RAMHM Chapter 136

Novian's Resolve

Already several crystal glasses had met their end.

Novian did not look at the bandaged hand as he lifted the bottle and drank directly from it.

'If by some chance I lose my wife… you said you'd become my true mistress.'

No words had left his mouth. His tongue hadn't moved.

And yet the voice surfaced from inside him—his own voice, from that day—sudden and unbidden.

'I want you.'

'Adrienne—the Adrienne I could never have, the Adrienne I will never be permitted to have—I want you, the one standing before me right now.'

Clang!

"Your Grace!"

"Damn it! Hell! F—! God damn it all!"

Novian Trovika had gone mad.

The Grand Duke Novian Trovika—the man who had been untouchable in the capital—no longer existed in this place.

Even Annie, who had at first deployed every strategy in her arsenal to capture his attention, had by now arrived at something close to surrender. All she had managed to accomplish since following him to this cold, bare corner of the north, to Rubel Tower where only the worst criminals were kept, was to sweep his room—and to glare at the wreckage of glass he produced without once thinking of the person who had to clean it up.

Novian did not look up when Annie closed the door behind her.

The sound of it met his ears, and the moment it did, thick streams of tears poured from the eyes he'd been pressing into his arm.

The only other time tears had refused to stop like this—the last time he had wept without drying—was when Adrienne died.

'Noah. My beloved Noah. My sea. My everything.'

""Hh—hh...."

He revisited the past—the moments he wanted to rip his own mouth out for—dozens of times a day. And in the gaps between them, without fail, the days when he had been happiest would surface.

"Hhhhh—hhh......"

And more than any other memory, it was those days that cut him open.

His heartbeat struck at his eardrums.

"Rienne. Rienne…"

Dr. Spino, who had traveled with him, unable to resist his demands, brought him sleep medicine—and alongside it, the antidote. He would take the sleep medicine with alcohol and fall into visions of the happy past, beating at his own chest. Then he would take the antidote, and when his mind had cleared, he would stare hollow-eyed at the words he had spoken to the woman he had believed to be Bliea—and who had been Adrienne.

He was completely broken.

On nights like this one, when the moonlight lay beautiful over everything, he writhed under a pain that gave him no room to breathe.

The body that had been solid was drying out. Even the image of Adrienne, once so vivid, was growing blurred at the edges, and the blurring made him desperate.

He wanted to see her. He wanted to hold her. The longing and the memory of how he had tried to replace Adrienne with someone else—the sharpness of those two things pressing against each other—and at the end of it, always, the same destination: his last memory of her, in the underground chamber of the palace.

'You know what?'

'You're completely useless.'

The writhing, the quiet sobbing—both stopped.

The most devastating thing Adrienne had ever said to him was not that she no longer loved him.

Not the order to kill the Crown Prince.

It was that moment.

The words denied every year he'd lived to become a man worth something. He had become—to Adrienne—useless. Not as a husband. Not as a man. That reality struck the back of his skull, and it did not go easy on him.

Novian closed his hand around the short dagger sitting at his bedside.

He had insisted and insisted again, claiming the evidence was unnecessary now that he'd confessed, and taken it with him—Adrienne's dagger.

He had been stubborn about it simply because if it was hers, he wanted even something like this.

The moonlight through the palm-sized window fell on the blade and flashed cold.

Novian let his mind travel, naturally, to the underground chamber—to Adrienne, who had needed him there.

'You said you were a man who kept his promises. You said you'd make me happy.'

'Then you do it.'

'Kill him. And I'll forgive you.'

Novian sat up, holding Adrienne's dagger, and stood.

It had not meant she would come back to him. She had said so plainly. But she had forgiven him, hadn't she, in whatever sense the word could still hold between them.

Was it the alcohol. Was it the relentless remorse. Was it simply that he missed her too much.

There was nowhere left to retreat. Nothing left to prove. The eyes that had been dull with defeat began to burn.

No longer clear-eyed. Just venomous. They fell to the newspaper scattered across the floor.

Any news related to Countess Bliea Acacia—he had read it, even drunk, even through Annie, smuggled in against every rule. It was the only medium through which he could reach her.

He was grateful that in a place like Rubel Tower—reserved for the worst of criminals—a member of the imperial family could still receive a newspaper in secret.

[Envoy Party Bound for Ellaconia. Stalled in Acacia Territory. Cause: Monsters?]

Novian slipped Adrienne's dagger into its sheath and straightened his clothes quickly.

[Second Prince Rhodness Returns Early. Friction with Ellaconia? Or Groundwork for the Crown?]

Without Rhodness there, reaching Adrienne at the Acacia territory was no difficult matter.

Breaking into a manor that size—compared to the days when he had proved his worth with nothing but his own body, this barely registered.

The strength that had gone limp in him came flooding back.

Why had he been lying here quietly.

He who had put an end to Bardenaldo with his own hands—what was left for him to lose.

'If I can only show Adrienne I'm still a man of use to her…'

Color returned to the pale hollows of his face.

He wanted to ask.

If she could not come back to him—could he come a little closer to where she was.

If Rhodness, in pursuit of the throne, abandoned her and took that woman posing as a saint—Doris Castagna—as his wife instead.

If it came to that—would there be any opening for him.

At last.

For the first time by his own hand, Novian opened the old wardrobe he had not touched since arriving and pulled out the black cloak from his younger years. He put it on.

He had bloodied his hands for Emperor Julius. He had wagered his life. He had spent his whole life that way.

Everyone had told him it was his fate. He had believed it himself.

Not this time.

Even if it meant being caught and killed.

This once—by his own will. For the person he genuinely wanted, with the readiness to abandon everything—he would go.

That night.

Novian Trovika escaped from the underground cell of Rubel Tower.

It happened not many days before the grand investiture ceremony of Saint Doris Castagna.

"A sainthood investiture ceremony?"

Canulla Winster's sharp voice opened it, and the air inside the Acacia estate's sitting room turned dangerous.

The Grand Prelate, who had received a letter from Doris requesting a discussion of the ceremony's schedule, had been the one to tell her—and even after telling her, he kept glancing at Canulla's face.

Having had his misdeeds fully exposed, Grand Prelate Telrn had the face of a man who had given his neck to Canulla Winster and stopped fighting it.

"Bullshit. Absolutely not. We are not welcoming that vicious woman into Rhodness's side as a wife. If she were not the crown princess I would have already—"

"Whoa, whoa—easy there, Marchioness. No need to get so worked up." Epero's voice was arid. "Try to stay calm. So—Your Eminence. The end of it is that the investiture ceremony will happen. Is that what you're telling us?"

Telrn looked more anxious under Epero's gaze than Canulla's, and gave a single nod.

"The oracle has already been declared publicly. And the people desiring this ceremony are not simply Her Highness the Crown Princess."

"Then who else?"

"Count Syscamythn. Count Raelon. Nobles of western origin…"

"If Syscamythn and Raelon are involved, the great noble houses of the capital will have fallen in behind them wholesale. Good heavens. If Doris becomes a saint alone—"

"Then a powerless empress's son has no place presenting himself, and quietly returns to Ellaconia." Epero cut in, flat and self-directed. "Should I be grateful she's considering me a threat worth this much trouble? I had some presence, didn't I? As a prince."

The list of entangled nobles was made up entirely of those who had belonged to the Crown Prince faction, which made the headache worse—and Canulla pressed a hand to her temple as Epero continued in that caustic vein.

Epero was naming his own inevitable return to Ellaconia with the matter-of-fact quality of someone who'd already accounted for it, but his gaze as he did it traveled to me—where I sat quietly over my tea.

"My lady." He met my eyes, and his expression shifted into something that was almost nervous and almost a smile at once. "Sharing secrets of this magnitude—we are friends, aren't we?"

I set my teacup down and gave him a look.

"I helped catch the Grand Prelate—shock to my mother and all. You swore you'd keep me from going back to Ellaconia, so I'm done holding my breath on that. Can we just quit stalling and hear the plan already?"

The Grand Prelate's face went pale.

Ignoring how pale the Grand Prelate’s face had gone, Epero proudly lifted his chin.

His patience with my refusal to brief him on anything after the unauthorized prophecy had clearly run out.

When I glanced around, Telrn—who needed to reply to Doris—and Canulla herself, fingers pressed to her temple, were both watching only me.

Given that I had declared openly that I had been raised from the dead and would raise another—it was reasonable that they expected a great deal from me.

"Proceed with the ceremony, Your Eminence."

That was not the answer they had been hoping for. Canulla's and Epero's brows both creased at once.

"If this is a historic occasion, people from across the empire will gather in the capital. My prophecy will be fulfilled there."

"I will cooperate to the extent I am able. But until I see a miracle take place before my own eyes, I will speak nothing of it—particularly not phrases like 'a new sun rises over Ronteaux.' Such statements could read as political declarations. It would be simple enough to reframe them: 'The Second Prince's red eyes are that sun.' Wouldn't that be feasible?"

"What you mean is that if I perform the miracle, you will make that proclamation—even though it risks a political reading?"

"…If you perform a miracle, Your Holiness, it will have been established that you are someone who has received a true divine oracle. Under those conditions."

"Good."

"In any case—the ceremony will proceed as scheduled. Given that she has gone so far as to send a written request, she appears to intend to move earlier than planned."

"And at that ceremony, I would like you to allow me to assist you, Your Eminence."

"…I beg your pardon?"

"I am Her Highness's attendant, am I not? Who would find it strange if I wished to accompany a mistress who has chosen a life of religious devotion, until the very end? Mixed in among the temple attendants, I would draw little notice either."

Telrn's gaze settled on my golden hair with some weight. Little notice, said the woman with hair that color. His expression communicated this plainly.

"…That much I can accommodate."

After that, the Grand Prelate weathered a few more rounds of Canulla's warnings and Epero's needling, and made his way out of the estate.

"Not sure I like letting him walk out like that."

"Have no concern, Your Highness. The grand temple and the sacred knights order alike—every one of them has eyes and ears belonging to Canulla Winster. He will not be permitted any further foolishness."

"Coming from someone who just had to discipline him for foolishness—that's not entirely reassuring."

Canulla shot a look at him. Epero received it with equanimity. A natural mismatch, those two.

I had been in deep mana training with Rotsy in the mines and did not return to my room until late at night.

Olivia sat with me for a while, working through my hair with a comb, then retired to her own room. She still cried at the slightest brush with an old memory, and we could not remain together long.

『I miss you. I used to dream of you every night, but since coming to the capital I haven't dreamed of you once. Guess I'll even try praying to the gods tonight. You'll help, won't you—it feels like this is happening because you don't want to see me.』

The letter was slightly sulky, and I let out a small breath of something almost a laugh.

It was an important time—more complicated and demanding than almost any that had come before—but the fact that Rhodness sent short letters at all made it bearable.

He would want only my safety. My thoughts were different.

I did not doubt the future in which he claimed the throne by his own power.

But to reach it while making as few enemies as possible—there were certainly ways I could help with that.

I touched the letter, which ended with the words within you.

Important things could not be exchanged freely, for fear of interception, so the letters stayed short. They were precious anyway.

For a brief moment I felt as though I had been returned to childhood.

I was studying that letter—that oasis in an endless desert of uncertainty—when sound came from outside the window.

Movement. Someone there. The first time I had heard it since taking over Count Acacia's room.

This place was guarded by the Marchioness's own soldiers, and safety was not in question, so I thought: wind, perhaps, passing through—and turned to the mirror.

My body locked.

The window I had latched firmly was flung wide open. A black foot shoved through, sudden.

The cry that had been rising in my throat stopped there.

"…Adrienne."

It was Novian—dressed in black, in a black cloak.