The Unexpected Ruler

Alexio's POV:

After my father, the 3rd Emperor, has passed away, I have been officially crowned as the new Emperor of the Realm. I must say that I never expected it, because I always thought my older brother Marc would be ruling the Empire after the passing of our father, just because I thought he was the perfect person for it, he is authoritative, smart, charismatic, and has strong leadership skills. After I found out, my father wanted me to be the Emperor and take the throne after his death, I felt... Very sad, not because I didn't want to be a ruler, but because I didn't want to lose my dad. I didn't want this day to come. Now, on top of having my dad's pass, I have to rule an Empire too, not something I've wanted to do in times like this.

The following days after my coronation were overwhelming, the responsibilities that came with being the Emperor weren't as easy to get over with as I thought. There were numerous affairs of state that my father didn't get to finish before his passing. Policies that needed fine-tuning, infrastructure projects in need of approval, and treaties with neighboring kingdoms to be ratified. All the responsibilities of the empire rested on my shoulders, and it was a burden I had not anticipated.

My father always used to help me get through life challenges. His authoritative presence, his sharp intellect, and the charisma that could win over even the most stubborn of advisers had made him a legendary ruler. But now, he was gone, and it was up to me to continue his legacy. I knew I had big shoes to fill.

As I was drowning in the problems of the governance, I started to notice something strange about my sister, Aurelia. She always used to be a supportive, sensible, and optimistic girl who always seemed to have a smile on her face. She would always try to cheer up others no matter what. In the recent days it seems as if she became a bit more distant with us, and preoccupied with something, if she has to do something she will now make excuses every time and ask for someone else to do it instead, she didn't seem to care about us grieving and being about the death of our father either, she seemed rather cold, mean and close minded to the fact that we reacted in such ways after such a difficult time to go through, which was weird since our dad would always spoil her and spend most of the time with her because she's his only daughter; But I didn't think so much of it, it must be very hard for her as well to cope with such thing so her behavior towards others changed, and I couldn't blame her for it.

The upcoming days were filled with meetings, consultations, and decision-making. I could barely eat for the past few days, my head felt like it could really explode anytime soon, and I was very exhausted, but most of all it was hard for me to not miss and think about my dad.

However there wasn't any time to worry about that, I was too deep in the empire's affairs to stop what I'm doing to take care of myself or check on my sister and her unusual behavior, but as the days started to turn into weeks, the feeling that something was out of place only grew stronger. Little did I know that her actions and behavior were not due to grief or sadness, but her intentions had a far more sinister purpose.

Today, she offered to give me a glass of wine. I thought it was nice of her and thought that maybe she'll finally stop acting so weird... Just for her to end up putting dish soap in it. Yes, you heard that right. She literally tried to poison me, her own brother.

Why was she always acting the meanest and doing the strangest things to me? I mean, she was acting pretty cold and mean towards the others, too, but it felt like it was more severe to me. Like, this girl literally tried to kill me.

I was sure she's out of her mind, when I confronted her about what she has done; she denied everything and said I don't understand how she's feeling, she said that she cannot think straight anymore, that she has this anger and sadness in her ever since dad passed so I shouldn't judge her about it because the loss of her dad made her crazy and nothing like her usual self. But I just thought that I had never heard that someone would try to literally poison and hurt their own brother because of mere grief and sadness. That just sounded so crazy and illogical. I understand that she struggles with what happened recently, but so does everyone, and that doesn't mean you should expect to be forgiven or believed when you say that grief made you want to hurt or potentially kill someone and act so mean and cold towards everyone, and act as if you don't know what they're going through, when you yourself lost someone important in your life.