Belletria Lien Archesium (5)
Belletria Lien Archesium (5)
"I've been curious from the start, exactly when you began to hold me in your heart."
At a distance close enough to feel her breath, she asked, staring straight into my eyes.
'Hmm... how should I answer this?'
My lips were burning dry.
Should I kneel right now and confess that the letter was not something a hostage from a defeated nation, trampled under the Empire's feet, would dare offer to Your Majesty?
Should I confess that the letter meant for the Princess of Ignesia and the surrender document had been swapped?
⋯ No, that is absolutely out of the question.
I had just been handed the position of Commander-in-Chief, leading 120,000 Imperial troops, in the conference room just a moment ago.
Having been granted such an exceptional residence right next to the Emperor's bedroom,
If I were to confess now that it was all my mistake and that I had no intention of deceiving Your Majesty.
Given her temperament, she would surely cut my throat without a second thought.
Furthermore, the crime of mocking the Emperor would not end with the life of a single hostage; it would lead to a bloody massacre of the entire Rehentra Kingdom.
What I hated were those people called my family and the nobles, not the kingdom itself.
Above all, the face of the Empress waiting for my answer right in front of me was strangely filled with sincerity.
I didn't have the courage to trample on that expectation.
Then, there was only one option.
'Yeah, screw it, let's act crazy and go all the way.'
I carefully wiped away a drop of sweat trickling down my cheek and met her ruby-colored eyes.
"It was 8 years ago."
"8 years ago. That would be...."
"Yes. It was during the Continental Festival, where the Empire, the Kingdom, and all the delegations of the continent gathered."
I scraped the bottom of my memory to pull out the most plausible stage.
In truth, I had seen her from afar while sitting in a corner of the Kingdom's section back then.
Of course, the emotion I felt at that time wasn't love, but fear—fear of a woman who, at the young age of 12, had already beaten down all the knights of the Empire, and was being evaluated as someone who would reach the level of a Sword Master, a rank that had not appeared since the death of the man who held the title of the last Transcendent 300 years ago.
'So the anxieties I felt back then all became reality.'
"Ahem."
I cleared my throat once and continued speaking, using the softest voice I could muster.
"At the time, Your Majesty was sitting in the main seat of the banquet hall as the Imperial Crown Princess. Countless nobles and royals flattered you to get into your good graces, but Your Majesty's gaze did not linger on anyone. You looked terribly lonely and isolated, as if you were looking at something that did not exist in this world."
"......."
It was sweet talk that made my whole body shudder even as I said it.
I couldn't hide my reddening earlobes and lowered my gaze to the table.
"Sitting in a dark corner, I could only look up at Your Majesty from afar... but in that moment, I realized. That my insignificant world had been turned upside down."
Still, the more I added to the lie, the smoother my tongue moved.
Was this a desperate acting skill born from survival instinct?
Whatever it was, it wasn't bad.
"But I was just a nameless prince of a certain kingdom, and Your Majesty was the one destined to be the sun of the Empire. Knowing you were someone I dared not reach, I forced myself to suppress my feelings... but I couldn't completely discard them, so now, for the first and last time, I have offered this letter at the risk of my life."
As I uttered the last sentence, I bowed my head slightly.
I clasped my hands tightly to keep her from noticing them trembling with fear and dread.
"......."
A suffocatingly thick silence and a strange pressure weighed down the garden.
An eternity seemed to pass.
Just when it became difficult to even breathe.
A laugh that sounded genuinely amused came from across the table.
It wasn't a sneer.
It was the light, refreshing laugh of a woman who was truly, purely in a good mood.
When I looked up, Belletria was resting her chin on one hand, staring intently at me.
The wariness that had been flickering in her suffocatingly red eyes had already turned into curiosity.
"8 years. You've suffered alone for quite a long time."
"Th... That is correct. It was a considerably arduous time."
"Good. You don't have to hide the feelings you've suppressed for that long anymore, so prove it to me to your heart's content."
"......."
"Today's tea party was quite enjoyable, my fiancé."
She drank the rest of her tea and stood up from her seat.
The white parts of her hair shone even whiter under the sunlight.
Watching her back as she left the garden, leaving me behind, I finally let out the breath I had been holding.
'I survived.'
But at the same time, my vision went dark.
I had overcome the crisis with improvisation.
But now, I had to perfectly pull off the act of a legendary romantic who had been harboring a one-sided love for the Empire's tyrant for 8 years.
"Well, aside from that, it was a bit unexpected, right?"
It had only been a day.
We had only talked for a moment, but... how should I put it?
Unlike the image of a tyrant I had imagined based on the rumors widespread across the continent and her actions so far.
The woman named Belletria Lien Archesium was a bit more human than I thought.
Honestly, I briefly wondered if she was really a tyrant at all.
Of course, it didn't even take a full day for me to realize that was a simple misunderstanding.
"Ugh... wow, it's really soft."
The first night I spent in the Imperial Palace was more peaceful than I thought.
Honestly, until I fell asleep, I thought I would toss and turn all night with the anxiety that an assassin might pop out from somewhere.
But the bed was so soft and the quilt so warm that it made that anxiety seem trivial.
I must have fallen fast asleep, to the point where I even forgot the fact that I was walking a tightrope with my life on the line.
Of course, that sweet rest didn't last very long.
—!
—-!!
From the morning, noisy voices could be heard from outside the window.
Not just the noise of an ordinary daily routine, but something a bit more menacing?
It was a noise with a rather unpleasant vibe.
I stood up, cracking my stiff neck from side to side.
I roughly washed my face with cold water from a basin, smoothed out my messy hair with my fingers, and put on the shirt and jacket I had been given the day before.
Squeak-!
As I stepped out of the door, the 2nd-floor corridor where the Emperor's bedroom was located was strangely quiet.
However, the noise coming from outside on the 1st floor was gradually becoming clearer.
I lowered my footsteps and began to move toward the source of the noise.
Before long, beyond a large arched building, a signboard that read "Imperial Knights 3rd Division" came into view.
A familiar voice leaked through the gap in the half-open iron door.
It was the voice of the Head Steward, who had received the letter I had prostrated myself to offer at the throne yesterday.
The only difference was that, unlike the soft and polite tone of yesterday, his intonation was sharp and on edge.
'What is this? Is the Head Steward scolding a knight?'
I held my breath, pressed myself against a pillar, and carefully examined the inside.
And at the sight that entered my view, I froze in place.
In the middle of the wide training ground, a very familiar figure was kneeling on the dirt floor.
The man who had openly sneered and shown his dissatisfaction while looking at me in the conference room yesterday.
It was Olden, the Major General who had two large stars on his epaulets.
His flashy uniform was torn here and there and was damply stained with dark red blood.
In front of him, hunched over and gasping for breath, stood Belletria in her pristine white uniform.
From the tip of the silver longsword held in her hand, drops of red blood were falling onto the floor, thud, thud.
Above all, there was not a single emotion in her ruby-like red eyes.
'What is this situation?'
What on earth had happened for the Empress to be trampling on a key figure of the military, seemingly ready to cut him down in a single day?
I swallowed dryly and observed the surroundings, and I could hear the whispering of the knights surrounding the training ground in a circle.
"To think that Olden-nim was a spy for Dharon...."
"Why would he make such a choice? He wasn't just anyone, he was a Division Commander of the Imperial Knights."
"It's hard to believe he was a traitor, but now I understand why he always kept his family in a foreign land."
As soon as I overheard the conversation the knights were having, the whole situation was understood at once.
That a Division Commander-level official was a spy for the enemy kingdom of Dharon.
'No, but if he had climbed to that position, he wouldn't have been a spy who worked for a day or two, so why?'
Why did a high-level spy who had been lurking in the heart of the Empire for years, perhaps nearly a decade, get his tail caught this morning of all days?
It didn't make sense that he would suddenly act carelessly and get caught now.
Just as questions were piling up, Belletria's coldly sunken voice reached me.
"Thanks to the information you've leaked all this time, Dharon has had quite a bit of fun. I waited quite a long time for you to show your tail yourself."
"Huff... huff... How on earth...."
Olden just hung his head and breathed heavily.
His shoulders were trembling slightly.
"But you were too impatient yesterday, Olden. Was the prince's existence so bothersome that you had to hastily activate the communication magic stone in the middle of the night?"
"Kugh... No way?"
At the words Belletria tossed out casually, I finally understood the reason Olden had moved so hastily.
What happened in the conference room yesterday.
Not only did a hostage prince from a defeated nation suddenly sit in the seat of the Empress's prospective Imperial Consort.
He was even handed the position of Commander-in-Chief for the conquest of Dharon and the authority to command the troops.
For Olden, or rather for Dharon, it must have been a bolt from the blue.
The Empress had handed the sword hilt to an unknown stranger to strike down his homeland, Dharon.
Therefore, he must have judged that the Dharon Kingdom was in danger, and he must have tried to send a magic communication to his home country quickly.
A fatal variable could be a great crisis for his homeland, enough to make him lose his usual caution.
And Belletria was aiming for that very moment.
'Crazy.'
I almost let out a curse without realizing it.
Belletria had already been certain that there was a high-level spy within the military.
She just hadn't been able to pinpoint exactly who it was.
So she threw me, a hostage prince who rolled in out of nowhere, as the spark.
Just like throwing a large rock into a calm lake to make the hiding fish jump in surprise.
I had been slightly puzzled as to why she had called me in from the first day, using the excuse that I needed to prove myself....
Sitting me as the Commander-in-Chief might have had the purpose of testing my abilities, but essentially, I was the perfect bait to flush out the spy.
"Your loyalty is commendable, but my patience ends here."
Belletria declared in an indifferent tone.
"Yo, Your Majesty! Please...!"
It was the moment Olden was about to plead, reaching out with his dirt-covered hands.
Slice.
A chillingly clean and concise cutting sound.
A trajectory of the sword where not a hint of hesitation could be found.
Olden's scream was cut off abruptly, and I heard the sound of something thudding to the floor and rolling.
Belletria didn't even glance at the corpse that had collapsed on the floor.
She simply took a white handkerchief from her pocket and slowly wiped the bloodstains off the blade.
That gesture was so relaxed and calm, as if preparing for an afternoon tea time, that it felt downright bizarre.
I withdrew my gaze from the door gap, leaned my back against the support, and slumped down right there.
'It was a delusion.'
The conversation in the Sun Garden yesterday.
The curious gaze.
The languid tone.
My complacency in thinking that she might be a normal and sensible person, deceived by all of that, gave me terrible goosebumps.
That woman is definitely a tyrant.
She has no hesitation in staining her hands with blood.
An iron-blooded monarch who, for the sake of her goals, thoroughly uses and crushes even the psychology of others like chess pieces.
She is a woman who could throw away a hostage prince like me as a meat shield or bait at any time if it were for the safety of the Empire and her own benefit.
Perhaps if my clumsy strategy briefing yesterday hadn't met her standards, the head rolling on the dirt floor right now might have been mine, not Olden's.
I gripped my shirt collar tightly and exhaled slowly.
'Okay, so there's no escaping this, right?'
I must never, under any circumstances, get caught.
The fact that the blind marriage proposal I offered yesterday was actually a random fake I had intended to give to a childhood friend.
That the tear-jerking pure love story of me having a crush on her for 8 years was all a vicious lie to keep my life.
If that truth ever reaches that woman's ears.
My head won't be rolling on the floor of that training ground, but displayed in the middle of the Empire as food for the crows.
I adjusted my collar once again and made a firm resolution.
From today, I must become the most romantic and crazy lovesick man in the Empire.
A perfect, blindly loving fool who would give up his liver and gallbladder if it meant staying alive, and who would not invite even the slightest suspicion.