_*]:min-w-0 !gap-3.5">Nova's innocent question about Lucius's importance triggered something deeper in the king. After two millennia of careful restraint, something in those simple words broke through his composed exterior.
Rising slowly from his chair, Lucius addressed the entire room with uncharacteristic sarcasm, his voice taking on an edge that made even Valerian look concerned.
"How important am I, the first king?" he asked, the emphasis on "first" revealing a frustration that had clearly simmered beneath the surface for centuries. The subtle stress on that single word contained volumes of barely restrained irritation at being viewed as merely the initial pceholder in a presumed succession rather than the eternal constant he truly was.
His gaze swept across the gathered court officials, who seemed to shrink back instinctively. "For a millennium as your king, I have listened to nobles specute about my eventual repcement, as if my immortality had an expiration date unlike theirs." The statement carried the weight of countless overheard conversations and barely concealed assumptions that had accumuted across centuries of rule.
His attention fixed suddenly on a particur noble near the door. "Lord Renwick," he said, the name causing its owner to visibly pale. "Your great-grandfather once proposed a 'succession council' to prepare for the time after my reign. I believe his exact words were 'all kings eventually pass, and we must be prepared for the transition.'"
Renwick seemed to wilt under the king's gaze. "Your Majesty, that was clearly a misunderstanding of—"
"A misunderstanding," Lucius interrupted, his sarcasm cutting like a bde. "Yes, I imagine learning your king is the progenitor of your species, walks in sunlight, cannot be killed, and can suppress all vampires and wereanimals in the world simultaneously might indeed crify a few... misunderstandings."
The silence that followed was absolute. Even Dante and Seraphina remained frozen, witnessing a side of Lucius they had never seen despite millennia of governance alongside him.
"Perhaps I should crify a few other misunderstandings," Lucius continued, his voice deceptively calm. "I was not born to nobility like many of you. I had no name, no documentation, no official existence. I was merely a street child who existed only to protect my brother Eli—now Valerian."
This revetion of his humble origins seemed to shock the court even more than his supernatural capabilities. The idea that their king—the being who had shaped vampire society for two millennia—had begun existence as a nameless child on the streets challenged every assumption about power and authority in vampire hierarchy.
"So tell me," Lucius asked, the sarcasm now unmistakable as he spread his hands in mock question, "how 'important' does that make the nameless street child who accidentally created your entire species and has ruled you for two thousand years? The 'first' king that you've all been so eagerly waiting to repce?"
The room remained stunned into silence, no one daring to respond to this dispy of accumuted frustration from the being whose power had earlier brought the entire supernatural world to its knees.
Into this charged silence, Nova's voice emerged with disarming simplicity.
"Sounds like you're everybody's great-great-great-grandsire or something," he observed, his head tilted slightly as he processed this information. "That seems pretty important to me."
The straightforward assessment cut through Lucius's sarcasm like nothing else could have. The simple logic of Nova's response—identifying the retionship rather than the power—seemed to reach something in Lucius that all the court's deference and fear could not.
For a moment, Lucius simply looked at Nova, his expression shifting from bitter sarcasm to something softer. Then a genuine smile spread across his face as he recognized the profound truth in Nova's uncomplicated perspective.
"Yes," he agreed quietly, the biting edge completely gone from his voice. "I suppose it is."
