A new day descended onto the royal capital of Frontera. Esmeralda opened her eyes to find herself breathing on the skin of her husband. Her finger was fiddling with something, she cleared her head and her vision which was still droopy as she had just woken up. Esmeralda found her fingers were actually fiddling with hades’ nipple. She had once again woken up to find herself snuggled up to him. She quickly backed off, retracted her leg off hades’ body almost to the edge of the bed, and was about to fall off, but regained her balance. She was a well-trained warrior afterall. Then she saw a sleeping hades, his innocent face pulled her closer, she continued to stare at her husband’s face until she heard a ‘cough’. It was her head maid ‘Zena’ who was standing inside. Looking at Zena’s sharp gaze Esmeralda’s face got all red and she got off the bed. Zena escorted her to the bath, there while cleaning her, she said “you seem to like lord hades’ empress”

“isn’t it natural to like your husband Zena” empress said in a panicked voice. It seemed there was someone other than hades who loved making the empress blush.

With a smile on her face Zena continued to clean her “we received an envoy, duke lionheart seems to be on his way to the capital.”

Esmeralda’s red face turned serious all of a sudden “he must be coming to join the talks”

Zena was surprised hearing this since the paladins had just arrived the day before “he knew when they would come too”

The kingdom was severely unaware of Ruben’s capabilities as an information scout. He also taught other-worldly magic to seven students who went on to become the seven master mages of ivory tower and was also moonlighting as a spy.

Empress got ready with the help of maids, when turned towards her bed, she found it empty. Hades had already left the bedroom. Hades’ movements were hard to track for anyone, he was often like mist invisible to people who wouldn’t pay attention to him, however a maid in castle always knew his last position as they searched for their starry-eyed lord. The arrival of duke lionheart was declared to Esmeralda who was still getting smaller affaire sorted out in her study. A butler told her that hades had went to greet him. So, the empress decided to meet him after some time.

In the open corridor hades stood before his father. The conversation between them was very calm. “how’s mom?” asked hades.

“Coming to terms with your absence, I could not bring her here since we would leave…, well how’s the queen”

“We are getting there”

“We really rushed this marriage fiasco,” said the duke.

“Father, how did you fell in love with mom?” hades had suddenly changed the topic but knowing his son a taken back duke decided to answer him.

“Humph, it was a arranged marriage between me and a daughter of a maid”

“Marriage arranged between a duke and a maid”

“Her father was a noble, who took a maid to bed, our marriage was political and also meant to insult the lionheart duchy who needed help” …. “By giving a half noble to lionheart the house of carlwright seeked to insult my household”

“So, you accepted for the sake of region”

“No, at first, I was furious at the insult, but for some days I observed my so called betrothed, she suffered greatly as a daughter of a maid, I thought she had no self-esteem and simply did what asked. It was no wonder she agreed even without taking a look at me, she greatly suffered from the hands of her legitimate half-siblings and yet she cared for the younger ones with great love. I hated that but mostly I was confused about how could someone have no resentment and so much love to give despite the harm they caused.”

“She is amazing huh!”

“Yes, she is, I then decided to take her away, someone as pathetic as Carlwright didn’t deserve even an inch of her love, I decided to take it all for myself never to share. The world was a cruel place which would never return her kindness so I wanted to take that affection away from the world all for myself, the carlwright were laughing when I forced my father to accept the conditions and let me marry beretta, but they didn’t know just how much of a amazing treasure I was taking away in cruel, greedy and doomed kingdom.”

“Doomed?”

“Frontera was heavily dependent on others during those times, so it was considered to be failing, in my lifetime itself it was believed to be go extinct or absorbed, so I thought even without the duchy how great it would be to have your mother by my side. Until Ruben came with that ivory tower plan and the region flourished again. Beretta loved me with everything, she is like a tree that only gives and I am not sharing”

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“I felt the same way about Esmi, she worked hard to become a warrior even when she was told she wouldn’t be able to live a fulfilling life as a woman if she lived like a knight, I was happy no one could see the genuine beaty that she was, not just the face but her willingness to work hard towards the goal no matter how weird it is”

Then suddenly a large bird flew over their head and dropped a envelope. The envelope fell on the floor, he identified the bird to be duke’s familiar, and passed it to the duke, as he was passing it the seal came undone on the other side of the envelope and a small book fell down. Hades saw the cover and recognized it to be the catalogue of lingerie the duke used for the duchess. The duke quickly went down picked it up with a awkward smile on his face, sealed it back in the envelope and hid it in his jacket. Hades was no stranger to duke’s perversion but couldn’t help but make a slanted angry face considering the duke was going to make his mother wear those clothes and walked fast out of the corridor.

The duke then said “you will understand soon enough” in a mild tone so it was only audible to him.

After some time, multiple carriages were ready to leave the capital. Arkwright greeted the empress and the paladin group took the lead. The empress travelled with the duke and hades in the carriage. the duke had documents ready and explained the talks and stance to the empress to host successful negotiations at the meeting. Empress could fight but not talk, not at least to hold negotiations with other countries’ delegates.

As the noon ended, the caravan had finally reached the holy kingdom. The roads of holy kingdom were laid with oak trees on which many Lightstone lamps were hanging. These were magic lamps containing a magic stone, filled with magic every week they could light up a small room easily. When their caravan reached the gates, duke lionheart exited first “sorry empress I need to look for something, I will join you in the meeting” with that the duke exited the carriage. A paladin followed behind him to guide him through the city. The carriage then continued towards the castle. The maids and servants in castle were waiting for a new guest, the empress descended from the carriage followed by hades. The maid servants of the holy kingdom castle were eager to meet Esmeralda as she was the only woman in the meeting who held the position of KING. Following behind her was hades as usual dressed in all white. His eyes didn’t fail to mesmerize the maids who looked at him. No one outside the kingdom knew of the secret marriage between the two and thought of hades as her guard or assistant. He started walking behind her, seeing that Esmeralda halted and matched her position to make sure hades walked with her, “walk beside me sir hades”.

Their escort to the waiting hall was halted by a lady who was running towards them and she shouted “is that the woman king, please wait” the girl cheerfully ran towards the couple, hades was surprised no one halted her advance and as soon as she came closer, she tripped and fell on Esmeralda. the empress however was unshaken by this fall but the girl’s hand one hand was on her breast and other went behind her back on her belt, her three fingers went inside her pants on her butt but were halted by the dive between her first finger and middle finger, as her first finger was still outside the belt, resting on her shoulder she popped a devilish smile, then turned back, recomposed herself and said “I am very sorry your majesty, please excuse me”

“it’s alright, it was a genuine mistake,” said Esmeralda

“Thank you” she bowed and rose up, she had blue hair and blue eyes, a tanned skin and slender figure, though her chest was much smaller than Esmi’s she wasn’t a flat board. “I am the hero of the whip” and the she pulled out a whip from her back.

Hades had sensed her intentions with his wife, and while she was painfully unaware of the beast she had pricked.

“My name is Xenova, I am in service to Sicaria” said the whip hero.

A hero had control of the weapons passed down by angels to the world to defeat the demon towers who were the topic of tomorrow’s talk.

“Yes, I am empress of Frontera, Esmeralda”

“Yeah! I know only woman empress of the continent; I am really happy to meet you”

“Empress, we have made arrangements for your dinner and also separate arrangements for your aids, in the garden” the maid said this while looking towards hades

Sensing they were thinking of hades as a servant she told them “He will dine with me”, then she turned to hades and said “there is much to discuss”

They were left alone to dine together, after which the maid came in seeing her hades got up and said “proceed to your room empress, I will go to the garden”

The empress nodded and said nothing. Hades was sitting on a bench in the garden when suddenly greeted by fellow dressed in white “Sir hades, a pleasure to meet you again”

Hades didn’t know the fellow, but stood up and said “likewise, sorry sir but I don’t seem to be acquainted with you”

The man was Alex, who had visited the duchy during his crowning and failed to get footing in lionheart. He then said “I came to visit you on your coronation, but didn’t get to meet you” the memory of the beastly duke resurfaced and the figure of Charles, burned in the middle reappeared in his mind “with that I wanted to apologize to you”

“Huh? Why?”

“Nothing noteworthy, I just wanted to see you, years before I travelled so long to meet you but never saw you, when I heard that hades from Frontera had come with the empress, I wanted to confirm weather it was the same child I failed to meet all those years ago, and seeing your eyes…”

Alex didn’t meet hades due the stunt of Charles, but had the chance now. He always wanted to see the eyes which were considered a gift from heavens, he travelled miles to see them only to be disappointed because he was unable to control his subordinate.

Then he left as silently as he came, sensing no one was nearby hades descended in his shadow and emerged in Esmeralda’s room. She was looking out the window and turned to see hades near the door

“When did you came in”

“You are too tensed to notice menial things empress, please take a rest”

It was a impulsive move to show the empress his capability so soon. But hades just wanted to avoid questions from the new kingdom’s guards about visiting the empress at night. Then hades and the empress went to sleep as always because it was a big day ahead but that didn’t stop hades to turn a sleeping Esmeralda to snuggle with him.