The Patriarch's brows knit into a storm. Sushila's smile drained from her lips, her face hollowing with shock. The wives pressed silk handkerchiefs to their trembling mouths as if warding off the taste of something vile. The Emperor's gaze sharpened, his azure irises burning like molten judgment. He looked not at a boy, but at an assassin cloaked in innocence.
A collective gasp rippled through the grand hall, a sound like glass cracking under pressure.
"What…did he just say?" One of my siblings whispered, their voice laced with horror.
"Is he trying to kill us?" Another sibling choked out.
The maids, gripping the edges of their skirts, muttered in hushed urgency. "The Fifth Young Master…he's committed treason."
A silence heavier than a knight's armor crashed onto the table. Breathless. Suffocating. Then—
A slow, deliberate exhale from the Emperor. His fingers curled around the goblet in front of him, knuckles paling with restraint. His gaze, a blade honed to perfection, swept the table before slicing toward me.
"What is this, Grey van Wolfhard?" His voice was smooth, yet coiled with an unspoken threat. "Is this how your household treats its guests? Your son just attempted to poison us."
Poison? Ah.
I lifted my gaze, unwavering. "I didn't force anyone to eat." My voice carried across the hall, steady, unrepentant. "I was eating my potatoes. You all helped yourselves without asking. So, if anything, it's not my fault."
A sharp inhale from Sushila. She bowed her head, shame bleeding into her posture. "I…I apologize, Your Majesty. He's still young. It is my failure as a mother, I have spent too little time with him. I should have taught him better…"
A fork clattered onto the marble floor. A harsh, metallic note that rang through the silence.
Second Wife, Amelia, paled. Her throat convulsed as she fought back the bile rising in her gut. The Third Wife, Nike, did not grant such restraint. She pushed back her chair, the shriek of wood against marble slicing through the hall.
"This…this is an insult," she seethed. Her fingers curled around her son's wrist, Caesar, who had been staring at me with an expression unreadable. With one last withering glare, she turned on her heel and left, her footsteps echoing like a verdict.
The air in the room congealed, thick with unease. I turned my gaze across the table. Disgust. Contempt. A silent, gnawing horror. They looked at me as if I were a condemned boy, forced to swallow poison.
Or perhaps…as if I were the poison itself.
I knew there was a high chance I'd lose my head, but I took the risk anyway.
"N'étiez-vous point venu ici avec une mission, Votre Majesté? Ou vous êtes-vous permis de juger les coutumes culinaires de la Maison Wolfhard? Insinuez-vous que les roturiers se sont élevés au-dessus des nobles simplement parce qu'ils festoient de pommes de terre et que la mort n'ose point les frôler?"
("Did you not come here with a mission, Your Majesty? Or have you taken it upon yourself to pass judgment on the dining habits of House Wolfhard? Are you suggesting that commoners have risen above nobles simply because they feast on potatoes and death dares not touch them?")
"Vous l'avez dit vous-même, vous aviez besoin de la recette. Et je vous la donnerai, non pour or, ni pour faveur, mais pour sauver des vies. Ces pommes de terre vivent là où le grain meurt, survivant aux hivers les plus cruels. Mais sachez ceci: elle vient avec une condition. Cette recette appartiendra à tous, aux pauvres comme aux riches. Pas de barrières. Pas de titres. Pas de murs.
J'ai placé une opportunité entre vos mains, celle qui pourrait inverser le sort de la famine qui frappe aux portes de notre empire. Elle est vôtre à saisir…ou à rejeter. Sauvez votre peuple, ou laissez votre orgueil régner, et regardez-les dépérir et mourir.
Le choix est vôtre."
("You said it yourself, you needed the recipe. And I will give it to you, not for gold, not for favor, but to save lives. These potatoes thrive where grain cannot, surviving even the cruelest winters. But know this, it comes with one condition: this recipe must belong to all, poor and rich alike. No gatekeeping. No titles. No walls.
I've placed an opportunity in your hands, one that could turn the tide of the famine that now knocks upon our empire's door. It is yours to take…or to cast aside. Save your people or let your pride reign, and watch them wither and die.
The choice is yours.")
His eyes widened, a flicker of disbelief breaking through his carefully guarded expression. I could see the question forming behind them. How could I possibly know about the Femine? It was a secret he'd entrusted to only a handful of people.
After a beat of silence, he threw back his head and laughed, a deep, rumbling sound that echoed through the hall.
"Nulhom ne dars osé me parlais ainssi… et vivre," he said, a grin slowly curling across his lips. "Mai je croy que je comprens, maint'nant. Tu fais marquer l'estropié. Tu nouri les affamé. Et tu parlais la longue des dechûs."
He leaned forward, his eyes gleaming with something between amusement and awe. "Je croy savoir qui t'es… grand enfan des constellâsions."
("No man has ever dared speak to me that way and lived."
"But I think I understand now. You make the cripple walk. You feed the starving. And you speak the tongue of the fallen."
"I think I know who you are, great child of the constellations.")
He turned to the Patriarch with a smile.
"Grey, old friend," he said, "congratulations on finally producing your own Arthur Romaeus de Leonis. I've failed to produce my own Niklaus Lucian de Leonis."
He let out a weary sigh, his gaze distant.
"I've spent weeks, months, traveling across the Empire, visiting all four houses. House Wolfhard was the last. I sought answers to the crisis looming over our empire. According to the Saintess's prophecy, we stand on the brink of disaster: a great famine. She spoke in riddles, visions of livestock and grain perishing, of hundreds starving, of the earth cracking as the rain ceased to fall. She foretold that the scarcity of food would drive men to cannibalism, that it would spark a civil war.
And yet, Grey…your youngest son, merely six years old, found the solution that eluded the wisest sages and scholars across the four houses. Without being asked, without any guidance, he solved the problem. Even if the nobles refuse to eat commoners' food, we will endure this famine.
And to think, I dared to criticize that child."
He bowed his head low, his voice solemn.
"I beg your forgiveness, Descendant of the Sword Saint. To make amends, I offer you a marriage alliance. Zephyra is closest to your age, perhaps she could be your bride. What do you say, Grey? Shall we seal this union here and now?"
Grey cleared his throat, quickly masking the flicker of shock on his face.
"Your Majesty," he said carefully, "he is already betrothed. Since his birth, when our founder's features first marked him, House Cygne Noir moved swiftly. And I'm afraid, we cannot make the princess a second wife."
A shadow crossed the Emperor's face. His brow furrowed, his lips tightened in displeasure.
"I see," he murmured, the words clipped and cold. "Then I will have to speak with Etienne du Cygne Noir."
Around the grand table, the air shifted. Some faces turned pale with shock; others burned with jealousy or quiet fury.
And I? I sat in silence, watching it unfold. I, who had taught Sushila to move again when no healer could. I, who had mastered the forbidden tongue of the Fallen after only six years in this world. I, who solved what no one dared ask me to solve.
The Emperor bowed before me. He was willing to marry me to his daughter.
In that moment, I realized:
I, Arthur Romaeus van Wolfhard, had become exactly what these women had feared from the very beginning.