IWJACM Chapter 14

'So that must be why he intended to leave for his territory without so much as looking back.'

Because she held no value to him at all. Because pity might buy her scraps of kindness here and there, but never her life.

And so Elise had not told him what she meant to do at the imperial palace. She had deliberately waited until she stood before the Emperor himself.

And then she had said it. That a yon'gyn's seed was growing inside her.

The Emperor had heard those words. Whether they were true or false did not, right now, matter especially much. What mattered was that she had planted, in the Emperor's mind, the faint spark of what if.

"They say the Emperor of Van Yela desperately wants an heir from you."

So until the truth of her claim could be settled, the Emperor could not send Elise to the executioner's block.

For the brief span of time this had bought her, Elise had to persuade the stubborn man standing before her now. She spoke, her voice trembling.

"I'll bear your child."

"…….."

"I don't think it's a bad—a bad move for you either. I know well enough how bothersome and exhausting it must be, being pressed constantly for an heir."

Andrei, too, had often been badgered by nobles in exactly that way. On the days the nobles had worn him down, he had always come to her afterward and poured out a full measure of sulking complaints.

"…You would bear my heir?"

Rezet repeated her words back to her exactly. In Elise's wildly shaking golden eyes, fear and hope bloomed and alternated like flowers.

Seeing this, Rezet immediately let out a short, hollow laugh.

"Do you understand what you are saying right now?"

"If what I said was difficult to understand—"

"You have just said, Your Highness, that you would like to die in the most wretched way possible."

At the far from gentle response, Elise bit down hard on her lower lip. Rezet could not suppress his own disbelieving laugh.

Hope, in him? So she really was a foolish woman.

"I truly am sorry for having damaged your honor. But—"

"Honor?"

The Princess kept veering off onto the wrong subject entirely. Rezet could no longer even manage to laugh.

"That's not what matters here. What I'm telling you is: of every method you could've picked, you picked catastrophically wrong."

Before Elise could get out a reply, he pressed on, sharp as before.

"Do you know why His Majesty wants my heir so badly?"

"Presumably because you are a yon'gyn—"

"Then do you also know why it hasn't yet succeeded?"

"…That, too, I would think, for the same reason."

"So you don't actually know. Figures—if you'd known from the start, you'd never have come up with a proposal this stupid."

Rezet repeated his words with open scorn.

"So this is what a woman who claims she wants to live actually comes up with."

Rezet knew it was rude, and looked her over anyway—eyes dragging over her, blunt, without apology.

Barely five days had passed since she'd first set foot in the capital, yet she had grown noticeably thinner than he remembered. He seized her wrist as though snatching it away and lifted it.

A body reduced to nothing but bone like this—the smallest pressure from his grip would snap it without effort. Rezet's mouth twisted.

"So I must look like an easy mark to you. Or else you're laboring under some serious misunderstanding right now."

The Princess seemed to be under the mistaken impression that he had left her untouched all this time simply because he was some upright, ascetic knight.

If she had any idea what thoughts crossed his mind every time he looked at her since that day at the lake, she would not be provoking him with proposals like I'll bear your child, said with such utterly ignorant eyes.

"I told you plainly that I have no wish to see blood in the marriage bed as well. It seems you did not take that as the warning it was."

This was a proposal she could only have made because she had never once seen or heard of coupling between a human and something that was not. There was no way to describe it except as a total absence of fear.

Rezet had no idea how the Princess had come to learn that Van Yela wanted the Grand Duke's heir. But the fact itself—the fact that the Emperor had gone half-mad with wanting an heir out of him was true enough. As a means of buying a few days' time, it wasn't a terrible move.

No—in truth, she wouldn't even buy a few days. The imperial physician would come today, and her lie would be exposed almost immediately.

Tell a lie no one would believe, just to buy a day or two more? To Rezet, her reasoning was, from beginning to end, entirely beyond comprehension.

His voice, cold as a blade, drove into Elise's hunched shoulders.

"I knew you had no experience and no understanding of how the world works, but this goes beyond that."

"…….."

"I never said I could not help—I never said I would go out of my way to obstruct you in seeking your own path to survival. So if it were me, I would have staked everything I had and petitioned His Majesty directly. Argan's secrets that only you know—treasures, myths tied to the dragons. That sort of thing."

At some point, the excessive courtesy vanished, and what came out was harsh. Hearing him spout off in a manner so unlike him, the man seemed to loom larger, far more oppressive than usual. Rezet Kyrstan was genuinely, truly angry.

The strength drained from Elise's two hands where they gripped his sleeve. She let her head drop and murmured, without energy.

"I can sell my dignity and my pride. I cannot sell my country, my lord."

"…….."

"I can't hand over, to an enemy nation, the country my brother and my people staked their lives to protect—not to save just my one life. No matter how fallen that nation already is."

"Then did it never occur to you that dying with honor would better suit Argan's pride? It sounds contradictory to me."

In other words: if she had simply died cleanly from the start, none of this would be necessary.

He was right. She should have finished it cleanly when the poison had been offered to her.

No matter how she thrashed against it now, she had no power to change reality regardless. Even if she returned to Argan, she had no means to rebuild the empire, no way to gather the scattered remnants of the Argan people back together.

But Elise was the symbol of Argan itself, its royal blood. As long as she lived, they had said Argan had not fallen—so she would simply do whatever she could.

Besides—words once spilled can't be scooped back up and swallowed again. When she'd told the Emperor she carried the Grand Duke's child, and when she'd revealed even that small fragment of her magic, she had seen clearly, unmistakably, the greed that had flickered across the Emperor's eyes.

Elise forced her tight throat open and whispered.

"Remember that I am of Argan's direct royal bloodline, my lord. Remember what the Argan imperial family is. I am not a mage, unlike my brother, but I never said I could not use magic at all. I am certainly different from ordinary women."

"If you were able to wield magic even a little, you would not have been dragged to Van Yela so easily."

"…….."

"And more than anything—I have no interest in bedding a woman staggering about, unable to carry her own weight."

The words Elise had been about to add urgently closed off, her lips sealing shut like a shell.

Only then did Elise realize just how much of a sorry, undignified sight she must be right now. Her clothes filthy and wretched, her face a mess of cold sweat and tears. Her neck flared hot with shame.

"I will give you time to reconsider."

Not so much as a needle's width of an opening showed itself in Rezet Kyrstan. He remained cold and unmoving.

"One thing you should know. You may buy yourself a few days, perhaps a few months. But someday, without fail, you will come to regret that you did not die quickly and cleanly right now."

Having finished speaking, Rezet released her. Elise braced both legs to keep from staggering.

"I won't have regrets. There's no path left for me but you."

"…….."

"So there's no need to come back tomorrow, my lord. I have made my proposal. The decision is yours to make now. Whether to accept it, or not."

Attendants were already lined up, waiting—there to collect Elise. Rezet realized it was Noyre's doing and clicked his tongue, sharp and savage.

He turned away without a word of farewell. Elise stared blankly at the man's rapidly retreating back before her legs gave way and she sank to the ground.

There was nothing left to undo now. All that remained was to wait.

"Is it true, Rezet?"

That was the first thing the Emperor said the moment Rezet stepped back into the audience chamber. Noyre came at him hard, grilling him like a man who'd already made up his mind.

"Did you sleep with the Princess?"

"There has been no such—"

I swear before heaven, I never so much as laid a finger on the Princess—he'd meant to declare exactly that, but a memory that surfaced at that instant made him falter.

Strictly speaking, it wasn't true that he hadn't laid a finger on her at all. The same bed—yes, he had used it.

But that was all. Nothing had happened.

He'd gotten into her bed, yes—but there'd been no funny business, nothing indecent. How was he supposed to package that in a way that didn't wreck the Princess's reputation?

Turning it over in his mind, Rezet missed his chance to deny it outright. Noyre's eyes flashed, sharp and bright.

"You did!"

"It's not that."

"Man like you—if it weren't true, you'd have cut the denial off flat, no hesitation. But just now—you hesitated a solid five-count. Something happened. Didn't it?"

"…….."

"And here I hear the two of you were glued together the whole way to Van Yela. Well, well."

Rezet turned his head sharply away. Ruben, mid-scratch at his own chin, jumped and snapped his spine straight in alarm.