The Delphians

Azrael shook his head and gave a sarcastic laugh, "Don't get too ahead of yourself. Our families had decided about the marriage alliance. Now, whether my sister agrees to it or not, is completely dependent on her decision. Let me tell you, she might look gentle and quiet, but actually, she's quite stubborn. If she makes a decision, it'll be very hard to make her change it! Besides, I'll always support whatever she decides."

Asher did not show much concern to what Azrael said. He raised one of his eyebrows and confidently said, "What's not to like about this prince? I'll give her everything including myself! Besides, you don't know my angel that well. She will definitely agree to this marriage!"

Azrael was again rendered speechless at how Asher uttered those shameless words. If the Delphians heard about how their harsh and indifferent Crown Prince promised to give himself to his fiancee, they would not know whether to laugh or cry.

Azrael too did not know from where Asher got such confidence about his marriage with Aelia. He even dared to say that Azrael did not know his own sister well.

Aylin, on the other hand, was quite amused by her new brother-in-law. Though she felt that he was a little...ahem...shameless, it could not be denied that his eyes were only for her sister. Aylin knew that her sister was not an easily approachable person, so she was happy to see someone other than his father and brother, so emotionally invested in her.

Meanwhile, Reine and Natalie were extremely agitated by Asher's arrival. Seeing that, the situation was not looking too good for them, they quickly left the party. They were afraid that Asher would come after them for falsely accusing his fiancee.

Though Asher had not completely forgotten about the two girls who were slandering his angel, he believed that Aelia was competent enough to handle those merely scheming girls. Besides he knew that Aelia would have wanted to settle this matter on her own. So, he had no intention of going after Reine and Natalie.

...

After the party was over, the Romanov family along with Asher, gathered in Mr Romanov's office. Reine was not called to join them, because Asher informed them that the things they would discuss then were quite confidential. Since Reine was not an involved party, she did not need to join them.

In fact, Asher had also wanted Aylin to not join their conversation, but he knew that his angel would not like that. Asher was actually just rather concerned for the safety of his angel's sister. He knew that the more Aylin knew, the more she would be put in danger because his enemies might try to hurt her to get information about his plans. However, since his angel would not like to leave out her sister from knowing the facts, he did not open his mouth about the issue. He thought that rather than hurting his angel's feelings, it would be better to put more security around Aylin as well as their father, Andrew Romanov.

After all of them had gathered in Mr Romanov's office, seeing her brother hesitate about where to begin and feeling Asher's steady gaze on her, Aelia herself started the conversation.

"So, how come I have a fiance without my knowledge?"

Hearing this Asher smirked and was about to say something, but was interrupted by Azrael who sighed and began.

"Let me begin by telling you why we are involved with the country of Delphia. Do you remember what mom told us about how her parents, our grandparents, had passed away in an accident? Well, that's not true. Our maternal grandparents are alive."

Sensing that Aelia was confused and Aylin was about to interrupt him, he raised his hands and continued.

"Now, don't get me wrong! She didn't deliberately lie to us, I too came to know about this later, after I turned eighteen and joined them. I'll come to that later, now where was I? Yes, so, our maternal grandparents are one of the ten Ducal Houses of Delphia. Now, though outsiders consider Delphia a monarchy that has been ruled by the Ivanov Royal family for generations, it is not exactly so. Rather Delphia is governed by a council of ten Ducal Houses with the Ivanov Royal Family as its leader.

Each Ducal House has some kind of abilities. For instance, our De Ville family are the Empaths. The strongest ones in our family can correctly interpret people's emotions, so much so that they would be able to read people's minds just from their emotions."

After saying this, Azrael's eyes rested on Aelia for a moment, then he continued.

"Similarly, there are nine other Ducal Houses. One of them is the Healers who are able to heal almost all diseases, then there are the Planters, who can instantly grow a huge tree from a tiny seed and they are the ones responsible for growing all the crops for Delphians. Similarly, we have the Miners, who can detect earth elements from above the surface, the Educators, who can instantly teach by projecting the matter directly into the student's minds, we have the Researchers who can learn at an exponential rate, the Anators who can understand and speak the language of animals and birds, the Magis who can control various aspects of the weather through their music, the Shifters who can change their bone structures and thus easily take the appearance of any human, they work as our spies and lastly, we have the Divinors who do divination to predict major happenings as well as work as priests for the Delphians."

After this, Azrael took a break to let all this information sink in.

Aylin blurted out excitedly, "So, the Delphians are kind of a supernatural race."

Asher said with a chuckle, "Instead of supernatural, let's go with a more improved species of humans. After all, we have this special power to guard the human species. At one point of time in the past, the country of Delphi was open to all outsiders. We were known as the Guardians of human civilization. In fact, one of the Phillonian God, Limulus was a Delphian. According to Delphian legends, he was not only the ancestor of the Ivanov Royal family, but also the other ten Ducal Houses."