After a while, Amelia finally calmed down.
The trio now were sitting on the couch in the living room. Amelia has finally calmed down by now.
"Riya, give us some time to speak alone." Amelia's voice and attitude turned very serious. Just a second ago, she looked broken and really sad and now she was very serious.
Riya hesitated but Aditya nodded at her with a reassuring smile. Riya nodded back and stood up to leave.
"And one more thing, please don't try to eavesdrop on us." Hearing this Riya awkwardly laughed before leaving them alone. Since her mother had warned her to not stand behind the door and eavesdrop, she decided to return to her own room.
As a Mid-5th-order cultivator, Riya's senses were extremely sensitive. If not for the rune enchantments, then she could have heard what her mother was going to say with Aditya even from her own room. But in this world, every house of a cultivator has something that is similar to a soundproof system. When the house is built, on the walls and the doors, special runes are drawn to prevent sounds from leaking outside of the room.
These special runes even be drawn by a novice-level rune master. Without these runes, whatever one is doing in their rooms can easily be heard from far away by other cultivators with enhanced senses. This was not needed for normal average humans.
But for a family of cultivators, this was a really important thing. No couple would want their family members to listen to whatever activities they are doing in their rooms.
But it didn't mean that each of the rooms was completely soundproof. One can still hear some noises standing just outside of the room. This is why Riya's mother strictly told her to not eavesdrop on them. And even if she did, Aditya and Amelia would be able to feel her presence just outside.
"You have become grown up to be a handsome and intelligent man, Aditya." Amelia with a smile. Amelia could still remember the time when Aditya was very little.
"Time sure flies fast. Just yesterday you were a small boy playing with Riya and now you have grown up." Aditya remained silent. He can remember his childhood but ever since he was thrown in the streets by his own parents, a part of him had died.
"Back when you used to be so innocent. You used to laugh. You used to be so cheerful. Never did I think that you would change this much in these years." Amelia said with a smile on her face.
"Times change people, Aunty. I had to change to survive and adapt to my environment." Aditya was hinting about all the cruelty that he faced to reach this point in life.
Sure he was lucky when an old King saw him on the streets and decided to adopt and even make his successor. But what about the rest? Was Aditya lucky? Yes, maybe a small part of it could be considered luck but the rest that he has achieved is through his hard work.
He has taken the Istarin Dynasty from a small nation that was about to be annexed by its neighboring nation to the largest Nation in the whole world. But it is also very true that he couldn't have done this without the amazing and wonderful people around him.
Amelia's words just served as a reflection of how far Aditya has come in life. From a prince of the Strongest Empire in the whole world to being exiled. And then rising from the ashes and reaching a height that his former past could have never reached.
Amelia felt extremely sad about what had happened to Aditya. Back then, when Aditya was thrown out, Amelia hadn't heard of the news immediately.
Before all of this, the relationship between Aditya's parents and Amelia was really good. Both families were really close. Riya and Aditya have grown up playing together. But as both of them grew older, especially Riya who is 4 and half years older than Aditya, she had less time to play with Aditya.
Riya was the princess of the Celestial Terrain. On top of that, she was also the Goddess of Nature, so the responsibilities on her shoulders were a lot. From a young age, she was expected to carry a lot of burdens.
Amelia knew that she cannot let her daughter be spoiled and become an arrogant bitch just because she is the princess of the Celestial Terrain and the goddess of Nature. She couldn't let her daughter become spoiled. She made sure that Riya took her training seriously from an early age.
All these factors resulted in Riya seeing Aditya less and less as she grew older. It was also around that time that the relationship between Aditya's family and the Tombrook family began to become strained.
To this day, Amelia always wondered if she or someone from her family had done anything that might have been the cause of this but she couldn't think of any such event. Both families always had been really close and from a young age both families kind of agreed on the fact that Riya would grow up and marry Aditya.
The relationship between the two families became strained to the point where Amelia stopped visiting Aditya and his family entirely. It wasn't that Amelia didn't want to continue this great relationship between both families to continue. It was Aditya's parents who increasingly became colder towards her. At first, their attitude was somewhat distant and guarded which Amelia found odd. And over time, their attitude shifted entirely.
The last time Amelia went to the Main continent with her daughter was because Riya had been asking her to meet Aditya for months now. Around that time, Aditya was 12 years old. But Amelia and Riya weren't given the chance to meet Aditya by his own parents. His own parents told them that they couldn't meet Aditya and gave some stupid excuses.
His parents weren't even trying to hide their displeasure and their not-welcoming attitude. Their words and expressions were harsh and insulting.
No matter how close both families were, this meeting was the last breaking point for her. Since then she entirely stopped visiting Aditya's parents altogether. She even forbade Riya to not go to The Celestial Dragon Empire. At that time, Amelia had no idea that Aditya was suffering in his own home.
A few years later, one day she got the news that the engagement between Aditya and Riya was no longer official. Almost six months later, she got news from a friend inside the Celestial Dragon Empire that Aditya had been exiled from the Celestial Dragon Empire. Around the same time, the Celestial Dragon Empire also made an official statement about the exile of its Prince. Aditya's cousin was announced as the New Crown Prince of the Celestial Dragon Empire.
Once Amelia heard the news, she did everything in her power to find where Aditya was. She wanted to take him in and give him a new home at the Celestial Terrain. She used her connections to search the main continent. At first, she thought that Aditya was still on the Main Continent.
Amelia stood up and bowed her head to Aditya. She still felt guilty and sad for not being able to give Aditya a home when he was kicked out of his own home country. "Aditya, I am extremely sorry."
Amelia's apology surprised Aditya. "Aunty, please raise your head," Aditya said in a gentle tone. Aditya never held any grudges against Amelia. Why should he hold any grudges towards her? She didn't owe him anything.
Amelia stared at Aditya as he continued to speak. "Besides, it's not like you didn't even try to look for me," Adiya said as he understood why Amelia was apologizing to him.
Riya had told Adtiya about this. She had looked for him almost everywhere. Once she learned that Aditya had been adopted by King Ahmed and had been named as his successor, Amelia felt it was better to let Aditya continue with his new life. He was happy with King Ahmed. If she appeared, she thought she would only hurt him by reminding him of his painful past. Amelia only found Aditya because of Alicia who used her connections to look for Aditya and managed to find him.
Since Alicia had assured her that she always had a bodyguard protecting Aditya, Amelia wasn't too worried about Aditya's safety. Amelia was thinking of going to the Istarin Dynasty to meet Aditya but around that time, King Ahmed died and Aditya soon fell into depression.
Around that time, Riya wanted to go and meet Aditya but Amelia forbade her as she was in her final stages of training. Another reason why Amelia forbade Riya from meeting Aditya is because Aditya's status had changed.
Though from time to time, Riya did go to meet him in disguise at the bar where Aditya went to drink.
As much as it pained her, she had to admit that since Aditya wasn't longer the prince of the Celestial Dragon Empire, he had lost his former status. And even if Riya married Aditya, this might cause a civil war in her own Empire. The marriage would make many dissatisfied and would question Amelia since there are far better candidates even in her Empire. Many would turn against her and some would even use this opportunity to remove her entirely from power. Amelia couldn't risk this.
Even now, just like her sister Seraphine told her, the elders are definitely going to give her a headache about her decision to let Riya marry someone who isn't even an Elf. Who knows there might be some who might even raise their weapons against her for allowing this to happen. In the elven society, interracial marriage is looked down upon. The elves that are married to a man or woman of some other race find themselves kicked out of the Elven Society.
An elven woman will be kicked out of her home by her own parents if she decides to marry a human male or a beastman. This is the many reasons why many of the elves live outside of the Celestial Terrain. Although the whole Celestial Terrain was a paradise to live in, this paradise came with restrictive social norms (unwritten rules of the society) that everyone was expected to follow.
Amelia still would have agreed to help Aditya but he fell into depression and became an addict. Since he didn't have any motivation left within him, how could she help him? If only he had shown a little bit of motivation and drive for change and to grow, Amelia would have used her whole connection to make sure that the Istarin Dynasty of that time grew to become one of the biggest Empires of the Dying Isle Continent. If he was interested in cultivating then she would have poured everything at her disposal for Aditya to become one of the greatest cultivators on the continent.
The elves would have had no choice but to shut their mouths in the face of absolute power and authority and this was something that Aditya lacked. At that time, he didn't even have the will for such a status.
This is another reason why Amelia didn't hesitate to break the foreign policy of staying neutral to pressure the Oracle Alliance as she knew that Aditya wouldn't be able to win the war if the entire Oracle Alliance was allowed to fight.
As much as Amelia hated the idea of her daughter leaving her, Amelia knew that her daughter loved this man beyond anything. Those years that she spent without him seem to have stolen her daughter's happiness.
Fortunately, Aditya changed for the better. During the war with the Zulux Dynasty, Amelia almost sent her elven forces thinking that the of that time Istarin Dynasty wouldn't be able to win against such a powerful Dynasty but Aditya surpassed her expectations.
Since then Amelia and Riya have kept a watch on Aditya. Aditya kept surpassing their expectations.
'I clearly remember the day when Riya excitedly returned to the Celestial Terrain and told me about meeting Aditya.' Amelia chuckled as the face of her excited daughter appeared in her mind.
After meeting Aditya, Riya was so excited that she didn't waste any more time and went to stay with Aditya. Amelia could have tried to stop her daughter but she let her go. She already had held back her daughter enough.
And now being with Aditya, Her daughter has once again begun to smile like she used to do. 'They say people change with time but this isn't entirely true.' Riya loved Aditya just as much as she did when they were children.
Really Thank you very much to all those who send support with valuable golden tickets. I hope we can keep it up!!!
My apologies for not uploading yesterday. Yesterday the whole day I was outside for some important work and had no time to write
