“It is a pleasure to meet you, Prince Isierd. I am Pope Christia.”
“Isierd Declair.”
Without a trace of surprise, Isierd studied the man who had approached him. When their eyes met, Christia offered a warm, gentle smile.
He was exactly as described — a man with an exceptionally soft impression.
His voice in particular was low and soothing, the kind that could dissolve a stranger’s wariness in an instant.
It had been Christia who offered the greeting first.
“May the goddess’s blessing be with you, Prince Isierd.”
“Thank you, Your Holiness.”
He carefully placed his hand atop Isierd’s head — the customary blessing of the Pope, a gesture seen often enough.
And yet…
“……!”
“Is something the matter?”
“……It’s nothing. I’ve been drawing on my sacred power too heavily of late…… I believe I grew dizzy for a moment. How embarrassing, at a first meeting.”
“I see.”
Isierd accepted the lie without expression.
Christia’s face had gone rigid, his eyes widening — unmistakable signs of shock. He slowly lowered his gaze to his own hand.
His fingers were trembling. Just slightly, but trembling nonetheless.
Isierd looked at him and spoke with quiet concern.
“Your hand is shaking quite a bit. Perhaps you should rest?”
“……Yes, I suppose I should. Let us meet again properly through the formal channels.”
Christia did not refuse the suggestion.
As he turned away, his expression settled into something cold and still.
From Isierd Declair — the boy he had just touched — he had felt something remarkably similar to his own power.
No. Perhaps something far more sacred than his own.
How can a child of merely eight years possess sacred power like that?
It confirmed what he had suspected. That oracle had to be a gift the goddess Rafella had bestowed upon Isierd Declair directly.
Which meant…
The divine beast’s master is also Isierd Declair.
He had initially believed it a gift meant for himself. But he had not been able to understand the divine beast’s language.
So its master could only be Isierd Declair. He had suspected as much, but having it confirmed in person only made it more absurd.
“Ha.”
Christia let out a dry, helpless laugh as he stepped out of the banquet hall.
The temple did not welcome an emperor with formidable sacred power.
Such a being was not needed.
“You’ve come out so soon, Your Holiness?”
“My body is feeling a little unwell. I stepped out early.”
“……Pardon? You said unwell?”
Those who carried sacred power did not fall ill.
The stronger the power, the truer that was.
The moment those words left the lips of the man with the greatest sacred power in all the empire, the priest who had been waiting for the Pope stared back at him in bafflement.
“Ah, come to think of it, Crown Prince Adrian left the banquet hall in quite a hurry earlier…… Did something happen inside, Your Holiness?”
“Crown Prince Adrian?”
Christia paused and glanced down at the priest, then let out a quiet, amused scoff.
“He must be in considerable pain.”
The young prince without an ounce of sacred power knew his own shortcomings better than anyone.
That alone was burden enough — but to have everything he had ever possessed wrenched from him without warning? The hurt must run very deep.
I should have confirmed personally whether the goddess’s blessing is marked on that child’s body.
If there was any regret, it was only that.
On the day the oracle descended, the divine beast had been born, and there had simply been no room to think of anything else.
It had seemed natural to assume that Adrian Declair was the one the oracle spoke of. And no one had thought to question the bloodline of the child who had been born.
But it turned out that was not the case.
What on earth is Calius thinking?
How could a man be so indifferent to his own blood?
He should have been able to sense it the moment he held the child in his arms.
Unless…
He knew, and chose to say nothing.
And if that were so — why?
Whatever the reason, it hardly mattered now.
What mattered was the simple fact that there was still time to act.
“Where did Crown Prince Adrian go?”
⁂
Adrian had fled the glittering banquet hall and walked without purpose or destination, driven by nothing but the need to get away.
His attendant — one of Karla’s women — trailed helplessly behind him.
“Your Highness……! You cannot simply leave the banquet like this. Please, you must go back inside!”
“Let go of me!”
“Ahh!”
Adrian shoved the attendant who had tried to take hold of him and turned, his pale blue eyes blazing cold.
He was furious.
He had never in his life felt humiliation like this.
“How could Father do this to me!! How could he!!”
“……Your Highness, please, let us go back inside and speak with the nobles—”
“Go back and do what?!”
He had let them all see it — in front of every watching noble, he had been made a fool by Isierd’s very presence.
“How much more of a laughingstock must I become in there?!”
Adrian screamed, raw with rage.
Lately Karla had been too consumed with her own affairs to spare much thought for him, and his grandfather, Duke Kineart, had plainly and irreparably fallen out of the Emperor’s favor.
There was no one left he could lean on.
He felt as though he had been left adrift, utterly alone in the middle of a vast and featureless sea.
“Yes, Your Highness. I know how much pain you’re in. But leaving like this will not solve anything, will it?”
The attendant made a tearful face and bobbed her head. She had to calm him down and bring him back to the banquet somehow.
If she failed in her duty, her own position would be in danger.
“But Her Majesty the Empress will help you — what is there to worry about? Prince Isierd has no one on his side right now.”
“……Did you see the Pope go up and speak to him just now?”
That was what had finally broken him. Adrian stood with his fists clenched tight.
And on top of everything, the Tower Master had stood at a distance and done nothing but watch — with eyes that openly weighed and judged him.
It was intolerable, and yet there had been nothing he could do in that moment, which only doubled the shame of it.
The attendant shook her head and spoke in a gentle, reassuring tone.
“He was merely being polite. Offering a greeting to a new face. You know this better than anyone, Your Highness. The Pope is a cunning man.”
“That is what Mother said.”
Karla had called Christia cunning.
But Adrian had yet to witness that cunning himself, and found it difficult to believe.
Cunning? The Pope couldn’t possibly match the people inside the palace.
That much, at least, seemed safe to assume.
Adrian’s fury had begun to cool, and he had grown somewhat still, when—
“Ah, there you are, Prince Adrian.”
“……Your Holiness? What are you doing here?”
“I saw you leave the banquet and it weighed on me. I came to check on you.”
Christia appeared with a priest at his side. Adrian took a step back and stared at him. In the darkness, Christia seemed somehow more visible than anything else around him — as though an illusion of light surrounded him.
“……You were watching me?”
“Of course. I found myself worrying about how much this must be hurting you.”
“……”
“The nobles are being quite cruel, aren’t they? To be so easily stirred by the appearance of one prince whose origins aren’t even clear.”
Christia shook his head slowly, his voice warm with sympathetic regret.
A prince whose origins aren’t even clear.
And yet the first prince of the Declair Empire — the one the Emperor had searched for so desperately.
“……That’s right. You’re right.”
Adrian stood frozen for a moment, listening, then gave a slow nod.
Right. The Pope doesn’t know.
The Pope did not know that he was not the Emperor’s blood.
No — no one knew.
To the outside world, Adrian was the child the oracle had spoken of.
The noble and sacred Crown Prince chosen by Rafella herself.
That was how the world had always seen him.
The longer Isierd remained, the more people would begin to question the oracle — that much was inevitable — but…
If the Pope were to stand beside him…?
“I have been looking forward to inviting Prince Adrian to our annual ceremony.”
“……Me?”
“Yes. Did you not promise me as much, the last time we met?”
“……But I was told you declined.”
There had been a day when Karla had returned from a visit to the temple in a barely contained fury.
Adrian remembered it clearly.
And so he had kept his guard up around Christia.
“Ah, that may have led to a misunderstanding. What I told the Empress at that time was that I would be inviting the Crown Prince to the annual ceremony. It was simply that I had not anticipated things would unfold this way. An unfortunate misunderstanding.”
“……A misunderstanding?”
Adrian’s brow furrowed.
Something still felt uncertain, but…
The temple doesn’t follow palace affairs closely. It’s possible.
He wanted to believe the Pope’s words.
He wanted them to be true.
“Besides — the position of Crown Prince is not beyond your reach, is it? Prince Isierd is hardly suited for that role.”
Christia leaned closer and murmured, his voice soft as a confidence shared between allies.
“Don’t you agree, Prince Adrian?”
