"A pity?" Callum asked in a low voice. His voice was too calm and low for the tense and thick atmosphere of the king's study. " I would have to ask His Majesty what he meant by his statement."
"Did you not receive the information about the new announcement that your party just made?" King Leonardo asked. He was certain that Callum had no idea about how his life was going to change from this day onward. More like, how all of these greedy and power-hungry people were going to force Callum to take the fall.
"They disclosed the mystery of the person who was going to be the face of the party in the election campaign, "The king further said. The face of the party meant the person who was going to be the next prime minister if the party won in the election which it surely was going to before.
Usually, after the election, the leader of the council of ministers was chosen but the recent trends made the party declare it even before the elections began.
"For some reason, it's not you, Callum," he heard the king say in a sorrowful tone. "Not only you were replaced, but your opponent too. The rival party too declared their face. And it's no one else but Ronan Joseph. He has the support of his father's voters. His father's very capable assistant is assisting him. His win is for sure."
Suddenly, Callum burst into laughter, looking at the not so mighty king sitting on his throne-like chair. He shook his head. With amusement and something dark shining in his eyes, he said," A few days back, I told someone that there is no free lunch in the world. And it seems, I was not wrong. It's my time to pay for your benevolence." He let out a helpless chuckle and went on, "It was never benevolence. It was a favour you did for me. I always knew that favours were meant to be returned. Today, I'm supposed to let what's happening as a favour for that favour."
King Leonardo didn't say a word. He was sitting in the same posture on the same chair with the same expression on his face.
"Your Majesty, let me ask you a question on the behalf of the millions of people who you are going to deceive. Did they know that their king is playing with their lives for his own personal gains?"
Callum's blunt words pierced the king's righteous facade.
"You won't understand today, Callum, "King Leonardo said while playing the victim card. "A king can't be a good man. I can't be who you all want me to be. You have known all along the things I can do to protect the royal family."
How could Callum not know the fact that King Leonardo could stoop to any level to save the reputation of his family? If he could make his own children acknowledge a dead and unknown woman as their mother, he could do anything. His late wife was chosen for him even before she was born. She died of an illness many years ago when he was busy sleeping with his mistress on Villain's island. The royal twins were not born out of the late queen but his mistress he had slept with. But did the public or the noble class know about it? Not at all.
His current wife, Queen Giselle, the same mistress who was the biological mother of the twins, gave birth to another son but he was only acknowledged as the half-sibling of the twins.
Still, the king dared to say that he was a victim here? He had always been a manipulative and lying character.
"You are right," Callum said after a while. "But you are forgetting one thing here, Your Majesty. No one can be more foxy than a politician. But an intelligent and educated politician? You don't even know what he is capable of doing because you haven't come across one."
He took a slight pause and then added with a smirk, "My mother used to say that the day an educated and intelligent politician took the reins of the limping government, not just the people of the country but the whole world would change for the better. She also told me that the political class would never let one person take the reins in his hand. And today, I see that she has never been more correct."
If the political class let that person shape the future of the people for the better, what would they even eat?