NOVEL NEXT Chapter 1020: Marriage
Bharatiya Empire, thousands of kilometres away.
The Royal Capital was embroiled in a festive atmosphere. Colourful flags were hung in various corners of the city, and people wore exquisite clothes as if they were celebrating Deepavali or Ganesha Chaturthi. The smell of incense lingered in every corner of the city, and the bright lamps lit in the houses appeared like a dazzling sea of stars at the dawn of the night.
The smell of sweet and savoury snacks was mouth-watering, and the sight of children running around in beautiful clothes with their little feet was endearing.
The place with the most excitement was the parliament grounds, an open field stretching for five kilometres in all directions.
At the centre of the parliament grounds, several hundred thousand people gathered. These people, from all walks of life, from all corners of the vast empire, and even from different parts of Asia and the Middle East, had joined this event.
Right at the smack-dab middle of this great event was a sacred fire burning so brightly that it became the sun at the centre of the star system, surrounded by countless stars.
Only a few feet away from the sacred fire, Vijay stood holding a little boy in his arms. This boy had a pale white complexion with dark black hair, but his eyes, under the illumination of the sacred fire, appeared like a pair of suns burning with a majestic amber hue.
The boy was none other than his grandson Rama Deva Raiya, the son of Agni and Ekaterina. He was born only a few months ago, and he had just had his Namakarana last week.
Vijay was teasing his grandson when suddenly he saw someone coming forward in the corner of his eye. Kavya, who was right next to Vijay, also noticed this person, so she quickly took her grandson and went to the side.
" A hearty congratulations to you, Vijay," a loud and powerful voice spoke.
Vijay immediately smiled, " Thank you, Peter."
Who else could it be other than Peter Ivanovich Romanov, the king of Siberia.
Peter did not talk with Vijay for too long, because he was already feeling restless to meet his first grandson. Although his daughter-in-law was already pregnant and he was also expecting a grandchild in his own lineage, the child of his daughter was still of great importance to him.
But before he could move past Vijay, he heard Vijay whisper something in his ear, and understanding the words, his expression changed. His look turned sober, but in the end, he nodded and went forward with a bright smile on his face, hugging his grandson like a doting grandfather.
Peter was very pleased with how his grandson appeared, but he was startled by those bright amber eyes. Yet, when he thought about the uniqueness of the imperial bloodline of the Bharatiya Empire, he felt more at ease, believing that his grandson would have a greater chance of claiming the throne of the Bharatiya Empire. Some dark thoughts stirred in his heart, but they were quickly suppressed, because when the marriage was negotiated, it had already been decided that he would have no contact with his grandson after birth. Not only him, even his daughter was forbidden from teaching her son anything.
Although this was a humiliating condition, he was in a very bad situation at that time, and he had no choice but to accept. After all, the situation is stronger than people.
When he was lost in thought, Rama, who looked like he was happily playing with his grandfather's beard, suddenly started to cry.
Peter woke up from his stupor and handed over his grandson to the Empress.
' Damn brat,' he couldn't help but curse in his heart, but he had a wry smile on his face.
Not paying attention to the actions of Peter, Vijay continued to receive important delegates from all over the eastern part of the world.
Roxana Atashban, Ezidi Serwan, Zhu Yu Lang, presidents and kings from Asian nations, and even dukes from Spain and Portugal had arrived.
In such a way, several hours passed, and the ceremony quickly began.
Vijay rejoined Kavya and looked at the pair of people sitting nearest the sacred fire with a look of worry, happiness, relief, and even a bit of sadness.
Those two pairs were none other than Vedant and his fiancée Janaki, and Tanvika and her fiancée Bavish.
Both Vedant and Tanvika were 19 years old, and unlike Agni, he had not imposed any restrictions on them in terms of marriage. So maybe it was a coincidence, or maybe it was fate, both his son and daughter ended up choosing someone by themselves. Janaki, the fiancée of Vedant, similar to him, was a researcher in the Mobility Labs. It was then that these two young people started seeing each other. As for Bavish, the fiancée of his beloved daughter, the brat was also a leading researcher at the CDC.
Apparently, he was the only one who supported Tanvika when not a lot of people believed her. He still did not believe him fully, but under the pressure of his wife and daughter, he could not help but agree to the marriage.
Both his daughter-in-law and son-in-law were from normal families, which was completely heaven and earth when compared to their own family. He could have matched his son and daughter with anyone under his influence, be it the princess of Persia, the prince of Lalishsthan, or any business mogul's family. But all those had too many strings attached. Even if Vedant and Tanvika had already relinquished their claim to the throne, they were still his children, Rajyapathy Vijay Devaraya's children, and the title still held a lot of power in the empire. Marrying people who already had some power could end up upsetting the balance that he had built.
So, in a way, his son and daughter choosing people from commoner families ended up becoming the best thing to maintain the power balance of the empire, and it also allowed Agni to take over more easily. Although this upset many people, like the kings of the empire who had hoped to marry their children into the royal family, or the business families who were left on the hook, now all of it was dashed. Even the common folk thought that neither fiancés was worthy of marrying their prince and princess. But that was beside the point, since the affairs of his family were no one's business.
Besides, he still had to admit both his daughter-in-law and son-in-law were brilliant in their own fields, or else they wouldn't have reached top research institutes like the CDC laboratories or the Mobility laboratories. Their intelligence and talent were top-notch, so in a way, them joining the royal family could enrich the gene pool of his dynasty.
He remembered that the Japanese royal family in his last life did something similar. Because of close marriages within the family, the Japanese royals had developed some features that were very unsightly, so in order to change this, they started marrying among commoners who looked beautiful and intelligent. And it kind of worked, since the descendants of the Japanese royals did end up looking better as time went on. Essentially, he was doing no different.
So he ended up writing this as a rule into the family's rulebook, along with some changes in the way the family patriarch's position was inherited.
Before, all his descendants could become a king of their own state, and after his passing, or when he decided to relinquish his throne, a royal election would be held, and the people who were eligible would decide who would be their next emperor. But since he could now actually give all his descendants a piece of territory as their own to rule, what he feared most would occur: that is, only Agni's lineage would hold all the power, and down the line it was inevitable that the main lineage of his dynasty might decline.
So what he did was, he created a sequence, a sequence of 51 eligible descendants to claim the throne, and among these 51 descendants, whoever had the most dazzling achievements, be it in business, in the military, in any field, or in all, would be tallied, and three among them would be selected to be representatives of the royal family, to be the kings of the empire, who would theoretically compete with other kings of different states for the position of emperor.
Although in this way he closed the loophole in the constitution, where all the descendants of the emperor would automatically become the kings of a state of the emperor's choosing, he made it so that the leaders of his dynasty would be capable people. He still had to write down some rules to make sure that his descendants did not kill amongst themselves, but he still had some time. This was an issue he had to consider more thoroughly, because he knew it was inevitable, and it was only a question of when. All he could do now was make sure that such a situation did not happen anytime soon, and hope that his descendants in the future saw the worsening situation and took the right decisions to avoid family members from killing each other.
So, coming back to the point, even though Tanvika and Vedant had given up their right to the throne, their descendants would still remain eligible, since according to the sequence 51 formula he had devised, the descendants of Agni and those of Vedant and Tanvika would belong to the same order or rank within the sequence. They would all share equal rights to the throne once, hopefully, Agni ascended it.
In other words, if one of Tanvika's descendants later won the people's favour and ascended as emperor or empress, the sequence would then reset from that victor as the new patriarch, rather than continuing from Agni's line, even though Agni might have been the previous monarch.
It is said that as people get older, they tend to worry too much. Maybe it was true after all, as he continuously went on multiple tangents in a span of a few minutes. Finally, with the loud sound of the tabla, the ceremony came to an end. By this time tomorrow, his two sons and daughter would all be married, and no longer be children anymore. Thinking about it made him a little emotional.
P.S. I have a cousin's engagement today. I f***ing hate functions. I'm especially bad with names, and everyone keeps asking, "Tell me who that is, tell me who this is." Hell, I swear today I'll just say, "I don't know you or who you are."