The Moon and the Sun
The princess who had learned everything called out behind me.
“Lord Lisite…?”
At the familiar voice coming from behind, I turned my head toward the sound.
“Your Majesty…?”
There stood Milliam, nestled among the garden’s blades of grass. Beside him was Sir Austin.
Milliam tilted his head, then asked me a question.
“What brings you to the garden at this hour of the night?”
I bowed deeply in respect and answered.
“Sleep would not come, so I came out for a short walk.”
“I see, I see… A stroll is indeed one of the better activities for a good night’s sleep.”
Milliam seemed to ponder something for a moment before speaking again.
“If you don’t mind… would you care to walk with me?”
“It would be an honor.”
I had been about to return to my room, but… well, it didn’t matter. Lying down now wouldn’t suddenly bring sleep that refused to come.
When I nodded, Milliam gave a small smile and began walking slowly. I followed quietly behind him.
Whoooosh…
The gentle sound of the wind filled the empty spaces around us. Walking through the garden beneath the blue starlight was rather poetic.
“How is it? Quite beautiful, isn’t it?”
While I quietly drank in the night scenery, Milliam, who had been walking ahead, turned to me and asked.
“It truly is.”
“Heh heh… It is one of the palace’s proudest features!”
Milliam laughed heartily at my reply and stopped in the center of the garden. I halted a few steps behind him.
Swoooosh…
The bushes swayed and fell in unison with the wind. Flower petals fluttered, scattering their fragrance. Milliam stood tall amid the early autumn scents, savoring the quiet.
After remaining still for a moment, he suddenly asked me,
“Do you happen to know?”
“What do you mean, Your Majesty?”
“I… do not particularly like the sun.”
“Pardon…?”
Caught off guard by the sudden remark, I froze. Milliam chuckled softly.
“It’s not some hidden meaning. Just the plain truth.”
“But… how could the Empire’s Sun say such a thing…”
“Heh heh, strange, is it?”
Milliam let out his characteristic laugh a few more times, then raised his index finger and pointed at the night sky.
“The sun, you see… shines too brightly.”
“How could that be considered a flaw?”
“A shining sun… devours everything around it with its brilliant radiance. The light of the stars circling the sky, the cool night air, the comfortable silence—all of it.”
Milliam gazed at the moon in the night sky with an oddly wistful expression. I remained silent so as not to disturb his thoughts.
“The sun is fated to be unable to live alongside anything else.”
But the moon is different. Its gentle, wavering moonlight exists in harmony with countless stars.
Having murmured that, Milliam lowered his gaze to look at me.
“I wanted to become someone like the moon… because people cannot live alone.”
There was once a time when I admired the sun’s unrivaled solitude. But only after ascending to the sun’s position did I realize the truth. No matter how loftily one reigns as light, when evening comes, one simply vanishes alone beyond the horizon.
“People are like a single night sky… they need others to live alongside them, and the right amount of darkness.”
“......”
It was clearly meant for me, yet it sounded like a monologue from Milliam himself. The sun’s lament, laced with bitterness and regret, echoed slowly through the tranquil atmosphere.
Come to think of it, Milliam was once a loner who lived for his own pride.
After his only beloved empress passed away early, he changed his ways according to her last wish and began to cherish those around him… Recalling those details, the air surrounding Milliam felt especially lonely.
Milliam smiled with a meaning I couldn’t decipher and said to me,
“Take good care of those around you… You must correct all the things you have ruined until now.”
Any later, and it may become irreversible.
Leaving those final words, Milliam chuckled softly to himself and resumed walking.
“It seems I’ve talked too much… Age truly cannot be hidden. I’ve become an old man…”
“You are still in excellent health.”
“Heh heh… I shall retire for the night. See you tomorrow.”
After a simple farewell, Milliam left with Austin, who had been following us silently.
I stood beneath the night sky from which the sun had vanished. My mouth quietly chewed over the conversation we had just shared.
“People cannot live alone, huh……”
I fell into thought for a moment, recalling those words. Having spent most of my previous life alone, it was a statement I struggled to understand. Yet somehow, it felt right.
“......”
I remained alone in the garden filled with starlight. The chilly night air urged me deeper into contemplation. Just as my sunken heart was about to touch the bottom of my unconscious—
“Haa, haa… Raiden…!”
Once again, a voice called from behind. This one was familiar too. A refined yet delicate soprano. The only difference from usual was that she was panting.
With a sense of surprise, I turned around to face the owner of the voice.
“......”
The first thing that entered my sight was beautifully swaying platinum hair. Mysteriously shimmering blue eyes. And skin so white it looked even paler under the moonlight.
I took in the entire scene, which looked like a painting, and spoke the girl’s name.
“Your Highness the Princess…?”
“Haa, haa…”
There stood Lucy. She was breathing roughly as she walked briskly toward me. Her clothes were wrinkled here and there, as if she had been running.
“Your Highness, what brings you here at this hour of the night?”
Startled by her sudden appearance, I asked. Lucy frowned and glared at me. Her clear blue eyes reflected my image like a mirror.
When our gazes met, I flinched and took a step back. Those blue eyes reminded me of the wariness and fear I had seen in the girl’s eyes at the carriage stop earlier.
“Raiden…”
At my reaction, the girl’s expression crumpled. Or rather, it would be more accurate to say it became tearful.
I stood there, unsure what to do, thinking, Why is she acting like this all of a sudden?
“Your Highness…?”
“......”
Lucy did not respond to my call. She simply stared at me while trying to steady her unsteady breathing.
The girl was trembling. Her lips twitched with faint spasms, her eyes wavered yet barely held onto me. Even a watery trail, as if something had flowed down, streaked across her cheek.
Step…
Lucy, who had been staring at me intently, began taking one step after another toward me. In a voice that had grown unknowingly wet, she mumbled.
“Raiden… this… this…”
“Yes…?”
The girl muttered words I couldn’t understand. Lucy stopped right in front of me, clenched her fists tightly, and then—
“This… this…”
“Your Highness…? Why are you suddenly—?”
“You idiot…!”
“Ugh—?!”
She leaped toward me and executed a body slam. What the hell. What is this all of a sudden.
I fell backward as she crashed into me, thinking to myself.
A few hours earlier.
After the audience in the reception hall had ended, Lucy lay in her own room, sitting on the edge of her bed. While her body rested comfortably, her mind was a battlefield.
Lucy clutched her throbbing forehead from the complicated thoughts and muttered to herself.
“Just what… did that mean…”
Inside the girl’s head, the conversation between Milliam and Raiden replayed on loop.
"Of course it is only natural.... The Seekers and the Church are my mother's enemies."
"You've truly changed a great deal... I heard you've even put an end to that awkward scoundrel act."
"Yes, that is correct."
"How does it feel? Having cast off the mask?"
"......It was not as refreshing as I expected. I lost far too much."
Lucy furrowed her brow at the incomprehensible exchange between the two. It sounded as if there was a backstory she knew nothing about. Moreover, to hear that his condition had been so poor he had to take the notoriously deadly deathweed—it was news she had never once heard.
Those who knew of Lady Lisite’s tragedy were few even within the imperial family. Naturally, Lucy, who knew nothing of Raiden’s circumstances, could only agonize over her questions.
“Ugh…!”
Unable to overcome her restless heart, Lucy sprang to her feet. She got off the bed, stepped onto the floor, and murmured.
“I should ask my brother… He seemed to know something.”
Recalling the ambiguous look in Seon’s eyes as he had gazed at Raiden, Lucy left the room. She headed straight for the crown prince’s quarters.
Knock, knock, knock…
“Brother…? Is now a good time…?”
“Lucy? What brings you at this hour…? Ah, come in for now.”
Seon greeted his sister’s sudden visit with surprise but warmth. Papers were scattered across his desk, suggesting he had been buried in work.
Lucy felt a pang of guilt, wondering if she was interrupting, but stepped inside anyway.
“So… what brings you at this late hour, my dear princess?”
“......I have something I want to ask.”
“It must have been quite urgent for you to come find me like this… So, what’s the question?”
“Well… earlier in the audience chamber…”
Lucy began laying out the questions that had been swirling in her mind before her older brother. Seon listened to his sister’s story in silence. At first glance, he appeared relaxed, but the fact that his hand had stopped moving the pen revealed that he was considerably shaken.
“......So I was wondering if there was something I didn’t know about.”
“......”
“I thought maybe you would know……”
Lucy fidgeted with her fingers as if gauging his reaction. Seon rolled his eyes for a moment, then let out a deep sigh.
“Haa… I did think a day like this would come eventually.”
“Brother, so you do know something…?”
“I do know, but I’m not sure if it’s right for you to hear it from me…”
“Please… tell me, brother.”
Lucy looked at Seon with watery eyes. After a long silence as if in deep thought, he scratched the back of his head and spoke.
“......Well, since both the duke and Lord Lisite brought up that topic first, it probably means it’s fine for you to know as well.”
“Then…?”
“Yes, I’ll tell you. About the ‘tragedy’ that was thoroughly concealed within the Lisite family.”
. . .
“Haa, haa……”
Lucy ran. The moment she finished listening to Seon’s story, she had burst out of the room. She wandered through the palace, frantically looking around.
“Your Highness…?! Where are you going at such a late hour…?”
“Your Highness…?”
The voices of the maids called out intermittently, but the girl ignored them and kept running. Only one name existed in Lucy’s mind right now.
“Lucy… we owe him a great debt.”
“In a way, Lord Lisite sacrificed himself for the well-being of the imperial family…”
“I cannot even begin to imagine what kind of heart he must have had to push away the people precious to him.”
Raiden Lisite. The boy she had resented so deeply. The foolish friend who had tried to bear everything alone. And… the loyal knight who had never once betrayed her.
She had to meet him.
“Raiden…!”
Lucy headed straight for the room where Raiden was staying, but he wasn’t there. She bit her lip in anxiety.
No…
You can’t disappear. I’ve only just learned the whole truth. I’ve finally come to understand even a little of your sadness, your pain, your loneliness.
The girl wiped at her eyes, which kept growing moist, and searched for the boy for a long time. After some time had passed, in the garden behind the palace, Lucy finally spotted Raiden.
He was melting into the darkness among the bushes. His jet-black hair, scattered by the wind, stood out sharply against his blue eyes.
“Haa, haa… Raiden…!”
“Your Highness the Princess…?”
At the girl’s call, the boy turned around. Lucy steadied her ragged breathing and approached him.
“Your Highness, what brings you here at this hour of the night?”
Raiden asked calmly. Lucy furrowed her brow. She was angry. Why was he making such a relaxed face? His insides were rotting away, yet he was acting as if nothing was wrong.
Unidentifiable rage and sorrow rose in the girl’s throat.
“......”
But those feelings were washed away the moment the boy moved. When their eyes met, Raiden flinched and stepped back. Lucy felt her head grow coldly clear at his reaction.
“Raiden…”
Her lips trembled and her chest felt tight. The boy’s fragile appearance looked so unbearably sad and pitiful in the eyes of the girl who now knew everything.
With her vision blurring, Lucy walked toward him. What should she say? She was sure she had so many things she wanted to tell him. Yet the only sounds that left her mouth were stupid mumbles.
“Raiden… this… this…”
Countless sentences formed and scattered inside Lucy’s mouth. The sentences in her head collided, connected, shattered, and separated again and again.
In the end, the girl couldn’t utter a single proper word. She simply ran toward the boy, who was tilting his head at her, and—
“You idiot…!”
—burst into the tears she had been holding back and threw herself at him.