Chapter 778: An Unseen Siege (2)
The royal court, once difficult but at least functional, began to fracture. Ministers who had worked together for years started questioning one another’s loyalty. Military commanders argued over jurisdiction. Financial officers accused regional governors of concealing resources. Noble representatives whispered that the palace had grown blind.
Reports were delayed, then altered, then denied. Private meetings multiplied. Court sessions became sharper, uglier, more performative. People no longer spoke to persuade. They spoke to position themselves.
Eventually, the distrust shifted toward the throne itself.
At first, no one said it directly in Tharionson’s presence. They were cowards in that way, brave enough to poison rooms but not brave enough to stand in front of a Magna and speak plainly.
The rumors moved through side chambers, garden corridors, estate dinners, and the private balconies where nobles pretended the wind could not carry words. King Tharion Magna had lost his edge, they said. The king who once understood the necessity of strength had begun to soften. The king who had upheld Solara’s ancient laws against dark mages had failed to act decisively when a dark mage revealed himself during the Gaia War on Solarian land.
Not in some distant kingdom. Not across foreign borders. On their land. Under circumstances that should have demanded a royal response.
The accusation spread because it was useful, not because it was simple. There were those who had always believed King Tharion too harsh, and those who now claimed he was not harsh enough. There were those who hated dark mages with old fervor, those who feared Tempest’s influence, those who despised Crescent’s involvement, and those who merely saw weakness as a door to ambition. They did not need to agree on the truth. They only needed to agree that distrust could be aimed upward.
Then the rumors became crueler.
Some began saying Solara should have looked for a new ruler years ago, when Princess Serah Magna had been found guilty of an intimate relationship with a dark mage.
They dragged her name through court whispers as though her death had not been enough for them. They called her foolish, corrupted, weak-hearted, treacherous, bewitched. Some said the stain of her choices had never truly left the royal bloodline.
Some implied that King Tharion’s current hesitation was not softness born from age, but shame born from family failure. Others went further and suggested that Queen Seralyne had indulged too much grief, that her old attachment to her daughter had left the royal household vulnerable to sentiment where severity was required.
That was the part that nearly broke Tharionson’s restraint.