Chapter 75: Alina’s Story
King Noor IV sat in shocked silence in Eric’s bedroom.
The weight of his son’s words – "I don’t remember" – felt like it was crushing him. The Queen dabbed her eyes with a fancy handkerchief, clearly very upset.
The recent visit from the Imperial Captain, plus Eric’s weird memory loss about what he did in the Roland Kingdom, created a scary mix of confusion and dread.
Suddenly, King Noor IV had a sharp, clear thought that cut through his worry. He replayed the Imperial warrior’s words in his mind, focusing on exactly what he accused Eric of and the threat he made.
The warrior hadn’t just said Eric trespassed or caused a general problem; he specifically said Eric had "broken a rule made by the Emperor." The King’s mind, which was good at understanding politics between kingdoms and the Emperor’s laws, latched onto this.
He knew, with a scary certainty, that the Emperor, Sir David, had only one such super important, unbreakable rule that all the kingdoms under him and their royal families had to follow: no kingdom was allowed to start an attack on another kingdom when the
Emperor was in charge, and most importantly, no member of one royal family was allowed to attack a member of another royal family outside of the official, controlled fights at the United Academy.
It didn’t matter if the attack was direct or indirect. Breaking this rule was seen as a personal insult to the Emperor, a challenge to his power as the main peacekeeper on the continent.
If the King thought carefully about the Imperial warrior’s exact words – "he attacked the Prince of the Roland Kingdom" – it all started to point to one horrible, unavoidable conclusion.