Chapter 57
Destroy the holy relic?! Get rid of the barrier?! This barrier that had been kept alive through countless Dedication Festivals?
Does he mean to turn this entire area into a den of demon beasts? Is he completely insane? Whether my thoughts had leaked out or not, an answer came back.
“You must. Because that relic is a fake.”
“……Huh?”
“If it is stained with blood, it is the Imperial Princess who will be in danger.”
“Why are you kidnapping people and spouting all this in the dark without even revealing your identity?!”
“Because I cannot trust the Imperial Princess. Is it not the same for you?”
Had I taken medicine, or inhaled something like helium? A voice that felt foreign even to myself echoed in the air.
“Of course I don’t trust you!”
Dumbfounded, I jumped up from my seat.
“Common sense—would you trust me if you were in my shoes? Would you?! To hear some crazy person kidnap you in your sleep and suddenly say, ‘Hey, don’t do your job, just destroy that.’ If you wanted to talk, you should have requested a formal meeting in broad daylight…!”
“Is that the reason for your anger? You seem rather lacking in a sense of crisis.”
“To put it bluntly, even if it is a fake, who knows what would happen the moment the relic is destroyed….”
“I cannot see you during the day.”
“Why?! Did you smear honey on your face? Or do you have some disease in your feet…!”
It was right then.
Flash, the lights flickered on.
I lost my words the moment I saw the scene before my eyes.
The room was strikingly luxurious. But what was more impressive was the person standing in front of me.
At first glance, he was a boy around my age.
His well-groomed brown hair was swept back and tied at the nape of his neck, and he wore glasses that felt a bit thick. The brown suit he wore was tailored perfectly to his body, exuding a maturity akin to an adult man. His eyes were a similar shade of brown.
However, the whites of his eyes staring this way were completely bloodshot, as if vessels had burst everywhere.
The boy’s feet, as he sat in a chair, were wrapped tightly in bandages. Since no splints were visible, it didn’t seem like a simple fracture. Even his hands were covered in layers of gloves, leaving not a single inch of his wrists exposed. Every detail exuded an ominous atmosphere.
“My name is Flux Roman Ben Cortez.”
The eyes of the boy looking this way with a chillingly desolate face, one corner of his mouth hooked up.
“I am the Young Count Cortez.”
He looked precarious, as if he might bite and tear apart everything in this world at any moment.
“I have no intention of playing mother to that child.”
The Empress spoke calmly.
The room was spacious and quiet. It was perhaps a bit lacking for a private meeting between the Empress of the Empire and the heir of a Great Ducal House. However, no one in the room cared about such trivial matters.
“For someone who says that, you have placed a considerably large gamble on this matter.”
Raymon’s voice was flat. The Empress looked down at the teacups that neither of them had touched.
The tea had gone cold and stale, but the Empress’s maid, waiting like a shadow near the door, did not budge. She knew well that such minor service was not what mattered in this conversation.
“Your Majesty the Empress has released demon beasts into the Imperial Palace. Had the Imperial Consort found out, she would have branded it a rebellion aimed at His Majesty the Emperor.”
“And what of it? If things went wrong, I would have been the one framed for treason.”
The Empress dropped a sugar cube into the tea she had no intention of drinking.
“She will keep her head down for now. Until His Majesty’s anger subsides, she will submissively cater to his whims and lie low. It is better for Titania to attend the Dedication Festival now. It makes no difference for Adrian or Brian whether they attend that measly festival or not; they will still be treated as royalty. But that child is a little different.”
Titania did technically hold successional rights to the throne.
She had simply been mistreated because she was the youngest in the line of succession, and more so because the prevailing sentiment was that she was ‘the Princess to be married off to the Castline family’ rather than a member of the Imperial Family.
If the engagement with the Castline family were broken and something were to happen to her biological mother—at that moment, there was no guarantee what her standing would become.
Therefore, even if it was now an event that existed in name only, it was better for Titania to participate under her own name.
“Are you going to play the fiancé now?”
The sound of a silver spoon clinking against a teacup rang out.
There was no way the Empress, who had been schooled in etiquette since she could walk, would make a mistake. Therefore, this was an intentional noise. Raymon’s golden eyes sank like wet grains of sand.
“Am I not allowed to?”
“She is a child who would have offered up her life long ago if you had only smiled and held her hand once.”
Raymon’s body stiffened.
“That is why, unlike the Imperial Consort, I did not want to lure and use a child starved for affection, so I chose to turn away instead. Just as one turns away from a young animal abandoned on the street because they do not want to take responsibility.”
Titania had changed like a butterfly emerging from a cocoon. She assessed situations with cold eyes and created a way forward even if it meant throwing herself into the fray.
“That child grew up on her own. So I have no intention of overstepping my bounds and playing mother now. My only child is Adrian. Therefore, even if you say you wish to follow her with my permission because you are belatedly worried about Titania….”
The Empress gave a bitter smile.
“Is that something I can give permission for?”
“…The movements in the South are suspicious. Even if it is not to your liking, it is a necessary task.”
“No, you came to me because you needed an excuse.”
The Empress smiled, only the corners of her mouth lifting.
“You know well that she does not consider me her mother. You know that my permission carries no meaning. If it were truly a necessary task, would you have come all the way here to ask me? You simply wanted to sell my name to Titania as an excuse.”
The Empress watched the man before her, who remained as motionless as a statue.
He was someone who rarely showed emotion under normal circumstances. This was especially true since most of his encounters with the Empress were for official business at the palace.
However, like a child forced to swallow a terribly bitter medicine—like a criminal who desperately wants to flee but realizes there is no escape—his shoulders were frozen stiff, and his lips could not even squeeze out an excuse…. He looked strangely precarious.
His lips, which had been flickering for a long while, finally forced out words.
“…It is only right for a fiancé to worry about his fiancée.”
“Was the engagement between the Princess and yourself ever a right or ordinary thing?”
“In the current Castline family, the Imperial Princess is….”
“Right, that adopted daughter who is the treasure of the Castline family. Would things be the same as they are now if you hadn’t saved that lady named Bibi?”
“…It might not have been exactly the same.”
Even as he answered, Raymon looked like a man who knew full well he was making an excuse.
The Young Duke of the Castline family never hesitated when making a choice.
He chose what was appropriate according to priority. In that choice, his own existence did not exist. Neither did his desires.
“Do you wish to reproach me, saying that I am deceiving the Imperial Princess?”
If so, what happens if a problem arises where priorities cannot be assigned?
What if only a problem with no selectable answer stands in the way?
“Do you wish to blame me, saying it is my fault for not caring how she broke because I thought she was a hand I would eventually let go of?”
‘Please find someone you love and get married.’
Raymon had never forgotten the moment Titania spoke of breaking the engagement, not for a single day or hour.
‘I’ve lived without owing Her Majesty the Empress anything. I don’t think I owe anyone in the Imperial Family. Though I suppose my life has been a disgrace to the House of Castline.’
The words she had poured out incessantly in a quiet tone.
‘So, you see. Just out of a tiny bit of pity. Out of sympathy. I hate the thought of someone sacrificing themselves because of a hand reached out to me with the thought that they could at least help this much. I really hate it. I hate being a loss to someone, even by a hair’s breadth. I hate being thought of as the price one must naturally pay for helping that young, ignorant, fool of a Princess.’
When he heard those words, he had felt lightheaded without realizing it. It was as if someone had struck him on the back of the head. It was especially so because he knew that what he was hearing was Titania’s true feelings.
Ultimately, it was the attitude of someone who had concluded that her own existence was a nuisance to others.
I’ve lived a life that was a disgrace to the House of Castline….
Her love had become a source of shame for her. He felt as if his throat were blocked. He should have said it wasn’t true. But he couldn’t speak. He felt as if he were being strangled.
She felt ashamed for clinging to someone who wouldn’t love her and causing trouble, and she felt she had become a nuisance to others because she was saved after nearly dying by her own choice.
To her, all these events were exactly that.
Even though it was the Castline family’s unilateral decision to take the unconscious girl to the Empress’s Palace.