Duke Gerin and King Philip were walking in the Royal Garden inside the Palace. The Garden is situated in a large balcony-like area at the western part of the Palace. Covered with beautiful flowers, it was a place of peace where one will easily fall asleep due to the serenity and fresh aroma from the flowers.
Both of them sat down on a bench and watched the flowers while having a conversation between each other.
The Duke said "Have you heard that your fourth son is successfully conquering nations on your behalf." Philip laughed while saying "Of course, he is making me proud for a mistake he is doing his best."
King Philip called Estafan a mistake mostly at times because he always considered his fourth son to be a mistake which shouldn't have happened.
Duke Gerin spoke "At this point he could challenge the throne as well." And Philip said "So what? It's not like he shouldn't like after all he is my son." Philip then went silent for a bit before continuing "But It would be a lie if I said I didn't expect him to die."
Gerin was surprised to hear those words as Philip continued to speak "I honestly thought you guys would kill him but failure after failure. Maybe he should have died with his mother that day considering I wanted them both dead but of course, he ended up becoming very lucky."
Philip showed extreme sense of favouritism to his kids, he never even talked properly or even met his son until the day he met for the first time and when he met him for the last time where Estafan was banished to the border where he was forced to be part of a war.
Mostly Philip supports his second son, in fact one of the reasons why he hasn't picked an heir is because of Leprian announcing that he doesn't wish to be the King. Philip is mostly waiting for Leprian to change his mind and join the race for the throne.
If Philip were to choose an heir now and then Leprian changes his mind later, it would make Leprian lose a good chance to be the King.
Many assume the favouritism is shown because of the relationship between the King and his second wife who was from House Ulnir. As Philip only loved those women while others think it's because Philip finds some pity considering his second son lost his mother who killed herself and his brother who was tortured to death.
Estafan was sent to the border as punishment for killing Leprian's brother. While many things the reason why Estafan wasn't executed is because Philip expected his Fourth Son to die in the battle in a gruesome way without any hope or way to escape.
But he miscalculated because Estafan ended up growing too rapidly in such a scale where he cannot be opposed by anyone in the Kingdom except for him since he was the King who can simply use his authority to reduce Estafan to nothing.
Doing that would be easy, although it could cause a civil war since the army, especially those who fought in the 8 wars that occurred in the South Western border would definitely stand with Estafan since he took them all to victory.
His status made it hard to get rid of him but that doesn't mean he stopped at the idea of not killing him.
Philip along with others have sent people to kill Estafan but they all failed because of the fact that Estafan was always surrounded by his troops who would finish the assassins before they could even get near him.
But Philip encouraged the idea of Estafan being assassinated by doing nothing and refusing to investigate if anyone was caught.
It makes things very obvious that the King wants one of his sons dead but though many supported it especially those who are from the upper class who thought of Estafan as a nuisance since he was having a commoner root aside from his father.
So Estafan dying will not have much of a repercussions aside from people asking why and maybe the soldiers riling up.
King Philip said "Seems like a maid ended up producing a strong child." But Gerin refuted saying "Not strong as my Grandson. He is capable but his commoner roots will drag him down while the other four will be able to easily crush him."
Their deep belief of a common born being something of a lesser being while the upper class are born with superior strength and intellect clouds their thinking. It prevents them from seeing what's around them.
The Nobles do see far ahead but their lack of seeing what's around them can cause their downfall like how Estafan grew, their overconfidence resulted in his growth to be a warrior who can best the strongest. Their mistakes lead to the creation of things which can not just challenge but topple them completely to the point where they cannot do anything.
The King simply rejected that thought while his Dukes considered such things to be irrelevant because they simply found themselves to be at the top of the food chain.
But the Duke asked "Shouldn't you just push for his marriage considering he did choose his fiance." Philip added "He didn't choose, I gave him an option and he took but of course I didn't expect him to choose the girl wanted by my third son." Of course Philip forgot his own son's name since he addressed them through numbers excluding first and second Princes.
Duke said calmly "It's understandable why he picked since she is called the Kingdom's Rose." Philip laughed "He is after all my son, he would have the taste of a Noble when it comes to food and women." But Duke Gerin commented saying "He could reject it since marrying her means he would end up as a marquee and losing his position as a Prince who could fight for the throne."
Philip nodded while smiling "That was the idea like when he won the war at the age of what.. yes, eleven I suppose.. I wanted to give him something as a reward and well I thought of a marriage trap but allowed him to choose who he wanted." Duke Gerin remarked "You do have a strong sense of favouritism considering how you treat your son's so unequally."
For which the King replied "Why not? They are my puppets. I'll make them do whatever I want as long as it makes me laugh and it won't threaten me." Gerin could only be weirded out by the fact that a father would find his children to be mere puppets while the father considered himself a puppet master.