And just when he thought this day couldn't get any worse.
Now, he has to entertain and go along with the whims of a lunatic who cannot seem to give up on his desire to possess his child the way he wanted to with his wife, but who fears that same child's viciousness and keeps his distance despite showering him with favour and attention.
Aspen has just about had it with this ridiculous farce of affection and pretend fatherhood.
After so many years, the pathetic man still hasn't given up trying to get in his good graces in hopes of seeing the late empress through him.
Aspen may be the spitting image of his mother, as everyone who knew the late empress says, but he is by no means as powerless as she had been.
Even without the status and authority of his position as first prince, he doesn't lack the strength to resist the filthy desires of the emperor.
Aspen taps his foot on the ground after hearing Duke Sieren's words, as though debating whether to comply with the summon.
By royalty's standards, the emperor's summon is a command he cannot refuse.
Although, there have been times that he completely ignored such summons. But back then, everyone had turned a blind eye because he was threatening to injure himself and maim the people who came to escort him.
Now, as a prince who has a reputation to uphold and a position to protect, he cannot afford to make reckless decisions based on his mood.
No matter how much he loathes the idea of meeting with his sperm-donor, in the end, he has hardly a choice. Duke Sieren's approval of his ascension to the throne will be vital in the future, as he is the emperor's aide and a highly influential figure among the nobility.
Aspen had always taken care not to give him reason to doubt his capability as crown prince, or as a future leader, and he won't start now.
With a heavy exhale, Aspen turns away from the central staircase. "Alright. I will heed your words and head there now. Shall we?"
"Yes, Your Highness. If you please." Duke Sieren steps to the side and gestures for Aspen to walk ahead.
Before he moves, Aspen turns around to see the concerned faces of his comrades. But his gaze is reserved for one person only.
Ignacia's eyebrows are twisted into a frown, and she seems to question him with her eyes alone. The fiery shine in them reminds him of the first day they met. It makes him want to return back to his own palace and flop down onto his bed to rest, but he stops himself and gives her a reassuring look.
"Let us go. It would not bid well for us if we keep the emperor waiting now, would it?"
"Yes, Your Highness." is their reply.
His emotions stabilised, Aspen begins to walk the familiar path leading to the emperor's prized garden.
Secretly, he hopes that nothing will come of this meeting.
It is never a good thing when the emperor, who has recently fallen into the habit of pushing his concubines away, calls for him.
It always ends the same way: with him stomping out of the venue, enraged by the emperor's persistent cajoling.
The emperor is lucky that Aspen has decided to wait until the highest seat in the country is passed to him naturally.
Had he been a person with less restraint, he would have killed him and seized his throne to complete his years-long revenge, nevermind the backlash he would face for plotting treason.
Well..., treason doesn't sound half bad when he thinks about how much he hates that wretched old coot.
But he'll wait. Not for his own sake, but for the sake of his country's stability.
It would not do for the neighbouring countries to take advantage of a civil war to invade their land and plunder it as they see fit.
Before long, the corridors, high ceilings and carpeted floors surrounding them give way to the outdoor sunshine and smell of nature.
As Aspen leads the way, with Duke Sieren behind his left, and Ignes and Ignacia behind his right, he can feel his emotions bubbling and broiling at the surface.
Walking this path to the Magenta Garden is hardly a comfortable experience.
He can no longer count the frequency with which he made the same trek, once angry and spitting, once depressed and blank, and many times calm and collected on the outside, but with seething fury barely contained on the inside.
And every time, he returns the same way he came, shredding the nearby flora or tearing up the cobbled pathway into mere rubble in an attempt to stem the dark hatred that spills from his every orifice.
In a way, this path he's walking now signifies his many hardships and the various ways in which he rose from despair to where he is today.
The only unchanging element of this experience is the festering hole in his heart, fraught with his taste for blood.
Aspen measures his pace, refusing to hurry when others would lunge for a chance to see the emperor.
He can hardly find a single thing to like about his surroundings, whether it be the impeccable orientation of the plants, the neat, winding snake of stone beneath his feet or the subtly scented air, full of the fragrance of the exotic flowers the emperor maintains in the Magenta Garden he so cherishes.
The sole reason this garden even exists lies in yet another grotesque manifestation of his obsession with his dead wife.
This garden, while certainly beautiful, is no more than a field reserved for planting and preserving flowers that remind the emperor of the late empress.
An ordinary person would never have access to the inner circles of the massive garden, and so they would be fooled into thinking that the Magenta Garden is a name undeserving of a bunch of rare flowers that come in every colour other than the one expected.
But as first prince, Aspen has been to the centre of the garden countless times over the past decade, and each time, the magnitude of disgust he feels is unrivaled.
When he turns the last winding corner in this maze-like garden, with its waist-high shrubbery and constantly splitting pathways, they end up in front of a tall, concrete wall, covered in green vines and draping plants that obscure a hidden entrance.
From this point onwards, only members of royalty and the emperor's direct subordinates are allowed to enter.
Duke Sieren moves past Aspen to push aside what looks to be solid mass of plants, but his hand unexpectedly cleaves through the hanging vines and lifts the tendrils of green to reveal an otherwise indiscernible entrance.
"Please enter, Your Highness. His Majesty is waiting for you."
Aspen stares at the barely revealed hole in the wall, wondering, not for the first time, if the reason this place is so hidden is that the emperor knew how much of a sickening man he is and didn't want others to know it.
Without turning back to look, he gives his command to the two who accompanied him all the way to this uselessly pretty garden.
"Ignacia, Ignes. Wait here. I'm afraid that you are not yet qualified as direct subordinates of the emperor."
"Yes, Your Highness."
Aspen steels himself before making a move, knowing that one misstep in the arduous conversation that will soon follow might further provoke the maddening coil of darkness that wraps around his heavy heart.
When he deems himself ready to confront the absolute stupidity that is on the other side of the wall, he steps forward unhesitatingly, determined to get through this meeting without losing his temper. Doing so once a day is more than he would prefer.
If restraining himself is what will get him out of this infernal palace quicker... Well, there's no time like the present to emulate the perfect picture of a model crown prince.
As he passes through the thick wall that separates the exterior circles of the garden from the interior, Aspen is briefly struck by a sudden revelation when he reaches the other end of the short, dark tunnel and is greeted by a familiar door.
So many times he has passed through this exact same place, but never has he been more observant of its structure.
The distance from the entrance to the exit is no more than ten footsteps. Combined with the narrow space left between the walls on either side of him, this tunnel mimics what could be a particularly unpleasant death trap.
If anyone were to lay siege to the imperial palace, there would be no safer place to escape to than the underground passages that lead to the outskirts of the capital.
He had always thought that a palace's greatest asset is the secretive paths that were built in the case of an emergency. But now, it seems as though he's found yet another place that people could hole up in if the palace is attacked.
The tight space in the tunnel would let no more than a dozen men inside at any point of time, and the thickness of the walls would make a fine barricade to anyone who attempted to scale the nearly smooth, towering wall from the outside.
One throw of a small explosive would be enough to decimate the people in the tunnel and then some. The ones waiting at the exit would also have their fair share of shrapnel to the face.
How intriguing.
Aspen raises his hand to knock on the thick, wooden door in front of him.
Almost instantly, it opens, and the hands of two guards stationed on either side of the entrance to the interior garden can be seen pushing the draping vines apart for him to walk through.
From behind him, Aspen can hear Duke Sieren's footsteps echoing slightly. Without waiting for him to catch up, Aspen ducks his head to avoid the hanging plants and steps foot inside.
Instantly, his vision is bombarded by an onslaught of colour.
No matter how many times he is summoned here, Aspen will never forget the awe that he first felt when he was finally calm enough to identify his surroundings without flying into a rage.
Here, lies living proof that the late empress - Charlize of House Samior - who was once considered the most beautiful omega in the country, is still being pursued by a hopeless man.
Across the entire garden, blooms hundreds of nerines.
Dark pink like his own hair, and standing proudly in the sunlight, the flowers are a reminder of the late empress' taste for scenery.
Aspen has been told many a time by the emperor himself that nerines were her favourite flower.
And indeed, they are a stunning sight for most.
But Aspen knows the true meaning behind this seemingly devoted display of love.
What other significance could these flowers have if not to present tangible signs that the late empress' spirit still lives on, shackled within these walls and only accessible by those with the blood of the emperor?
It is no more than a cage to chain what remains of the late empress' existence to her ever-greedy husband, who still cannot bear to let go of his feelings for her.
Having learned the history of his heritage during his successor lessons, Aspen has long since realised what a fearsome madman the one who sired him is.
During her time, the late empress was the epitome of beauty. Putting aside her slender frame and ethereal features, what earned her her title as the fairest in the land was her hair.
Her long, fuchsia locks were slightly wavy, the colour a rich, exotic hue that no soul in the country could rival or copy.
It was the one thing that set her apart from omegas from other similarly prestigious families, and part of the reason the emperor, then a young prince, fell in love with her.
It is also the most significant feature that Aspen inherited in full from her.
His hair, kept relatively short due to his frequent sparring sessions, is the exact same shade as hers. Though he cannot help but feel that he would have been better off without it.
More importantly, while he, a living, thinking being, can certainly resist the advances of a crazed lunatic, these flowers, unmoving and vulnerable to human hands as they are, cannot.
This is where the Magenta Garden got its name from.
This garden, a circular field of nerine flowers, dark pink like the late empress' hair, is no more than a revolting display of power over one who is already dead.
Not for the first time, Aspen finds himself utterly disenchanted with the magnificence of the interior garden.
All he can think about is how unbearable it must be for his dead mother, who passed away with the hope that she would no longer be violated in any way, shape or form by the emperor, to watch her beloved flowers be used in such a manner to stroke the ego and greed of the man she despised most.
I would say rest in peace, but I fear that peace is out of your reach for a few more years, mother.
It almost seems laughable how in tune he is with his dead mother's feelings, a feat that the wretched emperor can never hope to achieve even after all the years of rejection he experienced.
"Should I just kill him now?" he mutters to himself in a moment of impulsiveness.