At twelve, Grandmama sent him to apprentice under a blacksmith for three months. His palms blistered, his arms ached, and the forge heat made him dizzy. But he learned. He forged nails, horseshoes, and simple tools. He ca ho with burns, scars, and a proud smile.
He worked in a bakery after that. Then as a ssenger. A stable boy. A candle-maker’s assistant.
Along the way, he also learned horseback riding, archery, the use of various weapons, and all the essentials expected of a crown prince and future ruler.
All before he turned fifteen.
Every hardship was by design. Every lesson carved with purpose.
By then, he had grown into soone capable, disciplined, sharp, and far older than his years. The boy who once played in the herb garden was nearly a man.
He was only eighteen when it happened.
His mother, Empress Adelia, passed away under mysterious circumstances.
She hadn’t been ill. There were no signs. And yet, that morning, the palace was in an uproar.
The official cause was never made public. But the whispers began imdiately: poison, they said. A rare kind. Too quick for the healers to stop. Too clean to trace. The palace imdiately suspected the Verenzian loyalists, though no one had enough evidence to act.
The loss struck the empire like a bolt of lightning, but none more than Arthur and Alessio.
Arthur, the once-unstoppable war hero, didn’t speak for days.
He locked himself in the Empress’s private chambers. Her perfu still lingered on the sheets. Her brushes, her letters, even the dress she wore the night before remained untouched.
The mighty Emperor wept alone.
Alessio, who had only seen his mother in secret, shattered.
Even though he didn’t grow up in the palace, he’d never once doubted his parents’ love. They had always made ti to see him, to hold him, to whisper their hopes for his future. His mother’s voice had always been the softest place in his life.
And now, it was gone.
’Why... why her?’
He didn’t cry right away. Not at first. The shock had locked his tears away.
But Grandmama knew.
She sat beside him in the dark, holding his hand, saying nothing. When he finally broke down, she simply pulled him into her arms and held him tight.
From that day on, Emperor Arthur beca even more protective of his son.
He doubled the guards, placing silent watchers in the shadows along the streets Alessio walked. Alessio noticed the growing number of eyes on him, but he said nothing. He understood what his father was trying to do. His protection mattered most. And so, the safety net around him quietly grew thicker.
It was love. But it was also fear.
Arthur had already lost his Empress, his partner, the woman he loved. He would not lose his son too. Alessio was all he had left.
When Alessio turned nineteen, his first real mission arrived.
It began with a confidential report from a minor noble house. At first glance, nothing seed extraordinary, until one na caught the Emperor’s eye.
Marius Wittelsbach.
The na alone was enough to raise alarms.
The Wittelsbachs had once stood beside Arthur himself on the battlefield.
Francis Wittelsbach, a nobleman and Arthur’s closest comrade during the Great War, had been more than a trusted general. He had been like a brother. Together, they broke through Verenze’s strongest defenses and brought the kingdom to its knees.
For years after the war, Francis remained a prominent figure at court.
Then, the na Marius appeared.
A child introduced to the public at the age of ten, declared as Francis’s son under vague and carefully chosen circumstances. Few questioned it. Fewer still knew the truth.
As the empire settled into peace, Francis began to withdraw. First from court, then from public life entirely. His appearances grew rare, his visits shorter, his presence quieter.
And then, he was gone.
News of his death reached the palace quietly, without detail. Illness, so said. But rumors lingered, and nothing was ever confird.
What mattered then was that the Wittelsbach title passed on to Marius.
No one questioned it at first. But when Verenzian loyalist movents stirred again shortly after Marius assud the title, unease began to spread. Quiet suspicion took root within the imperial household. By the ti the family began to suspect foul play in Francis’s death, it was too late to prove anything. The body had long been buried.
The imperial family’s discreet investigation did not stop. In ti, the reports described Marius’s growing influence, his unexplained connections, and the subtle shifts in loyalty around his estate. Together, it all painted a picture too dangerous to ignore.
Arthur could no longer sit idle.
He summoned his son in the dead of night, behind closed doors, far from the palace’s watchful ears. Alessio arrived in silence, already sensing the weight of what was coming.
Arthur handed the file to Alessio with grave eyes.
"This is yours. No one must know."
Alessio nodded.
It was ti to leave the Slovene estate.
Two years later, he found himself inside the Wittelsbach estate, working undercover under a false identity as a knight in Marius’s service.
The mission was dangerous. The estate was vast, and the Wittelsbach na still held sway in the outer provinces. Alessio kept his head down, slowly earning trust. He began as a junior knight, then took on duties as a courier, and later beca a guard assigned to minor diplomatic errands. Each role drew him closer to the heart of the estate. He spent months observing, listening, and learning.
The deeper he went, the more rot he saw.
But every ti he got close to proving it, the evidence slipped through his fingers. Witnesses fell silent, forgot key details, or turned up dead under mysterious circumstances. Each lead crumbled before it could beco proof.
Then, after nearly two years working undercover, Marius brought a woman to live in the estate.
Sonia Mitford. A noblewoman, introduced as his lover.
At first, Alessio paid her little attention. She didn’t seem relevant to his investigation. Just another noble, just another na.
But as ti passed, sothing shifted. The once seamless relationship between her and Marius began to fracture. Subtly, quietly, but Alessio noticed. Sothing had changed.
For her to pull away from soone like Marius, she must have seen sothing.
And Marius noticed it too. He grew possessive. Controlling. He wouldn’t let her leave.
That was when Alessio intervened. Not out of sentint or sympathy, but calculation. If Sonia had turned away from Marius, it ant she had seen what others had missed. She might be the lead they needed. The key to everything.
So he chose to help her.
But when he saw her again, Sonia was no longer the sa. She was nothing like the woman he first t. And yet, sothing about this new side of her drew him in.
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