The Evil Emperor's Fragile Heart

The banquet in the evening was a luxurious affair with dignitaries from all five kingdoms in attendance. The hospitality of the Emerald Kingdom had always been a thing of envy for the other kingdoms, and now that they got to experience it first-hand, they were amazed and a tad intimidated, because everyone knew that the arrangements of the other kingdoms wouldn't be able to live up to the grandeur of the Emerald Kingdom.

This time, the guests had even better experience than before because Mana had implemented whatever she could remember of her family's luxury resorts and business hotels of the modern world – and she had to admit, it had been done very well. The benefit of being a princess was that she simply needed to make the plans and explain the things to the underlings, and they would take care of everything end to end! Mana was very satisfied with the execution of her plans, and King Jaren and Jules were even more satisfied with Mana's brilliance. Raven, as always, was a partner in all the planning and everything that Mana did, and he helped her at every stage.

All in all, it was a perfect collaboration, and even the most discerning or difficult to please guests could find nothing to complain about. In fact, the biggest complain would probably be that the standards were set too high, and none of the other kingdoms would be able to match up to this.

Of course, Mana and Raven had subtly set the background for their future luxury resort projects – but that wasn't immediate, and they planned to work on it slowly over the next year.

Now, for the banquet – one of the biggest problems faced by the royal family of the Emerald Kingdom was on how to put the royals of all five kingdoms on the same table without any of them throwing a fit!

In the end, they had created a huge octagonal table with generous seating space especially for this event, and the guest seating was allocated accordingly. Each side was able to seat three guests with adequate space between each seat, and there was no hierarchy as such because all sides were equal, and no seat was a centre or focus point, and no seat was higher than another.

King Jaren of the Emerald Kingdom sat in the middle seat on one side, with Queen Carolina of the Sapphire Kingdom on one side and King Corvus of the Obsidian Kingdom on the other, flanking King Jaren on both sides. While strategically, this showed that the Sapphire Kingdom and the Obsidian Kingdom were the closest to the Emerald Kingdom in terms of relationship, it was also a mix of the expected and the unexpected. The Sapphire Kingdom's stance had been known for a long time, and the citizens of the Emerald Kingdom and the Sapphire Kingdom had already become used to working together even more amicably than before by now. Both kingdoms absolutely adored Crown Prince Jules and Crown Princess Bella and this alliance was universally blessed. The unexpected part came from the Obsidian Kingdom's position. Historically, the mysterious Obsidian Kingdom had always been very aloof from the other kingdoms, and the fact that they had now chosen to ally with the Emerald Kingdom so openly shocked everyone, and the reactions ranged from delight and excitement (on part of the Emerald Kingdom and the Sapphire Kingdom) to fear and disgust (on part of the Pearl Kingdom and the Amber Kingdom). However, the naysayers were too afraid to say anything, since their head representatives had already accepted the alliance with the Emerald Kingdom – and they soothed themselves by thinking that they were primarily going to be allying with the Emerald Kingdom and not the Obsidian Kingdom, so there was nothing to be afraid of. The dignitaries of the Obsidian Kingdom, on the other hand, were pleased with the reception from the Emerald Kingdom, and were quite satisfied with their positive interactions with the Sapphire Kingdom and the envious and fearful attitude of the Pearl Kingdom and the Amber Kingdom. Raven's popularity amidst the crowd from the Obsidian Kingdom was greatly enhanced because of this, especially after they saw how highly treasured their Prince Raven was by the citizens of both the Emerald Kingdom as well as the Sapphire Kingdom. And these two were the richest kingdoms of them all – so, clearly, their Prince Raven had to be a precious creature!

On the second side of the table, adjacent to Queen Carolina's seat, Crown Prince Jules and Crown Princess Bella sat side by side, together with Headmistress Ana.

The third side, next to Headmistress Ana was occupied by Fox, Vanilla and Imperial Physician Vale. Fox and Vanilla had been granted noble titles by Queen Carolina and King Jaren respectively, as their respective monarchs. (Vanilla's citizenship paperwork had gone through a long time ago.)

Next to Junior Imperial Physician Vale, on the fourth side, sat Imperial Physician Kale, with Grandma and Grandpa. The two imperial physicians had long been part of their inner circle, and it wasn't much of a surprise that they were granted these honourable seats with the royal families.

On the fifth side, Crown Prince Mars of the Amber Kingdom, Princess Astra of the Emerald Kingdom and King Orion of the Amber Kingdom sat together, with Crown Prince Mars in the middle, and Princess Astra on the side next to her maternal grandparents, and King Orion on the other side.

On the sixth side, Head Sage Yue of the Moon Temple from the Pearl Kingdom sat next to the side of King Orion of the Amber Kingdom, and the two men spoke briefly from time to time. Next to Head Sage Yue, in the middle seat, was Prince Raven of the Obsidian Kingdom, and on his other side was Princess Mana of the Emerald Kingdom.

On the seventh side, next to Mana, there was a special baby seat for Royal Dragon Prince Azar of the Emerald Kingdom, and the little dragon was all right with this arrangement, even though he would have preferred to sit between his beloved Mommy and Daddy! The royal family of the Emerald Kingdom had been very protective of their baby dragon all this time, so for many people, Azar was the highlight of the royal table – who cared about boring humans when there was a super cute little dragon on the cards? Mana spent half her time leaning over to the little dragon anyway, and at least thrice during the banquet, Raven, too, rose from his seat to cater to the baby dragon.

It was crystal clear to the public who was the most cherished baby of the royal family of the Emerald Kingdom!

Next to Royal Dragon Prince Azar of the Emerald Kingdom, sat Prince Rook of the Obsidian Kingdom, who also spent most of his time doting on the little dragon, and Azar would sweetly call him "Uncle Rook" from time to time, especially when he wanted an extra treat that wasn't being permitted by Prince Raven or Princess Mana! Prince Dawe of the Obsidian Kingdom sat on the other side of Prince Rook of the Obsidian Kingdom, and the two brothers barely exchanged any words during the entire event. Prince Rook was so thoroughly enamoured by his little royal dragon nephew that even the representatives of the Obsidian Kingdom began to wish that they would get a chance to interact with the Royal Dragon Prince Azar of the Emerald Kingdom! And later, when King Corvus announced that the little dragon was also recognised as a royal prince of the Obsidian Kingdom, they all rejoiced openly.

On the eighth and last side, rounding up the gathering, sat Princess Enca of the Obsidian Kingdom, by the side next to Prince Dawe of the Obsidian Kingdom, her twin brother. The pair of royal twins mostly had to entertain themselves. Next to Princess Enca, in the middle seat, was Crown Princess Pica of the Obsidian Kingdom, and next to her, with King Corvus on the other side, was the biggest surprise guest of the event – the long lost General Aquila of the Obsidian Kingdom! The biggest hero of the Obsidian Kingdom who had been presumed dead for ten years now – somehow he had survived and been found by Prince Raven! General Aquila had been lost at sea, and then he had been saved by an ordinary family of the Emerald Kingdom, who had sheltered him for ten years – but he had lost his memories and had regained them again only now – it was all thanks to the efforts of Prince Raven of the Obsidian Kingdom and Princess Mana of the Emerald Kingdom that this great hero could regain his memories and come back to his rightful place by the side of Crown Princess Pica and King Corvus! Mana and Raven had earned a ton of brownie points with the citizens of the Obsidian Kingdom because of this.

This was the seating arrangement the royal family of the Emerald Kingdom had come up with after long discussions.