After delivering the gifts, Elara and the others settled into the Royal Pavilion. Then Gareth and Giles wanted to invite them to the Giles Mansion to show their gratitude, and also take them around the Dahlia capital to see the new changes.
But just as Gareth began to speak, several urgent secret letters arrived from the palace. After reading them, both Giles and Gareth's expressions changed slightly.
"We sincerely apologize. We originally planned to invite Your Majesty and Lord Leif to visit the Giles Mansion to express our thanks. However, an urgent matter has come up, and Gareth and I must return to the palace at once. We hope Your Majesty and Lord Leif will understand. We are deeply grateful for Your Majesty's life-saving grace. Once the enthronement is over, we earnestly ask Your Majesty to visit our mansion again and allow us to show our gratitude."
Gareth and Giles both looked deeply at Elara and bowed to her.
Seeing their sudden change in expression and urgent need to leave, Elara didn't try to stop them.
The period before and after an enthronement is often the most unstable. The matter in the letters surely wasn't trivial. Elara nodded and told them they could ask for her help if needed. Then she let them go.
Before leaving the pavilion, Gareth arranged for a senior minister of the Palace of Rites to accompany Elara and Leif. But since Elara and Leif had rushed here on horseback, and it was already late, neither of them wanted to go out again. After bathing, changing, and eating dinner, they strolled a bit in the rear garden of the pavilion before getting ready to rest.
Late at night
In the normally quiet and strictly guarded Dahlia capital on the eve of the new emperor's enthronement, a thunderous explosion suddenly broke the silence. It came from the direction of the Imperial Palace and woke the entire city.
All the nobles and citizens in the capital were startled awake. But before panic could spread, the city guards and patrol troops had already sealed off the entire city within ten minutes. No one was allowed to leave their homes without palace orders.
Elara was staying in the Royal Pavilion, which was right next to the Imperial Palace. Because of how close it was, she was the first to sense the blast outside the palace.
She instantly jumped up from bed and sent Dos and Tres to guard Leif's room. Then, with Uno, she climbed to the roof of the pavilion. From that high spot above the palace walls, her enhanced senses clearly caught everything happening inside.
What she saw inside made her pupils contract slightly
Inside the Imperial Palace
Dressed in half of his royal robes, Prince Yu stood alone on the palace steps.
He still wore the familiar smile that Elara knew well, but now that smile lacked its usual carefree feel. Instead, it carried a kind of sorrow and emptiness she had never seen before.
Behind him stood Giles and Gareth. Surrounding them were rows and rows of armored soldiers. The generals of the city guard and the heads of the patrol troops also stood behind him, alert and visibly shocked as they looked at the woman across from Prince Yu, who stood ready for battle.
The woman wore a richly adorned bright yellow robe. She was graceful, noble, and commanding.
Her face looked about forty or fifty years old. Yet her waist, under the luxurious clothes, was round and swollen like a woman eight months pregnant.
She held her pregnant belly with one hand and tightly gripped the hand of a small boy at her side with the other.
The little boy had delicate and beautiful features. Even though he was only three years old, he already showed signs of the clear and handsome looks his older brothers had. His facial features, though still young, bore a strong resemblance to Prince Yu.
He wore a small imperial robe. His expression was tense. One hand clutched his mother's robe tightly while the other held the hand of another brother beside him. He didn't understand how he went from peacefully sleeping in the inner chamber to suddenly being brought here, where his sixth brother and mother now stood facing armed soldiers.
"Prince Yu, you are not worthy to take that position. The one who harmed my divine child of Dahlia should be sent to the deepest level of the heavenly prison to suffer ten levels of torture, and be executed by a thousand cuts to atone for the sin. You, a wicked criminal, how dare you wear those clothes and sit on that throne. That throne belongs to my child. How dare you try to take it."
As the woman spoke, her emotions grew more intense.
She was Prince Yu's biological mother and the empress of Dahlia — Empress Yao.
She was born into a powerful family in Dahlia. From birth, she was expected to give birth to a divine child who could awaken the long-dormant divine bloodline of the Dahlia Kingdom.
Her entire life, her one and only goal was to bring back the divine blessings to Dahlia. She wanted the gaze of the gods to fall once more on their land, and for Dahlia to receive divine favor again.
So from the time she married into the palace at sixteen, she kept trying to get pregnant and bear children. Her hope was to give birth to a child blessed by the divine bloodline.
In the early years, perhaps the heavens had noticed her devotion. At twenty-one, after having her fourth child, she saw the first signs of her life's purpose coming true.
Her fourth child, the Fourth Prince of Dahlia — Reex, was born under mysterious signs from the heavens.
On his full-month celebration, she personally took him to the Huang Temple to pray. At that ceremony, the child did not disappoint. He triggered the descent of a divine omen and was gifted a sacred symbol from the long-silent Divine Altar that had not awakened in nearly three hundred years.
It was a sacred talisman, representing the divine bloodline of the Dahlia Kingdom, uniquely meant for her child — a mark of divine favor.
Even though decades had passed, Empress Yao still grew emotional when remembering the moment her child triggered the divine omen.
That was her real child. Her one and only child.
As long as he could reach adulthood and fully awaken the divine blessings, her life's mission would be fulfilled. The dormant divine bloodline of the Dahlia Kingdom would reawaken, and the people of Dahlia would once again receive the favor of the gods.
To raise that child well, she even slowed down her pregnancy rate. In the five years he grew, she only gave birth to two more children.
But it was that second child she gave birth to in the fifth year. If she had known what would happen later, she would have strangled him the moment he was born. No, she would not even have carried him at all. She would have asked the imperial physician to give her a bowl of medicine to get rid of that beast and monster completely.
But unfortunately, she had been too muddle-headed back then. Five months later, her only child, Reex, had a sudden fire in her palace.
She had no idea how the fire started so suddenly. She also did not know how that monster, the second child she gave birth to after Reex, Prince Yu, who was supposed to be raised quietly by the palace servants in the inner court, appeared in her daughter's palace.
The fire that suddenly broke out was too intense. Her child was so young, only five years old, yet in that fire, she had desperately shielded the monster who should have died.
By the time the fire was finally put out and the soldiers and servants lifted the fallen beams, she saw the charred, unrecognizable body of her five-year-old child.
In the child's arms was still a tightly held bundle. Faint, weak cries came from within it, and when they reached her ears, they sounded like mocking laughter from hell.
That fire took away her only child and destroyed everything she had.
The only one who survived was the very monster who deserved to die, the one who stole her child's life.
At that moment, Empress Yao, who had instantly fallen into madness, wanted to send the monster to die with her child. But no matter how she screamed and struggled, everyone around her held her down tightly, not letting her move, not letting her take revenge for her child.
After that, she watched as the monster who had taken her child's life grew up day by day. He grew more and more outstanding, and more and more people supported him.
The sight made her sick. She wanted to bury that blind group of officials and the monster along with them underground, to offer her long-dead child a delayed vengeance.
But no matter what she did, the monster never died. He just kept living, stabbing at her eyes and her heart, all the way until now.
Maybe it was punishment for not protecting the divine child bestowed by the gods. Since then, no matter how many more children she bore, none of them ever received the gods' favor and grace like her real child once did.
Or perhaps she had already lost the gods' favor and it was all because of that damn monster.
Mother. Prince Yu looked at the woman in front of him, now facing him with weapons drawn. He saw the deep, undisguised disgust, hatred, and killing intent in her eyes as she looked at him.
After so many years, Prince Yu remembered clearly how rare it was for his mother to even glance at him. Even these hateful, murderous looks were rare. Including this moment, she had looked at him no more than five times since he was a child.