"Feronia never wrote such a letter. She was completely crazy about you!", King Ulric shouted
furiously and the hand on the hilt of his sword tensed.
Her grandfather's head slumped into his hands. "I know. I found out about it far too late. After
finding this note, I hurried back to the castle and poured my heart out to my father. He comforted
me and convinced me to marry a princess from another realm. I knew he wanted me to marry her
and I pleaded with him until he agreed to my engagement with Feronia. But since I believed I had
lost her love forever, I finally agreed to the marriage.
My father started organizing everything right away and a short time later I was married. Although I
didn't love her, my wife was a true friend to me. It wasn't long before she became pregnant. But my
thoughts continued to revolve around Feronia. My wife, God bless her, found the song that I wrote
at the time and that Lyana had just sung. So I revealed myself to her. Instead of judging and hating
me, however, she showed me great compassion. Not only that, she even encouraged me to look for
Feronia and speak to her personally. To this day I am grateful to her for her courage and friendship.
After all, she was my wedded wife. She didn't have to do any of that.
Since I didn't want my father to hear about it, I went to the Ice Kingdom in secret, disguised as a simple merchant. I quickly met a few other merchants who advised me not to continue my way. The kingdom was in great mourning and business was bad. When I asked why that was the case, they told me about the death of the royal couple and ...", he paused and tears ran down his wrinkled face, "and also about the suicide of my beloved Feronia.
I rushed back home and paced up and down for a long time. It just didn't make sense to me, I was
assuming to find her being happy with her chosen one. I pulled out her letters, which I still kept
with me. Because no matter how painful her words were, I couldn't bring myself to burn them. That
day I read it over and over and over again ... then I saw it. The paper did not resemble Feronias earlier letters. The paper that Feronia used was pure white, but the last one had a yellow tinge and a small water stain on the edge.
A terrible suspicion hardened in me. Again and again I told myself that it couldn't be true, but I just had to know. So I stormed into my father's study and looked in his desk for his stationery. My suspicions were confirmed. The same color and the same water stain. With my sword drawn, I ran to my father and confronted him. At first he denied everything, but when I pointed my sword at his throat he became talkative.
He had the letters forged and bribed the messenger of my letters, so that a false letter was also handed over to Feronia. The Ice Kingdom could not have brought anything valuable into a marriage. He would only have thought of the future of his people and me. I yelled at him about how he would have done that for my sake and that the love of my life had killed herself because of him.
He should admit to his mistake! But there was no trace of remorse. "The Ice Princess shouldn't have sworn her love to you. She herself was to blame for her situation." He said that to me directly into my face. At that moment I realized that not only did he feel no remorse, no, he had even expected this outcome. For me this oath was just a romantic gesture, I didn't understand what fatal power it had on Feronia. She had told me that children of nature only loved once because they gave up on their hearts. How could I have known that this was done by a simple oath?
But my father knew about it. If the guards hadn't stopped me then, I would have stabbed him on the
spot." Even after all these years, Lyana could still see the hatred in her grandfather's voice. She looked over at King Ulric, who had been listening patiently the whole time. He stood there gritting his teeth, the sword still firmly in his grip, ready to use anytime. "If you loved her so much that you would have killed your own father, why are you still alive? When she thought she had lost you, she took her own life. Was yours too precious for you? Revenge can not have been a reason for it, your father died before your son saw the light of day."