Witch's Daughter And The Devil's Son

After entering the Grand Palace, Seren glimpsed around the hallway, appreciating its royal splendor with the decorations of their wedding removed. The Grand Palace could be considered the 'face' of the entire royal palace, as this was the place where the king met his subjects for the important affairs of the kingdom. Without the red fabrics and flower ornaments, this particular palace gave off a more imposing and solemn atmosphere. 

When the couple halted outside the large double doors of the throne hall, a herald announced the arrival of the King and Queen of Megaris as soon as the royal guards opened the doors. 

"All rise! His Majesty King Drayce and Her Majesty Queen Seren of the Royal House of Ivanov have arrived!" 

All the members of the royal court stood up from their seats the moment the announcement was made and lowered their heads towards the King and Queen. 

As they made their way towards the throne in front of the hall, many eyes were trained on Drayce and Seren, more particularly on the new queen. They were used to seeing Drayce's cold expression, and what they were curious about was the type of person Seren was. 

Drayce and Seren soon reached the base of the elevated platform on the other side of the hall. Jasper and Slayer followed them up until this point, as above the elevated platform was a place only for the King and Queen.

Seren blinked when she realized that above the platform, there was only a single throne, not two thrones arranged side by side. However, it was larger and longer than the throne Seren was used to seeing in the Royal Palace of Abetha or during their wedding ceremony yesterday. It was more like a golden couch engraved with a dragon and a phoenix in flight, and two adults could fit comfortably on it.

Seren had a guess in her heart. 'Is it meant for the King and Queen of Megaris to share together? That's…unique.'

It was common practice in many kingdoms in the continent to have two thrones when a king has a queen, and for some kingdoms where queens do not share the sovereignty of her husband, they were even allocated a smaller throne on the side, indicating that her attendance was merely ceremonial and she had no rights to make decisions. 

Megaris could be said to be unique, as their queens could possess and wield sovereign powers separate from her husband. There were even times in history where queens could overrule the decisions of their spouses with the support of the royal court. For Megaris, they generally disregard bias for gender, only supporting the party for the interests of the kingdom, and it was this kind of mentality that allowed Megaris to become the strongest kingdom in the continent. 

This unique tradition was symbolized by the spacious throne—the King and Queen of Megaris sitting together meant that they were equals ruling together, no one higher than the other. It meant that as long as one of them was present, his or her orders were absolute. At the same time, it also indicated that if she's otherwise occupied, the Queen was not required to attend the sessions of the royal court, and the King could sit on this strange double throne on his own. 

Drayce offered his hand to Seren as he stepped first on the elevated platform. "My Queen!"

Breaking out of her thoughts, Seren accepted his hand gladly as they climbed those few steps hand in hand. Drayce heard her say, "Thank you, Your Majesty!"

As soon as Drayce and Seren sat on the spacious throne and turned to look at their subjects, the ministers and high-ranking officials in attendance all paid them respect by bowing with their right fists clamped to their left chests. 

"Your loyal subjects greet His Majesty the Dragon and Her Majesty the Phoenix who protect Megaris!" 

Drayce responded to them with a light nod while Seren quietly observed them without any reaction. Ever since she arrived in the royal palace, Lady Tyra had educated her from time to time about the protocols of the royal court and how she should act as Queen. However, there were many things she needed to learn and several weeks of lessons were not enough to understand them all. Being quiet was the best way for her to go through most of the things that she was not used to. Everything was new to her and the best she could do was to calmly stay by Drayce's side as a queen and not let him down.

Seren looked at the grand sight of the royal court, at those faces both familiar and unfamiliar to her. Many of them were people she had spoken to for the first time yesterday during her wedding banquet, and she remembered feeling the ingrained pride and dignity each of them carries as the pillars of the Kingdom of Megaris. However, seeing their lot bow before her all at the same time gave her a profound feeling. While sitting on the throne, overlooking their lowered heads, she could feel the true power a monarch holds, a ruler whose every move could cause ripples and waves throughout the kingdom. 

Power and responsibility—they bore a heavy weight.

In order to calm her rising nerves, Seren took a small breath to steady herself and used that chance to look around. For the first time, she was seeing the throne hall used for its normal purpose, and that was to convene the officials composing the royal court in order to address the concerns of the kingdom.

Even without the wedding decorations, the entire throne hall was still the grandest architecture inside the Royal Palace of Megaris. The entire hall was made of expensive marble and furnished with furniture, sculptures, and ornaments of the highest quality purchased from all over the continent. Beautiful crystal chandeliers illuminated the hall, as the windows were covered by long velvet curtains. It gave off an intense scent of luxury; however, the inky black banner with a golden crest symbolizing the sun stitched on it seemed to embrace the people within the hall, making it seem like a mysterious existence was looking down on the people seated. Instead of amazement, it mostly made people feel oppressed.

Compared to the magical fairyland and festive vibe the throne hall gave off during the wedding ceremony, the current atmosphere was grave and imperious, reminding Seren of the solemnity she often felt from her father whenever he faced his subjects back in Abetha. The difference was that while King Armen was a dignified king, the ministers under him were not under his absolute control, and thus they gave off a more lax feeling. On the other hand, Drayce was known for being overbearing, and the ministers in his royal court rarely openly go against him. Therefore, the atmosphere within the royal court of Megaris was more of quiet awe and respect. 

Below the throne, only the two rows of grand chairs arranged facing each other were occupied. For the daily morning court sessions, only the high-ranking ministers, the most authoritative figures with important roles within the royal palace were present this time. Because of yesterday's event, all the dukes were in attendance as well, though their complete attendance was a rare occurrence since they mostly reside not within Blackhelm City but in their respective territories. 

There were only two young men who had no assigned seats. One was Slayer, the commander of the royal knights, and the other was Jasper, the king's aide. They stood at the base of the throne platform, one on each side. 

Jasper cleared his throat. "For this day's session, the first item on the agenda is to report your identities and your affiliation to Her Majesty Queen Seren, as well as a brief scope of your work." 

All the important officials came forward depending on their rank and introduced themselves to their queen with bright smiles and respectful words. Some of them did it to show their respect to  Queen Seren, and few did it considering the potential benefits they could get from the Queen if they managed to pull her on their side. Many of the old and experienced ministers simply went through the motion as a mere formality.  It could not be blamed that they didn't consider Seren important because for them she was no one but a naive princess imprisoned her whole life, someone who had no knowledge about politics, military strategy, or administration; she was simply a placeholder, a queen with no reputation or skill.

Whatever motivation they had in mind, based on the expressions on their faces, these nobles looked delighted to see the Queen who will rule their kingdom along with the KIng. 

After the introductions concluded, Seren let out a shaky sigh. These names, titles, and jobs— she had to familiarize herself with them and memorize them by heart. Though she didn't know anything now, she didn't want it to stay this way. As such, she would slowly work her way into understanding how the internal structure of the royal palace worked first, before slowly integrating knowledge about the nobles of the capital and then later the various officials working on the territories. 

From the second item on the agenda onwards, Seren no longer needed to interact with the officials and merely listened in her seat.  The usual royal court session resumed its pace, starting with listing the different concerns of the day that needed to be brought up to Drayce's attention, as well as the progress of the issues brought up in the past court sessions. Their topics ranged from the civil aspects of the kingdom up to the military ones, including the current public safety within each of the territories, the status of the industries supporting the economy of the kingdom, and the current military situation at the Megaris-Thevailes border.

Not only that, since winter had officially started, it was discussed that the upcoming months might be the coldest months that Megaris had experienced for the last hundred years. Thus, there was worry about the sufficiency of the food kept in storage of each territory, and if there would be a need to open the kingdom's national granary. 

Seren was listening to everything carefully, and though she was unfamiliar with the specifics, she could understand the general trend of what they were talking about. Though she was an imprisoned princess, she was neither illiterate nor ignorant, only inexperienced. For the first time, she felt that the King of Abetha did at least one thing good for her— sending her many books and forcing her to read them all through Martha. He didn't keep her illiterate, and although she lacked proper education, she still had a foundation and could relate to the points of discussion within the royal court. 

The royal court session lasted an entire morning. It had been an eye-opening experience for Seren, and it reminded her of Drayce's troubled look when she woke up.

'As a king, he truly has many things to worry about,' she could not help but think.

After the King and the Queen left the royal court, Seren remembered that their next destination should be granting an audience to each of the delegates sent by the royal families of the other kingdoms.

However, after coming out of the Throne Hall, Jasper rushed to their sides to inform Drayce, "Next, we have to go to the Obsidian Palace, Your Majesty."

Drayce stopped in his tracks and Jasper spoke again, "Lady Tyra has already arranged for the foreign delegates to have your audience tomorrow, and His Excellency has also allowed your visit. The Great Lady is there and she wishes to see Your Majesty there."

Hearing his grandmother's name, Drayce could only agree to this sudden change of plans and walk forward with Seren. Though Drayce was unwilling to visit the former king, he didn't show it on his face as Seren was with him. He didn't wish her to witness something upsetting when it's been just a day when she became the Queen of this kingdom and had truly accepted him as her husband.

Seren was aware of whom the Obsidian Palace belonged to—the previous king and Drayce's father, Theron Ivanov. It had been more than a month since Seren arrived in the royal palace, but not even once had she seen Former King Theron and neither anyone had ever mentioned anything about him except for when Lady Tyra explained to her about the royal family of Megaris. Even during the wedding, she was not introduced to him. 

'Did he not come to the wedding ceremony yesterday? I wonder what kind of a person he is. Does he look like Dray?' Seren had many questions in her mind, but at the same time, she felt hesitant to meet the previous king because he was her father-in-law and she was not sure if he would welcome her knowing she was a witch's daughter.. But since she heard Jasper mentioning the presence of the Great Lady, she could feel at ease.