A Throne Divided, Part 1

BEFORE HIS EXILE, Galardos had a closer relationship with the Imperial Family than most other Imperial demigods, including the heads of the Four Great Houses.

Without exception, all demigods had abysmally low fertility rate, producing one child every few centuries at most. This was in no fault of the demigods themselves, but rather that of a fundamental flaw: their very existence was a natural anomaly.

Humans were not supposed to have attained divinity.

But Kathlan did, and he even went as far as passing it on to his descendants.

However, the ascent of humanity into godhood — even partial — was a leap too far for the majority of souls to endure. Thus, only the most unyielding, most resilient of them could enter the process of gestation, let alone survive it. This made it exceedingly rare for two demigod children to be born in close succession, even at a global scale.

Yet Galardos had been born only a year apart from the Imperial Crown Prince, Cyrus.

In consequence, thanks to a passing whim of fate, the two of them shared a bond that no two other demigods had in common: they were childhood friends.

The two were practically raised together in the Imperial City, given that Galardos’ father, Cowel Alessia, regularly left the country to join the Crusades.

“The unofficial prince,” was Galardos’ nickname throughout his youth. He learned the basics of magic from Emperor Damien and Empress Henrietta themselves, and trained it to the level of mastery together with Prince Cyrus.

They were inseparable for almost a century.

Eventually, he took over responsibility for running the Alessia family. His father retained leadership on paper, but given his regular absence from the Empire, he was nothing more than a figurehead.

Nevertheless, Galardos’ ties to the Imperial Family remained as strong as ever and he regularly visited them in the Capital, or carried out joint operations with Cyrus.

Then, when Galardos and Cyrus turned three hundred, Princess Isabella was born.

This posed a problem, because Isabella and Cyrus were only half-siblings. Emperor Damien was father to both, but Isabella’s mother wasn’t the Empress…

It was the celestial dragon, Gerliin Luu.

And as fate would have it, the Empress didn’t take polyamory very well.

It had long been a custom for the leaders of each Great House, including the Emperor, to take their guardian dragon as consort.

Empress Henrietta understood the symbolism, for it acted as a pledge of allegiance to the Zarian Order… but understanding the meaning did nothing to quell her jealousy.

Emperor Damien and Cyrus both knew the Empress’ temper was boiling, and if she snapped at baby Isabella or her mother, the Empire would risk the wrath of the angelic legions.

Thus Cyrus reached out to his closest friend, in urgent need of a favor. With the Imperial Family’s blessing, Galardos would be responsible for raising Isabella, training her in the arts of statehood, warfare and magic.

The heir of House Alessia agreed, and for a hundred years, the Imperial Princess became his pupil. He taught her everything he knew, with unmatched dedication and diligence, until Isabella was prepared to join the Imperial Court.

But at the end of it all came an unexpected problem.

Isabella proposed marriage to Galardos — an offer he had to reject.

The relationship between the House of Alessia and the Imperial Family had grown far too close, to the point it caused discontent with the other Great Houses. The House of Argenta, in particular, had taken offense and accused the Emperor of favoritism.

Thus, a marriage between Galardos and a member of the Imperial Family was politically unviable, and he found no option but to turn the Princess down.

The relationship between master and pupil became cold, and Isabella began the process of reorganizing her knightly order into what is in present day the Imperial Inquisition.

Furthermore, due to the century Galardos spent with Isabella, his relationship with Empress Henrietta also soured. In the centuries that followed, this did not improve.

History went by, with wars coming and going, but the Empire itself remained relatively uneventful until twenty years ago when it was rocked with two seismic events.

The first and most dangerous one was the angelic invasion of the Empire. Although the incident was short, it killed the head one of the Great Houses, hundreds of Imperial Knights, and imprisoned a Guardian Dragon — each of them a terrible blow.

Then, amidst the chaos of this battle, a new ray of hope was born: Princess Olivia, Cyrus’ full-blooded younger sister. Her arrival to the world was widely celebrated in the Empire, but alas… just a few years later, Cyrus found the need to call upon the help of his oldest friend again.

After a millennia of rule, Emperor Damien had grown complacent. He became arrogant, proud and inflexible, and took his nation’s greatness for granted. This reflected in his upbringing of Princess Olivia, for he bestowed upon her far more authority than she could wield, and she misused it in turn.

The young princess, though only a small child, was quickly growing into a spoiled and unrefined brat, born with a silver spoon and a position to abuse. With one misstep, she could very well plunge the Empire into a crisis, its internal affairs already hanging from a thread following the angelic invasion.

Thus, Cyrus asked Galardos for his aid again in raising his younger sister.

Persuading his parents to agree to it was a monumental task, but the shrewd prince managed to talk his way through with arguments of precedent and longstanding tradition.

Galardos was reluctant to pick up the task, but at his friend’s insistence, he agreed.

Princess Olivia quickly proved herself to be in a far, far worse state than Galardos could have imagined. She was pompous, petulant and fickle to no end; a far cry from the noble and earnest child that had been her sister Isabella.

Galardos did his bestto mend her ways, but it was futile. Whatever upbringing she had received in the first eight years of her life, she was thoroughly rotten.

To the old demigod, it was unfathomable that the Crown had failed their daughter so.

Nevertheless, he endured the young brat’s ridicule and indulgence for months, until the fateful day of a routine inspection of a rural town.

There, while Galardos attended a meeting with the village elders, Princess Olivia commandeered the town guard and ordered them to hold a military parade in her name.

On pain of death, the legionaries had no choice but to obey a royal command, and they abandoned their posts to humor the Princess. This opened a window of opportunity for a monster attack, which claimed the lives of an entire family outside the walls.

By the time Galardos realized what had happened, it was already too late.

The monsters were destroyed in short order, but the damage was done… and the young princess, in her hubris, remained entirely unrepentant.

This proved to be an affront the old demigod could not stand.

Following an argument inside their carriage, Galardos struck the princess. Then he tossed her outside and renounced his position as her mentor, before teleporting away.