Ha. Just because she hasn’t mastered her awakened ability, there’s nothing to worry about?
Karla ground her teeth.
What did it matter that the child hadn’t yet learned to control her power?
He had told her there was no cause for concern — that they should take their time and observe — but Karla grew more restless with every passing day.
I thought I’d hidden it so thoroughly. Where on earth did the information leak from?
The parting words Pernoa Arachrene had left behind refused to leave her mind. They had cost her more than a few sleepless nights.
The young lord knew the truth — that there existed another bloodline tied to the Emperor.
As if blackmailing her with that knowledge weren’t enough, he had wasted no time summoning the Arachrene hounds, as though he had been waiting for precisely this moment.
Karla bit at her fingernails.
“To think that merely touching one Risideon would cost me this much.”
“Pardon? What did you say, Your Majesty?”
Macton Willias had not caught her murmur and turned to ask.
But Karla had no room in her heart to answer him.
One misstep, and everything she had built over the years might come crashing down.
“…Lord Willias.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“You must do everything in your power to ensure Adrian holds his place as Crown Prince. You understand this, don’t you? It is only through that position that your daughter may one day become Empress of this nation.”
“But of course. There is no question of it.”
Macton Willias nodded with an amiable smile.
Yet beneath that easy expression, Duke Willias narrowed his eyes in quiet puzzlement.
Why does the Empress check the Arachrene family so obsessively?
As a member of the imperial household, it was natural enough, he supposed.
As the Crown Prince’s own mother, her concern for her son’s safety and future was only to be expected.
And yet… there was something excessive about it.
In the end, what the two of them wanted was the same. But somewhere in the path they were walking, Karla seemed to be carrying a far more unsettling reason than he knew — and that left a persistent discomfort at the back of his mind.
“For that to happen, the Arachrene family must hold the border without fail.”
“…The border, Your Majesty?”
“Yes. So long as they stand firm at the border and keep watch over it, Adrian may prepare himself to become Emperor in peace, don’t you think?”
“Yes, naturally. I agree entirely. If their attention is drawn elsewhere, they might neglect what truly matters.”
Macton Willias answered agreeably, but his sharp eyes never stopped reading the Empress’s complexion.
Her pallor was that of someone who hadn’t slept properly in days, and the tea she was drinking was an herbal blend known to soothe the nerves.
There is something the Empress has not told me.
Whether the Arachrene family held the border or not, it should have been a foregone conclusion that Adrian would ascend the throne as the next Emperor.
Then what could possibly be making her this anxious?
Macton Willias sipped his tea and let the thought turn over in his mind.
Well — he himself had agreed to support the Empress in exchange for having his daughter named Crown Princess. In that sense, they were already bound to the same ship, for better or worse.
It was then.
“…What is Adrian doing right now?”
“His Highness the Crown Prince is currently in a lesson, Your Majesty. It is the statecraft hour with the Sage Edmund.”
“I see. Very well.”
The color that had drained from Karla’s anxious face returned, if only by a fraction.
Duke Macton Willias glanced at the time and rose from his seat. It was growing late, and the hour called him away.
“Then I shall take my leave, Your Majesty.”
“Yes. Do take care.”
“Of course. Next time, allow me to bring my daughter Olivia along. She has been most eager to see you.”
“I have been looking forward to seeing Olivia as well. I shall send word again soon.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
Macton Willias bowed respectfully and departed from the Empress’s palace.
Karla reached for her tea, then set the cup down without drinking and exhaled slowly.
“Everyone, leave me.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
Once the handmaids had withdrawn, Karla pressed both hands over her face and rubbed it dry.
She found herself thinking of it — a memory from long, long ago.
A golden-haired boy in a dusty, forgotten room. Filthy and unkempt.
Blue eyes ringed with distrust, always scanning the edges of the space around him.
Nothing more than a neglected child who had never been taught anything — yet the moment Karla had laid eyes on it, she had understood.
Adrian can never defeat that child. Not ever.
Adrian, who had been raised in a hothouse, shielded from all hardship and given only love — he would be devoured by it in the end.
Utterly. Wretchedly.
⁂
“Miss Riersha! Are you all right?! What on earth happened — how did this…”
The moment Sona heard the news about Oberon, the color drained completely from her face and she came running.
Led by Rosinante’s hand, Riersha arrived safely at her room in the annex and gave a small nod to assure her that she was fine.
“Mm, I’m okay. I’m not hurt anywhere.”
“Yes — of course you should be. Of course…”
Sona pressed a hand to her chest, exhaling sharply with the force of her relief.
Word had spread swiftly through the estate that Oberon had attempted to do harm to the heir.
At first, no one believed it. Because it was Oberon, of all people.
He was Arcmund’s most loyal steward. Why would he ever approach the heir with ill intent?
And yet, when the retainers witnessed him being led away without resistance to the underground prison by the knights, none of them could shake free of their shock.
It went without saying that a chill fell over the entire estate in the aftermath.
“He must have approached you the moment I stepped away from your side.”
“…Oberon wasn’t being bad. He wasn’t trying to hurt me.”
“Miss Riersha, there is no one in this household — not a single person — who fully understands what his ability does.”
Oberon’s power was invisible. Non-visible in every sense.
Had it been something related to physical combat, it would at least have been straightforward. But Oberon’s ability was to perceive the essence of things.
How, precisely, he perceived that essence — no one knew in any detail.
Not even Duke Arcmund himself understood it fully.
“Are you feeling any pain in your head? Even a little?”
“No.”
“Or a sensation of nausea, perhaps?”
“Not at all.”
Riersha wore a miserable expression. The entire walk back to the annex with Rosinante, she had argued for Oberon’s innocence — but he had not believed her. If anything, he seemed more worried than ever that she had already fallen under the influence of Oberon’s ability.
Bringing up Oberon right now is only making things worse.
She decided to change her approach.
In a moment this tense, the more she argued, the stronger the resistance would grow. It was far better to steer the conversation elsewhere for now.
“Where did you go, Sona?”
“Ah… I was following the young lord’s instructions to receive a guest. I was on my way back.”
“The young lord?”
A guest had come to the Arachrene estate — and yet it was Sona who had gone to greet them?
A personal knight was exempt from all household duties of the estate. Their sole obligation was to devote themselves entirely to the protection of the heir. That was the unspoken rule.
So why had Pernoa given Sona such an instruction?
When Riersha blinked and tilted her head with wide eyes, Sona smiled a little awkwardly.
“Well — I did call them guests, but they are actually old friends of mine. More precisely, they are retainers who serve the young lord.”
“…I see.”
So Pernoa had people like that as well.
Then again, he was the young lord of the house. It would have been far stranger if such people didn’t exist.
“Yes. It’s been quite a long while since I last saw them, so the young lord gave me the opportunity as a kindness.”
Sona smiled softly as she said it, her gratitude plain.
Riersha, meanwhile, felt a quiet curiosity stir within her.
How long had it been, exactly, for Pernoa to go out of his way to arrange such a thing?
“If they’re your friends… are they knights too, like you?”
“Yes, more or less.”
A strange feeling settled in Riersha’s chest. Friends. It was an unfamiliar word — one she had never once made use of in her own life.
Come to think of it, even Pernoa, who was supposed to have such a dreadful personality, had been on friendly terms with Duke Marcella…
What would it be like to have a friend? I want one too.
They had seemed so genuinely close.
Riersha looked at Sona, whose face was quietly bright with happiness.
