There was silence that followed his declaration for wanting Lina Pricemark to be the next Queen of Floria Kingdom. Everyone that was present there were extremely shocked to the point that they stood there staring at him with shocked disbelieving looks on their faces. The people there included his sisters, his old teacher, a baron and the baron’s daughter who was the person Lakshman had spoken about.

The silence was finally broken when Lina hesitantly asked, “Um…? Your… majesty… did I… hear that correctly?”

Understanding what she meant, he smiled and nodded as he replied. “Yes. I want you to be the next queen of this kingdom.”

The girl blinked in surprise before slowly saying, “You mean… I am… I… am to be the… Queen… of… of Floria Kingdom…?”

As he nodded again with a smile on his face, her face was filled with concern. Then her eyes suddenly lost focus and she lost balance, at the same time she fell forward.

“Lina!” Priya exclaimed as both she and her twin, Indira, caught their friend before she fell to the ground. “Are you alright?”

“Lina…!” Indira called worriedly, noticing that their friend was unconscious.

Everyone reacted similarly and quickly checked her to see that she had simply lost consciousness from sudden shock. The teacher was the one who checked her condition and reassured them that she would be fine after some time. They breathed a sigh of relief before Priya rounded on her brother with great anger.

“Annayya!” She exclaimed so loudly that he winced and looked taken aback by her yell. “What the hell were you thinking?!”

“Huh?” He asked, bewildered by her outrage. “What do you mean?”

“What is with that sudden bomb of a statement!” She further yelled at him. “You scared her!”

Realising what she meant, he looked guilty as he rubbed the back of his head and said weakly, “Well… I wanted to make it sound dramatic… but I didn’t expect that she’d lose consciousness over it.”

“Anyone would lose their heads at such a wild suggestion, especially if it came directly from the king himself!”

“I… I didn’t think it through,” he admitted weakly while looking upset.

“Honestly!” She said, fuming with anger while unable to berate him further seeing him looking down.

Indira looked at the two of them with worry before saying, “But, but, but! Is that true, annayya? T-That… Lina is to be the next… queen?”

“Yes,” he said in reply. “She has the qualities that a great ruler must possess. Hard working, determined, strong minded, working around her situation and the most important of all; her caring towards the people. That is a fundamental nature a ruler must have, otherwise they might as well be blind with all the power they have and will no doubt abuse it with a rotten nature.”

“Oh,” she said shortly, nodding in understanding but still looking confused. “So, does that mean… that you’ll be marrying her?”

This took Lakshman a moment to register before exclaiming shortly, “What?!”

“Because you said she will be the next queen and that she has the necessary qualities of a queen, so isn’t it right to assume that you will marry her since marrying a king automatically makes you queen. Isn’t that right?”

“Huh?!” He exclaimed, totally taken aback by his sister’s interpretation which took him by surprise.

“What was that?!” Priya reacted with shock and rounded on her brother. “You’re going to marry someone else when you already married nine women! Are you serious, annayya?!”

“Wait! No! It’s a misunderstanding!” He reacted, shocked that his sisters were misunderstanding his intentions but his sister was enraged and could not wait for his explanation.

“Seriously! I should’ve realised this was your place from the start when you laid eyes on Lina that time when you came shopping with us! I should’ve suspected your actions, but I trusted you since I didn’t think my brother was such a despicable man to cheat on his wives! Annayya! I should’ve realised that you are still a man despite being a mighty warrior, a hero titled the Phoenix Titan! I should’ve guessed it! Dammit it! I can’t believe I have such an annayya!”

“Wha?!” He exclaimed, thoroughly stumped by the harsh words that his sister was hurling in his direction.

At the same time, he heard Stuart say comically from his side, “Really, Lucky? I know you said you knew her from a past or something, but I never would’ve expected this to be your intentions.”

Lakshman turned to him and snapped, “It is not!” Then he turned back to face his sister, who was taken aback by his abrupt yell for unknown reasons. “Listen, Priya and Indira, too! I am not going to cheat on my wives! In fact, I have no intention or interest in taking in another woman! I am quite happy with my family as it is! You two are completely misunderstanding my true intentions!”

“We are?” The twins asked, with Indira looking concerned while Priya looked suspicious.

“Yes!” He said adamantly. “My intentions are entirely different from what you are thinking!”

It was then that Lina’s father, Rudius, blinked and asked in a quiet voice, “Your majesty. Are you saying… what I think you’re saying?” Lakshman looked towards him and smiled serenely, causing the man to widen his eyes and exclaim, “You can’t! You mustn’t! The kingdom needs you! We need you!”

“What? What is it? What’s going on?” Priya asked, looking confused as she looked between them with Indira looking apprehensive as she stood beside her.

Turning to his sisters, the Phoenix Titan announced, “I am going to abdicate as the King of Floria Kingdom.”

There was a moment of stunned silence before his sisters and the teacher reacted wildly with, “Huh?!”

“You can’t do this, your majesty!” Baron Rudius stated firmly with a serious look. “Please don’t do this just because some false rumours about you are circulating around. It’ll die down soon in time and everything will return to normal.”

To this, his king shook his head and replied, “All of that sounds good… but it won’t happen.” As the baron looked uncertain, he went on saying, “The seed of doubt has been planted inside the people’s minds and even though it dies down now, the seed will slowly grow until another incident happens that throws my credibility to the wind. What do you think will happen then?”

Baron Rudius looked shocked at his king’s words before saying, “They will overthrow you.”

“Yes,” said Lakshman with a nod of his head gravely. “They will treat me as a villainous man who had been causing problems for the kingdom and then acting in a way to appear a hero so that I have public support and be crowned king. At that time, no amount of reasoning will help me because by then the people will believe what they choose to believe, which is that of me being a villainous man with thirst for power.”

“But sir… that’s hypothetically speaking,” said Rudius as he tried to reason with him. “People won’t behave in such an extreme way. Besides, you are the Phoenix Titan! You are the hero that saved the world on multiple occasions. Your title has a great legacy behind it so people wouldn’t go so far as to believe you are such a man.”

Lakshman shook his head and said, “You are correct that my title has a great legacy behind it and the people will not deny it. But… the people will instead think that I am a person abusing that history for my own needs and think of me as a usurper. They would even believe that I had the previous king killed and caused the war between Floria Kingdom and the Mardana Kingdom so that I was the one who came out on top all so that I could become king.”

“That can’t be…!” Rudius said, looking alarmed. “Such a thing is… unprecedented.”

“No. It’s not,” replied Rudius with a saddened look. “It’s not,” he said again and remembered the past when all of the Phoenix Clan’s reputation was destroyed when he waged war against the world.

He remembered clearly how he had sent messages to each and every clan to either drop their arms and surrender themselves under his rule or they would be destroyed. This caused everyone to start viewing them as warmongers, chaos bringers, and war seekers as they believed we were bloodthirsty and had revealed their true nature now that the previous leader was killed and the clan was being led by an immature young man.

“Anyway, rather than wait for my untimely demise, I have decided to step down by choosing and raising a great successor in my place,” he told the baron with a serene smile. “I have read all about your daughter’s past deeds, actions, and behaviour when it came to your family and those people under you. Her determination to do things despite the difficulty, her courage to take risks where necessary, and her caring towards those she is close with. In fact, do you know what her goal in life is?”

The baron was surprised by his king’s question, but he smiled as he said, “To give the commoners a better life.”

Lakshman blinked and asked, “Oh. Is that her dream?”

This surprised Rudius, who had automatically assumed that his king knew and asked, “You… didn’t know?”

This caused Lakshman to chuckle and say, “Of course not. Like I said, this is my first-time meeting with your daughter face-to-face. The only information I had about her was what my Phintex Raja could gather from the people she met or knew her in the past. Overall, I got the confidence in her, and so I wanted to check what her reaction would be personally, and I have to say; I am not disappointed.”

“Fainting upon learning that you’re going to be the next queen is good?” Priya asked scathingly.

“It goes to show that this person had never harboured such dangerous thoughts in her mind, and as such, came as a big shock that caused her mind to overload,” her brother explained and smiled. “So, yes. It is a good thing in a sense.”

His sister looked unimpressed as she said, “Very funny. I am amazed to find my brother to be this humorous.”

“What? You think I don’t make jokes?” He asked innocently.

“I… don’t really know,” she admitted with a sigh. “We haven’t really spent a lot of time together, annayya.”

Her words were followed by a momentary awkward silence, which was broken by Indira who said brightly, “It’s okay! We are spending more time together now! Isn’t that right, annayya?”

“You’re right!” He said cheerfully and walked forward to hug the both of them warmly.

Indira giggled with happiness while Priya reacted with surprise before warming up and hugging him back. Then, as they withdrew from each other, the teacher coughed to get their attention as she now stood while supporting

Lina with her arm around the younger girl’s shoulder.

“Excuse me for being forgotten,” she said sarcastically, which caused the three Chand family members to realise their mistake instantly, “but I need to take her to the hospital.” Then she turned to her past student and asked, “Will you wait for her to wake up to talk about this secretive business?”

He laughed at her emphasis on the word “secretive” before saying, “No. Please take her to rest.”

She nodded in understanding and asked the twin girls to help her, to which the girls agreed. Before they departed from the garden however, Lakshman called his past teacher and asked for her opinion.

“Do you still trust in me, miss?”

It was a simple question that had a heavy weight behind it, and she understood it instantly.

“Lucky,” she began softly, “you were once my student, and though I had you only for a term, it was enough for me to know what you are like as a person. So, when you ended the war twelve-years-ago and risked your life to save our lives in the recent war with the Calamity Titan, I knew you were a great person. So, whatever these rumours claim, they can never change my opinion of you since I taught you while you attended here.”

He was amazed by her level of confidence in him, which made him smile warmly at her and say gratefully, “Thank you very much for having such trust in me, miss. I am really grateful.”

She smiled and said, “Don’t mention it and also, I won’t reveal what you discussed here to anyone. I think you can tell that I’m not lying?”

At her question, he could not help but laugh and say, “Miss, you really know me too well.”

She smiled back at him while everyone else watched this warm scene with soft smiles on their faces. Both Priya and Indira wore proud looks on their faces because they were feeling frustrated that they have no way of helping their brother, seeing as they are his siblings. As such, seeing their teacher acknowledge and trust their brother so much made them feel very happy and proud of their brother.

After they left, the baron asked, “So, are you still set on your intended course?”

Lakshman knew what he meant and smiled as he replied, “Of course. It’s the right thing to do. Anyway,” and he turned towards him as he requested, “I have a few things for you to do,” and he explained the things he wanted Rudius to do.

Rudius was taken aback by the list of things the king wanted him to do, but he soon was nodding his head in understanding. He looked troubled since the task he was given was a tough one, but he also understood the logic behind the Phoenix Titan’s logic without needing to be explained about it.

“But I am still confused about one point, your majesty,” he said finally as he was about to leave with the Phintex Raja. “What is all this preparation for? It won’t help you clear up the rumours.”

“I don’t care about the rumours because more important matters take first priority, and this among the top of my list,” explained Lakshman, to which the baron continued to look confused. Lakshman smiled after seeing his expression and said, “Don’t worry about it. Just do as I said and all will be fine.”

“Um… Yes. I will do it, your majesty,” he replied, a little uncertainty and bowed before departing with the Phintex Raja from there.

Once he left, a broad smile formed on Lakshman’s face and his eyebrows narrowed with deep intention as he muttered, “After all, it’s high time I take the nobles to get their just deserts.”