A peaceful afternoon. The royal consort’s palace.
“…A public exhibition match, you said?”
“Yes! Word has spread everywhere — everyone’s looking forward to it! Oh — was it supposed to be a secret…?”
Grace fell silent at the question from the lady-in-waiting who was tending to her hair.
She kept her expression carefully composed, hiding the unsettled feeling beneath it, and turned a soft smile toward the young woman whose face had gone pale with alarm.
“Ah — of course. I’d quite forgotten for a moment.”
“Oh, thank goodness! I was startled. I’m so excited though — seeing an Affinity displayed in person is truly something extraordinary, isn’t it?”
The lady-in-waiting chattered on with bright, eager eyes, but Grace had stopped hearing her entirely.
King Argen is arranging a public exhibition match with House Krost? Without telling me?
The matter of Duke Foss — who had taken on every one of King Argen’s crimes and been executed for them — had weighed on Grace for a long time afterward.
Had Argen truly conspired with a foreign duke and attempted to have Calypse killed, out of nothing more than personal desire?
It was the most fundamental question of all, and yet the moment the only witness died, the truth became nearly impossible to recover.
But Calypse’s account clearly pointed in that direction, and the words Duke Foss had spoken in the moments before his death had carried a meaning that was difficult to dismiss.
If that was true — did Argen still deserve to call himself king of this realm?
And if he moved against Calypse again, here and now — what position was she to take?
Grace was, to all outward appearances, King Argen’s wife.
The citizens of the kingdom harbored no doubts about the royal couple’s relationship. But Grace had known the truth for years — Argen had never truly regarded her with favor.
“A spatial portal? I could have built that myself if I’d spent one more year on the research. Why did you have to go and make it? Were you so desperate to steal the credit from me?”
Argen was proud and easily given to jealousy, and it had made itself known in countless ways over the years. When she’d constructed the portal, he had sulked, claiming she’d robbed him of the glory.
“You spent all that time preparing for the banquet and the best you produced was artificial candlelight? Well — the response wasn’t terrible, I suppose. But you’re the inner family of the royal house. You can’t be so consumed with your research that you neglect everything else. Chandeliers, decorative displays — those things matter.”
He’d picked at her over small things, always finding some fresh angle of reproach.
After years of marriage, Grace had arrived at a conclusion she could no longer avoid.
Argen did not have what it took to rule a kingdom.
He was gifted as a mage. But as a human being, he had never learned the things that mattered.
How could a man like that govern a realm?
…And then there’s what he did to Lady Aisha. The dark magic…
Even the thought of it made her breath catch.
Grace had been pretending not to know — but from the moment she’d decoded the intricate formula inscribed on Aisha’s body, she had already begun to suspect.
There were only two mages in the world capable of constructing something that complex. Her, and Argen.
I’ll have to speak with him. Ask him about it directly.
Before anything worse came to pass, a serious conversation was needed.
“Send word to King Argen asking whether he might be free for tea tomorrow afternoon.”
She dispatched the lady-in-waiting immediately, and the following day, Grace waited for Argen in the warmth of the glass greenhouse.
“Once the leaves have steeped, you may all take your leave.”
The subject she intended to raise was too sensitive for other ears, so she dismissed even the servants.
She sat alone for ten minutes before—
“Grace.”
Argen arrived a little late, shrugging as he appeared with no trace of remorse.
“What’s the occasion? I didn’t expect you to actually invite me to tea.”
“I hear you’re arranging a public exhibition match with House Krost.”
Grace didn’t bother asking why he was late. She had stopped expecting him to respect her time long ago, and knew full well she’d get nothing resembling an honest answer.
“Ah. Right — the exhibition match. I forgot to mention it to you. Things have been rather busy lately.”
An excuse that didn’t quite reach the level of an excuse.
The truth was that Grace handled the overwhelming bulk of the actual governing. What Argen was required to do amounted to little more than occupying the throne.
Then, as if something had occurred to him, Argen looked at her and suddenly drew his brow together.
“That aside — you really must work on your manner, Grace.”
“…Pardon?”
“If you’ve invited someone, you greet them first. You launched straight into the matter without so much as a word of welcome. What dreary company you are—”
Grace studied him.
There was exactly one circumstance under which Argen spoke to her this frankly — that is, with no attempt to soften the blade — and that was when he was drunk.
Looking more carefully, she could see the faintest flush across his face. He had clearly been drinking well into the night and arrived still carrying the remnants of it.
She exhaled quietly and pressed on without acknowledging the remark.
“So — a public exhibition match, all of a sudden? And I’ve heard that Duke Krost himself will be participating.”
“Ah, yes. The unease from that business with Duke Foss and the Creatures hasn’t fully settled. People are still frightened. I thought bringing the Duke out in person might help quiet things down.”
“…I see.”
Grace gave a vague nod and let none of her reaction show on her face.
It was time to raise the second thing she’d come here to say.
“Your Majesty. There’s one other matter I’d like to ask you about, if I may.”
“Of course.”
“Regarding Lady Aisha.”
The instant the name left Grace’s lips, Argen’s eyes — which had been fogged and distant with the dregs of last night’s drink — flickered wide, then narrowed again in a single quick movement.
He already suspected this was coming.
That look told her everything.
She hadn’t wanted to hear it. But there was no longer any way around it.
“Was there anything that struck you as unusual to you?”
“What do you mean by that?”
“At the banquet, I noticed Lady Aisha had dark magic bound to her. I removed it myself — but the formula was extraordinarily complex.”
A brief silence fell.
Argen’s expression turned, with unusual speed, into something quite serious. He lifted his teacup and asked:
“And?”
“There are very few people in the Kingdom of Frozen capable of constructing a formula that complex.”
“How many, in your estimation?”
“Two.”
Her clear, light-green eyes held his without flinching.
“Just two, as far as I can determine.”
A heavier silence followed her answer.
Both their heads bowed slightly as their teacups rose in turn toward their lips.
Clack.
The cups met their saucers in near unison, each landing with a sharp, deliberate sound, as though they were competing.
“…”
Argen was the first to raise his head. But instead of answering, he chose silence.
And in that silence, Grace understood.
The one who had cast that dark magic was, in truth, the king of this country. Her husband.
On a living person’s body. On an infant — on Aisha of House Krost.
Officially, the public account is that Duke Foss cast the dark magic on Lady Aisha.
But Duke Foss had never been able to use magic. He’d had no reason to learn — he already possessed Poison Affinity.
And yet no one had paused to question that particular detail. They simply needed something to sink their teeth into.
If the truth were known—
“Grace.”
Her racing thoughts stopped dead at the sound of her name.
She looked up. The grave, serious expression that Argen had worn a moment ago had shifted. He was smiling now — a smile with something hollow and wry about it.
“What a sad thing. Are you saying one of those two people is you, and the other is me?”
She had expected fury. Or denial. Not this — not something so unexpectedly quiet.
She answered carefully despite herself.
“That’s not what I’m suggesting. I’m asking because I genuinely don’t know, and—”
Her voice stopped.
Grace had been certain she’d dismissed everyone before Argen arrived.
But now a strange sensation prickled along her spine. She felt eyes on her — open, unapologetic eyes — pressing against her back.
“…!”
She turned.
Her gaze faltered.
There were servants standing there. And behind them — knights.
She had told them all to leave. She had been sure of it.
And then she understood.
Every one of them stood with expressions cold and utterly expressionless. Every one of them was Argen’s.
“…I only asked because there was no other way to know. A mage capable of constructing a formula that manipulates a person’s mind — to my knowledge, only two people in this kingdom could do it. You and I.”
“I see.”
Grace steadied herself and answered quickly, her mind already reaching toward the people outside the greenhouse. She had stationed her personal guard at a distance, prepared for anything. If something happened, if she called out—
“Grace.”
Her thoughts shattered at the sound of her name, slow and deliberate.
She looked up. Argen had risen from his seat without her noticing and was now standing before her, one hand tilting her chin upward with unhurried ease.
“You always used to stop blinking when you were working through a problem. Too focused to remember. Remarkable, in its way.”
“…”
At the very least — she should have kept her guard. Even if she dismissed the others, her personal knight should have been within reach. Or she could have given instructions: come in if anything feels wrong.
But she hadn’t. Because she had not thought that something so completely unreasonable could happen in this peaceful palace.
And yet — as she had read in countless histories — wars and sudden crises always arrived in the moments no one expected them.
Like a single stone, carelessly kicked, that sets off an avalanche.
“I have no desire to make you my enemy.”
The knights had drawn close, forming a ring around her.
Grace held herself still, raising only her eyes to meet Argen’s.
He looked down at her with the same easy smile he always wore.
“And yet you are moving to slander the king of the Kingdom of Frozen. That, Grace, is treason.”
“That isn’t what I—”
“If it isn’t, then you should never have let yourself suspect me in the first place.”
Something had gone wrong.
“I don’t want to watch you commit treason.”
Deeply, terribly wrong.
“So please. Close your mouth.”
Tap.
At that single, quiet command — his words landing soft as a door shutting — her vision went dark.
