I Became The Extra King With Seven Wives-Chapter 18: The Seven Wives

"What do you think, Alice? Don’t I look like a proper King?" I asked, checking my reflection in the full-length mirror.

I was wearing a royal tunic of deep crimson, embroidered with gold threads. Black breeches, polished boots that gleamed like obsidian.

The finest silk and work for a King as expected.

My curly gold hair was swept back, revealing a face that without sounding narcissistic, was objectively very handsome. The jawline I’d been hiding under baby fat was sharp enough to cut glass, and my amber-gold eyes burned even brighter than before. Must be a side effect of the awakening.

I was definitely the most handsome man in the Kingdom. That wasn’t vanity; it was just a statistical probability given the gene pool and the divine upgrade.

"You look very resplendent, Your Majesty," Alice said, nodding her head with genuine approval.

"Aren’t I?" I smiled, picking up a red coat.

Red and gold. My favorite combination even back in my previous life. A funny and nice coincidence.

Putting on, I reached toward the shelf where Hyperion lay. My fingers closed around the hilt, a familiar tingling sensation running up my arm as the weapon recognized its new master.

"Do you need anything else, Your Majesty?" Alice asked.

"What do you think of my wives, Alice?" I asked casually, turning around and striding out of my quarters.

Alice froze briefly at my question before hurriedly scrambling to follow me, closing the door behind us.

"I—I think they are wonderful..." She said hesitantly.

It was a dangerous question. My wives included some of the most powerful figures in the kingdom. A maid expressing an opinion on them was asking for trouble.

"How about an honest answer instead of the one that will please the King and offend no one?" I said, slowing my pace slightly.

"Your Majesty..." Alice trailed off, giving me a pleading look that begged for mercy.

I chuckled and let her off the hook.

I already knew enough about all of them anyway. Between Lumiel’s memories and my knowledge of the Game, I had a dossier on each one so I knew exactly who I was dealing with.

***

In the Royal Sun Hall of Helios, a gathering had assembled.

The usual court was present: nobles, and so on. But this time, there were new faces. Feminine ones.

Eleanor was there standing. And with her, the remaining six wives of Lumiel.

However, the atmosphere in the room was tense enough to choke on. Everyone wore expressions ranging from awkward to nervousness as they looked at the Queen’s throne.

Sitting there, legs crossed with obvious haughtiness, was a girl who looked like she’d been carved from ice and arrogance.

She had long, platinum-blue hair tied neatly back, and bright yellow eyes that scanned the room with bored contempt. She wore a gown of white and blue that probably cost more than the annual tax revenue of a small city.

Her entire presence screamed nobility.

High nobility.

Asthenia Solaris. Daughter of Duke Solaris. The Second Wife of Lumiel.

Second Wife.

And yet, there she was, sitting on the throne reserved for the Queen, the First Wife as if she owned it.

No one dared to open their mouth however. No one dared to tell the young daughter of Duke Solaris, the man who held the kingdom’s military by the throat, to move.

Everyone knew Asthenia was furious. She had been raised to be Queen. To be demoted to Second Wife was an insult, an humiliation. Provoking her now was suicidal.

It was funny, really. These old, entrenched nobles, terrified of a girl who hadn’t even entered her twenties. She was the youngest among the wives, tied only with Dorothy.

Yet she held more raw power in her pinky finger than most of them held in their entire estates.

"Lady Asthenia."

The only people in the room with enough status to speak to her directly were her co-wives excluding of course poor Dorothy, whose status was too low to matter.

And the one who chose to speak first was, as expected, Eleanor.

She gave Asthenia a look that wasn’t fearful or nervous like the others but more exasperated.

Asthenia shifted her yellow eyes to Eleanor. "What is it?"

"You are sitting on the throne reserved for the Queen, Lady Asthenia," Eleanor said calmly, saying the words everyone else was choking on.

Several gasps punctured the silence of the hall.

You had to give it to Eleanor, she had a spine made of something harder than steel. Despite being the daughter of the wealthiest merchant in the Kingdom, she wasn’t ’true’ nobility in the eyes of the purists. Asthenia, on the other hand, was the apex predator just below royalty. Her family, the Solaris, could trace their lineage back to Apollina through branch lines. To challenge her was to challenge history itself.

It wasn’t that Eleanor wanted a fight however. It was that she cared deeply about order. About status. And Asthenia was disrupting the board.

"Thank you for your very unhelpful remark, Eleanor," Asthenia replied, offering an unbothered smile. "However, I am sitting in my rightful throne as the Queen of Helios."

"Unless I missed a royal decree issued in the last five minutes, the Queen is the First Wife," Eleanor replied, turning her gaze toward a young woman standing silently nearby. "Princess Diana."

Diana stood there like a statue carved from melancholy.

She was breathtaking, enough to have every nobleman in the room, young and old, staring in awe. Long lilac-purple hair was braided neatly down her back, and her eyes were a bright and soft shade of pink.

Diana Gardenia. First Princess of the Kingdom of Gardenia. First Wife of Lumiel. The supposed Queen.

Diana should have been furious. She should have been demanding Asthenia vacate her seat. Instead, she just watched Asthenia with a calm, exhausted resignation. There was no fire in her eyes, only a deep, weary sadness.

Asthenia’s expression twisted visibly at the mention of Diana’s name. She shot a glare at the Gardenian princess.

Diana didn’t react, didn’t speak.

Asthenia recovered her smile instantly, though the temperature in the room seemed to drop.

"Is that so? Everyone here knows that I am the only rightful and worthy Queen of Helios," she declared. "Perhaps you don’t like it, Eleanor, but that foreign girl doesn’t even try to defend herself. And I doubt the others have anything to say against me."

By ’the others’, she meant the remaining four wives.

Eleanor glanced at them, assessing her allies or lack thereof.

First, Dorothy Stanford, Lumiel’s 7th Wife.

The white-haired girl stood trembling slightly, her beautiful purple eyes darting around with unease. She looked like a rabbit surrounded by wolves. A Baron’s daughter from an enemy empire, she had zero political capital here. Opening her mouth would be a death sentence. Eleanor mentally crossed her off the list.

She shifted her gaze to the girl with the striking scarlet hair tied in a high ponytail.

Morgana Raimond, Lumiel’s 4th Wife

She looked entirely out of place, wearing training leather trousers and a tunic instead of a gown. The daughter of the Royal Guard Commander stood with her arms crossed, radiating irritation. Feeling Eleanor’s gaze, she scowled.

"I am not interested in this, Eleanor. Please spare me," Morgana said, waving a dismissive hand. She looked like she’d rather be fighting a dragon than dealing with court etiquette.

Eleanor sighed and looked at the last woman who might have the standing to intervene. 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

The one exuding a presence colder than the grave.

She had long, pitch-black hair that fell to her waist like a silken shadow, held in place by a beautifully crafted circlet. She wore a deep blue gown and stood perfectly still, hands clasped in front of her.

Ravenna Ashcroft, Lumiel’s 5th Wife.

Her cold, dark blue eyes didn’t even flicker toward Eleanor. She seemed completely disinterested, as if she were observing insects rather than people.

Eleanor’s heart sank. If she couldn’t even get Ravenna, a Marquis’s daughter and a woman known for her icy pride to speak up against Asthenia’s blatant power grab, then the battle was already lost.

Or perhaps not.

Eleanor glanced at the last one.

Cynthia Von Helios. Lumiel’s Sixth Wife and his cousin.

She stood apart, lost in her own thoughts. She had long dark hair woven into a neat crown braid, and amber eyes that mirrored the royal line. Though she was from a branch family, she was far closer to the main royal house than Asthenia’s Solaris line. She grew up in the palace corridors, sharing childhood with both the Prince and Princess.

If anyone had the authority to speak, the moral weight to make Asthenia understand her overstep, it was Cynthia.

"Lady Cynthia."

When Eleanor called her name, Cynthia blinked, snapping out of her reverie. She glanced at the merchant’s daughter.

Eleanor gave her a pointed look, then tilted her head toward the dais where Asthenia lounged.

Cynthia followed the gaze, her eyes landing on the platinum-haired girl occupying the Queen’s throne. She sighed, a sound of profound weariness.

She knew Asthenia well. They had circled each other at countless banquets and noble gatherings since childhood. She knew Asthenia was stubborn as a mule and haughty enough to choke on her own pride.

Regardless, she decided to intervene.

She knew Lumiel’s history with Asthenia. How he had been awkwardly, painfully infatuated with her since they were children. She was his first love, the golden girl destined to be his bride. In Lumiel’s heart, Asthenia always occupied the highest spot in the pedestal.

Unfortunately, Asthenia didn’t reciprocate those feelings. To her, Lumiel was a duty. A box to check. A soft boy she had to tolerate for the sake of the kingdom.

Cynthia suspected this display of arrogance, sitting on the throne in full view of the court was a calculated move. Asthenia was putting pressure on Lumiel to repudiate Diana and reinstate her as First Wife.

And the Lumiel she knew, under Asthenia’s stern gaze, crumbled by grief and his lingering crush, he might actually do it.

Regardless of her own complicated feelings about this marriage, about marrying the boy who felt like a younger brother, Cynthia cared about him. She wanted to spare him the humiliation of being bullied by his own wife the moment he walked through the door.

"Asthenia," Cynthia called out. "Please. Step down from the throne. Lumi... His Majesty will arrive soon enough."

"We have been waiting for His Majesty for half an hour now," Asthenia replied, checking her nails with feigned indifference. "There is nothing wrong with me waiting on my rightful throne."

Cynthia gave her a hard look.

She wasn’t going to make this easy, was she? Asthenia was digging in her heels, daring anyone to physically remove her.

Cynthia opened her mouth to argue further, to tell her exactly how childish she looked, when the heavy double doors of the Throne Hall groaned open.