Glass Slippers
Passing back through the city gates, I found Lapis waiting quietly alongside her escort knights.
I had given her the nod to go in ahead of me, but knowing Lapis's temperament, I should have guessed she never would.
"……I was worried."
"Father is the one worrying his head off. Come on, let's head back."
At my words, Lapis gave a small nod and quietly slipped to my side.
"If only I had a talent for magic…… then I could have walked beside you on the battlefield too, Rohen."
"What pointless, unnecessary self-deprecation."
"This is the body you healed for me, Rohen. That's why I want to be wherever you are."
"……"
"Honestly, the idea of becoming the future Empress still feels like a heavy burden to me. But if that path means I can stay by your side, then I've decided it's worth striving for, no matter how hard it gets."
Her self-esteem ran quietly low, but that wasn't something worth fretting over.
Lapis was a woman of many talents in countless fields — so much so that she could have carried the label of a peerless beauty on top of it all.
"Were you, perhaps… disappointed in me?"
"……?"
"When you tried to save them, I was the one who held you back, after all."
"And why on earth would that disappoint me?"
"A woman who is meant to become Empress, who may one day stand before all the people… turned her back on them in that moment…"
Hearing that, I reached out and stroked her hair.
She stood a little taller than I did, so the gesture didn't exactly make for a graceful picture.
"I'm not disappointed. You're not the Empress yet — you're my fiancée. It would be stranger if you thought of me before the people."
"D-do you really think so…?"
Lapis flushed crimson and quietly lowered her head.
Perhaps it was her blue hair, or perhaps how strikingly fair her skin was — either way, her reactions gave her away completely, an open book to anyone watching. I let out a soft laugh.
Walking at Rohen's side, Lapis stole a subtle glance up at him.
He had said there was no reason needed for one person to save another…
But she had long since caught on that the reason he had healed her had something to do with securing the support of the Neutral Faction's nobility.
Even without anyone spelling it out for her, her mind — grown ever sharper as her talents blossomed through her studies and refinement — had arrived at that answer on its own.
Which meant that all the consideration and kindness Rohen had shown her until now might, in the end, have sprung not from private feeling toward her, but from matters of state.
No — even if some private feeling were mixed in, it surely could not run as deep as the feelings she harbored for him.
…It would be a lie to say she felt no pang of sorrow in that. And yet Lapis decided she preferred it this way.
If Rohen were truly a saint who lavished goodwill on people without any reason at all, then the kindness he showed her would mean nothing special.
Back when the only scenery she knew was glimpsed from a sickbed, when the whole of her world was the small view beyond her window, she had never once known the desire to want something, to possess something.
But in the world she had stepped into on her own two feet, Lapis found herself seized by a fierce longing to have Rohen — that singular existence — all to herself.
'I'll work to become the wisest and most beautiful woman in the world.'
She had no greedy ambition to become Empress and clutch power in her hands.
The wish settled like a stone in one corner of her heart was simpler: to become the woman most loved by the man she loved.
Thankfully, it didn't feel impossible.
There was still so much left to learn to fill in her shortcomings — and none of it felt like a burden weighing her down.
Soon, or perhaps in some far-off future.
The day would surely come when it wasn't she who asked Rohen for his help…
but Rohen who turned to her and asked for hers.
The next day, Lapis's birthday banquet began.
With so few noble houses invited, it wasn't held in the grand hall as before.
Even so, a fair number of Neutral Faction nobles were eager to make their mark on me, so the guest list was hardly small.
If I had to be precise, I'd call it a modest, well-balanced gathering.
Most of the Neutral Faction nobles attending on my account, I imagined, were men with ambitions of breaking into the capital's inner circles.
Without poking directly at those ambitions of theirs, I drifted lightly across the room in search of Lapis.
In the back of the hall, she had claimed a quiet corner and was being diligently fussed over by her maids, decked out for the occasion.
"You came."
"You look lovelier than ever tonight."
Carrying the power of my Lingual Magic in my words, I stepped up before her and held out a box holding her birthday gift.
"A present. Open it now."
"Right now?"
"Yes."
At my words, Lapis unwrapped the beautifully packaged gift box — and then her eyes went wide as she looked up at me.
"Is this… a piece from Flarris Workshop?"
"You recognized it?"
"They're famous, after all!"
Was it simply a woman's intuition?
Her small hands, trembling with excitement, drew back the cloth that had veiled the box's contents.
What emerged was a single pair of exquisite shoes, shimmering with a faint blue glow.
Masterwork Commission — One of a Kind
Transparent to the eye, yet concealing all within.
To all appearances they looked as though they had been crafted from glass, so utterly transparent were they — but that was purely a visual effect.
Honestly, wasn't it remarkable?
In a world whose technology lagged far behind my past life's modern age, here was a piece that appeared clear as glass on the outside while revealing nothing of what lay within.
Thinking, once again, that the result had far exceeded even my own demanding specifications, I bowed at the waist.
Then, taking her slender ankle in hand, I slipped the glass slipper onto Lapis's foot myself.
"You do keep up relations with the young ladies of the surrounding houses, don't you?"
"Yes. It's part of the basic graces, after all."
"Then at your next tea party, would you show these shoes off a little?"
"……Show them off?"
"Nothing brazen. If anyone asks where the shoes came from, just tell them you received them as a gift — that's all."
Hearing this, Lapis spoke up, a look of dawning understanding on her face.
"Are you… asking me to advertise for them?"
"Exactly that."
Master artisans of renowned workshops would sometimes dedicate their pieces free of charge to popular young noblewomen and ladies of the social season.
The primary customers for luxury goods were, after all, the nobility.
If their creations became the height of fashion, the income that followed would be nothing to scoff at.
"I… understand…"
There was a faint sulkiness in Lapis's expression as she accepted without refusing.
Perhaps because the shoes she'd received as a gift would one day be worn by other young ladies and noblewomen too.
"The pair I gave you is a limited edition with a different design, so wipe that look off your face."
"I-I'm sorry."
"You're allowed a little greed."
Taking her hands in mine with an easy smile, I watched the sulkiness melt away as she broke into a bright grin.
"Thank you. For gifting me the most beautiful shoes in the world — the only pair of their kind."
"Ah…… yeah."
Hearing Lapis's words, I realized she was laboring under a small misunderstanding.
I had said they were a limited edition — I never said only a single pair existed.
In fact, by now Aria would have received her own pair through her maids as well.
'……'
But I couldn't bring myself to pour cold water on Lapis while she smiled so happily, so still holding her hand, I led her to the center of the banquet hall and danced with her.
Not a trace remained of the clumsiness that used to leave her trampling my feet.
Had her sleeping talent for dance finally begun to bloom? Before I knew it, I found myself the one being led across the floor — and I marveled at how quickly the years passed.
"What breathtaking shoes!"
"……You think so?"
On the day of her own birthday, Aria — receiving the birthday gift Rohen had sent along through her maids — gazed down at it in silence.
"It's truly a piece from Flarris Workshop."
Where Lapis's glass slippers held a faint blue sheen, Aria's shimmered with a soft, luminous gold.
Delicate ornaments traced like flower stems around their edges drew the eye without ever overreaching.
Misjudge it slightly, and they might have been a pearl necklace strangling a pig's throat —
shoes so commanding they could utterly overwhelm the woman wearing them.
But handled just right, they were a masterpiece that drew out her allure all the more.
Indeed, reflected in the mirror as she slipped on the shoes Rohen had given her, Aria was stunningly beautiful.
Her legs had always possessed a more sensual grace than most realized, and now, framed by those slippers, they would draw a swallowed gulp from anyone — man or woman alike.
So much so that even her maids, catching sight of them, forgot entirely that she was the traitor's daughter and could only breathe out gasps of admiration.
"Seeing you so delighted does my heart good."
"Father?"
Aria hurried into a bow as her father stepped through the door.
"Do they please you? I hear Rohen went to no small trouble on your behalf."
"……They're not bad."
"Such a dishonest child with your own feelings. They say it's a limited edition — treasure them."
At her father's words, Aria lowered her gaze to the shoes on her feet.
Which meant, without question, that this pair was the only one of its kind in all the world.
Flarris Workshop accepted nothing but bespoke commissions, after all.
As the thought flickered through her mind, Aria found a faint smile stealing across her lips without her meaning it to.
"You're not wearing them?"
"They don't quite fit. My size, I mean."
"Ah — now that you mention it, I heard they were made a size large with your coming-of-age ceremony in mind."
Thinking how oddly thoughtful he could be in all the wrong places, Aria carefully tucked the shoes back into their packaging box.