NOVEL NEXT Chapter 199: Thinking about marriage
After the dinner ended, Hadrian turned the reveal over in his mind. He felt off-centred, like the world had shifted slightly around him and things didn’t feel quite right, or quite as expected.
Ayden and Prince Rian like each other.
Ayden and Prince Rian love each other.
Ayden and Prince Rian are engaged to each other and plan to get married.
Certain things took on a new light.
The reason why Ayden and Prince Rian’s friendship seemed particularly deep was because it was romantic. It explained why Ayden supported everything that Prince Rian did, and why Prince Rian supported everything Ayden did.
Prince Rian and Ayden’s interests were much more intertwined than expected.
What did this mean for Sedaveria? What about the Sedaverian family line, weren’t King Edric and Queen Mira worried about that? How would this affect Angio-Sedaverian relationships? What about—? What about—? There were so many things—!
Hadrian desperately wanted to talk to his father about this—his father would know what to think and what to do. The Terra family had imported many Azure-Rosewood products made by the two, and this new revelation should change something, whether it meant they should import more, or import less.
But he had to keep it a secret, and he had to go to sleep full of thoughts that couldn’t be let out.
The next day, after Prince Pollux returned from the university, Hadrian went to help Prince Pollux with his physical therapy.
Originally, one of the Angian healers would come over from the Angio embassy to the Rosewood house a few times a week. But eventually, Hadrian and Prince Pollux’s manservant Benedict became the ‘physical therapists’, after they watched and learned. Now, the Angian healer came over once every two weeks to check and adjust procedures.
Unlike Benedict, Hadrian could cast the muscle stimulating and strengthening healing spells, to promote muscle engagement, in conjunction with the physical therapy.
Hadrian did not chafe at the job. He truly wanted Prince Pollux to recover as soon as possible.
Upon entering Prince Pollux’s quarters, Hadrian gave a half bow to Prince Pollux. “Good afternoon, your Highness. How has your day been?”
“Hm,” Prince Pollux answered vaguely.
Hadrian quickly spotted Princess Sasha, asleep in her cat bed. Cute, Hadrian thought.
Prince Pollux moved his floating chair to the bed. Hadrian stepped over and reached out to help transfer him onto the bed.
The moment Hadrian put his hands on Prince Pollux, the prince stiffened. Hadrian let go after he was sure Prince Pollux wouldn’t fall. Prince Pollux’s waist felt particular slender and fragile today.
“Your Highness…”
Pollux immediately berated himself. Why did he stiffen? “Continue,” he said. He forced himself to act normally as Hadrian helped transfer him onto the bed. The bed was raised compared to normal beds, making it easier to conduct the physical therapy without making Hadrian, or his manservant, bend over too much.
At the moment, Pollux had more control over his hips, but he still couldn’t move his legs by himself. So, Hadrian started with stretching Pollux’s legs by physically moving them. They started with stretches in a sitting position, and then in a lying down position. Through this, Hadrian’s large hands pressed on Pollux’s hips, thighs, lower legs, ankles, feet…
Inexplicably, today felt different from every other day, even though it was exactly the same. Was it because Ayden had restored more sensation to his legs?
(It hadn’t felt different this morning when Benedict had helped him.)
Ayden…
After coming to Sedaveria, Pollux had been exposed to many new things, so his psychological quality had strengthened.
However, that was the first time he had seen such an affectionate couple up close, and it involved Ayden, no less. He couldn’t believe…how could he miss something so big?
Upon returning to his rooms last night, Pollux had petted Princess Sasha and found those booklets he had set aside and read them.
Not only were there men who liked men, but there were also women who liked women??!!
Pollux hadn’t slept well, thinking about all the things he could have completely missed his whole life so far.
He thought he and Ayden were good friends. He wanted to be good friends with Ayden. Secretly, in his heart, he had wanted to be as close to Ayden as Prince Rian was; closer, even. He had envied the friendship between Ayden and Prince Rian.
He felt very complex upon realising that his secret wish would amount to him becoming Ayden’s lover.
He refused to imagine what that would be like.
Pollux snapped out of his thoughts when Hadrian finished helping him with the stretches.
“Ready, Your Highness?” Hadrian asked.
“Did you know?” Pollux said.
Hadrian looked puzzled. “Know what, Your Highness?”
“Did you know that Ayden and Prince Rian…” Pollux found it difficult to say, ‘are in love’.
Hadrian shook his head. “No, Your Highness. It was a surprise to me too. They hid it well.”
Pollux felt a bit better. “Start.”
The next stage was the exercise portion, where Hadrian would help Pollux move his legs and rotate his lower body. By doing repetitive movements, this would help strengthen Pollux’s muscles, and it would also prompt his body to naturally extend and strengthen his neural pathways, building on top of what Ayden was doing.
The key was to do hundreds—even thousands—of these movements, over and over again. Since Pollux wanted to recover as fast as possible, both Hadrian and his manservant helped Pollux out every day.
The repetitive nature meant that Pollux’s mind was free to think.
“Ayden and Prince Rian…”
“Hm,” Hadrian agreed. His voice lowered. “Your Highness, do you think Prince Rian will become king in the future?”
Pollux was taken aback. He hadn’t thought about that. “I can’t tell Aurelia…” He didn’t know how he could tell Aurelia. “Those booklets, they said that only the Rosewood fief had gay marriage. So, they could only get married there…”
Hadrian nodded.
“Hadrian, do you have any marriage plans yet?” Pollux asked.
“No…”
Pollux didn’t have any marriage plans either.
The room lapsed into silence.
Pollux became aware of Hadrian’s hands again. He was envious of Hadrian. Hadrian was tall, strong, could walk, run, jump. Hadrian had loving parents and siblings who didn’t want to kill him. He wished he had such height and such reassuring hands too…
Ayden and Prince Rian looked happy.
Pollux had seen many unhappy relationships between men and women. Look, his own father had killed his mother. However, the only male-male relationship that Pollux had seen was Ayden and Rian, and they were really enviable.
What if…—
Pollux shut that thought down and tried to focus on the exercise.
What would it be like to be in love with another man?
Pollux was in a daze before he realised he had thought that.
No, no, I’m going to marry a noblewoman, he told himself firmly.
He didn’t want to imagine a man holding his hand and kissing it like how Prince Rian did with Ayden, he didn’t want to imagine hugging a man, or walking side-by-side, or getting married…
He had to think about something else. Work, he could think about work.
“Hadrian, have you checked on the restaurant recently?”
“Sorry, Your Highness, I haven’t. However, I believe business has been good…”
Everything was normal, completely normal.
Meanwhile, after Rian finished relishing the shock he had caused Hadrian and Prince Pollux, he became busy telling more people about his relationship.
It was a bit addicting, in fact.
He told his Royal Guards, one by one. He told the other main servants, the ones who worked when Gary was resting. He told Ren Xiyang’s self-proclaimed knights. He told his secret agents. He even told his Imperial Mother’s most trusted lady-in-waiting.
All of these people were trustworthy, and once they knew, they could help him have a romantic life with Ren Xiyang. Now, all the servants knew that if he and Ren Xiyang were in a room together, that they were not to be interrupted.
(Not that they had interrupted before.)
And oh, Rian also did work and conducted research.
He revised the marriage law amendment proposal and gave it back to his Imperial Mother.
During the weekends while Ren Xiyang was away in the Rosewood fief, Rian also started travelling, to set up various observation points with spells to monitor weather conditions and feed that information back to the weather-map table he had created back in the Capital. Functionally, this meant that he placed small magical devices on various tall buildings around the kingdom. These devices could measure sunlight strength—building on the sunlight charging charms that Rian and Ren Xiyang had developed previously. Then, using the same magic as the communication mirrors, the devices sent information back to his weather map table, and would make a patch on that table brighter or darker depending on the sunlight at the location.
The map table was interesting to watch. On it, he could see clouds moving across the kingdom, and how the days turned to night and back to day.
Developing spells to measure, send back, and recreate other weather phenomenon on the weather-map table was next on Rian’s list.
He and Ren Xiyang also went to the Dravite fief once more, not long after Baron Lavender and the others were officially trialled by the Imperial Council.
His Imperial Mother transferred the first one thousand chests of gold for the new charity fund. He and Ren Xiyang formed a new team to work on it. They used the current reach of the Royal Healers’ Service and the membership of the association of future leaders to guide which fiefs they’d go to first.
Rian also kept an eye on the spread of the LGBT+ booklets. He had them translated so that they could be distributed in neighbouring countries too. Cassiopeia had become quite flustered after realising the reach of her work.
Many people wondered if Ren Xiyang would set up a wedding planning service. After some Rosewood residents literally visited the Rosewood manor with a plan, Ren Xiyang really did set up a wedding planning team.
With all these things happening, winter soon passed, and it became spring, which meant it soon became Rian’s 16th birthday.
Rian’s 16th birthday wasn’t as grand as his 15th, as there was no crown-prince announcement. However, the entire Capital still celebrated with him, when Ren Xiyang put on a grand magic show for Rian, above and over the Imperial Palace in the evening.
Against the dark sky, the lights, fires, and lightning were dazzling and beautiful.
Rian was okay with not hearing every single one of Ren Xiyang’s thoughts because he liked surprises like this.
The day after his birthday, Rian had his long-awaited birthday duel with Ren Xiyang.
With their increased workload, they didn’t practice as much duelling as they used to. Given that Ren Xiyang had put on that magic show, Rian secretly vaguely hoped that Ren Xiyang’s magical reserves would be lower, and that this year, Rian could truly defeat Ren Xiyang in a full-scale duel.
As a result, Rian didn’t win once more, and Alexius laughed at him again.
“Tch, just you wait, Alexius, Ayden and I will crush you in your own team tournament! I don’t even need a team!”
“Without Ayden, you’re nothing!”
“What did you say?”
Ren Xiyang, to the side, sighed. These brothers!
Queen Aurelia’s busyness never abated after she took the throne.
Although she gave more work the Queen’s board and others, her workload didn’t change.
After long debate, the underground tower was kept, with a memorial put in place to commemorate the names of the victims.
Queen Aurelia didn’t send anyone to reclaim the borderlands. There wasn’t enough money.
She also didn’t send the army to suppress Viscount Amethystus—it simply wasn’t high priority. However, she did recently send a diplomatic convoy to ask Viscount Amethystus about what he wanted and his terms.
Lady Iris Helios effectively managed the gentlemen-in-waiting, increasing food supplies and reducing the number of men who wanted to become gentlemen-in-waiting. The food situation across Angio was much better this year compared to the same time last year, averting wide-spread famine.
And lately, Aurelia had been thinking about the halted major construction that King Augustus had started. It was a waste to leave it, not to mention its prime location. However, Aurelia had no intention of making it into a space for the imperial family, nor some monument to them. She had the morning court debate what should be done about it. So far, the court hadn’t come to any consensus yet.
In a blink of an eye, it was the anniversary of that fateful duel between King Augustus and Prince Rian and Earl Rosewood.
There was no special event planned. It would be too vulgar to celebrate the day King Augustus lost against the Sedaverians and temporarily lost his magic.
But it was still an important date, and an important day to look back on what had happened since then.
Aurelia went about her day as usual. Today, the nobles were more subdued, as though the anniversary reminded them that they weren’t invincible. This made Aurelia’s day a little smoother.
In the evening, Lady Iris Helios came to her door with a tray.
Aurelia welcomed her in, and accepted the hot beverage.
Iris didn’t come to her quarters every night—sometimes, they were both too busy. But when she did, Aurelia had a chance to decompress. It was her chance to be less formal and stiff.
“Work felt easier today, didn’t it,” Iris said.
Aurelia nodded. “It was.”
“Perhaps we need to bring Prince Rian in and have a different noble lose their magic each day,” Iris said.
Aurelia’s lips quirked up. “That would be bullying them.”
Iris snorted. “Some nobles need to be bullied into place.”
“Did a gentleman annoy you again?”
“They annoy me just by existing,” Iris said.
Aurelia chuckled, feeling relaxed. Somehow, after she and Iris became busier, the two of them had become closer.
The two chatted about the recent weather and some internal politics; they touched on what Marcia and Ariadne were doing, which turned the conversation to how Pollux was faring in Sedaveria.
“Speaking of Sedaveria…I recently acquired something that Earl Rosewood had been distributing,” Iris said.
She took out five small booklets.
Alexius: You suck, Rian!
Rian: Muahahaha!!
Ren Xiyang and Queen Mira: (-_-)
Ren Xiyang and Queen Mira: *instant bonding*
Thanks to Rejn for reminding me that Rian needed some weather observation stations!
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