Witch's Daughter And The Devil's Son

At the very front was a tall young man wearing black clothes with delicate embroidery of gold and red threads that symbolized the sun, which was a signature of the royalty of Megaris. His face with well-carved sharp features looked cold; his red eyes equally held a cold gaze, not sparing a glance to anyone but the middle-aged royal sitting on the throne.

Half of his elbow-length jet black hair was secured at the back of his head with a gold accessory. His one hand rested at the sword hung to the left side of his waist as he walked towards the throne to greet the King of Abetha. Though his steps appeared calm and steady, one could see the dark and intimidating aura he carried, making everyone wary of him.

Just half a step behind him, another young man with impeccable elegance could be seen. He had an insignia of the Kingdom of Griven embroidered on his light-colored clothes, while his long ash brown hair was allowed to freely fall beyond his shoulders. Unlike the man in black clothes, his expression was gentle and amicable as his sea-blue eyes studied the expressions of the people within the throne room.

The King of Megaris, and the Crown Prince of Griven. These two young royals from other kingdoms had played an important part in rescuing the Crown Prince of Abetha, and by now, everyone had heard and understood what they were capable of.

The guests stopped at a certain distance away from the throne. Drayce greeted King Armen with a slight nod while Arlan bowed.

"We greet Your Majesty the King of Abetha!"

King Armen accepted their greetings. "The Royal Court of Abetha welcomes King Drayce and Crown Prince Arlan."

"We look forward to seeing how the Royal Court of Abetha works, and that I may take this opportunity to learn from the wise officials of our allied kingdom," Arlan said with perfect courtesy.

"I believe it won't disappoint Prince Arlan and King Drayce," said King Armen.

Drayce nodded lightly and turned to look at Prince Cian, who stood in front of a group of ten men who were kneeling on the floor in the center of the throne room.

The two royals greeted each other with a slight nod. Drayce looked at those ten men as he stepped towards them and stood beside Cian. Arlan chose to be a bystander—more like, he was ready to get some entertainment with morons trying to fool his smart friends.

"My sensitive ears just caught someone honoring the Royal Court of Abetha by mentioning the name of the King of Megaris."

Drayce's voice was cold and dominating as he glared at those injured so-called fake victims.

When Drayce entered the throne room and greeted King Armen, these men recognized him immediately and lowered their heads to hide their faces. They were all as pale as a corpse; they were not aware that the red-eyed man they had mentioned in their defense statement would turn out to be the King of Megaris Kingdom.  Minister Warin had not informed them of this crucial fact; otherwise, they would not have the courage to openly accuse a king.

Even if he belonged to another kingdom, he was still a king!

Standing in front of them, Drayce was even more intimidating and scary than the one in their memories. They shivered as they remembered him from the day when he beheaded their friend without hesitating for even a moment as if it was nothing for him. Now, getting to know his real identity and remembering the rumors of his cruelty, to the point he was infamous for being the son of the devil throughout the entire continent, they feared they had dug their graves!

Minister Warin bowed towards Drayce and spoke, "Glad to have you here, Your Majesty! Please accept the greetings from this official. I am Odo Warin, the Head of the Department of Human Welfare of Abetha."

Drayce didn't react except for looking at the minister calmly.

Minister Warin continued, "There is an incident that concerns Your Majesty's presence, and we all wish to know the truth at the bottom of this incident."

The minister waited for Drayce to ask what kind of the truth he meant, but Drayce simply looked at him with a cold face, unaffected by his words.

"Well, let me explain the entire incident," said the minister, feeling not so confident under that intimidating gaze from that pair of red eyes.

"A few days back, the Third Princess Seren and Your Majesty were reported to have brought harm to innocent people in the marketplace of the capital." He gestured towards those kneeling injured men. "These here are the victims of that incident, and they are seeking justice for the injuries they received, as well as for the death of one of the men involved."

"Victims?" Drayce let out a deep sigh, and he took a step closer towards those men. "We love playing victims, don't we?"

Subconsciously, those men shrank back. Drayce smirked and looked at Minister Warin. "Care to explain how these people turned into victims instead of assailants?"

It startled the minister. Instead of asking what incident and feigning ignorance, Drayce had directly accused those victims of being assailants.

Minister Warin explained, "According to their statements, they had come across a veiled maiden wandering in the alleys of the marketplace and tried to help her get back to the central plaza, but she got angry and put them all on fire with her powers. Afterwards, one red-eyed man dragged her with him. Not knowing the true identity of the maiden, they thought she was a witch and tried to catch her, but then the same red-eyed man stopped them and even beheaded one of the pursuers. However, the maiden in question is the Third Princess, Princess Seren."

Minister Warin waited for Drayce to react, but he was still the same as if Minister Warin's explanation meant nothing to him.

"And we all know, only King Drayce is the only known man blessed to have red eyes in the entire continent. As you must knew it was the Third Princess, we understand that by then, Your Majesty must be trying to protect her after the commotion she had created by hurting the innocent people—"

"Innocent people?" That was the only word that Drayce reacted to, as he had disregarded what Minister Warin had said till now.

It was frustrating for the minister to see how this young king acted like his accusing words fell on deaf ears and held no value. He couldn't stop himself and asked that he should not. "Is there something going on between King Drayce and Princess Seren?"

Drayce again ignored the minister and stepped towards those men. "You get one last chance to tell the truth." He then pulled his sword out of its scabbard.

Still, there was no reply from those men. They would have never expected this king to act recklessly in front of the members of the Royal Court in another kingdom.

Thud!

"Ahh!"

His sword pierced through the palm of one man whose hands were resting on the ground to keep his kneeling form steady.

The man whined in pain. He was the very man who caught Seren first and had dirty intentions towards her.

"You just reminded me that this pair of filthy hands had touched the Third Princess," Drayce commented coldly.  He wished to chop those hands, but it was not the right time to do so. To prove Seren's innocence, hearing the truth from these men was necessary. For that, keeping them alive was important, or else he would have killed them the moment he saw them.

"Is this enough, or should I refresh all of your memories by beheading someone among you again?" Drayce asked.

Darus Count signaled Minister Warin to take control before the King of Megaris ruined their plan.

"King Drayce! Though Abetha is grateful for your help in rescuing our Crown Prince, it doesn't give you authority to harm the innocent people of this kingdom and that too in the presence of our King and the Royal Court. It's a disrespect to the sovereignty of our kingdom and its people!" He then looked at King Armen. "Your Majesty King Armen, this minister requests to have the King of Megaris step back to watch the proceedings."

King Armen nodded lightly to his minister's plea and spoke, "King Drayce, you may continue. I believe your actions will lead us to uncover the entire truth of the incident."

This shocked Minister Warin and his allies. The King of Abetha himself approved the outsider to commit violence within his own throne room, under the eyes of the Royal Court.

Drayce pulled the sword out of that man's palm and commented, replying to King Armen, "Seems like the truth will be buried with a few more deaths here."

Just as Drayce raised his sword again, those men felt scared to their bones and looked at Drayce, who was glaring at them. They could see the madness in those eyes. He looked like a devil who would not even blink as he killed them with his sword.

"Y-Your Majesty, spare our lives!" said the man with a hole in his palm, and everyone followed him.

"Please forgive us!"

"Do not kill us, I beg Your Majesty!"

"Truth!" Drayce said in his commanding voice, which was enough to make them open their mouths.

The man with an injured hand, the first one to spot Seren in the alley, spoke up, "I-I saw a woman wandering in the brothel area and thought to have some fun with her…I never thought…I never thought…well, she looked like a lost noblewoman so…" The man swallowed his words as he trembled, realizing what he said would lead him to a more brutal death, and started pleading before King Armen. "Your Majesty, please forgive us! We were at fault!"

Cian stepped forward, intending to kill them, but just then, he heard his father say, "We all wish to know what happened that day, so continue."

The man shook his head as he started crying, "Forgive us, Your Majesty!"

"Let me enlighten everyone about what happened that day," Drayce spoke, and the people within the throne room had mixed reactions to his words.

"An ignorant princess was out wandering in an unfamiliar place. She had lost her way, only to stumble upon filthy creatures who had nothing but bad intentions towards her. When she rejected their advances, they tried to molest her in front of everyone, which made her angry. Anyone would have been angry—no, she seemed scared even. She had no other option but to use her powers to protect herself." Drayce stopped and then looked at the man. "Am I right?"

The man and his subordinates nodded, still keeping their heads lowered for fear of meeting his gaze.

Cian came forward. "When you tried to capture her, you knew who she was. You already know she is your princess, that she is the royal princess of this kingdom, yet you dared?!"

They cried, some kowtowing, while the others even tried to crawl towards the prince, only to be kept in check by the knights. "Forgive us, Your Highness! Please forgive us! We were just scared of the witch and wanted to get rid of her for this kingdom's sake."

Cian was not just angry but also frustrated with how they were calling his sister a witch again and again. Not just these people, but the entire kingdom thought of her the same, and there was no way to change their thinking. Even if he killed these men here, it wouldn't change anything for Seren.

Just then, Minister Warin spoke again, "Your Majesty King Armen, though these people are at fault, we can't ignore the fact that a guest from another kingdom took justice in his own hands and had hurt our people without a trial. It's not acceptable!" Minister Warin knew he had lost, but he couldn't let go of this brazen young king so easily.

"King Drayce was trying to protect the Third Princess," Cian countered the minister.

"Being an outsider, he should have waited for the city guards instead of mercilessly killing our people. He has no relationship with our kingdom other than just being a guest. Any person deserves a fair trial before he is considered a criminal, for it is only tyranny and abuse of power without these laws protecting the rights of the common people against the privileges of nobles and royals. Just because the involved party is a royal, is this how we are protecting the human rights of our people?"

"Human rights?" Drayce repeated. "Seems like these rights are limited only to filthy men but not to the women of this kingdom."

"We protect everyone's rights here, but we don't allow outsiders to hurt our people!" Minister Warin replied.

"Outsider!" Drayce repeated and glared at the minister. "If I am not an outsider, am I allowed to punish them?"

"Yes," the minister agreed and nodded. "Prince Cian can punish them but not King Drayce."

The next moment Drayce's sword, which didn't return to his scabbard yet, beheaded the man whose hand he had already hurt.

Uproar could be seen within the entire throne room as everyone looked at Drayce in disbelief, and the royal knights guarding the session of the Royal Court even unsheathed their own swords as well as a precaution. Among everyone, Minister Warin was the most shocked.

Arlan simply smiled while Cian raised his hand to gesture for the knights to calm down and return to their original posts. King Armen didn't even react at all.

The next moment, the people witnessed something more shocking than Drayce beheading that man.

"The one who dares even to lay an eye on the Queen of Megaris, deserves to die."