NIWA 11

Chapter : 11

“The Second Prince and the Spirit Mage have arrived!!”

With the attendant’s booming voice, the massive doors of the audience hall swung open.

With an indifferent gaze, I swept my eyes over the audience hall—visiting it for the first time in a full five years.

To someone who didn’t know any better, it would have been so lavishly and beautifully decorated that even a person on their deathbed might open their eyes wide in awe. But to me, who knew the emperor’s personality—his particular obsession with wealth and self-interest—it was nothing but nauseating.

Come to think of it, the prince’s palace I visited when I first met him had been simple.

Compared to the excessively extravagant main palace and the crown prince’s palace, that had been far better.

The emperor sat upon a jade throne encrusted with all kinds of jewels.

When the emperor—his skin dotted with protruding boils, his face deeply wrinkled, his belly grotesquely swollen—pulled his lips into a smile with a missing tooth, a shiver ran through me, and I reflexively rubbed my arms.

How had I ever followed such a self-centered, greedy, ugly man, calling him “Your Majesty” with a bright smile?

My past actions felt astonishing, to the point that I almost wanted to see again just how beautiful the world must have looked through my eyes five years ago.

When the emperor’s gaze met mine, he beamed—though I wasn’t sure if it was appropriate to call that grotesque expression “beaming”—and rose from his seat, spreading his arms wide.

“Welcome, Spirit Mage.”

Just like Arienne, the emperor seemed not to recognize me at all.

Seeing his face again up close made me want to forget formalities and storm right out, but I restrained myself and merely inclined my head in minimal acknowledgment. For reasons I couldn’t fathom, the emperor’s smile only deepened.

“So, how is the empire? Do you find it to your liking?”

I forced the corners of my mouth upward and nodded again.

“Yes, I like it.”

To the emperor now, I was no longer the naïve noble lady Arienne who had grown up sheltered in a greenhouse. I was a Spirit Mage—someone more than valuable enough from his perspective.

“I heard you met my son at the Founding Festival banquet. Aside from Count Agnes, I hadn’t heard that a Spirit Mage would be attending, though….”

At the emperor’s hypocritical use of “my son,” I saw the prince standing beside me twitch his eyebrow.

“I am a longtime friend of Count Agnes. I originally visited the empire to stay with her, so I had no intention of attending the banquet. However, she insisted, saying that the empire’s Founding Festival banquet was more splendid and beautiful than that of any other nation. I attended as her partner, so there was no opportunity to announce it formally. If that was discourteous, I offer my apologies.”

“Haha! The Founding Festival banquet is a national event, so we always hold it on a grand scale. I’m glad it pleased Count Agnes. Discourteous? Nonsense. You are a precious Spirit Mage, after all. Rather, I’m simply grateful that you’ve formed a connection with my child.”

It was true that I was close to Sierra, so fabricating a reason for coming to the empire wasn’t particularly difficult.

As I lightly brought up the story we had already agreed upon—my reason for coming to the empire and the Founding Festival banquet—the emperor, seemingly in a good mood, burst into loud laughter.

I subtly furrowed my brow.

I’d heard that the relationship between the emperor and the prince was worse than that of strangers. Judging by how the prince had spoken earlier, he truly seemed to hate him.

There was no way their relationship had suddenly improved just because the prince had formed ties with a Spirit Mage.

So why had he summoned the prince and me here?

“Son, could you step outside for a moment?”

Wearing the mask of a gentle father, the emperor made the request of the prince beside me. The prince’s eyebrow twitched again.

“Why?”

A tense current filled the air. It felt as though an invisible battle of wills was taking place between the two.

After a long silence, it was the emperor who spoke first.

“I simply wish to have a conversation—not as father-in-law and daughter-in-law, but as the Spirit Mage and the head of a nation. You know as well as I do that opportunities to speak with a Spirit Mage alone are quite rare, don’t you?”

So he intended to send the prince away and get to the point.

With words like that, the prince had no grounds to refuse.

“…Are you sure?”

“……Yes.”

“Be careful. I’ll be waiting outside.”

After whispering that to me, the prince—making no effort to hide it—shot the emperor a fierce glare, then turned and left the audience hall.

Bang.

The doors closed, and silence once again filled the hall.

I quietly stared at the emperor, whose thoughts were unreadable.

“What did you wish to say…?”

“I’ll be blunt. Spirit Mage, how would you feel about marrying our crown prince instead of the second prince?”

“……”

I had expected something like this, but it was still absurd.

“What do you think? Wouldn’t it be a waste for someone of a Spirit Mage’s standing to stop at merely becoming a prince’s consort?”

He was telling me to marry that crown prince.

Anger surged up inside me, but I forced it back down.

“As far as I know, the Crown Prince already has a fiancée—”

“The empire has a concubine system. Taking two wives is not a difficult matter.”

I smiled faintly.

“I refuse.”

The emperor, who had been prattling on, fell silent. This new silence was quite to my liking.

Is that all he had thought of?

Well, the sudden appearance of a Spirit Mage was bound to be enticing. If the prince—whom he detested as an enemy of his beloved crown prince—were to take a Spirit Mage as his wife, it would naturally irritate him. But he couldn’t reject a proposal formally signed and sent by Jema himself, nor could he openly show wariness toward me, a Spirit Mage, as the emperor of the empire. So he chose to try to placate me instead.

And since Arienne wasn’t entirely useless, he planned to keep me close in the form of a concubine.

What kind of expression would Arienne make if she heard this?

Whether in the past or now, he was still an ugly man who only knew how to use others.

“Then, if you’re finished speaking—”

“But before that, though the Tower Master may have signed it, do you have any way to prove that you are truly a Spirit Mage?”

What was that supposed to mean?

Just as I was about to leave, thinking there was nothing more to say, that unpleasant remark was tossed out. I frowned and waved my hand.

In an instant, sharp chunks of ice filled the audience hall.

“…What is this…?”

Just a bit of venting my anger.

“Then, I’ll be going.”

When I waved my hand once more, the ice chunks smoothly vanished. Leaving behind the emperor, who couldn’t even think to hide his stunned expression, I exited the audience hall.

Arriving at the prince’s palace with him—where he had been waiting outside—I sank deeply into a chair as fatigue came crashing over me.

“Are you tired?”

I looked at the prince sitting across from me, my eyes half-lidded.

“I was advised to abandon you and go to the crown prince instead.”

“…What?”

“They suggested I become the crown prince’s fiancée instead of yours.”

The prince let out a hollow laugh.

“So he tried to win you over. And what did you say?”

“I refused.”

I forced away the thoughts crowding my mind and closed my eyes.

I had anticipated meeting the emperor ever since forming ties with the prince, but the mental stress it caused was greater than I’d expected.

Silence lingered in the room for a long time.

“Lien.”

I opened my eyes.

The prince’s violet eyes were fixed on me, shimmering with an enigmatic light.

“What?”

“What do you think of me?”

I frowned at the sudden, out-of-the-blue question.

“Huh?”

“You said you formed a contract with me for the sake of revenge. But you’re a Spirit Mage. Why go to such lengths to take revenge on them? You already have more than enough power.”

It was as if the unspoken words—unlike me—were left hanging in the air. One of the prince’s fists was clenched tightly, trembling.

Was he anxious?

Without answering hastily, I met his clear violet gaze as it studied me.

Yes. In a way, this man was also seeking revenge. Revenge for his mother, who had been killed by the emperor, the empress, and the crown prince. Perhaps he wasn’t so different from me after all.

No—he was similar to me.

The only difference was that I had the power to crush the Aisien Ducal House by force at any moment, while the prince could not, because their factions were evenly matched.

And another difference lay in where we had once felt despair.

“…You want to kill the crown prince, the emperor, and the empress, don’t you?”

“If I can, yes. I want to kill them.”

“And the reason is—”

“They killed my mother, my only family.”

“Quite resolute.”

With a faint smile, I loosened the strap of the eyepatch that had been covering my right eye all this time.

Slip.

The eyepatch fell onto my lap.

“…That eye is…?”

“Your brother personally searched even the slums and had people gouge out my eyeball.”

Silence fell.