Reborn as the Empire's Blind Prince

8. Revenge is for the weak, Getting Powerful is for the strong

Lucian moved stealthily back to his room, his wheelchair rolling silently over the thick, woven carpets of the castle's grand corridors.

The exertion of simply sitting upright for hours in the library and moving about had already drained his weak muscles. His False Sight buzzed at the edge of his vision, constantly draining his unawakened core. He kept it active just enough to perceive the ambient essence in the air, ensuring no palace guards or assassins were lying in wait in the dark.

By the time he finally pushed through his heavy oak bedroom doors and locked them shut, his mood was suffocatingly heavy. He dragged himself from the chair to the edge of his bed, collapsing backward. He lay there, arms stretched wide, facing blankly at the vaulted ceiling.

The sleep he so desperately wanted had completely abandoned him. He felt physically exhausted, down to the marrow of his weak bones, yet his mind was racing with thoughts that refused to shut down.

'Honestly, what was I expecting to happen when I finally uncovered the truth of where I was?' he thought to himself, his chest rising and falling with shallow breaths. 'Did I think knowing the rules and history of this world would somehow make the game easier to play?'

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the cold, metallic garden ring. He carried it everywhere with him now. It was an anchor to the mystery of his own attempted murder.

Closing his eyes to fully engage his False Sight, he decided to take a thorough, microscopic look at the object. In the darkness behind his eyelids, the ring didn't disappear; instead, it glowed with a faint, residual energy.

The familiar Everstar design was engraved on the front, a simple star emblem. It was a symbol of their bloodline's enduring strength.

But as Ming Ho rotated the ring between his fingers, his enhanced perception caught a hidden, structural detail etched into the inner band. It was a numeral, written in an ancient, alternate dialect of the Valerian Empire. Thanks to the original Lucian's extensive royal education, he translated it instantly.

'The Fourth Prince.'

His heart skipped a beat. The fourth son of the Emperor. A man known for his ruthless pragmatism. Before he could fully process the implication, a light, rhythmic knock rattled his bedroom door.

Lucian quickly snapped his hand shut, slipping the ring deep under his pillow out of sight. He let his False Sight dial back down, the glowing structural lines of the room fading into standard darkness.

"Come in," he called out, smoothing his expression into a mask of mild fatigue.

The heavy door swung open, and Isabel stepped quietly into the room. Even without his aura-reading fully active, he could sense her gentle, deferential presence.

"Good morning, Master," she greeted softly, her head bowed in the traditional servant's posture. "How may I be of help to you today? Would you like me to prepare your chair and take you to the rose garden?"

'The garden...'

The mere mention of the word triggered a sudden, almost violent pull in Ming Ho's mind. It dragged up a deep, foundational memory from the original Lucian's soul, flooding his senses with the smell of blooming flora and the warmth of his mother.

The rose garden where he had first woken up in this world was a place the old Lucian had frequented almost daily. It was his only remaining connection to his late mother, Queen Kestrel Everstar. From the stories he was told, she was once universally recognized as the most beautiful woman in the entire Valerian Empire. Her skin was said to be so luminous that the common folk called her the 'Morning Star'.

But Kestrel had been no fragile person. As beautiful as she was, she was equally brutal on the battlefield. She had been an elite, high-ranking adventurer, wielding a fierce Manifestation class that let her shape raw starlight into devastating weapons. Countless high nobles, legendary knights, and wealthy lords had sought her hand, but she had refused them all, ultimately choosing his father, the ruthless Emperor.

Even after her marriage and ascension to the throne, Kestrel couldn't surrender her adventurous spirit to being caged in the palace. She continued to venture into the untamed wilderness, desperate to find new medicinal herbs for the poor and to protect the empire's vulnerable borders from high-tier essence beasts.

It was on one of these dangerous expeditions that she contracted a foul, incurable curse. The affliction didn't just break her physical body; it actively consumed her essence core, eating away at her magic from the inside out.

By the time she became pregnant and gave birth to Lucian, she was already in the agonizing final stages of the curse. She had poured whatever remaining life force she possessed into ensuring he survived the delivery. She died exactly a year later. Lucian never got to meet her, never heard her voice, and never saw her legendary beauty.

Garrett, the aging guard, had told him once that he inherited her exact striking silver eyes, her dark hair, and her smooth, aristocratic features. In her final days, she used to cradle him despite her immense pain, calling him her 'little beautiful angel'.

Fearing that her fragile son would grow up isolated and lonely in a palace built on cruelty, she had planted that massive rose garden herself. She poured her remaining, fading essence into the soil so that the flowers would bloom year-round, wanting him to visit it so he could always feel her lingering love and absolute protection.

'How tragic,' Ming Ho thought, a wave of profound, genuine sadness washing over him. It wasn't just his own empathy. It was the residual grief of the boy whose body he now inhabited. His fist clenched tight against the mattress, the knuckles turning white.

'She built that garden out of pure love. Yet one of his own brothers—one of my brothers—tried to murder him in the very place he felt entirely safe. It makes no strategic sense. Whoever ordered the hit didn't just want him dead. By killing him in Kestrel's garden, there was no other reason than they wanted him to suffer.'

"Master, is everything alright?" Isabel asked, her voice suddenly laced with sharp concern, pulling him back to reality.

Lucian snapped out of his dark spiral. He blinked, slightly pushing essence to his optical nerves to check her aura. A swirling, thick purple hue was emitting from her. She was genuinely worried about him again. He absolutely hated making her feel that way.

Forcing a gentle, reassuring smile that reached his silver eyes, he said, "I'm perfectly alright, Isabel. I didn't sleep well last night and I don't feel like going anywhere or seeing anyone. I think I just need to rest."

He watched through his False Sight as her purple aura slowly softened, the anxious edges smoothing out until it settled into a calm, neutral white.

"If that is what you wish, I will certainly not disturb your rest," she said softly, moving with practiced grace. She walked over to the ornate bedside table and carefully set down a small, metal object that resembled a pocket bell. "If you ever need me, for anything at all, just press this button. It is connected to a chime in my quarters. I will be at your service immediately, Master."

She offered a deep, polite curtsy, the fabric of her uniform rustling quietly, and turned toward the door.

"Isabel," Lucian called out before she could cross the threshold.

She halted, turning around slowly with a questioning look in her eyes.

"Thank you."

The old Lucian had never, not once, thanked Isabel. It wasn't because he lacked appreciation or because he was a cruel master. It was because he was always too deeply insecure, hiding his frailties behind a fragile wall of royal pride, terrified that showing gratitude to a servant would somehow make him look even weaker in the eyes of his family.

But Ming Ho didn't care about royal posturing. The moment the simple words left his mouth, Isabel's eyes widened slightly, and her pale face flushed a deep crimson. Through his vision, her aura spiked violently into a vibrant, glowing pink, radiating waves of utter embarrassment and unexpected joy.

'Did I say something weird?' Ming Ho wondered. 'I just said thanks.'

Isabel quickly bowed her head, her eyes darting away to the floor, and she practically sprinted out of the room, shutting the door firmly behind her.

'Strange. Why did she hurry out like that?' he muttered to himself, letting out a small sigh. 'No matter how I try, she'll always care too much.'

Letting his head sink deep into the plush softness of his pillow, Lucian faced the vaulted ceiling. He reached under his pillow and pulled the cold metal ring out one last time, rubbing his thumb over the engraved star emblem. He focused all his attention on the hidden numeral.

'What could the Fourth Prince possibly have against a blind, crippled sibling who possesses no political power?' He closed his palm tightly over the metal, feeling it bite into his skin.

'Even if it really was him, I have absolutely no concrete evidence to bring to the Emperor. Besides... leaving a personal ring with your own specific numeral engraved on it directly at the scene of an assassination? It feels entirely too obvious. It's sloppy. Is it a deliberate frame-job orchestrated by another brother to throw me off the trail?'

He let out a long, shaky breath, letting the overwhelming exhaustion finally pull his consciousness under the dark waves of sleep.

'Thirteen days left until the Awakening Ordeal,' his final waking thought echoed in his mind. 'Speculation won't save my life. I need to guarantee my survival first. If I don't survive, what would be the point of trying to expose anyone?'