The Crown's Entrapment

At Cordon Castle

It has already been ten days since Xen entered the Element Forest, and exactly four days since the last vision that showed the Princess of Ebodia inside the forest appeared for all to see. Through it all, Darius continued on with his responsibilities in his kingdom. He was well aware of how Nasser was watching his every move. As such, he simply fed the Elder with the usual expressions and actions that he would expect him to have throughout his duties.

Time passed, and as he expected the talk regarding Xen's situation reared its head once more inside his court. This time, however, Nasser's allies decided to tackle it with a different approach.

"Sire, shouldn't we do something to ensure the safety of the Princess of Ebodia?" Elder Anita remarked, concern and melancholy evident in her tone. "It's been four days already since the guardians let us have a vision of the Princess. I'm sure that the King and Queen of Ebodia are also starting to get worried as well from waiting for any update regarding their daughter."

"There's no need to worry about my wife. Like I said, I'm confident that she will appear in the finals no matter what," Darius confidently declared with an indifferent smile.

"Still, I appreciate your great concern about this, Elder Anita. Rest assured that I'm always in contact with her family, telling them that Xen is very much safe despite our lack of contact…"

"Would you care to enlighten us on how you know this, Your Majesty?" Nasser butted in with his usual skepticism.

Clearly, it would be unfair to every Cordonian that hadn't witnessed what was going on inside the forest. We're well aware of the attempted bribing just to make sure the Princess wouldn't come out alive, but how can we be so sure that such a thing wouldn't be attempted again, but this time by the Princess?"

Darius wanted so eagerly to interrupt the slander Nasser was spewing, but he held his tongue as the Elder continued with his spiel.

"I mean, I don't have any intentions to be rude to the Princess of Ebodia, but I'm just saying that there's still a possibility of it happening that we shouldn't neglect…" Nasser insisted.

"Without the vision showing us her progress, how sure are we that the princess is actually going through the trial by air? Isn't it a bit unfair that we would just see her coming out alive from the forest without witnessing how she passed this trial in the first place?"

Darius inwardly hummed in thought. The Elder was indeed a cunning man by trying to spin his failed attempts of bribery to his advantage. But while he expected this exact scenario to happen, there was, unfortunately, no way for the king to refute this claim if those guardians wouldn't allow them to view Xen's trial by air. That was the reason why he had sent a message into the forest, hoping that his request would reach any of the guardians and allow them to witness Xen attempt the trial by air.

A beat of silence followed before Darius let out a loud sigh. Casually, he said, "I'm sure that they will show Xen's attempts at the trial by air."

"But what if they don't?" Nasser countered with a sly grin.

"Stop worrying too much about my wife's trial…" Darius cooly reminded the Elder. "Our kingdom and the guardians of the Element Forest had an agreement, and they will keep their part of the bargain as they had for hundreds of years now."

"Hmm… I still find it highly suspicious that they're putting off showing us visions for days now…" Nasser continued to poke with his suspicions.

Darius kept his calm despite the accusation. "I'm sure they have their reasons for this. I still trust the guardians just from knowing how they've behaved since the beginning of our treaty with them," he rebutted. "In honesty, I'm worried as well. But since I can still sense my wife through our Mate Bond, I'm sure she's still holding on and fighting to get out of the forest."

"Still, we should come up with something should they still continue to not show us anything regarding the Princess…" Nasser insisted, acting as if he was truly worried about the welfare of those he was talking about.

"It would be unfair to the other contenders that had to fight for their lives in the trial by combat if the princess somehow cheated. I'm sure you're well aware of how many women have already lost their lives, and how many more are still heavily wounded to this day…"

Darius's face darkened at the constant needling, but he remained calm as he chided, "My wife has already suffered through more than enough hardship just to prove herself. What are you suggesting now, huh?"

He glowered at the Elder as he hammered down his point, "Do you want to disregard the suffering and hard work she did just to pass the trials by fire, water, and earth just because you don't have the liberty in entertaining yourself with how many more struggles she has to face just to pass the trial by air?"

"But those are the rules we must adhere to, yes?" Nasser insisted. "She should be seen passing the trials of the four elements. So far, we've only witnessed her three of the required four…"

"But we clearly can't disregard the fact that she did pass the first three trials already," Elder Handi interrupted. He then faced Darius as he asked, "If I may suggest something, Sire…"

"Speak…" Darius nodded.

"Thank you, Your Majesty," the Elder gratefully nodded. "As I was saying, we can prepare the trial by air for her ourselves as soon as she comes out of the forest… It's just an alternative in case the worst happens, of course. Who knows? The vision might return soon and we would've wasted all this effort for nothing. Either way, we have capable people who could do just that. In fact, we can assign the Great Constable for this should the need arises…"

Hearing the suggestion, Darius turned to Nasser and asked, "Will this satisfy your worries?" He then turned away and let out a small scoff. "Ah, never mind. We should simply cast a vote on this. Shall we?"

With that, Chancellor Talon stepped forward to take over with the voting and finalization process of putting the said rule into action. Should the Princess of Ebodia come out of the forest alive without Cordonians witnessing the trial by air happening inside the forest, then the rule would take precedence and be put into action.

In truth, however, it was mostly just to shut Nasser up. Darius was quite confident that they would witness Xen complete the Trial by Air. He wasn't worried about it at all despite the lack of visions coming from the forest. After all, he could still clearly feel her being alive and well through their Mate Bond.

He remained quiet as the voting commenced. What was happening now was all staged. Elder Handi had purposely suggested that the Great Constable handle the alternative to the Trial by Air just so Nasser would no longer poke his nose into the matter. They were sure that Nasser would try to make Gilas into his puppet if this truly happened.

[Do you really trust Gilas now?] Zeus questioned.

[No, I don't, but I trust Gilas's vengeance against Nasser to be correct, knowing that the Elder had killed his real father and made his Mother suffer for so many years…] Darius explained. [As a son, Gilas would definitely make Nasser pay for that, no matter how he had to go about doing so.]

To add to that, Caro had already reported to him the truth about Gilas's origins. Darius was already aware of the fact before his Mother even relayed the details to him about it that Clara had told her about. And while he had other plans regarding that information he found, it was a good thing that Gilas found this piece of information from his own Mother, and had even contacted him about it first… Despite everything that had happened, things were still working out to their advantage…

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