The Weight of Imperial Blood
Brian certainly hadn't stepped forward out of filial devotion to Cleo. He had simply assumed that an insult to Cleo was tantamount to an insult to himself. Pampered and sheltered his entire life, he was utterly ignorant of how the world truly worked. Moreover, with virtually no senior imperial elders surviving in the palace, Cleo had never found the time to drill into him how to conduct himself around such formidable figures. Even so—could anyone truly be this devoid of tact?
Valentina did not fly into a rage. She merely regarded her grand-nephew, who had just shouted at her, with calm, unruffled eyes. A heavy, suffocating silence swept over the entire hall.
Even the Emperor could only flounder like a landed fish, his mouth opening and closing without producing a sound. Panting heavily in fury, Brian's complexion blanched only after he realized that every gaze in the room was pinned on him like the sharpened tips of blades.
"...It seems this old woman has become a disgrace to the imperial house."
Only after an agonizing stretch of silence did Valentina speak, her voice drifting out like a mournful sigh. At those words, the Emperor's face drained of every last drop of color.
"Th-that is not so, Aunt! Th-the boy is merely young and senseless—"
"No matter how graciously the late Emperor, my brother, bade this sister to live as she pleased, to live simply as Lady Armeline... in time, has it not all become as fleeting as the wind sweeping over a grave? In the province of Armeline blooms a golden flower with sharp leaves. It is called the Armeline, and His late Imperial Majesty, my august father, once told me: 'My precious daughter, it resembles you, so this land shall be yours.' Now, I am the only one left who remembers those words. Thus, I am no longer even considered a member of this imperial house—merely destined to wither away like a dead blade of grass."
The Emperor looked as though he might faint on the spot.
No matter how absolute an emperor might be, he could never dismiss the legacy of the former sovereign—and certainly not that of the sovereign before him. In truth, being the Emperor made him all the more sensitive to ancestral authority. It was the Emperor before the last—the reigning Emperor's grandfather—who had bestowed the entire Armeline province upon Valentina. Brian, in his profound stupidity, had likely calculated that since she had married into House Lessen, she ranked below his mother, an imperial consort who had borne the Emperor a son.
In doing so, Brian had insulted an imperial aunt who had been granted the very territory from which her title was derived by the Emperor's grandfather. Broadly interpreted, Brian's insolence was tantamount to spitting upon both the previous Emperor and the one before him.
—Contractor. Everyone's faces are turning fascinating shades ( ͡•. •͡). What exactly does that mean?
'It means: "I was the cherished sister of an emperor, and the beloved daughter of another emperor before him. And now that they have passed, you dare treat me like this? Do you think yourselves greater than the late Emperors?"'
—Huh? Can the living be compared so precisely to the dead? ( ｡_｡) As far as I know, humans haven't developed such technology yet!
'Nope. Precisely because they can't, invoking the dead always makes the living lose. It's essentially a cheat code.'
Now, if only to salvage his own dignity, the Emperor could never forgive Brian. I watched the spectacle unfold, wishing I had a tub of popcorn.
Glancing at Adrian, I saw that even he—always a master of composure—could not stop the uncharacteristic twitch at the corner of his mouth. And Her Majesty the Empress... she was discreetly hiding her mouth behind her fan, her shoulders trembling with quiet amusement. I slid my gaze toward Imperial Consort Elaine. She sat in serene silence, watching the drama unfold with no intention of intervening.
Our eyes met. Elaine narrowed hers slightly, and I offered her a bright, innocent smile.
"This is preposterous! From the moment you were born, Aunt, you have been an indisputable member of the imperial family!"
The Emperor stammered hurriedly, breaking into a profuse cold sweat. The Emperor's own son had insulted his great-aunt! In other words, how atrociously had he raised his child for the boy to bring dishonor upon the late Emperor? If he failed to resolve this crisis properly, the censure and disgrace would fall squarely upon the reigning Emperor himself.
"You insolent wretch, Brian! Apologize to your grand-aunt this instant! How dare you display such intolerable insolence!"
"B-but..."
Brian hesitated. Indignation still lingered in his eyes. The lunatic truly hadn't discarded the thought: Isn't the Emperor's firstborn son far grander than some princess who married off into a mere noble house? Of course, had they been of the same generation, Brian would have outranked her. But his opponent was an elder of an impossibly senior generation, you utter fool.
"It is my fault!"
Cleo hastily threw herself onto her knees before Valentina.
"The Prince spoke thoughtlessly out of concern for me! After the terrifying ordeal that took place today, he only feared his mother might come to harm—"
"Consort Cleo must be truly blessed."
Valentina looked down at Cleo with a smile. It was a smile colder than the crack of shattering glaciers.
"I lack the fortune to have a child who cares so deeply for her mother. The two children whose mothers nearly died here today certainly did not attend to them with quite the fervor of Prince Brian. What a filial son. A true blessing for His Majesty. Looking back, of the three women who serve His Majesty who were present, only the Imperial Consort emerged unscathed, thanks to her devoted son."
Valentina's words carried not mere barbs, but daggers driven straight to the hilt. Cleo looked as though she had swallowed those blades whole, teetering on the verge of fainting. The Emperor's face flushed a furious, mottled crimson.
"Brian."
The Emperor's voice was eerily, strangely calm—a tone he hadn't used even during the demonic beast assault on the palace. Only then did a chill of true danger wash over Brian's face.
"Leave the Imperial Palace."
"Y-Your Majesty!"
Cleo scrambled to her feet and threw herself before the Emperor.
"Brian has not even come of age! He has committed a grave error, but surely keeping him within the palace—"
"Keeping him within the palace? A boy who hasn't even reached adulthood spouts such treasonous insolence to his own grand-aunt? What was it you said? 'Are you not merely a member of House Lessen?'"
The Emperor's voice swelled with fury until, unable to contain his rage, he seized the silver goblet before him and hurled it straight at Brian. Brian flinched, instinctively leaning back to dodge.
Clatter-crash!
The silver goblet bounced noisily across the marble floor. Seeing him dodge only made the veins on the Emperor's neck throb with savage indignation.
"You worthless fool! That is my aunt! The daughter of Emperor Titus and the sister of Emperor Decius! Who do you think you are to question the standing of the legitimate daughter of the late Emperor and Empress?! You may be my firstborn son, but that is all you are! Are you the Crown Prince? Are you the son of the Empress? What makes your bloodline so grand that you dare look down on someone even I cannot treat lightly?!"
The Emperor was genuinely, thoroughly enraged.
His legitimacy was impeccable. In the history of another world, he would have resembled King Sukjong—the only legitimate son born of the Emperor and Empress. In terms of pedigree, his lineage was beyond reproach.
Precisely because his own bloodline was so flawless, he harbored the irresponsible notion that he could appoint any son Crown Prince if the boy pleased him, even one not born of the Empress. Yet his pride in imperial blood was fiercely alive. Whether it was Adrian or Brian, both were below him in rank anyway, so he had never cared much about the hierarchy between them.
However, Brian insulting the imperial bloodline was an entirely different matter.
Valentina was the legitimate daughter of the Emperor and Empress of two reigns past. In pure bloodline, she was the Emperor's equal. The Emperor could slight the Empress only because he was the Emperor! But Brian wasn't the Emperor—how dared he behave so brazenly? Who did he think he was? A child whose bloodline couldn't even match Adrian's!
"So long as Aunt Valentina remains within the Imperial Palace, you shall not set so much as a toe inside! If my aunt chooses to stay here for the rest of her days, you shall never return for the rest of yours!"
"Y-Your Majesty, this son has committed a mortal sin! G-Grand-Aunt, I was wrong! If I am cast out of the palace, where am I to go...?!"
Gripped by genuine terror at last, Brian trembled and pleaded pitifully.
"Don't you have plenty of those hunting companions you adore so much? Or go to the Imperial Consort's family! Hmph. Half the blood running through your veins belongs to the Marquis of Landt, so why don't you go beg them—the lineage of your mother, a mere member of the Landt Marquisate!"
"F-Father...!"
"Drag him out this instant, this worthless wretch!"
"Y-Your Majesty! Grand-Aunt, I was wrong! Mother! Your Majes—!"
At the Emperor's command, the Royal Guards seized Brian and hauled him out of the banquet hall. Cleo watched the scene unfold, pale as a wax doll from head to toe, trembling violently. Her survival instincts, at least, were sharp. The Emperor's fury stemmed from the fact that Brian, a half-breed born of a lowly concubine, had looked down on a pureblooded, legitimate member of the imperial royal house. Had Cleo, that very mother, continued to cling to him and beg for mercy, there was no telling what harsher punishment an even more enraged Emperor might have inflicted.
The Emperor stepped toward Valentina himself and offered his hand. Valentina did not refuse, placing her hand gently atop his.