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Chapter 27
However, the duke could not press the issue any further.
“His Majesty Emperor Torbian Wilgraham, the Sun and Order of the Empire, and Her Holiness Saint Yuna Belgrean, the proxy of God, are entering.”
The protagonists of tonight’s ball had arrived.
From the moment they entered, the man and woman who openly displayed their closeness remained standing within easy reach of each other even after taking their places. From a distance, it was impossible to hear what they were saying, but it was clear enough that they were exchanging trivial remarks, smiling at one another, and occasionally engaging in lighthearted teasing.
As a former empress, Rianel ought to have felt betrayed.
I want to go home.
That was all she was thinking.
She had known about the nature of their relationship ever since her days as empress.
Even when I was wasting away on my sickbed, he didn’t come to see me—he went to visit the saint who had caught a cold instead.
Perhaps because she already knew, it wasn’t shocking, nor did it reopen old wounds. It was simply bothersome.
It wasn’t as though there was anything remarkable waiting for her at home, but it still had to be better than standing around idly in a voluminous dress she rarely wore.
Still, this farce will end soon enough.
Just as everything comes to an end, so too would this ball thrown by protocol-obsessed officials.
Once she congratulated the emperor on his birthday, she would be free to leave.
What a waste of tax money.
Rianel glanced at the party decorations and the lavish banquet tables, calculating how much money must have gone into all of this.
There was still a long wait before it would be her turn to offer congratulations to the emperor.
High-ranking ministers had priority. Once their greetings were finished, it proceeded ministry by ministry—and even within each ministry, seniority determined the order of audience.
Rianel belonged not to a ministry but to the Agency Bureau, and even there she was the most junior member.
Naturally, that meant she would be the very last among the civil servants to meet the emperor.
At least I don’t have to present a gift. I suppose that’s a blessing in disguise.
To be precise, it was left to personal discretion.
Offering a gift too paltry for an emperor would only invite ridicule, so officials of modest means often chose to forgo gifts altogether.
The emperor, for his part, did not go out of his way to squeeze offerings out of low-ranking officials.
As a result, only a very small number of people—Asil and the team leader among them—presented gifts on behalf of the Special Taxation Agency.
“May infinite glory be upon the Empire. Congratulations on Your Majesty’s birthday.”
One by one, the line shortened.
“Thank you.”
Mel’s turn passed, and then it was Rianel’s.
“I humbly congratulate Your Majesty, the Sun of the Empire, on your birthday.”
She recited the standard congratulatory phrase.
Up to that point, nothing unusual had happened, and she was about to withdraw without a second thought when—
“You resemble Ensilen.”
An unexpected remark fell from the emperor’s lips.
It was a name from her past life, one she hadn’t heard for months and had never expected to hear again.
Rianel instinctively drew her shoulders in.
The emperor discarded his usual languid gaze and scrutinized her with a sharp, piercing look. He even leaned forward slightly, as though determined to see her clearly.
It was the same dogged persistence he had shown long ago, when he had come to her office and asked her to become his empress.
Rianel bowed her head in silence.
She lowered her gaze, feigning composure, though it was little more than a shallow attempt to avoid his eyes.
“The habit of clasping your hands below your abdomen when standing—and even your handwriting—is strikingly similar.”
A report lay precariously across the emperor’s knee.
Without needing to look closely, Rianel knew it was one she herself had submitted.
“I’m not sure what you mean. Don’t all civil servants write more or less the same way?”
“…That’s true.”
Seemingly losing interest after the saint spoke, the emperor gathered the report and tossed it aside.
“I misspoke. You are not my empress.”
Then he added,
“My empress never hesitated when she had something to say.”
He waved his hand, boredom returning to his expression.
“You may withdraw.”
“Thank you for your grace.”
Only after she had hurried several steps away did she finally feel able to breathe.
Her stiffened thoughts began to move again around then.
That was when she realized why the emperor had acted so strangely.
The emperor is looking for me.
She hadn’t known it at the time, but Rianel was certain that the person who had killed her was the emperor.
There was only one man capable of turning even the maids and her personal physician into accomplices.
That led to the inevitable question.
…Why?
Why would he search for someone he himself had killed?
After finishing her greeting and heading down, Rianel collided with the princess.
“Ah—!”
It was proof of how distracted she still was after meeting the emperor.
“My apologies.”
Rianel caught the small, unsteady body.
“Th-thank you.”
“You dropped this.”
She picked up the gift the princess had dropped. She didn’t know what was inside, but it felt quite heavy.
“Y-yes….”
There was a reason they had bumped into each other.
The princess’s turn came right after Rianel’s.
To think she’s lower in priority than a mere junior civil servant like me.
The princess hastily bowed her head and snatched the gift box back as if grabbing it away.
“….”
Rianel watched the princess walk off.
They were both members of the imperial family.
Yet unlike the emperor, who wore fine clothes and enjoyed quality meals, the princess was dressed plainly, her frame far too thin for a twelve-year-old.
Had Rianel not recognized her face, she might not even have realized her status.
“C-congratulations on your bi-birthday, Brother….”
Rianel watched as the princess stammered through her audience with the emperor.
They were half-siblings, and their relationship had always been awkward, but—
She wasn’t this timid before.
She had been someone who smiled easily.
[Um, should I call you Her Majesty the Empress?]
She might not have been naturally outgoing, but she had made efforts to approach others.
[I’m Tiren. You can call me Ren.]
When Rianel offered her sweet snacks one by one, she would accept them shyly.
[I-I can really eat this…?]
Her cheeks had never lost their baby fat.
That was the kind of person she had been.
Yet now, she had lost weight, her spirit visibly crushed, and only after all the officials had finished their greetings did she timidly step forward to greet the emperor.
Though she had spared no effort for herself, she had clearly put great care into her brother’s gift. The attendant opening the box widened his eyes, and the emperor accepted it with a grin stretching from ear to ear.
You really want that so badly, you human?
Rianel nearly cried out her thoughts aloud.
“What are you staring at so intently?”
She snapped back to herself at the voice of Asil, her partner, who had approached quietly.
“It’s nothing.”
In any case, it was no longer any of her concern.
Rianel tore her gaze away from the frail arms.
On her way home, she ran into Duke Vincenheim.
“I was wrong.”
Rianel tried to pass by without acknowledging him, but he grabbed her by the ankle.
It wasn’t an apology born of a desire to reconcile with his daughter, nor of a sense of obligation that he should.
“Everything—letting you hear such things, leaving you exposed to those looks—it was all my fault.”
The duke was genuinely remorseful.
And so Rianel replied,
“I’ve told you before.”
“….”
“You’re far too late.”
That apology was not meant for her.
The child had died alone, shivering in a cold, cramped house.
In a place no one knew, remembered by no one.
In a way, it was a death similar to that of the empress.
Except she had a family who loved her—and still ended up that way.
“So I cannot forgive you.”
That, too, was not hers to give.
“….”
In the emptiness left behind after Rianel disappeared, the duke stood alone and buried his face in his hands.
He hadn’t known that the inability to turn back, the impossibility of returning, could be so horrifying.
He sobbed quietly.
He felt like a lost child.
And so Rianel returned home.
That should be the end of it.
She had unexpectedly run into many ties from her past.
Not only the emperor and the princess, but surely many others remembered Empress Ensilen as well.
But there won’t be another occasion like this for a while…
This would be the end of anything related to the ball.
The next day, Rianel went to work feeling relieved and relaxed—
“I’m being accused of accepting bribes?”
Only to be met with a shocking revelation as soon as she arrived.
An anonymous report had been filed, claiming that she had worn a dress she could never have afforded with her own assets.
