Sharle Millote (1)
The Emperor did not look particularly surprised by my answer.
"Hmm. The Marquis Alteon's views border on true foresight, I'd say... What is it you know?"
"At the very least, I know the imperial household has been looking after Irelphi's younger sister."
"Honest fellow! If I asked how a man who slept for nearly four hundred years came to know that, would you have the courage to tell me?"
"I'd rather keep my mouth shut, if I could. I even considered dodging the question... but that would be useless against Your Majesty."
At my words, the Emperor's expression turned graver than I had ever seen it. He leaned forward and pressed me, almost like an interrogation.
"Why do you think so?"
"Then let me ask in return. What is it Your Majesty is seeing?"
I knew it went beyond audacity, bordering on outright insolence. But if my instinct was right, the Emperor would never take offense.
"Heh heh..."
The Emperor merely let out a soft laugh. It struck me as faintly hollow — or perhaps, strangely, as a relief.
I laid out the conclusion I had reached.
"Your Majesty, might you have the ability to read minds, or something on par with it?"
"Does the Marquis seriously believe such an absurd power exists?"
To this question, I could answer with nothing less than absolute conviction.
SLAM!
"This world contains beings! That defy the laws of nature, such as Irelphi, Your Majesty!"
I jabbed a finger toward Irelphi outside the greenhouse as I declared it. Caught in the crossfire completely without warning, Irelphi's face twisted.
It was gossip that wasn't quite gossip, so I did feel a little guilty about it.
Hearing my answer, the Emperor at last burst into roaring laughter.
"PUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
Outside, Irelphi watched the Emperor roll about laughing, all dignity forgotten, with an expression of pure incredulity. Knowing her, she probably took it as proof that talk of her had made the conversation bloom.
Having only barely recovered from his laughter, the Emperor gave his answer.
"Correct. I cannot read minds, but I can see a person's malice and goodwill — and the many emotions besides."
"That's remarkable."
I was genuinely impressed. As an emperor, one could hardly ask for a more blessed gift. Applied to politics, it would serve as a high-performance detector for treacherous courtiers.
"It is. So remarkable that some days I wish I didn't have it at all."
"Whatever do you mean?"
"Do you know what it feels like to be the only soul in high society who knows a famously devoted couple is cheating on each other? The itch under my tongue keeps me from sleeping at night."
They say the head chamberlain only barely managed to stop the Emperor from digging a hole in the ground and screaming into it.
Only then did I finally understand the meaning of what the Emperor had said to me on the day of our first audience.
"So that's why you were certain I bore you no ill will."
"Precisely. If anything, you seem rather fond of me."
"Ah, well, that's..."
Because you've been tormenting Irelphi on my behalf — that, I could not have said with a knife at my throat.
"You made a good first impression."
"I do have a knack for judging character, you know."
The Emperor tossed the quip back playfully. Just to be safe, I asked him once more.
"But it truly isn't mind reading?"
"Absolutely not. Had I possessed such a power, I would have tried everything in my power to be rid of it."
Now that was unexpected. Perhaps my face gave me away, for the Emperor began to confide of his own accord.
"To be honest, the Empress and I are getting on in years, but we remain vigorous in many respects, and we share a bed quite often."
"Pardon?"
He had dumped an exquisitely private matter onto a man he had met all of twice. His openness left me past flustered and into sheer bewilderment.
Paying my reaction no heed whatsoever, the Emperor carried on.
"I swear I love the Empress fiercely, but there is no telling how her heart fares. Even if she still looks upon me fondly, we are both quite old now, aren't we? One may guard the body, but the heart is beyond watching."
The Emperor looked at me as though seeking my agreement, but there was no way on earth I dared say anything. It has been said since ancient times that one should never meddle in a couple's affairs — far less that of the Emperor and Empress.
Even with my face frozen stiff as a statue, the Emperor would not stop. His mouth, at this moment, was a runaway train that had lost its brakes entirely.
"If, for even a single instant in that bed, I were to read the name or face of some young, handsome man, I might just leap right off it then and there. That much I could never endure. Ignorance is bliss, as they say."
Narrowing my eyes, I managed to squeeze out a reply.
"...It seems you truly cherish your consort, Your Majesty."
"Because she is my everything. So long as she alone remains in my world, I have no need of power, wealth, or anything else."
The Emperor's expression was resolute, even. The only reason a man who reads emotions had yet to be wounded, I suspected, was that their devotion ran in both directions.
A truly beautiful story it made. And yet...
'Which is exactly why you'd go and make a choice like that.'
It was news to me that the Emperor could read good and evil along with emotion. With such a power as his foundation, no wonder the reigning Emperor was hailed as a wise ruler.
But I already knew that he would plunge from that grace into a dark tyrant in a single moment.
Naturally, the Emperor, too, was a character in Eldchain. He was the last Emperor of the Eld Empire, remembered under the epithet of the Benighted King.
He was fated to become Irelphi's mortal enemy in the days to come. Because of him, Irelphi would turn into an avenger robbed of everything and bring the Eld Empire to ruin. And in the end, she would meet her death amid a sea of malice, hunted down in a raid by the three protagonists and the many factions allied with them.
What a wretched, bitter ending it was.
'As if I could just leave the two of them to that.'
Irelphi still frightened me, and I still couldn't stand her — but even a brief conversation with the woman was enough to tell me this. A touch overbearing and utterly without tact, yet rigorous to the point of stiffness in all things; her earnest, unyielding honesty was, in truth, her charm.
She was hardly the sort suited to an ending like that. The fact that seeing her face makes the back of my head itch is an entirely separate matter.
"Your Majesty. We've strayed from the matter at hand, but you've already surmised why I dismissed Irelphi as a danger, haven't you?"
"You must mean Miren Justiha, the Marquis Justiha's younger sister."
"That is so."
"But the palace guards that child well. Her security stands at nearly the same level as the Empress's own."
"You're doing an admirable job. Still, do not forget — the Golden Chain, the Eldchain, must be used upon her younger sister no matter what may come."
"Of course. It would be impossible not to know the wellspring of Marquis Justiha's loyalty."
'No — you're the one who will sacrifice Miren Justiha for the Empress.'
I deliberately kept from my lips any words weighing the Empress's worth against Miren Justiha's. A warning was quite enough for now.
"You'd read it out of me anyway, so I'll say it plainly. Your Majesty — should an event ever occur so great that it might be called a fork in destiny, trust me when that time comes."
"Hmm!"
The Emperor would never guess what I was alluding to. But with his ability, he could not fail to be certain that my words were spoken for the sake of the Emperor and the Empire.
"And in return, I will — without fail — present you with a happy ending."
"..."
After that, my private audience with the Emperor did not conclude until well after the sun had set.
Once we stepped out of the Glass Greenhouse, Irelphi — who had every reason to burn with curiosity — did not pry even once.
Whether it stemmed from personal principle or sincerity, I had no way of knowing, but the woman was incorruptibly upright. I suppose that is why I can never bring myself to truly hate her, sworn enemy though she is.
"Honestly, what am I even..."
"Plotting treason, were you?"
Irelphi's blade bared its silvery flesh with a ring of metal. I shrieked in horror.
"Are you insane?! Put that monstrous thing away this instant!"
'That's your sister's doing, damn it!'
Just hearing that vicious metallic ring made my lower back and left limbs throb with phantom pain.
"Oh dear. What a shame."
Irelphi merely sighed as she closed the sheath.
'This woman truly has no idea how anyone else feels...!'
The Emperor's final request during our talk in the Glass Greenhouse had, in fact, been for Irelphi's sake.
Ever since misfortune befell her younger sister Miren Justiha, Irelphi, I was told, had not once felt joy from the deepest part of her heart. The Emperor found this terribly difficult to bear.
He was Irelphi's betrayer and her mortal enemy — but all of that belonged to a future that had not yet come to pass.
A future event that could still be stopped, and stopped well.
Come what may, I would protect the relationship we shared now. Vowing this to myself, I returned to the Founding Noble's grand estate.
The woman had only just arrived at the mansion, and she greeted my return with a puzzled look.
"There's an unfamiliar carriage out front — did you call for someone, Nepi?"
"I thought you had called for someone."
The long and short of it was that an uninvited guest was sitting inside the mansion at this very moment. I didn't find it the least bit strange, though.
"I did tell the servants they could use the place as they pleased. It's probably someone they know."
"Even so, would they really be so bold about it? They ought to have some tact..."
'The one with no tact here is you, Captain Irelphi.'
The scene at the capital checkpoint floated back to me — Irelphi, poking the guard on the shoulder and asking him whether he was feeling awkward, the very picture of a street thug.
"Well, we're the owners, so there's nothing to feel strange about. Let's go in."
"I'm an owner too?"
"Hm? Ah..."
Put that way, something did feel off about it. But correcting myself somehow seemed even more awkward. Perhaps because we had been living together for well over a month by now, my sense of ownership had worn thin.
Besides, strictly speaking, this was Netionpis's mansion, not Nepi Alteon's. Rather, every time I remembered it was the grand estate of the infamously wicked Netionpis, I wanted to disown the whole thing.
'I'd shed this body itself if I could. What's a measly mansion worth?'
And so I could afford to say it lightly.
"Sure, I'll give you half."
I had lived in a single-room studio in my past life. Half of a mansion like this was more than I deserved.
"And who, exactly, are you calling a pauper?"
Sure enough, Irelphi's manner turned prickly. She appeared to have taken my words as some manner of provocation. Or, failing that, as a claim that even a grand mansion like this failed to satisfy her...
"Ah! You've arrived, my lord!"
The moment we stepped inside, a servant came rushing up to us in a fluster. His frantic bearing suggested he had seen something he shouldn't have.
"A guest came calling for you just now, my lord, and, well... they were so relentless that we had no choice but to admit them. I am terribly sorry!"
"Ah, it's quite all right. Nothing of consequence."
At my placid response, the servant — and even Irelphi — looked utterly dumbstruck.
However kind her nature, Irelphi was still, in the end, a noble. That she would suffer a genuine culture shock watching me fail to so much as scold a servant at fault was only natural.
"Ahem. So — which of the marquises was this guest here to see, and who is this guest? There are two marquises under this roof, aren't there?"
Irelphi asked. She, too, seemed willing to let the servant's slip pass for my sake.
"My apologies, my lord! The guest is here for Marquis Justiha, and they said you would know them at once by the name Sharle of Count Millote's house."
"Sharle of House Millote?"
Irelphi repeated the name. Sharle Millote was a person entirely unknown to me as well.
Then Irelphi's hands began to tremble, and forgetting every pretense of dignity, she vaulted clean over the railing and made for the parlor. I found myself dying to know who on earth could provoke such a reaction from Irelphi.
By the time I hurried after her, Irelphi was already flinging open the parlor door.
"Sharle Millote."
"Elphi?"
From within the parlor, the silhouette of an unfamiliar woman rose to her feet. Trailing a dress that glittered like jewels, she came running toward Irelphi.
"It's been far, far too long, Elphi!"
The stranger — Sharle Millote — buried herself in Irelphi's arms, sniffling. Just when it seemed Sharle was savoring the reunion to its fullest, she leveled a glare at me over Irelphi's shoulder.
"And a first-time pleasure, I'm sure. You would be the Marquis Alteon, who so graciously blocked. Elphi's. Road. To. Marriage?"
It was a greeting steeped in malice. Wondering if I had misheard, I asked her to repeat it.
"I'm... sorry... what...?"
Sharle Millote. That day, I crossed paths for the first time with a natural enemy of an entirely different breed from Irelphi.