don’t have a lot of rooms”
Hearing this empress turned towards the door to talk to hades, but he wasn’t there. Hades had already made his way on her bed
“You don’t have to force yourself sir hades, we have plenty of rooms” the empress said to her husband who was wearing a disappointed expression his face.
“I am not a commoner my queen, I grew up in lionheart duchy and my parents always slept together”
Zena was surprised hearing this and questioned “is this a house tradition my lord?”
Hades nodded and then Zena got up and started to leave but before leaving she said “carry on your tradition lord lionheart” she had a hopeful smile up her face. Then she switched off all candles that were burning and covered the Lightstone lamps to darken the room.
Hades then in a teary-eyed expression said “am I not your husband miss Esmeralda.”
“No please sleep with me sir hades, I don’t have a problem” Esmeralda said in a panicked voice. She often found herself panicking and blushing before him not knowing it was hades who was enjoying making her blush. Seeing her like that bought him great pleasure, then they went to sleep with empress turning her back to hades once again and Of course hades got up in the night, turned her towards him and slipped her hand on his chest and his hand under her neck. The leg automatically went on him as the night progressed.