5.3

By the end of the day, Aidan was drained. He had listened to the council elders bickering continuously throughout the afternoon, trying to learn something. But the conclusion was that it had been a waste of his time.
      Jura and Kley had argued about what foods and drinks they had to bring for at least two hours, while Vitar and Plinius were just watching, adding fuel to the fire at times to make the discussion even more heated.
      After what Aidan had thought to be three hours, they settled on simple, yet fancy dishes; sliced turkey with an extravagant cranberry sauce, spaghetti carbonara that would be prepared right in front of the person who ordered, steamed and seasoned rainbow vegetables, salmon sashimi and salmon sushi rolls, and the most delicious chocolate cake as dessert.
      In addition to dinner dishes, they would also bring a ginormous amount of preservable foods. A variety of cookies, some candied fruits, actual candy, salty snacks packed in bags, anything Aidan could find in his kitchen’s cabinets or in the stores basically.
      Aidan dragged himself back to the mansion. The walk wasn’t that long, only a ten-minute walk from the mansion’s gates, but it felt like he had been walking forever. The guards greeted him politely when he walked through the gates, but he didn’t have the energy anymore to greet them back properly. He just lifted his hand in what had to look like a wave before continuing his struggle to his room.
      The flowers blooming around him didn’t offer him the usual support or motivation and one of the garden maids tried to cheer him up with a small bouquet of freshly picked flowers, but he declined the offer. He knew he’d sent the girl off crying after his decline – he had seen the tears swelling in her eyes before she had turned around and run away – but he couldn’t be bothered.
      “I am drained!” he whined when he walked into the entrance hall, hoping one of the servants would hear him and bring him some refreshments. And without missing a beat, two servants came running to him – one with comfortably looking slippers and one with his favourite drink on a tray.
      The servant put the slippers in front of his feet before untying his shoes and helping Aidan take them off. “Here you go, Brother Aidan,” he said, motioning Aidan to step into the slippers.
      Aidan nodded and took the drink from the tray, sipping the lemon soda through a straw while he stumbled to the dining room. He plopped down into his chair and put his feet on the table, waiting for dinner to be served. Out of boredom, he pulled out the newest DataPad. Only the best to the heir of Conqueron, right?
      The small, thin, transparent device with a touchscreen could holographically show you whatever you wanted to see. Aidan had read about the predecessor of the DataPad – something named phones and tablets. DataPads, however, were meant to be more versatile, more advanced and a lot easier to use and carry. Almost like smartwatches, but superior.
      Wanted to play a game? There were numerous options the phone could pull up for your entertainment. Read the news? A large page mimicking a paper newspaper showed you the latest achievements, improvements and notable events. Walk around the city without actually moving your ass? Move around a holographic avatar that resembles you in great detail, walking past everything in the city. Not a historical imprint of the city, the actual city in real time.
      That last option made it generally useless to take a walk around the city in your spare time, because you could walk around gardens while lazily snacking in your comfortable fauteuil or bed. Less energy and time consuming, considering you didn’t actually leave your house or exercise.
      Aidan on the other hand preferred to use it to fight his boredom usually. Watching stupid infomercials, training his brain with puzzles, reading novels or the news, or talking to classmates.
      “Brother Aidan, his holiness has just let us know he won’t be dining with you. Elder Jura has invited him to dinner at his mansion. We’ll be bringing out your dinner shortly,” a servant notified him. Before Aidan could respond, the servant was already gone.
      “Of course he has to discuss more with father,” Aidan mumbled angrily. Jura had the tendency to invite Father Xavierno over for dinner after an important meeting like today, to discuss matters further over dinner. Aidan, however, was never invited to listen in for future reference, not even after his involvement in the meeting and agreements made today.
      He had always thought Jura did this to be the most important council member, to be the favourite elder of the city’s ruler, and to suck up to his father. It was very obvious Jura didn’t do this without an ulterior motive, especially after seeing the jealousy on his face today in the council.
      Although it was nothing new, Aidan couldn’t help but to be bothered by this behaviour right now. Without paying attention to what food was served to him, he shoved it down his throat – together with the bad feeling he got from the council elder.
      Was he jealous of the attention his father was giving Jura instead of him? It surely didn’t feel right. He had a premonition those dinner meetings had been something more than just sucking up to his father, but he couldn’t quite put a finger on it. Why now?
      Aidan started recollecting previous council meetings he attended and after which ones Jura had invited his father over, but he couldn’t make anything out of it – nothing other than Jura wanting to be the first council member to know details or give prime advice to Father Xavierno without other council members interrupting or bringing up good ideas before he could.
      It was a pathetic display of a political servant’s need to be validated and important and Aidan was surprised none of the other elders tried this, now that he thought about it.
      Maybe that was why it felt weird, now that he had not been watching from the side-lines in the council hall today. Jura couldn’t put in enough to make him the most valued person in the room – it had been the heir to the throne that had made the biggest contributions to the solution for the problem at hand. It had been nothing new to the other council elders, not being the one with the best ideas or most information, but for Jura, it had been new.
      The other elders had probably already given up on topping him, so they just let him do the talking, contributing only slightly to the conversations or trying to subtly give their idea to Jura by setting it up for him. But now that the boy who was next in line for the crown – or tome, in this case – had stolen his spotlight, he felt the need to display that he was better than an inexperienced nineteen-year-old who tried to get involved in his future responsibilities.
      The idea that someone desired the attention and prime position that much pissed Aidan off greatly. Until now, he barely gave a shit about politics or the council or any of the matters that had to be discussed there, but now? Jura was going down. Aidan decided he would knock Jura down a few pegs, just to show the creepy old man that he was not someone to mess with. And that when he’d be sitting in his father’s place, he would not tolerate the pitiful behaviour he had witnessed today.