an unfortunate change in genre

Part 13

The incident wrapped up with minimal casualties, all things considered.

Due to the surprise nature of the assault, most of the Arm within the base members had been captured, killed, or ended their own lives. Alberu had been able to slip away in the chaos as the Henituse brothers were swiftly brought back to the Henituse territory under the protective care of the best knights in the kingdom.

Things were going just a bit too smoothly and that's probably why Roksu anticipated that there was something going very wrong.

The way that the soldier's whispered to one another, staring in wonderment at the siblings...

...suspicious mumbles of 'silver shield'...

Roksu had a sneaking suspicion that the rumors were only just starting.

The knights who had witnessed the children fighting with their life and limb on the line even while covered in blood and at the brink of death. The ones who had even tried to protect the knights who had come to their rescue.

Oh no.

This was going to be the worst case scenario.

It wasn't that Roksu hadn't considered the possibility that this incident would increase their fame somewhat. It was the second time a Henituse child had been a part of a major kidnapping scandal after all and the second time that their release had led to a big criminal reveal.

But he'd expected the excess in attention to be pity for the pathetic children who kept getting dragged into this. Maybe for people with particularly suspicious minds it would come off as implausible.

The stares that Roksu was enduring were filled with admiration.

Roksu shot an unnerved look towards Cale who had yet to release his hand. Cale looked down and shrugged, apparently unbothered by their new fame.

Roksu swore to himself that day that he would never allow himself to be witnessed saving someone again. All of this attention was giving him hives.

Of course absolutely nothing in this world was more terrifying than the benign look on Ron's face when the children finally made it home.

Apparently Roksu didn't even have to make good on his threat to let the butler know about Cale's reckless behavior. The rumors about what had happened had long since met the butler's keen ears and he had quite a few words for his errant young masters.

It was an exhausting end to an exhausting incident.

–

"One day I'm going to the throw a bottle at that stupid prince's face."

"Treason." Roksu commented lightly to his elder brother's complaint.

"It's not treason if he deserves it." Cale grumbled, putting the communication orb aside as he sat down across from Roksu in the reception room that the boys had claimed as their own miniature office. Count Deruth didn't have any complaints about it, his innate nature to spoil his sons had kicked into overdrive ever since their kidnapping.

Even now, four years later, there was an overprotective and overzealous tendency from the Count to grant the boys anything they wanted but also to absolutely restrict their movements to absolutely keep them safe.

It was a bit of a suffocating love but it didn't feel all that bad. Especially for Cale, since he was able to use it to keep his absolutely insane brother safe.

And as a fringe bonus, it made it so that Deruth didn't require any convincing to begin strengthening the Henituse territory through any means necessary. The question as to how he, a child, was going to persuade his father to make military decisions was now nonexistent.