Chapter 87: [Bonus Chapter] Darkshade Royal Court
Crossing the wide corridors of the royal residence towards the throne room, Eiravyn and Celrean continued their journey to the royal court.
Inside the throne room, the attendees of the royal court of Darkshade kingdom were waiting for the arrival of their king. The attendees of the royal court consisted of the high-ranking ministers, the military officials, the lords of various families belonging the pure-blooded lineage, who were waiting on their assigned chairs, some drinking tea, while others were talking loudly amongst themselves.
During the past five months, they had heard the victories of their king had against the kingdom of Elyria of Aetheria, a rival vampire kingdom from the east that had collided with a distant kingdom and lodged an attack against Darkshade kingdom. Eiravyn had proved his might by conquering the kingdom, and it made the people of Darkshade proud of having such a king. After all, the alliance won against the enemies, and the war had generated wealth for their kingdom. Those who sided with Eiravyn, those from the military, and those who had benefitted from the new trade routes they won after the war against Elyria wanted to celebrate, but those who had stood against him could only nitpick at the faults of how unconventional the king was acting, contrary to the traditions of the land and the actions of the previous king, Eiravyn’s father.
"The increase of the task is ridiculous! Why should the rich class pay for tax while the lower class pay nothing? This has never happen in the history of this kingdom."
"I totally agree with you on this one, Elder Wilmot. The commoners must pay the same price that we pay to make it right."
"I agree!"
The whole room, errupt with noise as the elders and lords all voiced their agreements to Elder Wilmot words.
"That’s not right. It’s only right we reward our king with our ever-faithful obedience. If he said we should pay all the taxes, then we should. After all, only recently our king fought the enemies, facing them head-on in the battlefield while we hid in our homes did nothing."
"Indeed our king has always been victorious, we should obey his words and pay the taxes."
"Why should we?" questioned one lord. "Only yesterday, a commoner tried to shop in the Darkshade crest, which has never happened before. It only proves that they have the money to pay for the tax since they can shop there."
"The king is trying to destroy the traditions that have been kept even before he was born. The lower and the rich class should never come together; there is a long gap separating us, and it should be kept that way."
"Yes,Lord Alister, they are meant to be our food source, our slaves, and nothing else."
"He ignores the matter inside the kingdom, leaving them to the military general, and wanders here and there with his right aide. This is why i said he should never have taken over the throne. We have so many other families with pure-blood that could rule us."
Caspian smirked as he watched them like he was in a movies, munching on his popcorn. They still had not notice him and dared speak rudely about their king.
Caspian continued eating his popcorn as he watched them with great interest, marking the face of the people who supported the king and also the ones against him and storing them safely in his head. When he suddenly saw Lord Chamberlain whisper something to Elder Wilmot, the other man’s eyes widened in disbelief and Caspian wondered what the man had said to make him react in such a way.
But Caspian didn’t put too much thought to it, when the topic of their discussion suddenly changed drastically.
"Have you heard the rumors going around town?" Elder Wilmot suddenly raised a new topic of discussion, making Caspian sit up properly to hear what the man had to say.
"There’s a rumor going around that His Majesty the king plans to reveal his queen at today’s banquet."
"Then that’s good news. It seemed he finally heard our cries and decided to do the right thing." One high-ranking minister said and turned to Lord Chamberlain; he whispered a congratulations to him, already assuming that Lady Ava would be their new queen.
When Elder Wilmot continued speaking, "but people find it strange that the king would decide to announce his queen all of a sudden after only a day he came back from the human realm, since he came back with a human and she’s currently staying in the room reserved for the queen."
"That’s impossible! A human residing in the queen’s quarters is totally unheard of."
The whole court room erupt in a louder chatter, with the elders shouting and screaming about how that didn’t make sense and only a vampiress gets to be their queen.
"Let’s not jump into conclusions when we have not heard from our king.
"True! There’s no way a thing like that would ever happen in our kingdom and knowing how much His Majesty cares about this kingdom, he would never do a thing like that!" One elder laughed it off.
Lord Chamberlain finally spoke up after being quiet all this while the conversation was going on, "This... my daughter saw this human with her own two eyes while she’s in the royal house. I am worried that this will turn out to be the truth and that’s why we should act fast before matters get out of hand. You all know the safe bet. We should do what’s right!"
"Crunch!"
It was then the popcorn in Caspian mouth made a loud crunch sound and all the elders and ministers turn to look at him at once, wondering when he got there. Caspian was so shocked that the news had spread so easily; he was not surprised, but he was shock since he knew that this ministers have their own ways of getting information.
He looked at them when he noticed that they had gone silent and signaled for them to continue.
"Don’t mind me, continue." Caspian had a silly expression on his face, his eyes shining with mischief as he told the old men this.