IYTTEPAAK Chapter 9

Having finished changing in the next room, he returned to the receiving room.

Under the influence of the Mad Emperor, who valued nothing unless it was beautiful, the Empire had made even its knights' uniforms into objects weighted toward aesthetics before function.

The coat, hemmed just above the thigh, was black. Gold, at its points. The epaulettes, the shoulder cords, the delicately layered bias trim, the finely worked buttons—all of it was extraordinarily beautiful.

The leather belt cinched tight at the waist, sharpening the line. The trousers, the boot-style walkers—these too showed off legs built by hard training.

Against the overall black, the deep indigo of the necktie at his throat stood out sharply. The Empire's signature color.

"That suits you very well, Sir Regen."

Hamel's compliment was, in the current circumstances, entirely counterproductive.

"You may go."

Regen and I were alone. He did not sit, did not meet my eyes—he simply stood there, still as a statue.

I felt myself sinking, not to the floor, but down through it, into something beneath. I couldn't afford to let myself fall into a bad train of thought.

"Sir Regen."

"Yes, Your Highness."

"Not Your Highness."

"......Sasha."

If I was going to treat this as a role to play, I found I wanted to trespass on him a little. I let myself imagine it—what an older sister and a younger brother, in the abstract version I carried in my head, might do in a moment like this.

I closed the distance between us and stood squarely in front of him. I smoothed his collar flat and straightened the gold cord.

Then, reaching up to set the shape of his tie right, I saw the strong rise and fall of his throat as he swallowed—and before I'd decided to, I'd already snatched my hand back.

"......"

"......"

The needless flare of my own embarrassment made the air between us go stiff. Someone had to say something, if only to smooth it over.

"So—um—would you like to take a walk together?"

I regretted it instantly.

There was no reason on earth he'd want to be seen by others while wearing that uniform.

But what Regen said, looking at me with clear, open eyes, surprised me.

"Would that be all right with you?"

"...What?"

"I thought you wanted me to stay out of sight—inside my quarters."

I'd never locked him up.

"I'd like to hear why you think that."

"You haven't once summoned me, outside of meals and treatment, since you gave me this room. And even when we happened to cross paths, you didn't seem to want anything to do with me."

"......"

I had done it because I was worried my attention would feel like a burden to him—and instead I had turned into some cold, indifferent woman who couldn't be bothered to look after him.

"That's a misunderstanding. I only—"

He looked at me steadily, searchingly, trying to read my true meaning.

Those golden eyes were like sunlight caught in the surface of the sea at dawn. My heart gave a needless leap.

"Please, go on. I'm listening."

"......I thought you needed some time alone, to gather your thoughts. That's all it was."

"......"

His eyes went round with surprise. Just for a moment.

"I didn't realize I was being looked after. I'm sorry."

"I'm glad, if the misunderstanding's cleared up."

After turning the question over in my mind several times, I asked, carefully:

"Has it gotten a little easier?"

"Bearable enough to survive this hell."

"That's enough, then."

We'd manage, somehow. Lean on each other, live through this hell—that's all there was to it.

I tucked away my own unbecoming greed and had just sat back down in my chair when he turned to look at me.

"There's something I'd like to ask."

"What is it?"

"When do you intend to begin treating my mana core?"

"Um......"

It was a slightly awkward question.

My delay in answering let a slow light of suspicion and unease surface in his eyes.

"You said you could heal it. Like the Mad Emperor can."

"I can. Just—not exactly like him. There's a small complication, a penalty, you could say—I need to prepare myself for it, mentally."

"Mental preparation?"

"There is such a thing. In any case, all you need to know is that we need to grow closer first, so it goes more smoothly for both of us."

"I see."

I thought he'd accepted that and let it drop. But instead he closed the last distance to stand right in front of my chair.

"Then let's grow closer by this evening."

What?

I never expected a line that forward out of his mouth. He had even extended one hand toward me.

"You did say you wanted to take a walk."

"Ah."

The hand I'd meant to raise for my teacup went to him instead, as if drawn.

"Allow me to escort you, Sasha."

At the heart of the Empire, the palace where the Mad Emperor resided bore the formal name Helios Palace.

Regen had said he would escort me, but he had no way of knowing the palace's layout. Naturally, the walk became one I led instead.

Helios Palace had three principal buildings. The main palace, where the Emperor and his noble officials resided; the eastern annex, home to the princesses who had received their formal investiture; and the western harem palace, where a thousand consorts lived.

Beyond that, gardens of every kind filled the grounds section by section—mazes, greenhouses, a lake, orchards, herb gardens—and hundreds of statues and fountains stood among them.

"More splendid than any palace I've seen."

"I imagine so. It exists to display His Imp— His Majesty's magnificence."

I'd nearly said the Mad Emperor's vanity, and caught myself. Outside my own chambers, I had to watch my words at all times.

Snow had fallen again the night before, but the tree-lined path linking the annex to the main palace had been well cleared, and there was nothing uncomfortable about walking it.

"I like this path in winter."

"Wouldn't most people prefer it when the foliage is green? Now it's nothing but bare branches."

"That's exactly why I like it. It suits the bleakness of the palace, I think."

"I see."

We walked on, trading a string of meaningless, nutrition-free small talk, when—

"Sasha, excuse me."

A shadow fell over my head all at once, and then a soft patter. He had already raised one arm, shielding me from the snow shaken loose above.

I was startled by how effortlessly he'd handled it, averting the accident before it happened.

"You'd think you'd read the future."

"I only sensed it."

"That's remarkable."

"It's nothing much."

We fell back into step. Perhaps as part of his effort to grow closer, he was the one to open the next thread of conversation.

"I heard the Emperor has declared he'll pit the princesses against one another, running proxy battles through their personal knights. Your Highness—aren't you curious how strong I am?"

"I suppose."

I already knew perfectly well, so it was awkward to answer with anything more.

My response must have sounded unenthusiastic, because he added:

"An arrow, fired right now—I could catch it."

"I see."

I even nodded, but that apparently wasn't convincing enough, because he said, further:

"Once I have my strength back."

He stopped. Put a little distance between us.

"Three steps. To your right. Stay inside that line and I'll protect you. No matter who comes."

"I know. We're growing closer. That's what this is."

Pushing again.

I already knew exactly how strong he was.

Even the Magnalorde Empire had a knight whose strength was unmatched by any other—strength enough to bring down a nation single-handed—rare even across the ages.

And so the Empire's people had never once hesitated to call that knight "the strongest knight since the dawn of recorded history."

But Regenhart Lohengrin carried a title that went further still.

The strongest knight since the age of myth.

What more did that one phrase need to say?

Just then Regen looked at me as though taking my measure. Behind the well-shaped line of his eyes, his golden irises seemed to hide themselves for a moment before surfacing again.

"You're not interested."

I could feel myself about to be condemned as indifferent all over again.

"I'm interested. Very interested. More than it looks."

"Understood."

His plain, unbothered answer irritated me more than it should have. What a truly indifferent man. He hadn't the faintest idea what it had cost me to say that.

"Oh my, isn't that Sasha?"

A deliberately affected, nasal little voice scraped uncomfortably at my ear.

In a secluded part of the garden, I found myself face to face with two of my elder sisters.

"You've finally come out from your quarters? It's been so hard to catch a glimpse of your face."

The princess idly flourishing a folding fan while her lemon-gold hair, elaborately curled into ringlets, swayed with every motion of her head, was Lilliana.

"So this must be the knight you've been hoarding jealously to yourself all week?"

The woman with dark olive-green hair swept to one side, chin tilted at an arrogant angle, was Cehera.

The two of them were, respectively, the thirtieth- and thirty-first-born princesses—my elder sisters by a single year. To be honest, we did not get along.

"Looks like you managed to drag that half-dead corpse back into something like a man. Let's see just how human he's man—"

Lilliana and Cehera, sweeping their gaze up Regen's body as though appraising goods, both froze halfway.

"Th-this...... this is the corpse from back then......?"

"He definitely didn't look like this before......"