Chapter 117
“Pardon?”
Blake, whose eyes had flashed with insight, turned and took a wooden tablet from his desk drawer.
It was the wooden tablet of the Flaubert Marquis family, which he had tried to return to Angelina, but she had refused.
Next to it, he placed the Kadenhart Duchy’s seal, and beside that, a recent ball invitation from the Imperial Palace.
The seal bore the duchy’s emblem, and the invitation had the imperial family’s crest.
“Ha.”
Only after laying them side by side did he let out a sigh. His legs almost gave way.
“Your Grace?”
Mason and Sean, not understanding, rushed to attend to him. They looked at the three items he had set down.
Unable to make the connection between them, they couldn’t understand what Blake was seeing.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s the Imperial family.”
“Pardon?”
“Those people ‘we’re dealing with’ that he said we don’t know about.”
Mason and Sean’s brows furrowed simultaneously.
“The rose deceived the Knight of the Sword, stole the sword, and gained forbidden power, they say.”
“You mean that song?”
“And the rose stabbed the silver priest, took his heart, and grew wings.”
Blake pointed to the three objects.
“A dragon with a pierced heart, a scabbard without a sword.”
That was the Flaubert Marquis family’s emblem.
“A sword without a scabbard and a rose without thorns.”
The Kadenhart Duchy’s emblem.
“A heart bound only by thorns, without petals.”
And the Imperial family’s crest.
“The three must come together to become one. Just like that song.”
“Family crests can be interpreted in many ways, can’t they?”
Sean objected, unable to understand Blake’s reasoning. But Blake shook his head.
“There’s a saying passed down in the Kadenhart Duchy. The day Artoas is sheathed in its scabbard, the sealed power will be regained.”
“……”
“I thought it was nonsense. Since Artoas has been passed down through many generations, I believed it was just a rumor created to find the original scabbard that had been lost. But what if it’s not?”
“Then the reason you mentioned the Imperial family is…”
“Before my father passed away, he referred to His Majesty the Emperor as the ‘rose.'”
It was like a habit of speech.
He often said things like, ‘Drinking with the Empire’s rose puts me in such a good mood.’
“When I was young, I didn’t realize how strange it was, but thinking about it now, it’s an absurd title. Why would my father call someone whom everyone refers to as the Empire’s ‘sun’ by the name ‘rose’?”
“…Your Grace, no matter how you look at it, isn’t that quite a stretch?”
Sean, with a serious expression, spoke carefully.
“According to what you’re saying, the ‘rose’ made the ‘sun’ fall…”
His words naturally faded.
What Blake was asserting was that the current Imperial family, the ‘rose,’ had brought down the original, true ‘sun.’
That would shake the very foundation of the Imperial family and bring down the Empire.
But Sean slowly realized why Blake was saying this and what the traitor’s words had meant.
“…So we must face the typhoon.”
Turning against the Imperial family.
“Are you crazy? Did I understand that correctly?”
Mason also realized this and didn’t hide his astonishment.
Blake stared at the three emblems for a long time, then let out a hollow laugh.
“And Miss Flaubert has known this all along.”
Suddenly, words she had spoken casually long ago came to mind.
“The situation is quite complicated, isn’t it?”
“Because there’s someone powerful hiding it.”
“Will you be alright?”
“That’s why she always distinguished herself from Marquis Flaubert.”
Was she worried that when he eventually learned this, he would suspect her because her brother, the Marquis, was close to the Empress?
He understood her caution, but a feeling of disappointment spread in his chest.
“The promise…”
Now he seemed to understand why she had stiffened her expression, unable to answer his desperate question.
“Haah…”
He covered his eyes with his hands and let out a long sigh. No matter how deeply he sighed, the stifling feeling wouldn’t go away.
“Can’t I just go with you?”
Just as he had been unable to protect that child who hated being alone, the anxiety that he wouldn’t be able to protect Angelina Flaubert either stuck in his heart like a thorn that wouldn’t come out.
“I need to meet with Marquis Flaubert.”
But this time, he had no intention of losing without doing anything, like before.
Even if it was an emotion that would never be rewarded, he was determined to fight to the end as much as he could.
***
Angelina was sitting on the balcony railing.
With one leg up, sitting at an angle, she habitually fiddled with the anklet tied around her ankle while gazing at the stars.
In front of her, Pudding was curled up, nodding off.
After a while, his ears fluttered, and he raised his head.
A thin water membrane formed above the stars Angelina had been looking at. The empty space rippled like the surface of a lake.
A smile appeared on her face at the sight.
“You’re here?”
At her whisper, the water swirled like a whirlpool and absorbed light.
Transforming into a human form like a water spirit, it gently stepped down onto the railing.
Splash-!
As the water fell to the floor, he revealed himself. Today, as always, he wore a splendid cape and a neat mask.
But his hair was silver.
“I thought you didn’t like silver hair.”
When Angelina teased him, he was silent for a moment. He answered a bit slowly.
“I never disliked it. I just said it wasn’t my preference.”
“See? I told you. Aesi is so sweet.”
At her suggestion that he had silver hair because she said she wanted to see it, Aesi slightly turned his head away, avoiding her gaze.
“That’s forced. Don’t make assumptions.”
“Really? Then I must be imagining things.”
“…Is that all?”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t you have anything else to say?”
Now she noticed his mask was smaller than usual. Instead of covering his entire face, it was a simple mask that only covered around his eyes and nose. That’s why his stiff expression was fully visible.
“What else should I say?”
Angelina lowered the leg she had been resting on the railing. She swung both legs back and forth, staring at him before smiling.
“Oh, you’re pretty?”
“……”
“Is that what you were waiting for? Aesi, you enjoy compliments while pretending not to?”
How adorable, she added softly, and he frowned.
“Nonsense.”
Angelina knew well that wasn’t what he was waiting for. Hadn’t she just admitted to her brother today that she knew his identity?
So he seemed to have been prepared for that kind of questioning.
But Angelina had no such intention.
Now that she knew her brother had some reason, and if that reason was protecting him, she had no desire to pry.
She felt it might help uncover the abyss the Order was hiding, but that was just a vague feeling, not a certainty.
She could find that through other means.
Protecting her brother’s heart was far more important.
“How is Catherine doing?”
When Angelina pretended not to know anything, Aesi anxiously examined her face several times.
But soon he followed the conversation she was leading.
“…She’s depleting the Magic Tower’s food supplies.”
“That’s good. What about the family matter?”
Catherine was a commoner. But in the original story, the Order created a family called ‘Sorovien’ to introduce her to high society. More precisely, they bought a family tree.
One of the things Angelina had asked Aesi to do was to confirm if this family really existed and, like they had done, purchase it to create a background for Catherine.
“I’ve almost finished processing it. I’m double-checking if there are any traps they’ve set.”
“It should be safe. I know they did a lot of groundwork to avoid being traced.”
“Yes, when it’s all done, I plan to send her as a maid to the Duke’s household, as you suggested.”
As he spoke, Aesi again studied her expression.
“Aren’t you going to ask? Why I took you to the basement that day?”
He finally couldn’t hold back and asked.
“Do I need to ask?”
“You collapsed because of it.”
“And Aesi carried me home.”
“Don’t you resent me for what I did?”
“Should I?”
“…It was something worth getting angry about.”
“Yes. It is something worth getting angry about.”
At Angelina’s firm words, Aesi’s shoulders visibly flinched. He lowered his gaze as if he had been waiting for such criticism.
But Angelina’s soft voice added quietly:
“Because it’s given me one more reason to bring down the Order, which is quite exhausting.”
He raised his gaze again. He looked quite confused.
Angelina sighed and spoke.
“They’re truly terrible. It’s like peeling a rotten onion—why do more and more awful things keep coming out the more we uncover?”
At those words, Aesi realized that Angelina was angry at the Order, not at him. Furrowing his brow, he asked with frustration:
“Aren’t you even a little upset with me?”
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