Rui stiffened at those words.
The Elder Tree was right on the money.
When Rui thought of responsibility, he thought of his father. The man who bore more responsibility than any other person he had ever known. The Emperor of Harmony was, in many ways, the model ruler and the ultimate responsibility-bearer
His life was the throne.
The throne was his life.
There was no separation between the two, as far as Emperor Rael was concerned. Everything he did, he did for the Kandrian Empire; even his personality and temperament had grown to develop around this fundamental responsibility he had adopted.
Rui had deep respect for his father for how he bore responsibility, but he could never ever see himself being that way. It was why he had recoiled at the thought of being Emperor.
