"Your Highness!!!"
The disgruntled young lad open the door.
"Oh my! You found me already?"
In spite of his haggard breathing, Leo, the personal secretary and knight of Benjamin, stepped forward and grab the older man's collar.
"I want to hit you so bad."
Benjamin laugh and tap the young man's shoulder.
"That is not something you should say to an Emperor."
Benjamin stepped back and started walking back to his office.
"Please go back to your desk."
"I am, I am," Benjamin snickered.
If he is someone else, Leo's head had been long gone from his own shoulders but Benjamin treasure this rare knight of his. In the Empire, only a handful of people scold Benjamin like this, the king of Spade, the Duke of Leo, this knight of his who is the heir of the Duke of Leo and who happens to have the name of Leo too and Kaleid, the outstanding butler of the King of Spade.
"You should just be my black knight."
"I humbly decline."
"That's a quick answer. Can you at least think about it?"
"I decline, your highness."
"I've been dumped!" Benjamin start showing off his sulky face.
"Sire, that is an unbecoming face for an Emperor."
Benjamin stepped back and grabbed Leo's arm. Leo is a bit taller than Benjamin and when he rub the side of his face on Leo, Benjamin's face perfectly landed on Leo's shoulder.
"I am lonely, boo hoo."
Leo felt a sudden urge to slug the Emperor's throat but he held himself. When Leo looked at the other knights in the hallway, they all look away.
Leo sighed and whispered so only the man leaning on his shoulder could hear it.
"Until when are you going to play like this?"
"Until they all think I am not interested and give up sending women to my chamber."
"The reason they do not stop, is because you do play with those women."
"Right! It is so hard to resist temptations."
"What is the point of pushing the heart seal bearer away?"
"Hey! Are you that jealous and you wish me to commit pedophilia?!"
"Well, it is tradition." Leo responded in a nonchalant manner, then soon after, he felt a really cold presence coming from the Emperor.
"That is the root of all." The Emperor's voice can be heard through the walls with his rage. "Tradition this, tradition that and tradition their ass!!"
Leo looked at the Emperor's face with dismay. 'And this is why the Empire's moral is going down.'
Benjamin caught Leo's gaze. "I know you are thinking something really rude. If it is morality, then those traditions is beyond morality. My predecessor, how many heart seal bearers he had in his life time, it is plain sickening."
"And that is why, you were born." Leo whispered a snide remark.
Benjamin just returned it with a sharp gaze and continued on.
Benjamin remember the story nights the former Emperor and Dia had. Dia had an unusual interest with the founding of the empire. He loves the story of the four angels who came down to the lands and bear the seals to protect the humanity. For the first time, Benjamin heard about the true nature of their ancestors, and in spite of them being a legendary characters, there is no way to refute their existence.
Upon hearing the story on and on between the two, Benjamin have an inkling about the fifth seal that he only heard from the lips of the former Emperor. Benjamin asked him how did the old man knows about such seal and who else knows about it when it is not written in books. The old man responded with a reminiscing look on his face. He said, it something vocally passed from his mother and who originally heard it from her own mother.
The woman who seemed to be Benjamin's grandmother must be the Empress at that time and a woman who is a descendant of Heart Country. What intrigued Benjamin is, the woman urge the young Emperor back then to keep it a secret, which that secret is now being passed on to Dia and him who just happened to hear bits and pieces of the legend.
Such story that only the Heart Country knows. Benjamin wondered if the future dark events that will fall upon the Empire have a connection with the legend. If it is a simple coup d'état, then why Clover Country will fall also? It will make more sense if it is only the Spade Country, which been having civil wars for generations.
Though, Benjamin and Joseph, the king Spade, had done a lot of counter measures the past decade, the two gentleman cannot stop until the prophecy do take place.
Benjamin enter his office and sat down to his usual seat behind his desk. Upon seeing Benjamin sitting behind his work documents, Leo let out a sighed of relief and excused himself.
Ever since Benjamin's predecessor passed away, there is nothing for Benjamin to relieve his emotions. It only got harder for himself when he decided to hide the fact that Dia ever exist.
Benjamin remove the glove from one of his hand. The fake Diamond seal that is for now holding everything together. Benjamin does not know, for how long he can play this farce. He did not know that he was willing to go this far, just to protect his own child from an unknown demise.
"Oh, Kaleise, you do not know, what kind of karma you left me."
Kaleise, the one woman he knows that is Dia's mother.
Kaleise is a woman Benjamin met through his travels when he escape the academy. During Benjamin's stay in the Academy, his initial plan was to stay until he graduated, however, when the seal manifested on his hand, Benjamin knows that he needs to ran away.
Benjamin was an adopted son of the Duke of Libra. The duke treated him like a fine treasure but never like as a son. At the very young age, Benjamin learned how to trick and manipulate people in order to survive. Benjamin needs to learn how to read the mind of the adults around him, however, the sudden decision of the duke to adopt him remain a mystery until his entry to the academy.
Benjamin took notice of the imperial knight that sporadically delivered messages to the duke. Upon looking and analyzing the duke's behavior, Benjamin knew that the message is an imperial order. An order from the Emperor that his subject could never defy.
Benjamin knew right away that the imperial order is for him because the duke saw him right after and sent Benjamin right away to the academy.
Benjamin had a guess that he might be related to the Emperor but it only became a fact when the seal manifested on his hand. Right there Benjamin remember the anguish voice of his mother, that led him escaping from the academy.
Benjamin always ask himself, why the duke adopted him? What is special about him? There is only one answer, that is because he carries an imperial blood. The blood of the previous Diamond and Heart seal holder.
Through his journey, Benjamin tried to uncover the mysteries and secret of the imperial family but he found later that leaving the academy was a wrong move. Because of his questionable roots, the information was quite illusive. Until he met Kaliese.
Kaliese is a girl who ran away from her home because her family decided to sell her to a duke family in Heart Country. Her family is a fallen duke family in Spade country.
The fallen duke was found guilty of participating with extremists who are pushing another civil war and were punished by the King of Spade. However even with all of his lands and riches combined, it did not come close to the fine the king seeks out of the fallen duke. The insane duke decided to sell his whole family.
It was a heinous act.
Though, at that time the duke's duchess is the caretaker of the two princes of the Spade palace, moreover, the two princes grew up with the fallen duke's son like he is their own brother.
The duchess cried and beg to the current queen of Spade at that time and due to their long and strong friendship, the queen decided to buy the mother and son from the fallen duke.
Sadly the duchess could not find the shame and ask the queen to buy her only daughter too.
That daughter is Kaliese.
The duke felt betrayed because he thought that his duchess did an underhanded scheme and he thought that duchess is the one who sold him off to the King of Spade, so that she can save herself from the shame and dishonor that he had committed.
Beyond from his own demise, the duke thought of selling his only daughter as a prostitute but also thought of teaching her himself so that he could earn more money out of her.
He attempted to rape her.
Benjamin remembered the short and random words being thrown when Kaliese open up about her most heinous scars of her past.
She said, she fought back and scratch the father she use to look up with respect. She kicked and tried to punch him, but he was so strong. He is so strong that her clothes ripped open when he grabbed it. When she felt the cold air on her skin, she became paralyzed. For a moment, she did not know what happened and she felt her body giving up.
However, seconds passed then a minute.
She thought, probably her father came to his senses and decided to stop his heinous act. She gathered all of her courage to open her eyes and look into his face.
She saw the most evil smile from the man she respected the most.
"The heart seal," he said.
From those words, Kaliese said that she felt a whole new strength came to her and kick her father on his most sensitive area. She grabbed her tattered clothes and just ran.
The duke's mansion and villa had been empty ever since the duke's treacherous commitment and participation came to light. Kaleise said she just kept running and running until she passed out.
Benjamin remembered the bitter smile on her thin lips. She said she woked up in the forest. The forest were quiet and eerie. However, she wonders why the duke never came after her. A girl like her could never go so far on her own. She look down on herself and saw the moon light shining down on her bossom.
She said she was shocked and just dropped herself onto the ground and started laughing like a lunatic.
Kaleise looked into Benjamin's eyes and said, " you know that feeling right? You just felt it recently."
Benjamin looked at the gloved hand. "That feeling of, ah, that is why."
They both wear a bitter smile.
"I thought, oh, probably if I stayed, my father would not touch me right there and treated me like a treasure because of this heart seal."
Benjamin remembered the bitter and pained smile on Kaleise face. It was heart wrenching and unconsciously Benjamin embraced that thin shaking body.
"However, in the darkness of the forest where the unknown is supposed to be scary, the last smile I saw from that man was far more scarier."
Benjamin remembered gently rubbing her back and just said.
"You did a good job, running away from him."
Kaleise chuckled from Benjamin's comment.
"Yes, and probably I will have not met all these nice people who helped me, in spite of my pampered upbringing. Probably, I will never learn a much better to live freely if I did not ran away that night. Probably I would have been your step mother too."
Kaleise did not see the twisted face Benjamin. At that time Benjamin's inside felt like it was boiling from rage. Their lives were manipulated just because of power and it is sickening that they have to ran like this.
Benjamin remembered the gentle touch of Kaleise skin when she returned his embrace and he will never forget the words she whispered.
"I am glad that in spite of all that happened, we met like this. Not part of any faction, nor of novelty and politics." She gently pushed Benjamin to see his face. "We can see and know each other, bare and bold like this. It is a blessing, don't you think?"
Kaleise smiling face that resembled the Innocence on Dia's face.
Kaleise and Benjamin back then who have nothing, were happy at where their life is going.
Even though they have no attachment toward the Empire of the four seals, they chose to live at it's lawless border. Not far from it nor inside of it's grounds.
The two of them never bothered to question each other why they did not chose to ran farther away from the continent. Because they both have the seals on their bodies, and they both instinctively knows the answer.
According to the legend, the seals were created to protect this whole continent. As bearers, their instincts will never let them to be so far away from the place the seals need to protect.
Even so, the two individuals believe they just can live like this forever. Living with tribes to tribes, packs of animals to another and with themselves, forever until the seals decide that they are no longer deemed qualified and leave their body.
However not everything falls into place just because that is what you desire the most.
Benjamin try to search in his memories.
"We never said the word of love to each other, huh?"
Benjamin chuckled to himself behind the tall amount of documents that he need to work on. He started shaking his head side to side and cannot help it but start laughing to himself.
"The most important with relationships is having a firm foundation of communication. I know that now because that is the main reason, mine failed"
Benjamin found it funny that he talk an unnerving amount to people but talk less and less to people he wants to treasure the most.
He tried to count how many times he had a one on one conversation with the Emperor, his son, Dia and with Kaleise.
Kaleise loves talking too. She even talk to animals even though she knows there is a language barrier.
"Oh? Why you keep sniffing on my stomach? You funny wolf! We ate the same thing earlier! I did not eat any snack in secret yet today."
Benjamin remembered the conversation Kaleise had with a wolf. It was the time, a pack of wolf welcome the two of them into their pack in the middle of their travel.
The two of them found it weird that the animals around them start showing less of alertness and aloofness towards them. Some animals like birds and wolves start approaching them with no hostility. It was a fascinating sight, especially when Benjamin started venturing into the endless forests lands in the border of the continent, the animals used to fear and avoid him, due to the power of the diamond seal.
After meeting Dia and knowing the boy's disposition, that is when Benjamin realized that it is probably the time Kaleise conceived Dia.
The forest felt the presence of the future Emperor and as the two of them were much closer to nature than humans during their adventures, the nature accepted the future diamond seal bearer as their ruler.
"When did everything goes wrong?"
Author's notes:
What ya know, an extra update for this week. I manage to finished a chapter today and wants to post this chapter. Here is a glimpse of Benjamin's life.