NoGift

"Calm down, there"s no point in getting angry," Winter said.

They were in one of the rooms at Casa Royale.  After their party entered the city, the gatekeeper told them that they should go first here and wait for the arrival of someone who would take them to their prepared residence.  Winter didn"t think too much and just did what the gatekeeper said.  So he, Aspen, and the guards and servants he brought went to Casa Royale.

As a result, they had been waiting for five hours and no personnel from the Temple came.  

"How could I not be angry, Your Highness?  They"re clearly insulting you!" 

Victoria City was so small.  How could one person from the Temple not even come after five hours?  Unless they"re deliberately making them wait.  Although Aspen was not well-versed in proper etiquette, he knew that the att.i.tude of the Temple was simply not right.  His Highness was not just an ordinary n.o.ble, he"s the prince of a well-known kingdom.  Doing this was blatantly disrespecting the prince.  As if the Temple didn"t put him in their eyes.  How could Aspen not react?

Aspen was the illegitimate son of a viscount.  He was born from a woman who worked at a pleasure house - a prost.i.tute to be more precised.  When his mother found herself pregnant, the viscount refused to acknowlegde that the child was his.  His mother, who had no other option at that time, begged the proprietress of the pleasure house if she could still stay there and promised to work even harder after she gave birth.  The proprietress took pity on his mother and allowed her to stay.  And even after she gave birth, the proprietress didn"t let her continue to work as a prost.i.tute, instead she let her work as a maid at the pleasure house.

So Aspen grew up at the pleasure house.  Because of that, he was exposed to a lot of things a child shouldn"t be exposed to.  But he didn"t find anything wrong with that.  For him, everything was good as long as his mother was there.  He never thought of that place as dirty.  Because all the women there, including her mother, were just ordinary women who just wanted happiness.  But they couldn"t have it because they were forced by the circ.u.mstances in their lives.  That"s what his mother often told him.  And that she was lucky because she had him.

At that age, Aspen didn"t really understand the concept of happiness.  He just knew that everytime his mother smiled at him, hugged him, or praised him, there"s a warm, giddy feeling inside him.  And he wished that that feeling wouldn"t disappear.  If that was happiness, then he was also lucky.  Because his mother was with him.

But soon, that happiness ended.  When he was 12 years old, a n.o.bleman tried to force himself on his mother.  That time, he was already trying to earn money outside.  He wanted to save enough so he and his mother could have their own house.  When he returned to the pleasure house, one of the women working there told him about what was happening.  He immediately ran to the room that n.o.bleman took his mother to.  

When he opened the door, what he saw broke his heart into a million pieces.  His mother was lying on the bed naked, her body full of marks.  Moving on top of her was a man, his ugly face writhing in pleasure.  There were no expression on his mother"s face, as if she just accepted what was happening.  She chose to just lay there and let the man finished because she knew there"s nothing else she could do.    

Aspen"s gaze darkened and he just lost it.  He attacked the n.o.bleman with his Gift and almost killed him.  If not for her mother stopping him, he might have really killed the b.a.s.t.a.r.d.  But what he did had consequences.  The family of that n.o.bleman tried to persecute him and send him to prison.  Their mother and son didn"t have the power to fight back, so out of desperation her mother sought the help of the viscount.

It just so happened that the viscount"s only son died from a hunting accident then.  The viscount was still in his prime but the problem was he suffered an injury from childhood that made it hard for him to father a child.  That"s why even though he didn"t want to, he agreed to save Aspen and take him in.  

Aspen wanted to refuse.  He didn"t want to have anything to do with this so-called father.  Especially after he met him.  He looked at him with so much disgust in his eyes as if he"s a stain he was forced to look at.  But then he suddenly remembered the look on his mother"s face when that s.h.i.+tty n.o.bleman was taking her by force.  He didn"t want her mother to experience that kind of humilliation again.  But he knew that as long as they stayed at the pleasure house, that incident would just continue to happen.  Maybe it already happened so many times, he just didn"t know it.    

So he made another deal with the viscount.  He would agree to go with him but he had to buy a house for his mother at the capital and that he wouldn"t stop Aspen from seeing his mother.  The viscount was, of course, enraged.  Shouting how shameless he was and that he was not in a place to make any request to him.  Aspen then said that he"s free to leave and let him be taken to prison.  

The viscount stared at him after that and at the end had no choice but to agree to what he asked.  Aspen already expected that.  He knew that the viscount would not come to them unless he badly needed Aspen.  If not, then he wouldn"t wait 12 years before appearing in front of Aspen"s mother again. 

And that"s the beginning of Aspen"s life as the Viscount of Carlisle"s illegitimate son and heir.

It had not been easy for him to integrate in the court.  All the aristocratic children didn"t want to interact with him.  They treat him like he had some kind of disease.  The adults were no better.  Especially his so-called father who didn"t have any kind words to tell him.  He didn"t really mind.  He didn"t need the approval of those people.  Because every week he could go visit his mother and spend time with her.  

At first, that was enough for him.  But soon, even he didn"t notice that the constant ridicule and disgust of the people around him was starting to have an effect on his psyche.  Even going to his mother didn"t seem to alleviate the dark thoughts lurking in his mind.  

Until he met the b.a.s.t.a.r.d prince.

He paid special attention to the second prince - Winter Percival di Albion.  Maybe because the two of  them both had a commoner mother.  Both were essentially b.a.s.t.a.r.ds.  But compared to him, the prince seemed to be more stable.  He truly didn"t care whatever the people around him say about him.

At one occasion, Aspen couldn"t help but ask him if he ever thought of just killing their good-for-nothing fathers.  The prince looked at him coldly.  He truly thought he wouldn"t answer.  But then he said something that Aspen still remembered up to today; 

"I won"t dirty my hands on the blood of someone I deemed unworthy." 

Aspen laughed so hard when he heard that.  Because he"s right.  Those sc.u.m fathers were truly unworthy.  The entanglement inside him disappeared after that short conversation.  It"s like he entered enlightenment.  And he just knew what he was supposed to do.  

After that, he decided to follow the second prince.  And now, he was one of the prince"s trusted aides.  That"s probably the best decision he had made.

With his connection to the second prince, his power and influence also rose.  Now, he was no longer worried that his s.h.i.+tty father would one day harm his mother in order to control him.  Now, the viscount no longer had the ability to do anything to him or his mother.  Because he knew that Aspen wouldn"t hesitate to retalliate against him.  And the result of that would be bad for him.

All of these were brought by the second prince.  He considered the prince as a friend but most importantly, he had great respect for him.  That"s why he couldn"t just swallow the treatment of the Temple towards the prince right now.

"It"s not important," Winter said, interrupting Aspen"s train of thought.  "This is probably their way of saying that their displeased with Albion."

When Aspen heard that, he immediately thought of the reason why.  "Because of the first princess?"  Winter nodded.  Aspen became even more irritated because of that.  "What right do they have to be displeased?  They"re the ones who did something wrong and they"re acting like Albion agrieved them?  Don"t they know shame at all?"

"Because they know they have power so they"re expecting everyone to bow down to them," Winter simply said.

He looked out of the window.  Albion was probably not the only place they tried to "cooperate" with a member of a royal family, promising them to be the next leader of their respective countries.  This kind of action clearly showed the Temple"s great ambition to control these countries.  

Winter could only imagine one outcome if they ever succeeded - war and death.

He clenched both his fists.  That"s definitely one thing he never wanted to happen.