Pampered by the Villainous Tyrant King

Chapter 20

A/N: I own nothing but plot. Enjoy!

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In less than an hour, the delegation from Mandor was kneeling at Percy's feet.

"How do you plan on explaining this situation?" Percy asked in a deathly calm voice.

The chill calmness in his tone was more frightening than had he been outwardly angry. The head of the delegation, the second prince of Mandor, regretted bringing his uncle to Eldoris. If the Grand Duke of Mandor hadn't begged and thrown a tantrum to the king of Mandor, there was no way Mandor would have sent the Grand Duke on such an important trip. Now because the Grand Duke had tried to humiliate the newly crowned Eldoris queen for Kiran's favor and failed, the Grand Duke had caused immense trouble. Eldoris would for sure exact a heavy price.

"It was an accident!" The Grand Duke exclaimed. "I didn't mean to hurt the queen!"

The second prince of Mandor clenched his teeth. Even his younger sister had been affected. Were it not for the Eldoris queen who had saved his sister, then he feared...

"Impertinent!" Percy scolded. "There were so many witnesses around who saw you ram your boat into my queen's. Are you saying that they were all blind or are lying?"

The Grand Duke opened and closed his mouth foolishly as the knights behind the king of Eldoris subtly touched their sheathed swords.

"And what do you have to say about this, Princess Alana?" Percy turned to the silent princess.

Princess Alana sat on the sidelines, sipping her tea and remaining silent. As Mandor was a subordinate country of Kiran, Kiran had been dragged in by the Mandor Grand Duke's foolish actions. But she, too, had fallen in the water.

"Your Majesty!" Sir Luke stepped up and protested. "Princess Alana is also a victim of the Grand Duke's foolish actions."

Percy raised an eyebrow. "That is precisely why I must ask Princess Alana her thoughts on this matter. Did you presume that I was blaming her for this matter?"

Percy had a feeling that Alana had purposefully instigated this accident behind the scenes, preying on the Grand Duke's humiliation to borrow his hands in an attempt to harm the Eldoris queen. But this was hard to prove and merely a theory. Still, Percy had requested Lady McLean's presence at his side to thwart any use of light magic against him. Princess Alana's gaze was slightly distracted as though she was unsure why something wasn't working out. By his side, Lady McLean subtly clenched her fingers.

Sir Luke hastily bowed. "I was being rash. Please forgive this one's errant judgement."

Percy said nothing to the knight. The closest witness who saw that the Grand Duke knocked into the Eldoris Queen also said that it was strange that Princess Alana's boats were flipped over. That witness was Princess Reyna from Barinia. She was the one closest to the scene as her boat was closer to Queen Annabeth's, yet Princess Alana's boat was the one that was flipped while Reyna's stayed afloat.

If Alana did not use her magic or bribed the Grand Duke to overthrow Queen Annabeth into the water, then she at least tried to benefit from the situation by pretending to fall into the water and seduce Prince Jason. Without this witness statement, perhaps this situation would have gone a completely different direction without Kiran being noticed.

Still, Percy's aim wasn't to make Mandor give up their treasures. What would he want from a poor country that had to depend on another to survive? Their own princess had almost drowned from their Grand Duke's actions. No, what he wanted was to pull in Kiran as much as possible.