Your comment made me realise why I have so many strong feelings when reading this story.
Dont read further if you don't want to read about trauma
When I was abot 10 or 11, my older brother asked me to show him my privates. I refused, and he begged me to tell my mum, but I did anyway. He got a massive scolding, then he apologised, and mum made me promise to not tell anyone.
But from now on, I no longer lived under the same roof with my brother, but with a predator. For years I had to pretend that everything is fine, all while mum was going to work and leaving us alone. Then we moved, and me and my mum were sleeping in the living room, that you had to go through to go to the kitchen. I had no privacy, day and night. And yes, maybe nothing happened, but maybe something did, when I was sleeping out in the open, when mum was out working her night shift.
And thats the thing- nothing happened. But noone acknowledged my pain, my fears, the lost bond between sibilings. Noone apolo
...gised for all the suffering I was choking on for 8 years I was living there after that moment.
I'm... Well... most of my traumatic experience came from a family member too. It was a repeated nearly death experience and trauma that I barely really resolved, I guess I must've projected my thoughts too directly. So I'm sorry if my comment made you recall horrible memories... Even though it's a fictional story, it's unavoidable not to empathize with it, even if just a little...
I felt bad for Eustis since he really did try to fix things. But I just didn't like taking what he did lightly, since someone did suffer for what he did so easily. At this point, I might have Empathize with Phil over Eustis.
Also, I think what you went through was covered up too easily. "Nothing happened anyways" doesn't mean nothing really did happen. My mom also tried to silence me for the sake of the "Family", but my brothers later found out and comforted me. Instead of silencing me, they apologized for what happened to me and that "broke" our family "peace", but we all realized that we went through the same experience. It just that no one said it, no one made a big deal out of it, so nothing happened. Let me be straight, nothing happened because you were forced to act like nothing did. If you had made a big deal out of it, maybe... But you were young, the young has limited choices to make.
Majority of Phil's life was spent on fear and trauma, that she didn't have to go through. Phil was actually a child fearing everyday that'd she'd be killed and I guess just imagining her not having a peaceful childhood and spent most of it desperate to survive just because one grown man wanted to hurt a child for things she had no control over (Empress death) makes it pitiable.
Phil would have forgiven him, but he didn't even apologize during the times when he could have. At this point, Emperor's mistakes could be exaggerated, after all, all he did was just throw cruel words. But the results of his words is definitely not exaggerated , at least if it's viewed on Phil's perspective.