As the original story goes he isn't really a great person to begin with. I think he is gonna have some character development later on.
I think that’s consistent to his character though. Even when he said he’d look out for Liliana, there’s a panel where he had the thought “it’s according to the contract anyway.” While he isn’t a malicious person, he’s also ruthless and doesn’t particularly personally care as long as everything falls into place for him politically. He cares about Liliana getting treated well because that is Alice’s Achilles heel, the whole reason she agreed to political marriage in the first place. It’s not out of character for him to be careless with people’s feelings according to what we’ve seen so far.
Right, from what I gathered, it is a contract with his life on the line, with her brother. I think the mage has the same contract but I'm not sure who with, I also don't think he is okay with it, almost seemed like he was forced. While the crown prince seemed remorseful but not deeply. Almost like when someone gets caught, they say they are sorry but not actually sorry, only sorry they got caught kind of way... If that makes sense.
The emperor’s half hearted apology to his brother was laughably forced probably only done as to not look bad in front of the girls, then he basically said he didn’t care what happens to his brother and that he’d only look after linna or however you spell it. at least the uncle was somewhat apologetic when they talked. Just makes me mad when authors write side characters that should be as emotionally complex as the Mc if not more so then just everything’s just magically fixed after one conversation, like the brother should be way more mad that non of the adults actually changed their behavior they still favor linna and ignore him.