I Became The Extra King With Seven Wives

In the Capital of Helios, the morning following Lumiel’s sudden departure for his honeymoon with Eleanor, the royal castle was thrown into quite an uproar. It was a hushed sort of panic, to be sure, but a commotion nonetheless.

Naturally, Lumiel had made certain to spread the news of his impending romantic getaway with Eleanor. He had broadcast his intentions so thoroughly throughout the castle that one had to wonder if the entire capital city wasn’t already acutely aware of it.

Regardless, both the court nobles and Lumiel’s remaining wives had been fully briefed on the impending trip. What they had not expected, however, was for their King to slip away into the evening shadows with Eleanor like a thief in the night, clearly executing some hidden agenda. It was entirely unorthodox, and it caught the entire court completely off guard.

The nobility, predictably, did not take the news well at all. First and foremost, they were scandalized that Lumiel would embark on a frivolous honeymoon during such a precarious moment for the Kingdom, a time when Helios was in grave danger, threatened on all sides by rival nations. But worse was the reality that he had departed in such a secrecy, taking only the barest minimum of security to guard the royal person.

The previous Lumiel, though weak-minded and wholly unfit to wear the crown, had at least been reliable in his cowardice. He was predictable. But now, forced to go through the treacherous waters around this new, post-awakening Lumiel, the courtiers found him terrifyingly difficult to understand. He had become truly unpredictable.

Yet, even with the King physically absent from the castle, the nobles strictly refrained from raising their voices. Gone were the days when they would purposely speak their insults aloud, knowing full well that the old Lumiel, despite hearing every biting word, would scarcely dare to offer a single retort.

Things were drastically different now. After what they had personally witnessed during the duel between him and Morgana, watching him mercilessly beat the living hell out of his own childhood friend and intentionally broke her hand, they had all quickly swallowed their collective pride. In that moment, they had intimately understood that this King was no longer someone to be trifled with.

Whatever scathing remarks or treasonous thoughts they harbored regarding Lumiel, they now exchanged them in the utmost silence, hiding behind closed doors and carefully woven whispers. They all feared what he might do to them, considering how ruthlessly he had struck down Morgana, a woman who had once been his betrothed.

If he was willing to do that to a celebrated knight of her standing, who were they by comparison? It was a deeply chilling realization.

Before, he had been too fragile to rule. Now, he had seemingly swung to the opposite extreme. They were terrified to even address him, dreading that a simple misplaced word might earn them a snarky reprimand. Lord Arges, the legendary Commander, had seemingly done nothing wrong, yet he had been stripped of his prestigious status without a second thought.

The court did not yet know what the future of his reign would truly look like, but in their eyes, he seemed to be well on the path to becoming one of the most ruthless and petty Kings in the long history of Helios.

While the nobility wallowed in their confusion and silent, paranoid grumbling, Lumiel’s wives, at least, those who remained in the Capital were left entirely unsure of what to make of his sudden disappearance.

"Exactly when did he depart?"

Asthenia sat in her lavish private quarters, one long leg crossed gracefully over the other, her sharp gaze fixed intently upon her personal maid.

"Late last evening, Milady," the maid replied calmly, keeping her head respectfully bowed. "His Majesty did not seem to have summoned any of the other ladies, either. None of them were present for his departure, from what I understand." She added that last detail quickly, subtly attempting to reassure Asthenia that she was not the only one Lumiel had left behind without a word.

Putting aside Eleanor, who was obviously accompanying him, he had secretly only expected Cynthia to see him off, though she had failed to appear. As for Diana, Asthenia, Ravenna, and Dorothy, the wives currently residing within the castle none of them had received a single summons.

For Asthenia, being excluded was not entirely shocking, though she did find it somewhat curious. After all, he had made a very specific point of summoning her to witness his duel against Morgana.

Asthenia was far from stupid. She knew perfectly well that he had ordered his wives to attend that spectacle to send a message. He was quite literally demonstrating exactly what kind of man he had become, and, by extension, laying out the harsh new expectations he held for all the women bound to him.

Without a doubt, that violent display had been the first time Lumiel had genuinely captured her attention in the truest sense of the word. It wasn’t merely the act of him beating Morgana, Asthenia was not nearly so simple or shallow as to be impressed by raw violence alone. Rather, it was her ability to see far beyond the physical brutality of his actions.

Putting aside the shockingly crude, unrefined manner in which he had dismantled Morgan, Asthenia recognized the cold intellect driving the violence. He was reshaping the board, seizing control of his narrative, and for the very first time, she found herself deeply intrigued by him.

So, if this newly Lumiel had purposefully chosen not to call any of them, opting instead to slip away into the night on his own terms... what was the true purpose behind it?

There simply had to be a hidden reason.

The most logical conclusion Asthenia could draw was that he had engineered his departure to be as silent and stealthy as humanly possible. If that were the case, he was clearly anticipating some form of danger tracking him, expecting assassins or spies to follow in his wake. It proved he possessed a minimum of awareness of the threats surrounding him; he was no longer a naive fool simply wandering off on a frivolous honeymoon.

At the very least, if Asthenia was willing to give him genuine credit and assume he was finally taking his role as King and the survival of the Kingdom seriously, then his journey with Eleanor was a carefully constructed front. He was heading somewhere with a very specific, hidden purpose.

Satisfied with her reasoning for the moment, Asthenia stood up, deciding to step out and take some fresh air.

As she strolled down the grand, vaulted corridors of the castle, she spotted a figure approaching from the opposite direction. Asthenia didn’t even bother trying to conceal her immediate displeasure.

It was Diana, accompanied by her younger sister, Lavenda.

"Lady Asthenia," Diana offered, her greeting polite but visibly awkward.

Asthenia gave what could technically be classified as a nod. However, the motion was so incredibly brief and imperceptible that offering it felt more like an insult than an actual acknowledgment.

Standing just behind Diana, Lavenda shot a sharp, defensive glare at the southern noblewoman. Asthenia, however, could not have cared less about the girl’s quiet anger. In fact, a bystander would rightly wonder if Asthenia had even truly registered Lavenda’s presence at all.

To begin with, Asthenia found Diana’s continued presence in the capital to be utterly useless. Diana held the prestigious title of the Main Queen of Helios, yet she was doing absolutely nothing remotely productive to aid the Kingdom. From Asthenia’s perspective, Diana did nothing but parade around the castle grounds, aimlessly showing off whatever world-toppling beauty she supposedly possessed.

It was not merely the fact that Diana held the title of Main Queen over her that caused Asthenia such immense frustration. It was the reality that she had yet to see Diana do a single thing worthy of a Queen.

To Asthenia, it was proof that Diana did not care about Helios at all. Her mind was entirely consumed with thoughts of her homeland, Gardenia. For someone as patriotic as Asthenia, such blatant disregard for the Kingdom hit a raw nerve.

Unfortunately, her hands were tied. As the Second Queen, her authority was strictly limited. She resolved to do only the bare minimum which was effectively nothing unless Lumiel himself explicitly commanded her otherwise.

Acting independently without orders would not reflect well upon her, and she knew the new Lumiel might easily twist her initiative against her to assert his dominance. It was safer to remain perfectly poised and passive.

Once again, she reminded herself: she was not the Main Queen, after all. Let the Main Queen shoulder the blame.

As Asthenia swept past them without another word, Diana let out a heavy, weary sigh.

She did not need to be a political genius to understand that Asthenia despised her. And Diana highly doubted her rank as Main Queen was the only reason for that hatred.

In truth, even if Diana had been demoted to the Second Queen, or even the Seventh, she was entirely certain Asthenia would still loathe her very existence. The simple, inescapable reality was that the mere presence of Diana and her sister in the Capital had plunged Helios into an even more dire state, triggering Gardenia’s crippling trade embargo and enmity.

Gardenia had once been the only steadfast ally Helios had left on the continent. By granting Diana sanctuary, Helios had effectively lost that crucial alliance. Of course, the new rulers of Gardenia were already enemies of Helios regardless, but losing official diplomatic ties was a blow the Kingdom did not need right now.

"She is just jealous, forget it, big sister," Lavenda said with a scoff.

"Don’t say that out loud like this, Lavy," Diana said at once, a note of panic slipping into her voice as she glanced around.

"What are you so scared of?" Lavenda asked, frowning before a mischievous grin spread across her face. "Your very handsome King will obviously take your side over Asthenia’s, I am sure of it. Just give him a small kiss and use that beauty of yours like I told you, big sister. That alone should be more than enough."

"S-Stop saying things like that!" Diana blurted out, her cheeks flushing deeply in embarrassment.

Lavenda only looked even more amused by the reaction, but Diana quickly lowered her gaze and let out a quiet sigh.

"You saw what happened with Morgana, and yet you are asking me to try something so shamelessly manipulative..." She said.

Lavenda blinked, then stared at her in disbelief.

"You think he would beat you?" She asked, dumbfounded.

"No... no, of course not," Diana replied quickly.

Yet even to her own ears, she did not sound entirely certain.

Lavenda’s expression shifted slightly at that.

"You do not sound very convinced," she muttered. Then she crossed her arms and clicked her tongue. "Anyway... I have to admit, he frightens me a little too after what he did to Morgana. So just... be careful, sister."

Until now, Lavenda had not thought too deeply about it. She had simply assumed Lumiel would never truly turn against them. But after witnessing the way he had treated Morgana, after seeing how merciless and cold he could be when someone no longer met his expectations, she could no longer dismiss the thought so easily.

For the first time, she feared that if Diana and she proved themselves useless to him, he might cast them aside just as mercilessly as he had warned Morgana.

And Diana understood that fear perfectly well.

She had not truly felt the full weight of her new position before. Not completely. But now, for perhaps the first time since arriving in Helios, she could feel it clearly pressing down upon her shoulders.

She was the Main Queen of Helios.

It was not merely a title to be worn like a jewel. It was a burden, a duty, and perhaps even a chain.

Before, the position had felt distant, almost unreal, as though she had been pushed into a story that did not belong to her. But now, with Lumiel changed so drastically, with the court trembling around him, and with enemies surrounding Helios from every direction, that title had begun to feel painfully real.

And the most frightening part of it all was that she still did not know what Lumiel truly expected from her.