Riersha’s question had startled more than just Ian Charlotte.
Oberon drew in a sharp breath.
So this was why Riersha had insisted on coming to see things for herself.
Because it would become a matter of grave and delicate consequence for the future of the Declair Empire.
“I see. It isn’t so.”
The longer Ian’s silence stretched, the more certain Riersha became.
Just as she had suspected — Isierd truly was the only imperial prince the Declair Empire had.
Of all things, I had hoped it wouldn’t be this.
How could something like this have happened?
Riersha felt a surge of emotion rise in her chest, but she steadied herself and pressed on.
“…Then, just one more thing. The last one.”
Ian Charlotte’s eyes wavered with confusion.
“Crown Prince Adrian’s biological father…”
The words caught in Riersha’s throat.
Oberon had, at some point, forgotten to breathe entirely, absorbed in the exchange between the two.
“Please — please, stop asking.”
Ian, who had maintained composure in every circumstance before this, stumbled over her words for the first time and shook her head.
But Riersha continued.
“…Is it Lord Ian?”
“…”
“It is, isn’t it.”
There was no need to ask Oberon to confirm the truth.
That reaction alone said everything.
“Ha.”
Oberon, who had been conducting the interrogation of Ian Charlotte all this time, couldn’t hide his disbelief. A hollow, incredulous laugh escaped him.
Riersha turned to look at him.
“That’s everything I wanted to ask.”
“Is that so.”
“Mm.”
Riersha turned her back on Ian and walked out of the underground prison.
In the darkness, the face briefly visible before she left had transformed into something that looked ready to shatter into tears at any moment.
Oberon moved to follow Riersha immediately, then hesitated. He turned slowly to look back.
Ian Charlotte stood frozen, struck speechless by the shock, unable to form a single word.
Riersha had chosen to leave cleanly, without looking back.
But he himself had never been as kind as the young mistress he served.
“Ian Charlotte.”
That was why Oberon decided to personally extinguish whatever ember of hope Ian might still be clinging to.
At his call, Ian slowly lifted her head.
His voice was utterly dispassionate.
“Are you aware that the Tower Master is currently staying at Arachrene’s main estate?”
“…!”
“He came all the way to this very door, then turned back.”
“The Tower Master… did?”
Just as expected, Ian Charlotte reacted the instant she heard those words.
The corner of Oberon’s mouth twisted upward.
“You must have been sitting here, waiting for the Tower Master to come and kill you himself.”
“…”
“That won’t be happening.”
Riersha had already put a stop to that.
Ian’s expression went blank.
“No one will be coming to find you now. There is nothing left to be done with you, so you will simply wither here alone in this darkness — your five senses fading, one by one — until you die.”
That was precisely why people feared Arachrene’s underground prison as much as they did.
“The light coming through the crack in this door right now will be the last light you ever see.”
Unable to die, unable to know how much time was passing in the world above, condemned to spend eternity alone in the dark. Ian Charlotte’s eyes fractured with wild, desperate movement.
“No, this can’t be. This isn’t right… Why would the Tower Master — w-wait. Please, just wait a moment. Just a moment…!”
Ian Charlotte called out frantically to Oberon as he closed the door and moved to leave, but Oberon did not look back.
He knew all too well what became of a person once hope was stripped away. They collapsed with terrifying speed.
Sure enough, in the narrowing sliver of the closing door, he caught the last glimpse of Ian Charlotte’s face — and across it passed an expression of raw, unguarded despair the likes of which he had never seen from her before.
Clang.
The door shut.
Oberon emerged a little later than expected, and Riersha, who had been waiting, tilted her head and asked,
“I thought I heard something inside. What was that?”
“Nothing at all.”
“…?”
“Come now, let’s go. Yong-yong must be waiting for Lady Riersha.”
“Oh, right! Yeah! Gotta give him meeeat.”
Oberon smiled gently and deftly redirected her attention.
⁂
A guest wing inside Arachrene’s main estate.
“What are we supposed to do now, Tower Master! The Empress — of all people, why does it have to be the absolute worst possible—!”
And not just anyone in the imperial family, but the Empress herself.
“You’ll regret it.”
He hadn’t imagined the young lord’s warning about regret would reach this level of magnitude.
Basen raked his hands through his hair. The disheveled green strands were a perfect portrait of his state of mind.
Eyes hollow from a sleepless night, Basen stared at Sion. The man was so infuriatingly, incomprehensibly calm that looking at him felt suffocating.
“How are you so completely unbothered by this?”
“By what?”
“This is a disaster. And you’ve been lying around like some idle nobleman all day!”
“When have I ever done anything differently?”
“…The circumstances are different now!”
When Basen finally lost the last shred of his patience and erupted, Sion laughed with easy amusement.
“I always enjoy it most when you’re flustered like this.”
“…Excuse me, what did you just say?”
Basen asked in a low, darkened voice, and Sion shrugged with the air of someone who hadn’t the faintest idea what the problem was.
“The thing is done and it’s out of our hands now. What exactly do you propose we do about it?”
“Don’t lump me in with ‘we’ so casually. This situation is unambiguously your responsibility, Tower Master.”
“How cold. This is exactly why raising a disciple is a complete waste of effort.”
Sion clicked his tongue, looking not the least bit hurt.
He rose from where he had been lying and plucked a piece of fresh fruit from the tray a maid had brought that morning. Sweet juice burst across his tongue.
After repeating the motion a few times, he said offhandedly,
“I think the issue comes down to the Crown Prince’s bloodline, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, that’s my read on it as well.”
By now, every trace of playfulness had vanished from Sion’s handsome face.
Basen straightened in his seat, thinking that perhaps the man was finally about to act like a Tower Master.
At least he has some minimum level of sense. Thank goodness for that.
His mind flicked to the memory from a few days ago at the auction house — when Sion had nearly lost the Demon Dragon’s Staff to a bidder, unable to pay the closing price on the spot, and had been about to declare his identity as Tower Master to resolve the matter.
The moment Basen had realized what Sion was about to do, his vision had very nearly gone black.
…If it came out that he tried to purchase the Demon Dragon’s Staff, that would be catastrophic.
The Demon Dragon’s Staff was an extraordinarily dangerous artifact — one that practitioners of black magic sought out in secret. How it had come to appear at an auction house was itself a mystery, but Basen considered it an enormous stroke of fortune that it had not ended up in Sion’s hands.
Sion mused lazily,
“Coincidence, do you think?”
“What do you mean?”
“There was that performance that was all the rage in the empire not long ago. What was it called — The Throne of Rybunecia, or something like that.”
“Ah.”
Basen was well familiar with the name.
It had been popular enough that word had reached even the Mage Tower.
“But that performance was suspended, wasn’t it? I had wanted to see it myself and never got the chance.”
“Right, it was.”
Sion’s eyes narrowed slightly.
“And curiously enough, the house that filed the lawsuit to shut it down was the Kineart Ducal family.”
“…Isn’t Duke Kineart the Empress’s maternal family?”
“Exactly. Even you can see it’s far too suspicious, can’t you?”
The corner of Sion’s mouth curved with quiet intent.
“The protagonist of that performance is a hidden imperial prince, after all.”
“…”
“And given that the Empress needed black magic to alter someone’s appearance, there’s no question something is wrong with the Crown Prince’s bloodline. So then — where did she obtain the materials for that black magic?”
“Surely you don’t mean to suggest…”
“What if there’s a real prince hidden away somewhere?”
It wasn’t entirely impossible.
The fact that the Kadimo Troupe’s performance had been created could not be a mere coincidence.
The troupe’s owner — wasn’t that the youngest daughter of this house?
Sion smiled to himself with something close to delight.
Well, no one in their right mind would write something like that without reason.
Without someone pulling the strings behind the scenes, it would have been impossible.
Sion tapped his fingers idly. The violet ring on his index finger caught the light and shimmered.
He had sensed for a while now that the events unfolding across the empire had a certain artificial, deliberate quality to them.
The one who had constructed this entire situation — the one who had drawn Sion himself all the way here — was neither Arcmund nor Pernoa.
It was none other than…
“The youngest daughter of this house.”
Sion burst into laughter, helpless to contain it.
It was a thoroughly delighted sound.
When he finally composed himself, he rose from the sofa. Adjusting the ornate robes around his shoulders, he murmured,
“Ha… I’ve been looking in entirely the wrong direction for a conversation partner.”
Who could have imagined it would be her?
Sion felt as though the back of his head had been struck clean.
“And all this time, our little young miss was the one who set the whole thing in motion.”
