Inheriting a Lost Bloodline, My First Task is to have heirs?!
Chapter 346 - 346 - Athanoviya's Marriage Ritual (Part 2)

The evening banquet started exactly at seven in the evening. As we arrived in the banquet hall, it was required that someone by the door, one of the palace attendants, would have to announce our arrival for everyone in the hall to hear. It was just another custom that we had to follow.

The first ones to have their arrivals announced are the empress and the main consort, then the concubines and lastly, their children (the princes who were half siblings of Aurum) and the only princess which is Aurum's younger sibling). They all had to get in first for formality's sake. We will come in last since we are the ones who will be having the marriage ritual or as they say, the stars of this event.

For this event, I am using my real face since I came here as the queen of Eieneos. It was the identity I will be using to officially marry Aurum, Helios, Calyx, Yren and Xenos. We all made sure to get our stories straight about this being an arranged marriage between kingdoms for the sake of alliance. It was published that it was set several centuries before but it was only now that Eieneos was able to fulfill their end of the agreement.

The marriage will only be officially announced to all the citizens of Athanoviya empire once all the rituals have been completed by me and the guys. I will also use this as the first official announcement of the return of the kingdom of Eieneos to this world. I am also making my stance clear that Athanoviya is under a mystique kingdom's protection too, not that any of them can get through the barriers I gifted to my in-laws.

As for those barriers, they will be launched as part of the announcement of Aurum's marriage and as a symbol of the start of our alliance. This will surely have pros and cons since it will expose Athanoviya both to possible alliances and also foes. I was assured by my in-laws that they can handle all the consequences just fine.

I am quite sure that this news will spread to the other mystiques quickly. As per the information relayed to me by Noir, all the mystique races have started making their move during the time of the worldwide earthquake I have caused when I opened the new world tree realm. They all made sure to send their own loyal subordinates in each nation, kingdom or empire in the human realm who would act as spies and designated information exchange points. I think they would love to hear that there is finally some news about Eieneos in the days to come.

As for the banquet itself, it was the usual. It was simply filled with music, food, drinks, dance, people dressed their best and a lot of unnecessary conversations to appear polite to each other. This all lasted until midnight.

By that time, most of the nobles are already too drunk and rowdy so they had to be ushered back to their rooms. They ritual will be in the middle of the afternoon tomorrow so they can sleep in and the drunkards will appear fine by then.

As the party ended, we all went back to our respective rooms. Much to Dimitri's annoyance, since he is one of the grooms for tomorrow's ritual, he is not allowed to share a room with me. Luckily, his grandparents are one of the invited noble witnesses so he stayed with them instead.

The next morning, breakfast was served early for us. There is another meeting right after the meal to talk about the next items on the checklist and how it will exactly go about later in the afternoon.

The next major thing in the checklist was the marriage ritual, of course. Most of the time, it would be the officiating royal palace attendant who will be speaking all the necessary clauses and chants to make the things official and binding. We, as the participants, will simply have to verbally express our agreement to be bound to each other for life.

The royal and noble families of Athanoviya strongly condemn the cancellation of engagements and the dissolution of marriages so we are expected to be with each other for the rest of our lives. In fact, the option itself to cancel those things does not exist in this land so even if a couple ended up cheating, fighting or even hating each other, their only option is to live separately but in official records, stay married. The only way to get out of it was death of one of the parties.

This is one of the reasons why royals and nobles are careful with matching their children to potential partners. Most of them no longer adhere to the idea of arranged marriages for their own children since if the relationship between the couple doesn't work out, it will spell never-endinfg troubles and lifelong misery not only to the married individuals but also to their respective households.

It definitely came as a huge surprise to the nobles when the royal capital called on to them to attend the marriage of the eighth prince since he is known to abhor all women except his own mother and as much, he also abhors the idea of getting married. When they heard that the obnoxious and stubborn prince agreed to get married and fulfill a promise of an arranged marriage with another kingdom, they became even more intrigued and immediately made their way to Hoffen City as fast as they could.

After lunch, as we previously all agreed on, we conducted a separate and intimate ritual just for me and DImitri. This is to complete this necessary step for him since we never had the time to do so. This is also a way to conceal the fact that Dimitri married the same woman as his cousin.

It is not illegal for men who are related by blood to marry the same wife. The problem was I am using a different identity as Dimitri's wife compared to the one I will be using to marry Aurum so we can't have only one ritual for all of them.

We made the ritual quick since we do not want any of the witnesses to sense anything was amiss. I also used a different set of clothing and of course, a disguise as Luna, the academe student for it.

I have about a little over two hours leeway after the ritual before attending the next one so I hurried back to my room with Dimitri in tow. Once we are inside the room, I asked him why he never told me that this step was needed. He shyly said that he totally forgot about it as we have already done everything a married couple does anyways.

I held my head in disbelief and then asked another question, "Is the reason why you never told me about it is because you are planning to pretend that we have never been together after the supposed 1 year contract expires? Since we never did this step before, we are technically not married on the family law for royals and nobles."

Dimitri looked at me and gave me a helpless smile. He eventually nodded and apologized. He simply said that he never thought that I will really take him in and we would end up voiding that contract and be with each other fornlife.

Well, two hours is long so I tinkered the time a bit in the room. A marriage calls for a honeymoon so I have to give a quick one to husband number three.

When he realized what I was planning, he literally bolted away from me and tried to exit the room. I teleported right in front of the door to block him. I smirk naughtily and he looked at me with widened eyes. He scolded me, "I am planning to attend your marriage ritual later! What are you trying to do?!"

I whispered to him, "We will just do it to an equivalent of one hour inside this room. You're deified now so your body's recovery rate is quick. They won't even notice what we did." I winked at him as I ended my sentence.

He cursed under his breath but still gave me what I wanted. Since we are time bound, we went crazy within the space and time we were given. It was a quickie if you think about it except an hour is equal to 8 hours here.

Right after my intimate time with Dimitri, he went back to his room to freshen up and change his clothes to attend the next marriage ritual. I also had to immediately change outfits and how I looked like. This time, I will be showing my real face as Luna, the queen of Eieneos.

As I exited the room to make my way back to the ritual hall, I fetched Dimitri and my grandparents-in-law on my way there. We arrived together in the area and I gave a gentle smile to Dimitri which he returned with a firm nod. I really wanted to hold his hand while we were walking but I am using a different identity as of the moment so we have to pretend to only greet each other civilly.