Love Letters Carry Disaster
Four days before a colossal golden arrow would pierce the Academy, the Imperial Palace of the Roelina Empire.
In the seat of the absolute ruler of the empire that dominated half the continent—a land inhabited solely by humans—a woman was bringing another day to a peaceful close.
At least, a day that could be called free of incident.
"Your Majesty, that concludes today's reports."
The Grand Chamberlain's voice drifted over the mountain of documents.
In answer, the Empress merely lifted her head a fraction and looked straight ahead.
Across the long desk of her study, the paper stacks stretched without end, and upon every last sheet already sat the signature of Serene Roelina herself.
This much, read and settled, in a single day alone.
Tax revisions. Petitions from provincial nobles. Border dispute reports. Draft trade accords. Crackdowns on emergent cults.
Any one of them could decide the empire's fate—and yet every one of them was also a story she had seen before.
Only the shapes changed. The pattern itself had been repeating for decades.
The essence that had never shifted since the days she had been Crown Princess of the Roelina Empire.
The numbers changed. The place names changed. The noble houses that appeared changed.
The mistakes people made, their greed, their stupidity—those never truly did.
"Understood. Withdraw. I shall attend to the rest myself."
At Serene's brief command, the Grand Chamberlain and the ministers bowed as one and withdrew.
Footsteps faded across the crimson carpet, and soon the great hall of the palace was filled only by the light pouring down from the chandeliers.
Serene glanced once more at the documents piled before her, then sank deep into the throne and stared into empty air.
The largest land in Rahelon, untouched by the influence of the countless demi-human races and demonkin.
Upon that vast earth, tens of millions of subjects bowed their heads toward the one who sat in this seat.
Some with loyalty. Some with fear. Some with hatred.
Yet to every last one of them, Serene herself existed only as a title.
Your Majesty.
Or Empress.
Or, failing that… the Transcendent who was leading the Roelina Empire into the greatest golden age in its history.
…When was the last time anyone spoke my name aloud…
The thought brushed through some corner of her mind.
Serene.
Her true name—one no one would so much as form in their thoughts, much less dare to utter.
Even the late Emperor. Even the Empress Dowager, who had been harsh with her and yet had been her mother—neither of them had called her by name after a certain point.
"How absurd."
The administration ran smoothly.
Wars always ended in victory. Rebellions were crushed the moment they sprouted.
The empire was at peace.
At least on the surface.
The problem was not the empire. It was the Empress.
What more am I supposed to achieve at this point.
The demand people made of her—"more, more, more"—never lessened.
And the one who had to answer that endless demand in all seriousness was always her.
Transcendent.
After receiving, at the mere age of twenty-two, the title bestowed upon those who gained power enough to dominate an era, the fatigue of the body had ceased to matter.
Sleep had become a choice. Hunger, a sensation left only in memory.
And still, she returned to her bedchamber at the end of every day.
"Your Majesty, please rest now."
"…Very well."
The head lady-in-waiting carefully shut the door and left, and only Serene remained in the Emperor's bedchamber.
Stepping down from the throne's shadow, she slowly unclasped her mantle and unfastened, one by one, the golden ornaments that had constricted her throat.
The jewels that had adorned her hair settled upon the table, chiming softly against one another with a sound that seemed to clear the mind.
As she passed the mirror, her gaze met its reflection for a brief moment.
Eyes in which gold and soft green were blended.
Silver hair ordered without a single flaw.
The perfectly refined face of an Empress.
With this face, I smiled dozens of times today as well.
A smile that pretended love for the people.
A gentleness permitted only so long as it never sacrificed majesty.
A mask that could not show a single crack while every eye in the room was fixed upon her.
Serene tore her gaze from the mirror and walked toward the bed.
She had performed well again today.
And yet, in the end, this mask would remain tomorrow, and the day after, and likely until the next Emperor appeared.
No—perhaps for as long as this empire itself endured, she would never be able to take it off.
It had been nearly several centuries since a Transcendent had last appeared in the lands of humanity.
Seated upon the bed, she removed her shoes, loosened her upper garments, and untied the ribbon that had bound her hair.
Long strands spilled down over her shoulders and back.
Only then, at last, did she return to being not Your Majesty, not Empress, not Transcendent—but simply a person named Serene.
A body that no longer needed sleep.
But for an Empress, time in which thought itself stopped was still necessary.
"Yes. Without even these brief moments of rest, one would choke."
Serene gazed up at the darkened ceiling and slowly lay back.
The work settled today.
The work that would need settling tomorrow.
And reports no different from any other day.
As she thought of the endlessly repeating calm, and of the vicious boredom nested inside it—
Tomorrow will be the same.
Even if a new war broke out, even if a new calamity appeared, she would be the one to clean it up in the end.
The only things that changed were the list of victims and the locations of the graves.
"A day that repeats itself to the point of weariness."
The words that slipped from her lips melted into the empty air and vanished almost at once.
As if to impress upon her that no matter how loudly she cried them out, there was no one left to listen.
She already knew: a world like this held no one to whom such complaints could be confided.
Perhaps that was why Serene had come to love this hour of falling asleep most of all.
The hours when the entire continent stopped seeking her.
Hours without reports, without wars, without councils, without pleas, without betrayal.
A few hours in which no one called for the Empress, and she did not have to decide a single thing.
To a Transcendent, sleep might be a meaningless act—but to Serene, it was the one luxury in which she was allowed to do nothing at all.
"Today, too… just a little… rest."
And so, just as Serene's eyelids were about to settle after another day like every other—
"…?"
She felt the air in the room shudder, ever so slightly.
Serene opened her eyes again, slowly, and turned her gaze aside.
At the center of the bedchamber, in midair, a wave of mana she had never once felt inside the Imperial Palace was blooming into existence.
Coordinate lock.
Spatial transfer.
Hah. Whoever it is, they're up to something rather amusing.
The bedchamber of the Empress of the Roelina Empire was the safest space on the continent.
Dozens of layers of perception-distorting barriers sheathed the entrances and outer walls; the design made simply pinpointing the coordinates nearly impossible.
And yet something was coming through those barriers with perfect precision.
"Who found my bedchamber—and how?"
A question flickered through her mind, but her body held almost no tension at all.
Had it been an attack born of malice, the barriers would have dealt with it long before it reached this far.
However they had found the coordinates—
The fact that it could enter the very center of the Empress's bedchamber meant, at the very least, that it carried no killing intent whatsoever.
And so Serene was simply curious.
What, exactly—whose hand—had come to disturb this tedious night.
Crrk—!
Space warped once more, and a tiny point of light rose into the empty air.
Before long, that light slowly took shape.
A square… sheet of paper.
…A letter?
It was an envelope.
Not luxurious stationery plastered in gold ornament. Not a royal seal carved with intricate magic arrays.
Just one ordinary cream-colored envelope.
It drifted down quietly from the ceiling and settled softly upon the bed, right before Serene's knees.
"…."
Serene raised her upper body a little and sat up.
Before reaching for it, she let mana flow from force of habit, reading the presence that rose from the envelope.
No curse. No magic. Emotional distortion, mental domination, tracking marks… nothing registered at all.
It truly was nothing more than a simple letter.
"Hah."
A short, empty laugh escaped her.
"Using coordinate-locked transfer just to send… a perfectly ordinary letter into the middle of my bedchamber."
Serene picked up the envelope and exhaled, very softly.
Something like interest—and beneath it, the faint stir of anticipation she could not even remember when she had last felt—was rising from the depths of sleep.
On the face of the envelope, a short line had been written in a polite hand.
To Her Majesty the Empress of the Roelina Empire.
The documents her bureaucrats submitted always opened with long, cumbersome honorifics.
Your Majesty. Sovereign of Ten Thousand Chariots. Heaven's Chosen. Arbiter of Fate—and, most commonly of all, Transcendent.
But this letter was simple.
The Empress of the Roelina Empire.
Just that single line.
"Courtesy observed, without excess. I find I rather like it."
Serene turned the envelope over and checked the seal.
No familiar crest. No national emblem. No name stamped upon it.
Proof that it was a letter sent thoroughly as a private individual.
When she scraped the sealed edge lightly with a fingernail, the envelope opened smoothly.
From within, about three sheets of white paper emerged.
Serene drew them out and slowly unfolded them.
Well then. Whose little prank is this.
Her eyes began to travel carefully down from the first line of the letter's contents.
If, Your Majesty, it would be acceptable to address you not as Empress, but as a person named Serene—
I know that even daring to write this much may already be a rudeness.
And yet, despite that, I still wish to call Your Majesty Serene.
Not as the Empress who rules an empire, but by the name of Serene—someone who weeps, who grows angry, who grows weary, as any person does.
Hundreds of millions may bow their heads before Your Majesty, but not one among them can ever speak that name.
So if this letter should, even by accident, offend Your Majesty's temper, I ask only that you laugh this part off once and set it aside.
But… if by any chance—even for the briefest moment—it might be all right: for today, at least, would you read these words not as the Empress of the Empire, but as a person named Serene?
"…."
Serene's brows drew together, ever so faintly.
It was not from displeasure.
If there existed a phrase for something that made one cringe, she suddenly thought, it would be reserved for sentences exactly like these.
And yet even that thought could not, strangely, pull her eyes away from the letter.
A little more strength entered her fingertips.
Before the paper could crease under her own force, she moved her gaze again.
Feeling something in the region of her chest resonate in an odd, quiet way.