🔊 TTS Settings
Chapter 17
City That Never Sleeps
Meditation was becoming fashionable around Adeline.
At some point, the words “meditation” began slipping from the mouths of the Lion King and Zakarian. Soon, whispers of it reached the western palace where Adeline resided.
It began with the royal guards. During the recent raid, the commander of the 5th Division had witnessed the Lion King’s martial might up close. Becoming his ardent admirer, he asked Zakarian how he too could become as strong. Kindhearted as he was, Zakarian explained that his king devoted time each day to meditation, training both body and mind.
The story spread like wildfire among the guards stationed at the western palace. They began reading books on meditation and listening to sermons. Soon, soldiers could be found in their quarters, sitting in uncomfortable positions with eyes closed in silence.
After the guards, the maids caught wind of it. Colin, beloved even among the knights for his sociable nature, brought back tales he had overheard. “If you meditate long enough, you’ll gain abilities that surpass normal humans—like the Lion King himself,” he claimed. The story grew more exaggerated, but his followers believed him.
It wasn’t long before the rumor reached Nabi’s ears.
“Your Highness, they say meditation lets you fly.”
“What?”
“And afterward, you can even breathe fire from your hands.”
“…What?”
Adeline thought Nabi was finally trying out a bad joke. Her perpetually expressionless face only reinforced that impression. “So, my fake maid does have weaknesses after all,” Adeline mused. But it wasn’t a joke.
“They say it started because the Lion King enjoys meditation. But it’s grown absurdly exaggerated…”
“Who spread such nonsense?”
“Zakarian first mentioned it. Ringo exaggerated it.”
Of course. My fake maid is quite the tattletale too.
As Adeline mused, Nabi decorated the table with lace made by the maids. Normally used for vases, bowls, or ribbons around pillars, Nabi turned it over, stretched it wide, and hung it on the wall instead—then looked back proudly at Adeline.
“That’s not meant for walls…” Adeline thought, but let it pass.
“Let’s go.”
“Go where?”
“To see this meditation that makes men fly and breathe fire.”
Adeline rose and led the way.
“Where can we see it?”
“The knights after shift… or the kitchen.”
The guards of the western palace had been more courteous to her lately—thanks to the emperor’s generous reward. Still, Adeline chose the kitchen, where Ringo held sway.
Having reclaimed his domain from Nabi, Ringo preferred spending time there cooking rather than in Adeline’s drawing room. Of course, Adeline still refused to eat his food.
The kitchen of the western palace was large, staffed by twelve: four chefs and eight assistants.
“That bastard is really a cook…” Nabi muttered darkly.
Adeline laughed as she entered. The assistants, startled, leapt to their feet. Adeline waved them down.
But inside, something odd was happening.
First came Ringo’s voice.
“Close your eyes. Breathe deeply. In… short. Out… long. Don’t puff your chest like you’ve got muscles—breathe from your belly! Soon, everything around you will fade, and you’ll feel like the very center of the world…”
“Huuuu…”
“Yes, that’s it. Now feel the power of fire. Hot, fierce, merciless! Empty your mind and simply feel it. Reach out your hand toward the heat—not to fight it, but to embrace it. Only those who surrender discover truth, remember?”
Then came a scream.
“Aaaah! Hot!”
“You idiot! Who told you to stick your hand in? I said feel it!”
“But you said reach out to the heat!”
“When?!”
Adeline glanced at Nabi. Her stony face twitched—whether from stifled laughter or anger, Adeline couldn’t tell.
I’m losing my mind. Adeline sighed and pushed the door open.
“Enough.”
“Eh? P-Princess? What brings you to the kitchen?”
“What are you doing? Why are you making chefs do this nonsense?”
“Nonsense? This is the latest trend in the palace—”
“Utter lies.”
Her words cut sharp. The chef, nearly burned, looked at Ringo with suspicion. Ringo only narrowed his slanted eyes and smiled.
“You shouldn’t mock the power of meditation, Princess.”
“Stop lying. If my chefs get hurt because of you—what then?”
“I’ll cook for you instead!”
“Ringo.”
Her voice turned stern. Ringo’s eyes drooped like a scolded puppy.
“Why are you spreading these absurd rumors?”
“W-What? It wasn’t just me. Zakarian mentioned it first!” he whined.
While Adeline puzzled over the Lion King’s meditation, the man himself wandered his mansion grounds.
Despite the cold, he paced aimlessly through the vast gardens—sometimes along the edges, sometimes across the center. Clearly lost in thought.
Is he meditating? Zakarian, unaware that his words had sparked a craze in Adeline’s palace, observed from afar.
“Why’s he like that?” a subordinate asked. “Aren’t you going to bring him in?”
“Leave him.”
“What? Why?”
Zakarian didn’t answer. How could he explain that the young king still had much to learn? The Lion King was only twenty-four. Adeline had laughed about his age because she too sensed the boyish innocence hidden beneath the fearsome armor.
“Is he afraid of breaking his oath—or of losing himself to the princess?”
The Lion King said nothing. Could say nothing. He only stared at Zakarian before turning away.
“It’s fine, though.”
“What is?”
“To flounder.”
Yes. Even drowning in a disastrous love was fine. The king had borne too many burdens too young. His talk of oaths stemmed from that weight. A king must protect his realm. But still—was he not human?
Adeline was captivating, irresistible. Even if the Lion King lost himself in her and became the beast of their jesting words, so what? In the end, they were just a man and a woman.
“Go tell him.”
“Tell him what?”
Zakarian leaned close, whispering slyly:
“That his queen should be silver-haired. Like two cats—gold and silver—side by side.”
The subordinate groaned and fled indoors, unwilling to risk such words. Zakarian chuckled.
The Lion King wandered outside until late that night. Though his men worried, Zakarian entered with a great cask of wine, and soon laughter filled the house until dawn.
“Lachie.”
She was everywhere.
“Lachie.”
It wasn’t his name that was enchanting, but her voice.
“Lachie.”
What was he to do with her?
The Lion King knew well what these feelings were. He didn’t know when they began, but he could no longer control them. They slipped out in unguarded actions.
Zakarian had been right—always right. The fear was not of breaking vows, but of losing himself.
He feared valuing Adeline above the throne, his people, even the endless sands of Odium. He feared that she would become his only world.
A warrior must never lose his center. Man is not a bird—lift both feet off the ground and he will fall. Love felt like falling.
Each time Adeline met his gaze, laughed like rainfall, dizziness consumed him. He had endured brutal training to conquer Baltica and become a great warrior, yet never had he faced such a lonely, helpless battle.
He felt alone in all the world—save for her. Without Adeline, nothing existed. For the first time, he realized thought itself ruled mankind. Eating, training, sleeping—she was always in his mind.
When he thought of her, he brimmed with fullness. But remembering this struggle was his alone, he felt like a man clinging to a cliff by one hand.
“I like you,” Adeline had told him.
“I may be a bad person, but I want to be your good friend.”
“Friend?” he echoed to himself. Could he be that?
“…Why not?”
Wandering under the guise of meditation, he whispered to himself, standing beneath the twilight sky.
“Adeline.”
I am wandering. Perhaps even going mad. Sometimes it feels miraculous just to sit and speak with her, to meet her eyes. Someday, my heart might melt into my belly, and I wonder if I could even digest it.
“So hold my reins.”
The witch who rules my heart. Thus the Lion King named his first love.
The Duke of Nord Hill was a busy man.
Where his peers had long since died, fallen ill, or retired, he still rose at dawn, trained, ate measured meals, and oversaw all affairs of his house. His tireless discipline weighed heavily on his household. Even his heir, now fifty, could not match half his efforts.
A man thought to have no warmth, he showed rare smiles only for his granddaughter, Beatrice Hill—the jewel of Nord. Her innocence softened his iron heart.
Always the same, she laughed even when scolded, clung to him even when crying. She alone dared to sit on his lap, unafraid.
Thus, when Beatrice wept and refused to eat, begging for something, the household thought he might relent. Parents always yield to children, they thought. Surely he would to his beloved granddaughter.
But they were wrong.
“If you wish to starve, then starve. No bread for a noble who abandons duty. Everything in Nord was built by countless efforts. A blind child must not take it lightly!”
He did not yield.
“Take responsibility for all you have eaten, worn, and enjoyed. If you will act willfully, then leave this house with nothing—not a coin, not a dress. And hear this: any who approach her from now, I’ll cast out—mother included!”
Beatrice’s mother trembled before him. Servants who smuggled food to her were stopped by guards placed at her door. The house fell into gloom.
Still, the duke carried on unchanged. Training at dawn, eating, then meetings with heir, advisors, and retainers.
It was then that Mother Blanc arrived.
She introduced herself as Blanc Tamiren. Most knew the Tamirens only as a house whose head had recently vanished. But one old retainer—who had once molded young radicals into assassins—understood. He brought her privately to the duke’s study.
Surveying the room with its strict dignity, Blanc chuckled.
“At first, I wanted Tamiren to be like this house. But I knew it was impossible. I was a girl who couldn’t wield even a kitchen knife. My husband too timid to ride alone…”
“When was this?”
The duke entered—straight-backed, severe, unlike the bent old woman in her chair. Only their long dominion over their families was alike.
“What business brings you here, Blanc Tamiren?”
“I came to hide in Nord’s shadow.”
“Speak plainly. I’ve no time to waste.”
He disliked her at once. To arrive uninvited, smirking—she clearly thought herself clever. His instincts whispered danger, and they were right.
“Did you raise assassins well, former commander? And yet you failed to kill one girl, leaving yourself vulnerable.”
“What?”
“Though I grew old peddling flesh, I’ve not gone deaf or senile. The emperor gave that girl the guards to destroy us. Our house faces ruin.”
She was sly as a snake, opportunistic as a hyena. Knowing Adeline and the Lion King sought to crush Tamiren’s trafficking network with the emperor’s support, she hoped to hide under Nord’s wing. Since she had discovered his secret assassins, she thought he couldn’t refuse.
She smiled, stroking her chair’s arm.
“Don’t glare so. Of course I didn’t come empty-handed.”
Her man placed a gold bar on the table.
“I’ve never met a noble who hated slaves or gold. Slaves may be difficult, but gold—I can give in abundance. Or beautiful girls, handsome boys, even your bed filled.”
“Blanc Tamiren.”
“Take my hand. Kill the princess first, drive out the lion from the desert, then I’ll leave quietly.”
“Is this a threat?”
He stood tall, cold.
“Of course not. If I meant to threaten, I’d do far worse. I wouldn’t stain noble Nord with treason. Think of it that way.”
“Treason…”
Her meaning was clear: she could expose him, isolate him. Even a foolish emperor could not ignore a noble raising assassins against royalty.
She thought it a masterstroke—that he must accept her hand. But she only half knew the man.
“Nord Hill is a house of knights,” he said.
“I seek to defend this realm, not betray it.”
“Who will believe that?”
His hand moved with disciplined grace. Her lips parted to retort—
—but a silver blade flashed.
Her words never finished. Her head fell, blood flooding the floor.
The root of Tamiren was cut.
“Believe me or not—it matters not,” the duke said coldly.
“What now?” his retainer asked.
“Sound the alarm. From today, we march on Tamiren. Send word to the emperor at once.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Thus acted the Duke of Nord Hill—once a commander, born to knights, but never honored under Marma’s arts-loving reign. Only when he laid down the sword and took up the pen was he called a giant among nobles.
And now, sword in hand again, he declared:
“A filthy flesh peddler dares lay hands on Nord? I’ll kill them all—leave no name behind.”
His blade swept once more.
Strange news spread. The duke accused Tamiren of orchestrating the assassins who had attacked the western palace, citing their vast wealth and ambition. As a loyal subject, he claimed he could not stand idle, and struck swiftly—even before the emperor’s leave—raiding their underground auction halls.
The emperor neither praised nor punished him. Only ordered: leave no trace.
Adeline sat at her great ebony desk by the window of her chambers. On its bare surface lay a few sheets of paper. She wrote one name:
Tamiren.
The head she had slain in the arena, the Mother Blanc slain by the duke—both were Tamiren.
Her enemy.
She stared at the name, then lifted the sheet, revealing others beneath: notes and maps, information on Tamiren’s operations, from southern strongholds Nabi had sketched, to intelligence Ringo gathered.
When Richard had urged Blanc to confess, she had anticipated the old woman would run to Nord. And she had known the duke’s pride would not tolerate her filth. She had not expected him to behead her on the spot, but it served her well.
“Isn’t that right, Duke?”
She tossed the papers into the fireplace. They flared and turned to ash.
“Your Highness Adeline.”
Nabi’s knock came.
“Yes.”
The once-desolate western palace now belonged to Adeline Vita. The emperor had stationed the 5th Division there to protect her.
Hundreds of torches lit the grounds, their flames reflecting like blood upon the still ponds. Maids, now accustomed to their roles, waited at the stairs to bow.
The palace, inside and out, shone like day. Workers bustled, preparing for tomorrow. Assassins no longer dared intrude, not with the emperor’s guards on watch.
Adeline descended the stairs, clad in a dress burning red like flame.
