ARIA

Chapter Five

Aria stopped walking. The topic became too heavy for her. She was hearing it wrong, right? The goddess' son? How? What happened? Why didn't she hear this rumor in her first life? Her confusion made the old man chuckled.

"You don't have to be so serious about it." Count Baratheon continued his walk. Aria followed him from the back. Was everything a lie just now?

"But this is not a lie. The legend said that our goddess, Metallia fell in love with a mortal. It was more than a hundred years ago. And she had a child with the mortal. The child then became the first king of our kingdom. But two years ago, we finally get to know that our first king reincarnated. He is now our current crown prince."

"Where did you hear this, my lord?" Even though everything she heard just was something she could hardly digest, she was still interested in that topic.

"I heard this from the Duchess of Weinheart."

"So you're telling me that you heard this from a woman?"

Women did not have any chance to get a proper education. Even the nobles' daughters did not go to school. They were homeschooled as they learn etiquettes, reading, writing, simple mathematics and very limited knowledge on laws, science and history. For the women among commoners, they were even unfortunate than the noble ladies.

Aria did not believe a duchess could say such thing about the crown prince, a thing that no one knew before her. Moreover, the Duchess of Weinheart was a duchess from the neighbouring kingdom. Not their own people. Count Baratheon knew Aria was not convinced with his words just by listening to her tone when she was asking.

"Not many people know about this but the Duchess of Weinheart was once our people." He opened the door to the room where his daughter was in. The ten years old girl ran to her father and hugged him as soon as she saw them. The girl looked at Aria and quickly hide behind her father's back. "I'm sorry, my lady. My daughter is a shy girl."

"I'm a lady now, father!" the ten years old girl exclaimed in a low voice.

Count Baratheon then crouched down to his daughter's level. He then smiled at her. "Then, introduce yourself, my lady." the count teased his daughter.

"Greetings, my name is Lucia Baratheon of House Baratheon." The child greeted with a smile.

"I'm Aria MacGregory of House MacGregory. Nice to meet you." She replied. "You're a bright young lady, you will surely grow to be a beautiful noble lady."

"Father, do you hear that? Lady Aria compliment me!" Lucia happily giggled. It was sweet sight to Aria and the count. Aria finally let out a genuine smile. "She's finally smiling."

"Yes, she will be more delighted if you can choose some flowers for our lady here." The count told his daughter.

"Then, I will go ahead to the royal garden. Please excuse me." Lucia went ahead of them to the royal garden.

"My lord, is it okay for her to pick the flowers from the royal garden?"

"Yes, we have receive the permission to do so." The count replied. They then together went to the royal garden to meet up with Lucia.

"My lord, about just now." Aria wanted to know more about the rumor and the duchess. "You told me that she was once our people. What do you mean by that? And how did she know about the relationship between Prince Noah and the goddess?"

"Two years ago, there was a coup d'etat."

"But the coup d'etat failed. Prince Noah, the king and queen went missing. And so Liliana Van Roberski, His Highness' cousin took over the throne for two weeks. She gave up on the throne after the king came back." Of course Aria knew about it. She was once a victim of the situation. She almost died during the coup d'etat when she was on her way to meet her father. No matter how bad their relationship, she still loved her father. "What about that? What's the connection of it with the Duchess of Weinheart?"