RAMHM Chapter 134

Collusion

"If this divine oracle—were spoken aloud by Your Eminence yourself, and were at last fulfilled—"

Adrienne read precisely what she saw in Telrn's eyes.

The donations? Mere side income. What he needed was the authority the oracle would bring the temple.

Doris, too, had come bearing "donations"—but hadn't she bought his trust in the end, handing Telrn a prophecy she'd cooked up herself?

"It would not only elevate the temple's standing beyond anything before it—it would be no different from bringing forth a new Crown Prince by Your Eminence's own hand."

The weight of those words proved too much for Telrn, and he collapsed into his seat.

After the Grand Prelate, drained of everything he had, was escorted to the guest room, only we remained in the drawing room.

"I really did misjudge her. If I condone a lie told to Telrn like this, I lose all grounds on which to have reproached him!"

"Marchioness. Just a moment ago, weren't we together threatening to expose everything about Doris Castagna to the world if he didn't announce that oracle?"

Revealing that she was in fact the real Adrienne seemed premature, so she stayed quiet for a moment. Surprisingly, it was Epero who came to her defense.

"Well, that was because this lady seemed so confident about it that I was swept up before I knew it, bewitched. Madam—did you actually bring the Count back to life yourself?"

"Does that matter?"

"It matters very much!"

"No, Marchioness."

Adrienne had been running hot since before this, searching for any foothold that could counter Doris's offenses.

She had concluded: if clinging to small details meant failing to get Rhodness what he wanted—better, she decided, to deceive everyone completely.

"What matters is giving the late Crown Prince's sins some small redemption—and making it possible for the Second Prince, who has sacrificed so much, to have what he wants."

"!"

Adrienne felt a small twinge of guilt—but she'd already struck Canulla's rawest nerve.

"You have already heard the Empress Letina's true final wishes from Sir Vincento, haven't you? To honor those wishes—to help the most brilliant light of Her Majesty's life shine upon Ronteaux. And you, Your Highness—you have six princes to avenge."

She looked in turn at Canulla, who had gone speechless, and at Epero.

The moment the six princes were mentioned, Epero's expression darkened—fast.

The day he had come back from the cave ahead of the others, following Vincento to the manor.

He had thrown every question he had at Vincento. Why—why did my brothers have to die like that, and why were their bodies preserved?

Vincento's answer had struck him like a blow.

The one who'd killed them: Duke Castagna, probably. The one who'd pushed him to it: Bardenaldo. The bodies, preserved like that—probably so that once he took the throne, he could bring them back and put them on display in some hidden room.

Trophies of war, nothing more. Not one ounce of guilt in it.

That was how certain Vincento had sounded.

Epero shook his head, dragging his face back into order.

The Crown Prince was already dead. But Duke Castagna, who had actually killed his brothers, and Doris, his daughter—they were eating well and sleeping soundly, weren't they.

"That's right, Marchioness. Some responsibility for how the Crown Prince turned out does rest with you, doesn't it."

Epero said it with a smile, and drove it in like a blade.

Canulla stiffened for a moment, then sank back into the sofa.

She had committed herself to supporting Rhodness and spending the rest of her life atoning for her role in Bardenaldo's crimes. But fear lurched through her all at once—had pushing Telrn to speak a lie in turn become another sin, one that would draw the gods' anger?

"Marchioness."

Adrienne read what was inside her and called to her quietly.

Canulla could not fathom what nerve this woman had—this delicate beauty—to speak such a lie with such certainty.

But Adrienne smiled at her, as if offering reassurance.

"The prophecy is not a lie."

"If you intend to offer sophistry—"

"I will make the prophecy real."

The bright yellow-green of her eyes glittered with intelligence.

"To clear His Highness the Second Prince's absurd name—the curse of those ominous red eyes—wouldn't nothing short of 'the will of the gods' do?"

Canulla looked deep into Adrienne's eyes—the same eyes that had just pressed the Grand Prelate flat.

They were not the eyes of someone lying. That made it somehow worse.

Not a temptress, like the rumors said. A madwoman—that was closer to it. The force she'd used to flatten the Grand Prelate had been half reason, half something unhinged.

"Use the will of the gods—and help clear out whatever filth remains. That is what I am asking of you, Marchioness."

And yet—inexplicably.

Doris, who had smiled sweetly at her and said nothing but honeyed words—why did the woman in front of her appeal to her so much more?

"The Marchioness is right, you know. In my experience—becoming this lady's friend means you don't attend your own funeral as the guest of honor."

Epero said it with his old insolence fully restored, and Canulla's face was left not knowing whether to cry or laugh.

Emperor Julius's face was fairly composed when he met his son for the first time in some time.

The deaths of Letina, then Baroness Kuroseida, then his heir had left him worn through, body and spirit alike.

"Do you want to become Emperor?"

The Emperor looked over Rhodness, who had entered fully armored despite it not being a time of war.

"So ambition has found you too."

"Ambition, Father?"

The Emperor's lips closed.

If you wanted to split hairs about it, Rhodness—second in line—becoming the new heir was only natural. Epero—the legitimate son of the current Empress—was also technically eligible if the Emperor wished to elevate him.

"Rhoan."

"Yes."

"They say the Emperor's seat is one that descends from the gods."

Emperor Julius gestured for Rhodness to come closer, from where he stood at the threshold of the audience chamber.

"But it is also a seat that no one can reach alone through sheer ability."

"…"

"Even among my own brothers, there was one who was particularly gifted—in the same way you are."

The Emperor's mind drifted back, easily, to those young years—years far more cutthroat than anything the present could offer.

Without Novian's help, he would not have ascended the throne smoothly—even as Crown Prince.

"The person you are thinking of. Novian Ronteaux was like that. And before him, there was a younger brother with red eyes—just like yours."

It was the first Rhodness had heard of this.

Interest moved into his eyes, and the Emperor smiled, but the smile was bitter.

"If there had been someone like Doris Castagna at that time—someone given the title of 'saint'—perhaps there would be no me today."

Doris's name appearing out of nowhere—Rhodness's brow, which had been still, crumpled sharply.

"…What do you mean?"

"I mean that if there had been someone like Doris at that time—a 'saint' able to quiet the rumors about the red-eyed prince—if a woman bearing the name of saint had become that brother's consort, he might have become Emperor instead of me."

"Does His Majesty consent to the revival of the levirate law?"

"Of course! This is your chance to become Letina's light!"

The Emperor's eyes suddenly sharpened.

"If only we can neutralize that legend—that you are an ominous prince—you must marry Doris even if she were Duke Castagna himself! If you want to become Emperor, this is a gate you must pass through. And Count Raelon and Count Syscamythn, who have been adrift since Bardenaldo's death, are finally prepared to support you—because of Doris. Now is the right moment, with Duke Castagna collapsed and the faction that disapproved of you in disarray."

Rhodness took one step closer to the Emperor.

The Emperor, reading it as something other than what it was, moved his mouth faster.

"Yes—does it feel real now? Rhoan, my son. Since Bardenaldo's death, you alone have become the only evidence that I and Letina loved each other on this earth. I will pass the throne to you. Even though your eyes are red!"

"Father."

"Yes."

Before the Emperor even registered it, Rhodness was right there before him, and now he looked down at his father with the moonlight at his back.

Emperor Julius's face—willing, even eager, to yield the throne—fell into Rhodness's shadow.

Inside that shadow, Rhodness said it quietly.

"The founding Emperor Kyrphos was a traitor."

The Emperor's lips, which had been carrying the ghost of a smile, went hard.

"The true founding Emperor—is the red-eyed Kaldaeon. Therefore, the symbol of legitimacy of the Ronteaux imperial line is the red eyes."

"…Rhoan?"

"Are you aware of this record, Father?"

The Emperor lurched in his seat without rising from it. His face became the color of earth in an instant.

Rhodness did not reach out to steady him. He simply looked at him, his eyes clear.

"The blue-eyed false heirs, as if colluding with one another, preserved that record and concealed it. And rather than using the mana stones to let the nation flourish, they banned magic and allowed Ellaconia to close the gap in national power—"

"Rhoan—Rhoan, what are you saying—"

"Among the many imperial bloodlines that Novian Trovika eliminated in your stead, those with red eyes did not even make it into the historical record."

The Emperor's mouth hung open, no sound coming from it. Rhodness's cold red gaze felt like a hand at his throat.

"Is this truly a coincidence, Father?"

The Emperor, his face like a man who had forgotten to breathe, stared blankly as Rhodness stepped back from him.

His son's face was neat, and utterly without warmth—as if frost had settled over it and stopped there.

"I have no idea whether I need some saint."

"Rhoan. Rh—Rhoan—"

His tongue seemed to have knotted itself; all he could do was call his son's name, over and over, again and again.

Rhodness's pace quickened.

"I will give you the chance to correct the historical record."

The red gaze, which had been fixed on the Emperor's dry, cracking lips, turned now and found those deep blue eyes directly.

"I will give you the chance to make up for the years you spent with your mouth shut against the truth, living in defiance of the will of the gods."

"This—this is not so simple a matter. Rhoan!"

The Emperor managed to cry out at last.

But the blue of those eyes—fractured by now, fractured all the way through—kept wavering, kept showing the unsteadiness inside.

"I—did I want it this way? The honor of my father, and my grandfather, and his grandfather before him—all of it rests on this! Would you have the foundation that the Ronteaux imperial line has built collapsed?"

"If His Majesty wishes to silence me—then do not urge me to take Doris Castagna as my wife. And do not offer what should by rights already be mine as the condition."

"Rhoan! Rhoan!!"

Rhodness left the words there and walked out of the audience chamber.

The hour was late, and—that his father had known Rotsy's record and buried the truth anyway—that struck him in the same wound. The same place everything else had.

"Even if you do as I say—the politics of this, with so many factions entangled—it will never be so simple! Remember that!"

The Emperor's desperate voice rang out between the closing doors.

Rhodness walked faster.

The banner of Second Prince Rhodness arrived at the imperial palace without warning—earlier than scheduled.

The moment she heard, Doris deferred the trip she had been about to make to the Grand Temple.

It was late at night. She summoned Nora and badgered her into helping with her appearance personally. A woman who ran a business serving noble ladies would have a keener eye than most.

Of course, for the image of a saint, she couldn't dress as elaborately as before—but elegance in simplicity required its own care.

Doris issued instructions to Nora, who had been summoned out in the night: wet the already-dry hair and comb through it again.

Nora did what she was told without a word of protest.

"Somehow, ever since Nora returned from the north, everything seems to be working out so well, don't you think."

"…Does it?"

"The Second Prince, who had gone silent and given us such worry—he returned safely, and quickly."

"…But Duke Castagna's condition has only gotten worse, has it not?"

Doris, humming to herself as she watched the mirror, went sharp-eyed in an instant.

Doris glared at Nora's calm, combing face for a long moment, then smiled again.

"He's always been vigorous. He'll be up again soon."

The faintest edge of dissatisfaction lived in Doris's voice as she said it.

"I can pray for Father's recovery at the Grand Temple while I'm there—ow!"

"I apologize, Your Highness."

"That's enough combing!"

Doris rounded on Nora with frayed, snappish irritation—at someone who'd always handled even a simple brushing without trouble, and tonight, suddenly, couldn't.