The Emperor sat in his garden having breakfast. He heard his son before he saw him.
His youngest bowed to him and then took a seat across from him at the ornate table he was dining at. He waved his hand and the servants all backed away as far as they were able to and still be able to attend to his needs.
"Good morning, Your Majesty." Cade greeted politely.
"Good morning, Cade. I hope you have been well these last few days."
Cade nodded but didn't say anything. It was hard not to notice the shadows under his son's eyes. He mentally shook his head in pity. He knew that his youngest had been especially fond of Tate. It was going to take time before he became reconciled with the current situation.
Of course, no one hoped for Tate's return more than himself. Nevertheless, he did have to carry on as if Tate was presumed dead.
"I wanted to call you here to discuss something of great importance with you this morning."
Cade looked at him intrigued. He knew his son would wonder what this was about. He hardly ever summoned his seventh child, and even rarer was to summon him for a private meeting with just the two of them.
"I need to start by expressing some regret regarding a situation that I believe you are already familiar with." He paused, he wanted to gauge his son's every reaction. "The proposed marriage between Lord Tate and Lady Jillian."
His son's face showed surprise. He could well imagine why. He was probably wondering what this had to do with him.
His next words confirmed that suspicion. "I was aware of it, father. However, that must all be past now. Lady Jillian can not be expected to wait for a person who is..." He trailed off and seemed to not be able to say the words.
The Emperor nodded in sympathy to his son's feelings. "You are correct. I will of course be releasing Lady Jillian from her obligation in this matter. It would be too unfair to waste such good blood on something that may never be despite my best wishes. Which brings me to what I'm sure you are wanting to know. What does that matter have to do with you."
"Yes, father I was wondering why you have brought this up," Cade replied with hesitancy in his voice.
"To explain I need to go back to the beginning and explain what my original reason was for changing Lady Jillian's engagement from Dain Delmont to Tate Delmont in the first place. At the time I didn't feel an explanation was needed, but now I think that might have been an error on my part."
He was pleased to see his son's taken aback expression. He knew that his son would never expect to hear him say he made a mistake. "I was advised last year to look into the bloodlines of my best dragon riders. This idea may be distasteful to some which is why I didn't want to go into detail with my reasons. However, I will entrust you with the truth."
Cade nodded and sat up straighter. He smiled, pleased to see his son giving his words their proper weight.
"You see, as long as we have had an interest in the breeding of our dragons. It occurred to me after speaking to my advisor that the same attention should be put into the breeding of our riders. It was my intention to use Lord Tate and Lady Jillian as the first in a series of experiments to test the idea of mating two talented riding bloodlines together. I wanted to see what kind of offspring they produced."
There it was, he saw Cade cringe back from him. He knew that it was a very calculating way of looking at human life. He knew that others would not see it the way he did, still, he applauded his son for not outright flinching. He grinned and saw his son's discomfort rise even more.
"Now that that pairing has fallen through for the foreseeable future, I've had to consider other options. It occurred to me that it might be better to start with those that are promising and monitor them going forward. That being said I am going to engage you to a very promising young woman. This will be an engagement only for the time being. I want you both to finish your education at the Academy and then serve in the Dragon Corps for three years before we move forward with a marriage. I have a good feeling about my choice but this will allow us time to confirm her talent as well as your own."
Cade's hands had clutched his armrests and his knuckles were turning white. In a trembling voice, he asked. "Wh-who did you have in mind father?"
He grinned wondering what his next reaction would be. "The Lady Aliya."
He wanted to laugh as his son's face went through a gambit of emotions in a matter of seconds. One emotion looked like terror, then acceptance, then maybe even pleasure. He applauded himself for making a choice that his son didn't seem repulsed by at the very least.
"Oh." Was all he finally said.
"I plan to have an audience with her later this week to inform her of this matter. In the meantime, I'd like you to keep it to yourself. Even once she is informed I think it would be best if you both kept it to yourselves for the time being. I'm told you have become friends, so use this period of time to get to know each other better. I have high hopes for both of you, especially since, unlike the match before the two of you have no previous attachments. At least not that I'm aware of?"
"No, no, you are correct father. At least in my case, I have never had an attachment to a girl before."
"Good. You may go now. You've been holed up in your brother's room for too long. It's time you go back to the Academy, I want you out of the palace by tomorrow morning, is that understood."
Cade stood and bowed, he looked very distracted.
"Ah, yes, uh understood fa-I mean Your Majesty. Thank you."
Pleased with how the conversation had gone he lingered over his tea and waited with even higher anticipation for his next guest.
He saw the other man approaching through the hedges and couldn't help but smile. He schooled his features well before the person he was waiting on appeared in front of him.
"Akir, please have a seat. Would you like some breakfast?"
"Greetings to the sun of the Empire." The other man said rather woodenly.
Despite the small smile on his closed lips, internally the Emperor frowned at this cold greeting. Really, he thought, this was getting ridiculous.
"I said sit." He repeated in the calmest most soothing voice he could muster.
Akir sat.
An awkward silence ensued. Emperor Kiy was at a loss. He knew that his friend was probably angry with him, but he'd never acted this way before. Even when he was angry Kiy could always count on him to come around to his side.
"How is your family doing?" He ventured at last since it looked like Akir wouldn't speak on his own.
"How are they doing?" Kiy wished he'd asked anything else. He rolled his eyes to himself and wondered at Akir's tone.
"Well, my wife won't stop pacing the house and wailing. Dain has refused to leave his house and won't speak to me of Lady Jillian. Does that answer your question, Your Majesty?"
"Come Akir, don't be like that. You know that I never meant for things to turn out this way."
Akir ground his teeth and made a noise in the back of his throat that Kiy had never heard before. When his friend turned to look at him for the first time that day the Emperor was at first relieved, but then dread hit him.
"Kiy," he started and the Empeor felt coldness wash over him, Akir was using his name. "I know you don't care about your wife, your children, or your mistresses."
"Now, hang on Ak-"
"Don't finish that thought, I'm not trying to say you hate them, but you don't love them. You never have. When I got married to Kira, you didn't even want to bless our union. You just complained that she would take up too much of my time. Then what do you do six months later but marry the very girl you'd been complaining about to me for years. My wife becomes pregnant with Dain and your Empress is suddenly pregnant a month later. Do not think I'm ignorant of the fact that you just used them so that you wouldn't feel like I left you behind?"
The Emperor was speechless, in some ways Akir was right and in others, he was dead wrong. Regardless what an arrogant statement for a subject to make before their master, friend, or not.
"You may not value your family, but to me, my family is everything. You have always been family to me as well, but I don't know what has changed. Somewhere along the way, I began to feel less like someone you cared for and more like an outlet for your ego. I gave life to sons which you then controlled and used at every opportunity. You have kept me from my wife with every excuse in the book. You have claimed me as your friend, even called me your brother in private, but I do not understand you. This is not how you treat family. I don't want to be near you right now, can't you understand that? Don't you owe me at least this much space?"
The Emperor grew red in the face. Akir gave him a droll look in response. "Wow, look at you. What are you going to do to me for daring to tell you how I really feel? Are you going to behead me?" His nostrils were flaring as he spat those words at him.
"By all means." Kiy said enunciating every word slowly. "leave."