Endure This One Night
After the high official had gone, Celine's mind was a wreck of dread for the night still to come.
Her fingertips shook so badly she dropped the rag again and again, and her thoughts tangled hopelessly between the pain of the night before and the terror waiting for her tonight.
…Should I run?
The urge to burst out of this suffocating place and flee rose in her like a wildfire. Somewhere no one knew her. The fantasy of escaping to another country, somewhere the Emperor's hand could never reach, chased its own tail and would not stop.
Then she remembered what the high official had said.
Special treatment. No matter how she turned the words over, they did not sound like something bad. As she puzzled at their meaning, a thin thread of hope stirred in a corner of her chest.
Maybe… even if I ran, it wouldn't matter?
But Celine soon let out a bleak little laugh and shook her head hard. She still did not know why the Emperor had summoned her again. Whether there was truly some special interest in her, or whether, once this night was over, she would simply never be called again. She knew nothing at all.
To slip out of the Imperial Palace on her own in such a state would be a gamble—and not a gamble with only herself at stake. A maid under orders vanishes without a single report, and the matter does not end there. The Chief Maid who oversaw her might be held to account. Anne and Laura, who shared her room, might be interrogated about where she had gone. Someone might even lay the blame on Mother Superior Adela, who had written the letter of recommendation that brought her into the palace.
And above all else—
Rinne…
Celine's face darkened. That she had a family was no hidden secret. If the palace cared to know, it could find out easily enough. She bit her lip hard.
If I run, it'll only make things worse.
If there was even one chance that her little sister, who could not see, would suffer because of her, she could not take that risk. She was afraid. She wanted to run this very instant. But vanishing in a panic, without settling anything, would only postpone the problem. No—it might make it far larger than it was now. If she meant to escape, she had to escape properly. Not by running.
Celine clenched her hands tight.
Tomorrow, I'll speak to the Chief Maid.
Just get through tonight. If she lived to see morning, she would resign properly.
Just today…
Celine repeated it inwardly.
Just survive today.
Once she had decided, a corner of her chest ached, because she knew what she was about to give up.
An imperial maid. For Celine, who had come out of an orphanage, that post was not merely a job. How hard she had worked to earn that letter of recommendation. She still remembered how the children at the convent had rejoiced when they heard she would enter the Imperial Palace. Rinne, though she could not see, had seized Celine's hand and jumped for joy, and that bright voice was still vivid in her ears. Someday, she had thought, she would earn enough to live with Rinne. Not a fine house—just one small room where the two of them could be together. She had believed that if she worked diligently, such a future was possible.
And now she was about to let all of it go with her own hands. It would have been a lie to say her heart did not hurt.
But—
If I survive, another chance will come.
If she quit being a maid, she could find other work.
So I only have to endure today.
Celine repeated that vow all day long, as if it were a spell that might keep her alive until tomorrow. But in the end, the hour came.
Celine slowly lifted her head. The familiar door already stood before her, towering. The Emperor's bedchamber.
"……."
For a long while she only stared at the door. She could not find the courage.
I only have to endure today.
Clinging to that single thought, she barely managed to open her mouth.
"E-excuse me…"
She expected, as before, that only silence would answer, and she was just about to open the door—
"Enter."
Contrary to every expectation, a voice came from beyond it. Celine startled and fumbled for the handle, and the moment the heavy door opened she bowed her head without so much as glancing inside.
"Y-Your… Your Ma—"
You idiot.
Head still bowed, Celine squeezed her eyes shut. She could not even get out the words Your Majesty.
Then a long shadow fell across her feet.
"Lift your head."
The tone was a shade softer than last time. Celine cautiously raised her face—and for an instant she thought her breath would stop.
The Emperor stood far closer than she had expected, looking down at her with a smile. The moment that perfect face filled her vision, Celine felt as if the air had left her lungs. Fear ruled her whole body, and yet when she met the wretched reflection of herself in those golden eyes, and the Emperor's doll-like smile, her heart began to pound as if it would burst. Terror cold enough to crawl up her spine crushed her, and still, strangely, she could not look away. The rational warning that she must flee, and the uncanny impulse to remain trapped beneath that gaze—contradictory feelings that could not coexist tangled together.
And in that moment the Emperor's long, white fingers seized Celine's chin hard.
"……!"
There was no chance to refuse. Her head was tilted up. As if appraising an object on a display shelf, the Emperor turned Celine's face this way and that and began to examine it with obsessive care. They were far too close. At a distance where their breaths nearly touched, those golden eyes pierced her, and Celine's heart hammered incomparably louder than before. The fear that she might die, and the suffocating beauty before her eyes, mixed until her thoughts were a jumble.
After watching her in silence for a long while, the Emperor's lips slowly parted.
"How interesting."
The voice was low, but a strange elation threaded through it.
"To think a mere nest vermin would become a fated encounter. You have become the key that shatters the wall of a realm that had been sealed shut."
"……?"
"That a wall so solid should crack so easily. The Heavenly Dao is truly beyond knowing. How utterly marvelous."
The Emperor strung together words Celine could not possibly understand. Nest vermin? A key that shatters a wall? She could not grasp a single thing being said, but one thing seemed certain: the Emperor was in an exceedingly good mood. The once expressionless eyes curved with elegant pleasure, and the voice was almost gentle. Celine forced the trembling corners of her mouth up into an awkward smile in return.
"Ha, haha… C-congratulations, Your Majesty…"
She did not really understand, but she played along. It seemed the only way to raise her chances of survival, even a little. The Emperor, however, appeared to have no interest in her reply, and merely toyed with the chin caught in that hand. The gaze was on Celine, yet the thoughts behind it seemed aimed somewhere else entirely.
Seeing that, a very small hope lifted its head in Celine's chest.
Maybe… today will be all right?
Perhaps that horrific thing last time had been an exception, born only because the Emperor's mood had been particularly foul. The Emperor before her now looked pleased, and was doing her no direct harm. Perhaps today might pass without incident. That complacent hope was just beginning to bloom—
"In the end, it is the heart. The moment has come when the heart matters."
The Emperor's red lips moved, low. Too clear to be a mutter to herself, and too one-sided to be a conversation—chillingly so.
"Only the power of the heart. Through that Heart Force, I reflect my will exactly as it is."
As the murmuring went on, the forced smile faded from Celine's face. Among words she could not understand, she felt something ominous. Her eyes trembled, brimming with fear.
And in that very instant—
"Yes."
In a flash, the Emperor's face was right before her nose. At a distance where even their breath might touch, the golden eyes moved strangely, and within them was reflected Celine's own face, blanched white with terror.
"That look in your eyes."
"……!"
A foreboding ran down her spine. She was in danger. She had to run. Survival instinct screamed the warning madly—but where? There had never been anywhere to flee. The moment she recognized that, she felt only perfect helplessness. No choice was permitted to her except to quietly accept the ruin already appointed to come upon her.
"Ah…?"
With a strange dissonance, as if someone had carved a slice out of time, the air against her skin grew far too cold. Celine stared blankly down at her own body. The feel of her clothes, present only a moment ago, had vanished as if it had been a lie. There had been no warning, and no process. She was standing stark naked.
The Emperor was the same. That nude form, like a work of art, was before her eyes—and so was the horrific shape asserting its presence between those legs. Celine had no time even to feel shame. The overwhelming wrongness and terror of the situation paralyzed her thoughts.
And then, once more—
"Mmph!"
A crushed scream burst from her mouth. No—burst, and was swallowed back. That was the truer way to put it. Before she even registered it, she was already trapped in the Emperor's arms. She had only blinked once, and her body had already moved. What filled her vision was the Emperor's voluptuous breasts. White, soft flesh pressed in as if to swallow her face, and the scent of skin at the tip of her nose was thick and sweet enough to make her head swim.
The Emperor said nothing, and only looked quietly down at Celine held in that embrace. The chillingly beautiful face had already lost its smile and returned to expressionlessness. But in those eyes Celine could read an emotion different from before. Pleasure. Or joy.
"……!"
In that moment her shoulders jerked hard, because of the alien, rigid sensation against her lower belly where their bodies met. Something hard and hot—like a weapon utterly unsuited to the Emperor's silk-soft skin—was pressing into her abdomen. She did not want to confirm it. But instinct dragged her gaze downward. Her trembling eyes turned to the narrow gap where they were pressed together, and there she saw it: wedged between herself and the Emperor, a hideous, enormous shape twitching as if to flaunt its presence.
"Hik."
A strangled gasp leaked from her throat. A terror that seemed to raise every hair on her body struck her mind. As if reacting to her scream, it swelled its volume for her to see, like a monster growing by feeding on her cries. As veins bulged and it expanded even more savagely, Celine thought her breath would stop.
Then—
"Ugh?!"
Her vision tilted. The Emperor wrapped an arm firmly around her waist and lifted her lightly into the air. Her toes, having lost their place, briefly churned the empty space. The Emperor drew her tightly in, and a heavy, blatant heat pressed against the inside of her thighs. That enormous pressure forcing its way between her legs—Celine was not foolish enough not to know what it meant.
In that instant a cold thrill shot up her spine and into her brain. She was going to die. It was not mere intuition. It was certainty. This was not a matter of suffocating, as last time. If something that enormous forced its way inside her, it would not end in mere pain. She would die in agony, horribly. Of that she was certain. The moment she understood, her whole body locked rigid with fear.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
She should never have come. She should have run. She should have thrashed with everything she had to get away from this monster. Unavoidable reasons she could not flee? She could not remember any of that. Her head was full only of a maddening self-reproach—why hadn't she run, why had she walked into this death on her own two feet.
And after that self-reproach passed, her mind spun at a desperate speed for the sake of survival. The thought that if she only regretted, she would truly die, dragged her forcibly back to reality. Fear interfered with her thoughts, but she succeeded in finding a thin thread of hope. The exchange with the Emperor just now. She had looked exceedingly pleased. And though Celine did not understand the meaning, it was clear she had been of some help. Perhaps there was a way.
Holding that hope, Celine opened her mouth.