Sion settled into the seat across from her with a bright, breezy smile.
She was nearly half an hour late, and yet she carried herself with breathtaking confidence.
Gone was the hollow, haggard face Riersha had glimpsed through the crystal ball yesterday. Today her skin practically glowed.
Whatever had happened, it must have been something good.
“I’m a little late.”
“…”
“The tea is lovely.”
“…”
“Ha— ha ha.”
Sion, who had been radiating cheer all by herself, glanced around the room, caught herself, and straightened up with a more composed expression.
Then she spoke in a coaxing tone, as if trying to gently smooth things over.
“If you knew whose appointment I just stood up to come here, you’d be so moved you’d hand over that Dragon Staff on the spot.”
“Oh.”
But instead of softening, Riersha crossed her arms and tilted her chin upward. It was a gesture that left no room for interpretation — she was not pleased.
Standing someone up to come here meant…
“So you were torn about whether to come at all.”
“…”
“Hmph.”
Riersha’s sharp reply made Sion blink in dismay.
Her expression said plainly: that’s not what I meant.
“…How did that turn into that conclusion?”
“Am I wrong?”
“…”
“I’m right.”
When Sion failed to answer, Riersha slowly shook her head.
Then she muttered, making no effort to lower her voice.
“This is exactly why we need a contract between us. Because we don’t trust each other even a speck.”
“…”
“How am I supposed to know you won’t betray me again?”
“A perfectly valid point.”
Oberon, who had been listening from the side, chimed in firmly and shot Sion a pointed look. He had no patience for the smooth-tongued woman who had kept Riersha waiting for nearly thirty minutes.
“Is my credibility really that low? …I am a Tower Master, for what it’s worth.”
Sion protested, wounded, but Riersha responded with nothing more than a shrug. This was entirely her own doing.
“So who did you stand up to come here?”
Riersha asked flatly, arms still folded.
After all, the fact that Sion had wavered between her and someone else meant one thing clearly — whoever that other person was, Sion had nothing to lose by siding with them instead.
It was better to find out now, so she could prevent the same situation from arising again.
Sion answered as though it were a trifling matter.
“The Pope.”
“…The Pope?”
Riersha paused, tilting her head.
Then the day at the imperial palace, when Sion had tried to take her away after discovering the sacred beast — could it be that she had been planning to…
Was she going to send me back to the temple?
But that hadn’t been the impression she’d gotten.
Riersha’s puzzlement dissolved quickly as Sion continued his explanation.
“I was tempted, for a moment. Helping the temple locate the sacred beast and letting the whole thing quietly disappear would have been the easier path for me, too.”
“…”
“If I’m being honest — if I hadn’t seen you carrying the Dragon Staff, I would certainly have done exactly that. But not anymore.”
Sion confessed without flinching.
There was nothing left to hide.
From the moment he broke his appointment with the Pope, the situation had become irreversible.
Christia would have understood his decision.
“Is that true, Oberon?”
“…Regrettably, yes.”
When Riersha asked Oberon to confirm it, he clicked his tongue and answered with a sour expression.
Riersha felt some of her irritation ease, and she uncrossed her arms.
“I figured as much. It was the same the very first time we met.”
She was referring to the incident at the Arachrene estate — when Sion had tried to quietly deal with Ian, who had been secretly locked away in the underground dungeon, and then leave.
Sion winced visibly and reached for his teacup in a hurry.
“…Ahem. Ah, my throat is dry.”
“There’s plenty of tea, so drink as much as you like.”
“…”
“Then tell me the truth now. …What exactly is tangled up with the Dragon Staff?”
As Riersha moved to get down to business, the faint playfulness that had colored Sion’s manner vanished entirely. She became utterly serious.
And she seemed to be deliberating where to begin — she wasn’t sure how much Riersha already knew.
So Sion decided to start from the very beginning.
“The Dragon Staff is Abel Senuart’s legacy.”
“I know that.”
“And he is still alive.”
“I know that too. What I want to know is… why Abel Senuart is doing all of this.”
Riersha wanted to understand his purpose.
She needed to know his true goal before she could figure out where to even begin setting things right.
“What he wants is the destruction of the Declair Empire.”
Clatter.
The spoon Riersha had been holding to eat her pudding slipped from her fingers and fell.
What had she just heard?
She had suspected some personal vendetta… but she never could have imagined it would be the fall of the Declair Empire.
“…What?”
Riersha stared blankly, and Sion smiled gently and repeated herself.
“The destruction of the Declair Empire.”
…This was going to be a very long story.
⁂
The conversation stretched on until evening.
And with every passing hour, Riersha couldn’t seem to find her footing.
To summarize what Sion had told her — Abel Senuart had once been a man of extraordinary merit.
He was called the greatest Tower Master in recorded history, a genius so gifted he could wield dark magic with ease.
The world at large had declared that no one like Abel Senuart would ever appear again.
When the Declair Empire had briefly been thrown into peril by barbarian invaders, Abel Senuart had willingly agreed to use dark magic — the kind that wounds the very soul of its caster.
“Please, help me, Abel.”
It was because of a plea from the Emperor, who had been his closest friend.
And because he loved the Declair Empire more than anyone, he had made that choice.
Abel Senuart ultimately led the war against the barbarians to victory, returned home in triumph, and the people of the empire began to revere him as a war hero.
But that was when things began to unravel.
The people’s adoration swelled to a degree that unsettled the Emperor himself, and eventually…
The Emperor listened to the whispers of nobles who warned that one day, Abel Senuart will take everything from you — and decided to have Abel Senuart eliminated.
Abel Senuart, who had spent his entire life devoted only to magic and loyal only to the empire, walked right into the trap.
Rumors spread that he was plotting to seize the throne. Then evidence surfaced to confirm it.
But every piece of that evidence had been quietly manufactured by the Emperor himself, and Abel Senuart had no way to fight back.
In the end, every possession he owned was confiscated without exception, and he was branded a traitor.
And as for the Dragon Staff…
“Abel Senuart, who still believed the Emperor was his dearest friend, willingly allowed the staff to be sealed. He knew that his own presence was narrowing the Emperor’s standing, and so he surrendered it without resistance.”
“…Good heavens.”
“And the moment the Dragon Staff was sealed, Abel Senuart was thrown into prison on the charge of treason. …The love he had carried for the Declair Empire, deeper than anyone’s, turned to hatred — and he resolved to erase this empire from existence entirely.”
“…”
“After all, if not for him, the empire would have already been destroyed by the barbarians.”
In short, the empire he had once saved — he now intended to destroy with his own hands.
So that meant…
Riersha’s mouth fell open.
Her thoughts had ground to a halt.
If everything Sion had just told her was true… if that was really how it had been…
“This can’t be…”
“Riersha, what’s wrong?”
Riersha’s color drained and her voice trembled, thin as a thread.
Oberon noticed something was wrong and asked with quiet urgency, but Riersha couldn’t spare the presence of mind to answer him.
Her head was reeling.
“Riersha?”
She could see Sion rise from his seat, tilting his head in concern — but Riersha sat motionless, staring at nothing.
Then the fundamental reason why the Arachrene family had fallen in the past — it hadn’t been because of the Empress at all…
It had been a stage that Abel Senuart had built with his own hands?
