The news of the prince killing the Duke was impossible to hide; word got out in hours, and before a day, it reached the ends of the kingdom.
It was a shocker, but what made people far more shocked was the fact that the Duke’s son, Oliver, had played a role in this; he had aided the death of his father.
And people could already guess the reason. Someone put out news that Sage was always better than him and stood a better chance of inheriting the family.
Oliver had always felt inferior, yet he still staged to get the position no matter what. But then Silva walked into the picture, the unrivaled definition of a prodigy.
His presence led to heavy insecurities in the heart of Oliver, and in desperation, the prince stretched out an olive branch to him.
Oliver was too far gone to think and so accepted this deal and sought to help kill his father.
No one knew what would come to happen. The king refused to give a statement, saying that he would speak on it and give his verdict after the Elite competition.
In that time, he would have the matter looked into in detail, and the Duke would be buried in grand style.
The culprits would be locked up in a heavily confined prison and punished every day until the day of the verdict. They would be stripped of all status and rights until the verdict.
Regardless of if Alvin was a prince and his son, the king needed to make the right decision, so he had to do what he had to do.
Silva and Sage headed to the mansion when they got back and heard about the news.
When Sage got home, she saw her mother crying, with other guests there, but Sage didn’t flinch. Silva could see her hand trembling, but she didn’t shed a tear.
“Sorry, Mum and Sis, I had to do what had to be done; you are better off without those two,” Silva thought.
He found a way to calm his mother down and take her to her room.
Silva sat on the ground in her room, while Sage sat on her bed with her mother’s head rested on her lap.
“What was the reason for Oliver to do such a thing?” Sage suddenly asked.
“The answer to that is really simple, Sis—me and you. He let his inferiority complex eat him up. I’ve seen it once with my brother Mike.
He even attempted to kill me once. You see, we bear a burden as people with talent, you and I. I haven’t known Oliver much, but I could tell he felt inferior, and in the end, it’s us who feel bad.
Because we should have noticed and tried to help, but how do we help what we can’t control? It’s not our fault we were born the way we are, and whatever we told him would seem like we were looking down on him.
In the end, all this has led to this. Oliver made a mistake, that’s all,” Silva said.
When he said that, his mother sat up and snapped.
“Mistake? Are you joking? He decided to help his father get killed because his siblings were a little better than him.
But I don’t blame Oliver; he is my son, and I love him. It’s your father and this filthy society I blame. They made him feel like he needed to be the strongest to matter.
Your father fed him with words a child should never have to hear. He broke my son mentally. I’m not crying for that bastard anymore; I’m crying for the fact that he ruined my son.
And the verdict for killing a noble is death, the verdict for killing your parent is death, and the verdict for attempting to cover the crimes of a noble is also death.
Your father’s teachings and obsession have brought my son to death. He will be executed publicly; I know that is what will happen.
The king is only using the Elite competition as a way to buy time and find out from his son what really happened.
Just like me, he is hoping to find one thing, just one thing that would save his son from execution.
Now everyone feels that Terron was a good man who tried to reveal the secret of the prince. But I know the man I married; his trails are covered with the blood of those he used.
If there is any secret, then your father must have been a part of it and wanted to double-cross the prince, so the prince had to kill him.”
“Mum, are you saying Dad had dark secrets?” Sage asked.
“He does, a lot of them, but that is a story for another time. He is dead now, so I can tell you that all the good father act and good Duke act he put up is all a facade.
When I met him at first, I loved him, and though I was told by my father to marry him, I also wanted to marry him.
But soon after, I got to know your father deeper, and he was the devil. I learned about all that his father had taught him, and his father was far worse than him.
Their rule was to get ahead by any means, and your father, even though already a Duke, followed that teaching like his life depended on it.
I did everything possible to stop him from teaching it to Sage and Oliver, but because Oliver spent more time with him, he managed to instill it in Oliver.
And now, the teachings have sprouted into this.” She finished what she had to say and lay on her bed.
Silva got up and headed to the window. He opened the window to let air in and took a deep breath.
“I should feel bad after this, but like always, I don’t really care. Seems my emotions will never be the same. Oliver, Terron, I’ll see you all in hell one day.”