Verinia wanted to break something.
"Then, master Grandpire will be given a courtyard in the sovereign palace by His Effulgent Majesty's order." Su'ira Velnue, Light Tower's Chamberlain, marked something in his parchment board. "Until Su'ni Grandpire is acknowledged as a concubine, she will stay in a courtyard of the guest palace."
'Would the slums of Zanza not do?' Verinia's face strained with the urge to let her expression turn sour. She didn't want that woman in the palace at all.
"Assign Sur Gul to serve as her protector and Sur Dalan to protect her child."
The First Princess had no intention of allowing that woman to be unsupervised. Sur Gul and Sur Dalan were both Paladins of the Sovereign Guard. They would naturally report to their superior and their superior would naturally report to her.
"I will personally select the eunuchs most suitable for her living accommodations."
The eunuchs were only another layer of supervision, but Verinia planned to install an entire net. Maids, eunuchs, guards—even the dragonflies in the flower gardens would report to her. There would be no way to escape the net and act in secret.
Viola Grandpire... Verinia reasoned with herself to not make the woman's life too difficult. All she wanted was to watch and restrain her, not invoke her father's wrath. If she acted too harshly, there would be questions that she wouldn't be able to answer even if she had a manual for them. No doubt she would be punished.
Her bastard son, on the other hand…
The Su'Ailfi's words to her before greeting death had struck an inkling within her soul, one she couldn't ignore despite how much she wished to.
"You must ensure that your brother Halen takes the throne," the Su'Ailfi had said, pleading with her through red eyes and bloodied hands, holding her small hand so tightly that the circulation was nearly cut off. Her little fingers had begun to turn purple!
"By grace." The First Princess rubbed the space between her eyebrows with one hand, feeling the painful ripple of horror twisting its way down the length of her back. It scratched harsh, unforgiving talons through her bones and over her faltering heart.
In her other hand was a scroll cylinder used for transporting and storing official documents and decrees. The scroll cylinder itself was made of thin steel and the topmost part would open and close with a latch that would have the sigil of its corresponding department. Scroll cylinders from the sovereign family had the sigil of their House on the latch.
She was going to deliver an order to the barracks, requesting a team of knights to guard the incoming mother and son. Once Viola Grandpire was integrated into the harem and given her own courtyard, security would be much less oppressive, because she would be under the jurisdiction of the Su'Datheram.
For all intents and purposes, matters of the harem were Verinia's to deal with according to her position as Lady of Light Tower, but the fact that she herself was not Su'Ailfi took away a lot of her own authority, and her father often undermined her decisions.
As she passed by the training grounds on her way to the barracks, Verinia caught sight of her little brother sparring with Fourth Prince Zedd and Seventh Prince Nivar. His protector loomed in the background like a big shadow watching over the proceedings and barking out instructions.
Halen was only ten turns of age, but his strength was nearly comparable to that of a nearly full-grown knight. It was a spectacle that most medics could not explain, so the priests had decided that he had robbed all of his mother's strength during childbirth, and that was why he was so strong.
Verinia had done her best to silence a superstitious rumour, but how could she control the mouths of everyone? Her father hadn't allowed her to issue a decree concerning the slander of the First Prince.
Even though Halen was younger than his sisters, as the only son of the Su'Ailfi, he was conferred the title of First Prince. The second prince, who was an additional ten turns older than Halen, was the first-born son of the Sovereign with one of his concubines.
The young boy had an attachment to Verinia that most princes did not have with their mothers. Whenever he saw her, he would drop anything in his hands and greet her.
"Sister!" Halen ran over to her and grinned. "Did you come to see me?"
"I was passing through." Verinia ruffled the boy's curly, inky hair with a tender smile. "You're doing well with your training."
Halen puffed up his chest like a proud little bird. "Sur Louren says I'm the strongest child my age he has ever seen."
"Perhaps you are, little beast. But remember that strength does not equal to skill."
"That's right, that's right!" Two more sets of golden Hellfryne eyes appeared beside Halen. The Fourth and Seventh Princes bowed. "Greetings to the Su'Adrit."
"Don't stand on ceremony." Verinia smiled at them. For the exception of her own person, all of the Su'Datheram's children had an easygoing relationship. They did not address each other by titles, but by name.
Of course, that didn't stop the seed of discord from growing in the hearts of some. Ambitious concubines and ambitious children alike were a constant strain upon the peace and harmony of the sovereign household.
Not that those things had anything to do with her. As long as her sisters and brother were safe, she didn't care what they would do to each other.
"Saron is very gifted with knife work," Halen told her with a smile. "I can't beat him in hand-to-hand combat."
"That's because I'm very fast." The Seventh Prince raised his chin proudly. He was only one turn younger than Halen but already very gifted. "And I'll only be faster in the future."
"Not faster than me." The Fourth Prince pulled the Seventh Prince's ear then took off running. The Seventh Prince, not one to be outdone, began to chase him.
Halen sighed and shook his little head. He smiled at his sister in apology and ran to chase after his brothers.
Verinia watched them frolic for a while, then continued on her journey to the barracks.
Although she couldn't remember what Viola Grandpire was like during her childhood, the warning her mother had given her, the insistence of putting Halen on the throne, was something that made her weary.
Surely a woman such as that, who had given birth to the Sovereign's son whilst being married to a man who was not a Hellfryne, would know one or two things.
Any sane man would have divorced his wife upon knowing that she had been unfaithful to him. The branches of the Hellfryne family tree stretched far and wide, so even if she had insisted that the child was the Su'Datheram's, her husband did not have reasonable cause to believe her.
But the Sovereign himself was acknowledging that illspawn son of his now. There was no more room for argument.
Unfortunately, the acknowledgment came after Su'na Grandpire was already dust in the ground. It was the only way to redeem his wife and make her a concubine.
What Verinia could not explain, however, was why her father was naming that particular son of his as second successor when he had an entire harem full of half-blood sons, many of who were far more suitable to be candidates than this outsider.
In order for a son to be considered a candidate for the throne, he had to be at least three-fourths old blood. None of the Sovereign's children qualified except for Halen.
So why this? Why him?
Her father must have known that taking such a step would cause severe problems within the harem and the rest of his children.
Once they saw that the Su'Datheram was waving away the law set by sacred tradition, they would fight each other to the death in order to claim a spot in the succession.
Null bloods would sit upon the throne.
If even the four New Blood Houses had never recorded a Sovereign dynasty under their names, what chaos would ensue if a null blood did?
The people of New Oalta were divided into three groups. The old blood, the new blood, and the null blood.
The heads of the old and new blood Houses constituted the Council of Eight. They were at the charge of everything in the continent, because they had formed the new sovereignty themselves.
Once in time, in the old world, magic had been so intertwined with mortals that it flowed through their veins and extended their lives for thousands of turns.
Oalta had been the throne of magic in Tressthei planet since the greater sun was birthed, so their people lived even longer than those of other continents.
When the curse of The Final See broke out and completely killed magic, it took all of Oalta's people with it except for eight families. They were the only survivors.
Out of the eight, four were nobility and the other four were their serving families. Once New Oalta began to form, the four serving families were elevated to new noble blood and established their own Houses.
So technically, the old and new blood were the same, and that was why the heads of the Eight family trees that thrived within the sovereign government only married amongst themselves.
As Verinia thought of this, she paused.
Could it be that her father was not intending to give the throne to that illegitimate son of his at all?
Could it be that he was planning to marry that illspawn of his to a woman of pure blood so that he could give the throne to a grandson?
Even though this solution was considerably less chaotic than giving the throne to a half-blood, it opened a new gateway to the Seven Hells in and of itself.
All of the Su'Datheram's children would still fight each other to the death to ensure that their own children could sit the throne one day.