Chapter 187
Chapter 187
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 187
Chapter Title: 58. The Ember Reignites as Flame (3)
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The King raised his hand, declaring the meeting adjourned.
The commanders paid their respects to the King and me in turn before filing out of the conference room. Even the Captain of the Royal Knight Order, who had lingered until the end, vacated the room at the King's gesture.
"It seems not all Swordmasters are made of iron."
Left alone together, the King spoke up.
"Even with the power to sunder the heavens and upheave the earth coursing through one's body, that flesh remains human, bound in skin and meat. How could one go through life without ever falling ill or suffering pain?"
I had wondered what he was getting at out of the blue—it was about how I'd groaned through the night with a high fever.
"But you must remember that many eyes are upon you. Your reckless actions could sap the army's morale, and your slightest deviation might unsettle the masses. Never again show such foolhardy behavior that breeds worry in others, as you did yesterday."
An unexpected reprimand. In the old days, I would have jumped up, insisting I'd handle it myself and to mind his own business.
But I didn't rebel or raise my voice. I simply listened in silence.
I now understood the concern hidden within those lengthy words.
The King continued his earnest advice in a matter-of-fact tone.
"Do not grow arrogant or overconfident. Be cautious in all things, set an example for others, and let the soldiers see you as an unbreakable rampart. Make them regard your presence as worth ten thousand enemy troops."
The King's voice, echoing through the conference room, cut off abruptly.
The King looked at me.
"I couldn't do it... but you can."
A flicker of self-mockery crossed his wrinkled eyes.
"Your Majesty... The fortress soldiers already see you as their rampart, as an entire legion. How can you say such things..."
"Spare me the honeyed words now. Wasn't it you who once spat in my face that I was incompetent and narrow-minded?"
I found myself consoling the King unbidden, only for him to chuckle and dredge up the past.
Back then, I truly believed it. I saw a man unfit for the throne, clinging desperately to it.
Only later, learning the circumstances, did I come to understand a little and change my mind—but that didn't erase what I'd said to him.
"That time..."
I fumbled for words, then fell silent, staring awkwardly at the table instead.
"Lift your head. I'm not blaming you."
But the King said he hadn't brought it up to reproach me.
On the contrary, he blamed himself for his past foolishness.
"My eyes were too dim to see the nobles' respect for the royal family dragged through the muck,
and my ears too deaf to hear the people's cries cursing their lord amid the nobles' tyranny."
Thus, even if the royal family now cried for the kingdom's independence, only a few loyalists would empathize—the majority would resent us for provoking the Empire into war.
"From the people's view, what's the difference between being plundered by the kingdom's nobles or the Empire's? What does it matter if the name on the land changes, or the flag fluttering overhead shifts design?"
The King was right.
Four hundred years ago, this land teemed with those willing to die for the kingdom. They preferred death in battle to annexation under the Empire's banner.
But not anymore.
Worn down by the nobles' exploitation and abuses, the people cared little who ruled the land.
Hate to admit it, but the kingdom's independence was no longer the will of the kingdom as a whole.
Lost in thought, I heard the King speak again.
"If not for her, I might never have realized it. I would have clung to the belief that if the royal family stood firm, all would be well."
But his voice had utterly changed from moments before.
"She didn't fall from exhaustion in battle. She simply chose her path."
Strength began to infuse the voice that had been heavy with self-mockery and regret.
"She made her decision without hesitation for what she deemed more important than life and death. She could have lived, but chose otherwise."
Startled by the sudden shift, I snapped my head up to look at the King.
His face was as impassive as when I'd first entered the room.
But his eyes shone brighter than ever.
"Do you think the blood of House Ballerhard, foremost in the kingdom at defending citadels, didn't know the outer walls couldn't be held with the forces left in the capital? Had she barricaded the inner gates and fought from there, she could have held out not four or five days, but a full month—she knew that."
As I stared, the King poured out his words rapidly.
"But she didn't. She didn't wait for the Iron Lion Knights in the inner keep. She met the enemy at the outer walls. Knowing it was impossible, she did it anyway. What do you think her reason was?"
I said nothing.
"She wanted to show everyone. Not a royal who sought only their clan's safety amid crisis, ignoring the trampling of those outside the inner walls—but one who gave their all to protect them."
The King didn't expect an answer from me either.
"She wanted to prove a true royal stood there, cherishing the people as their own flesh and blood."
The King's breathing grew ragged.
"So that the hearts that fled the royal family... the cause for war we'd lost..."
The King paused to catch his breath.
"...might finally return."
Then he continued softly.
"She sacrificed her life hoping the faint ember flickering weakly within the palace walls would spread beyond them."
His cold voice sent chills across my skin.
"So that ember could blaze across the kingdom like wildfire."
The King kept talking feverishly.
About the Empire's atrocity in raiding the capital, how the Queen fought back.
And her final moments—he vowed to make sure every soul in the kingdom knew.
He'd said it to me many times before.
"Some might point fingers, saying I exploited even my wife's death for propaganda. Others might shut their ears, calling it all lies."
Only then did I see the fervor flickering in the King's eyes.
"But I will ensure the flame she burned her life for reaches everywhere without fail."
It was aspiration and resolve,
"And if the embers fall short, I will become the ember myself."
grief and rage—and madness.
"For that is the mission she left me."
Realizing the nature of that fire, my heart throbbed painfully.
I'd seen that gaze countless times before.
I knew the path it led to, and where those steps ended.
Unable to just listen any longer, I spoke to the King.
"Why burn only the kingdom's own to fuel more embers? Command me, and I'll torch their fortresses to fan the flames."
So please rethink striking at the homeland, I pleaded with the King.
The King chuckled.
"Worried I might go astray?"
Words he'd never say to me normally, emotions of affection he'd never show.
It only made me more anxious.
I begged him repeatedly to reconsider.
And finally drew from him a promise to think it over.
But my efforts proved utterly futile.
Before the King could finish his deliberations, a fortnight later on a stormy evening when the snowstorm, which had been dying down, raged anew...
The battered Sword Maiden arrived at the fortress, piercing through the fierce blizzard.
One of the five survivors among the Queen's sword maidens left in the capital to guard her and watch Montpellier—the black-haired half-elf, Gionne.
Her left arm was severed, leaving her sleeve flapping empty, and her torn, mangled flesh was frozen blue in the blizzard.
"Gionne?"
"Ahh..."
Even in that state, Gionne smiled brightly at the sound of her name from my lips.
I rushed out to her immediately.
Before I reached her, Gionne staggered and collapsed at my feet.
I swiftly extended my hand to keep her from tumbling into the cold snow.
Half-falling into my arms, she waved her remaining hand frantically, signing with gestures.
But I couldn't understand her sign language.
I just stared blankly at her hand.
It was gone. All five of those unusually long, pale fingers—vanished.
Realizing too late that her signs weren't getting through, Gionne gave up and quietly placed her hand in mine.
Then she pushed it gently toward my waist.
Only then did I look at her waist.
A rope was tightly bound around it—so tight her waist was turning purple and dying.
I hurriedly tried to untie it, then froze solid.
The rope around her waist led somewhere else.
I rolled my eyes, tracing the rope.
And finally reached its end.
It was a pile of what had once been precious, pristine cloth, now soiled on the journey.
I looked back at Gionne.
Her lips moved.
Understanding words from lips frozen stiff with cold was excruciatingly hard. But patiently, she repeated the motion, and I finally grasped her meaning.
Your mother.
I froze in place.
Creaking my neck, I turned to the object wrapped in the filthy cloth.
My heart clenched.
Forcing my hand out, I tore away the frozen fabric.
Blue-frozen skin emerged. Twisted, iced flesh appeared.
A clumsily stitched-together head was revealed.
Unrecognizable from her living form, utterly ravaged—yet unmistakably the corpse of the woman I knew.
"Ah..."
At that instant, a groan came from behind me.
I desperately hoped it wasn't the King's as I turned.
But my hopes were dashed—he stared at me, face drained white, like a madman.
"Y-Your Majesty."
I hurriedly shielded the corpse and blocked his view.
Thud, thud.
Staggering forward, the King rasped,
"...Step aside."
A feeble hand pushed me.
Powerless as it was, I couldn't resist and was shoved away.
Having pushed me aside, the King dropped to his knees with a thud.
"Ahh..."
He grasped the twisted, frozen hand of the corpse.
Then brought it to his mouth and breathed on it.
But the rigid hand wouldn't open, and the lost warmth didn't return.
For a long while like that, the King cupped the corpse's cheek.
"Ah-uh..."
A groan escaped through his gritted teeth.
"Euhh..."
Pressing his cheek to the frozen one, the King embraced the body tightly.
"Ahhhuu..."
Like a wounded beast.
"Kuhhuuu."
Thus, the King clutched the Queen's remains and wailed.
I couldn't bear to watch any longer and turned away.
Holding the wounded half-elf close.
Feeling her breaths slowly fade.
"You did well, Gionne."
The pitiful half-elf, who had raced nonstop from the capital, smiled radiantly.
Then quietly breathed her last in my arms.
Another of those pitiable women—massacred by Sigrun until only five remained, whom I'd vowed to let live on unharmed—had passed away pointlessly.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
The wind howled fiercer. Yet the King's cries pierced clearly through the raging gale into my ears.
Time passed—quite a while.
The military undertaker took the half-elf's body, but I still couldn't leave.
I stayed by the King's side as he held the corpse.
No more sobs reached me.
Keeping everyone at bay, he whispered endlessly to the Queen's remains.
Then the King rose.
Our eyes met.
Pupils empty, as if his soul had fled.
My heart plummeted; I rushed to him.
"We need to find clean clothes. We can't hold the funeral like this."
Unlike my frantic worry, the King's voice was eerily calm, his steps toward the fortress steady.
That demeanor never wavered through the funeral the next day.
The King proceeded through every rite with unflinching composure.
They dug into the frozen blizzard-hardened earth, entombing the Queen's coffin deep within. The Sword Maiden who brought her body was buried alongside.
"When the kingdom stands tall again, she will be reinterred in the capital."
As dirt covered the two coffins at last, the King in black mourning climbed silently to the fortress wall's highest point.
Standing atop, he gazed down at the soldiers with sunken eyes.
"Are you sad?"
After a long pause, he asked.
"I am sad too."
His voice rang across the fortress amid the whipping wind.
"But this is not the time for sorrow—it is the time for rage."
The King's voice grew increasingly impassioned.
"Then where should that rage be directed?!"
"The Empire!"
The soldiers roared back in unison.
"What price must they pay?!"
"Blood for blood! Death for death!"
As cheers erupted, the blizzard began to die down.
And finally ceased entirely.
Just as the King vowed to turn the Empire's lands into a sea of blood, slaughter every Imperial down to the last and mount their heads on pikes,
to burn even their livestock and leave nothing of their works behind.
"Death to the Empire dogs!"
"Curse upon the villains' lands!"
Even the legion commanders and knights who had urged restraint now cried for vengeance in grief and fury—the most cautious officers screamed for the Queen's revenge.
I looked up at the sky, clear as if by miracle.
Nothing remained to stop the King's march.
The King issued a full mobilization order.
All the kingdom's reserves headed to the foremost fortress. Nobles led their retainers and conscripts toward the border en masse. The eastern fleet cleaved through the frozen sea southward, and the western elite legions marched on the border forts.
The Iron Lion Knight Order, which reclaimed the capital, along with their forces and every knight order in the kingdom, converged on the border.
Thus began the true war that would stake the kingdom's fate.