SBTMK Chapter 15

Rene, again—Flora met her at the cliff.

This land was ringed on every side by sea. To leave the island, one had to take a ship.

Escape was impossible from the start. Every year, no shortage of knights, despairing of their circumstances, threw themselves from the cliffs to die. And on the rare occasion that escape succeeded, Ayden pursued with relentless purpose. It was for this reason Flora had thought Rene's plan pathetic.

Rene screamed to give her child back. The moment it was born, before she had so much as seen its face, it had been taken from her.

By the time Flora arrived, it was already too late. Ayden's blade had already found her.

"Rene. Rene!"

Her face had gone white—a color Flora had never seen on her before.

Flora knew, in that instant, that she was going to die.

"Flora, you have to live. You have to— hh—live, and protect our child… please"

Those were her last words. Rene's eyes did not open again.

Flora blamed herself—she'd looked away from her.

If she had pushed harder. If she had gone to Ayden and asked—just once—to let Rene see the child's face.

Even then, helping her escape had never once been an option Flora considered.

But she could feel something inside her beginning, slowly, to change.

After Rene died, Flora lived with her eyes shut to everything around her.

The one person who had ever held her reins was gone—it was only natural, perhaps, that life grew more brutal than before.

'…Flora. Are you happy, living like this?'

She had wanted to answer her. She thought that if she kept living this way, she would eventually find the answer to the question.

The dream Flora had pursued in life was wealth and honor. And so Flora chased it.

She had believed that once she possessed those things completely, happiness would follow. She did not hesitate, even at the cost of abandoning herself.

No morals. No character. Killed children, when it was needed. Killed the old.

But the more she did, happiness never came—only a hollowness and loneliness that never filled, into which she was thrown, unguarded. She felt herself becoming a person who had lost her direction.

And then word reached her that Rene's child had died.

She had received periodic updates, and had reassured herself each time—the child was still young, surely too young to have caught Ayden's eye.

In the end, Flora had become someone who could not even keep Rene's dying wish.

That night, she dreamed.

She saw Rene, resenting her.

Not that you were relieved he was young. You just looked away, didn't you?

To Rene's question, laced with resentment, Flora once again had no answer.

From that point on, life felt hollow.

Something like a 'goal'—gone, completely.

She had thought that once she possessed wealth and honor, she would be happy. She was not happy. It felt as though she had lost more than she had gained.

Flora began to question the path she had walked.

It had been a life that chose to look away and plunder rather than to protect.

Having walked such a path, she thought—perhaps, just as she had done with Rene and her child, she had been looking away from everything happening within the castle, too.

Women who could not grow into knights were dragged down to the dungeon. Flora did not know precisely what happened there, but it was surely never peaceful. No one who had once been taken there came out alive.

And under the pretext of research, killing ran rampant. Knights were set against each other under the name of sparring. Those who died that way were mocked for their weakness.

Flora, like every other knight, had grown up looking away from it, accepting it.

…Because otherwise, her own life would be forfeit.

Flora realized, belatedly, that the dream she had chased and the values she had pursued had been manufactured.

This society had built her to live this way. It had made her believe this was simply how things were.

In the end, she had been nothing more than a loyal dog, or a toy.

Flora grew angry, belatedly.

Perhaps it was an anger that should have come long before now.

And so Flora could no longer live as a knight of Cenkan.

Simen set the neatly folded training uniform down at the foot of Flora's bed.

He suspected that from now on, even the sight of her in a dress would bring a crying face to mind alongside it.

He'd deliberately withheld other clothing, wanting to see her in a dress—but the situation had changed now.

Simen looked down at Flora's sleeping face for a long moment.

Asleep, she looked somehow uncomfortable. There was no mistaking it—her brow, usually smooth, had furrowed, and she kept flinching, over and over.

She's dreaming, it seems.

The longer time passed, the more the mana radiating off her deepened. Each time it did, her silver hair seemed to shine a little brighter.

'Keep this up, she won't walk tomorrow.'

Maybe he ought to have her taught magic before the knight corps got hold of her.

"Shh…"

Hesitating, Simen reached his hand out over the thick blanket covering her.

Under the soothing touch, he watched her gradually settle into calm.

His own expression, which had tensed to match every furrow of her brow, eased just as quickly once hers did.

He had unfinished state business waiting for him now, but somehow his body wouldn't move. His feet felt bound to the floor; each step was heavy.

'Simen is the warmest person I know.'

Her words kept circling in his ears.

"…Annoying. This."

He'd made an offer she couldn't refuse to someone cornered and desperate to get what he wanted, then displayed calculated kindness using information gathered at their very first meeting.

He'd already known his careful plans were unraveling, one by one—he just hadn't expected it to get under his skin quite like this.

'Is this really still fine, as it is?'

If things didn't go according to plan and he couldn't catch both rabbits, he'd have to choose one.

His head wanted information. His heart wanted a person.

Absurd. Frankly.

"So…"

"…"

"You mean to tell me the reason you lords came to find me at this ungodly hour of the morning is that child? Now? Is that it?"

Simen let out a heavy sigh, eyes half-lidded, and looked over his nobles.

It wasn't even breakfast—lunch had just ended. And here they were, catching the Emperor freshly roused from sleep, which the nobles could not help but find unsettling. Not one of them could easily get the next words out.

Simen watched them for a long moment, exchanging flustered glances with one another, and finally buried his face in the pillow.

With his eyes shut, the voices he didn't want to hear kept coming.

"With respect, Your Majesty, this is not a matter to be dismissed lightly. Your Majesty is surely already aware of the rumors circulating both within and outside the palace. Adding fuel to needless gossip serves no one well…"

"…Ah. The one about me having lost my head over some courtesan? Let's correct that, Count. It isn't a rumor—it's a fact, isn't it?"

"Your Majesty!"

"Hah… It seems I have a rat somewhere in my palace. The only place I took that girl yesterday was the training grounds, and yet here you all are, having somehow heard of it and come running."

"…We have heard that the woman Your Majesty brought back is of unknown origin."

"…"

"As we have said time and again, Your Majesty must first receive an Empress. Only after securing an heir would it not be too late for Your Majesty to take the woman he desires. Surely Your Majesty is well aware how the anxiety of the imperial subjects grows by the day."

Even under Simen's sarcasm, the nobles didn't so much as blink before saying what needed saying.

He felt it every time he faced them—genuinely repulsive, and yet, in more than one sense, admirable.

Simen's eyes narrowed.

"You all think of one thing and know nothing of the other."

"Whatever do you mean by that…"

"If I had taken that girl, I wouldn't be alone in this room right now, would I. This is my bedchamber."

"…"

"I brought her here because she has talent I intend to use elsewhere. And even if I did take her, it wouldn't be right away, so there's no need for those hatchet-eyes."

The nobles rolled their eyes toward each other again.

"I'll think a little more on the marriage you all mentioned. As I said before, I have a girl I'm quite hopelessly in love with, after all."

"Your Majesty!"

"Lavender you won't accept as Empress, will you?"

"That— that's… of course not! How could Your Majesty possibly speak of taking a woman of slave origin as Empress? Your Majesty, please reconsider!"

Watching them bristle, he nearly laughed outright.

Simen forced down the corner of his mouth as it tried to curl upward.

"I know you're all deeply worried about my marriage. Then look into whichever ladies meet your standards, and report back to me. I'll consider them in earnest."

You have to give up one thing to get another.

"Your humble servants are grateful that Your Majesty has taken our hearts into account."

"…I'd like a bit more sleep, if you'd see yourselves out."

"Yes, Your Majesty. May boundless glory and blessing attend Your Majesty."

Normally they would have pestered him about Flora until he was sick of it, wringing him dry to the marrow—but for some reason, the nobles withdrew without a fight.

Likely because he'd finally received their most persistent headache—the marriage question—with something resembling favor.

Simen let out an irritated breath and rose from the bed. He straightened the front of his loosened silk robe and headed for the sofa.

Sleep, for today, was thoroughly finished.

〈…So you've finally decided on marriage, then?〉

Erne, who had been standing motionless as a stone statue in the corner of the room, spoke first.

He rarely spoke first unless it was strictly necessary—it seemed even he had found some interest in the marriage business.

"Have I lost it? For whose sake, exactly? I just needed a reason to throw them out at once. One more minute of those things and I'd have cut their tongues out myself."

〈If you'd chosen a suitable match and gotten yourself engaged sooner, none of this would have happened. Rather than pretending to be lost in some courtesan.〉

"That was the best option at the time. And I'm satisfied with the result. I don't regret it even now."

〈…〉

"Hm… anyway, I've made the mess—how do I clean it up now? The nobles will want Kanna made Empress, no doubt?"

〈Probably.〉

Simen clicked his tongue shortly.

"What's Kanna up to these days?"

〈Studying abroad, I hear. Or so they say.〉

"…Studying what?"

〈Bridal preparations, I'd imagine. There are too many rumors circulating for her to stay in the empire.〉

"That Duke's something else. Knowing full well what I did to his daughter."

Simen shuddered, like he'd touched something disgusting.

"But if Kanna herself is willing, she's suitable enough to take back as my fiancée. Plenty to worry about, but still."

〈Is there no one you have in mind, separately?〉

Why did an entirely different face come to mind at Erne's question?

"…The only women I meet with regularly are Lavender, or Neira, or Sophie, I suppose. Is this question meant to tease me?"

〈…〉

"Ah, one more's been added, hasn't it. Flora. So which of them am I supposed to take a liking to?"

She'd used her mana so freely last night—would her body be all right?

Eden was there, so she'd recover.

But Eden, that bastard—

The moment Flora's name left his mouth, last night came rushing back—himself, showing up abruptly with the training uniform in hand.

One thought led to another. None of them were particularly good ones.

Simen fell briefly silent, then changed the subject quickly. His eyes, turned on Erne, glinted.

"Ah, right. Erne. You're in real trouble now."

At the sudden shift in temperature, Erne's expression asked what he meant.

"Lady Lugaria is thoroughly furious. You scratched the lady's arm yesterday, while she was in that dress."

The captain of the guard's face, which so rarely betrayed a change of expression, twitched, faintly.

'Just as I'd thought.'

Having found something to tease him with, Simen grinned.