In my private chamber with the lights nearly extinguished, I held my head in my hands. It was a pathetic sight for the Emperor of a Great Empire, but perhaps it was rare to find a man so pathetic as a father as well.
"Your Majesty, I... I am terribly sorry."
Laminitia, my wife, bowed her head. A Duke's daughter, a girl who was surely raised more carefully than I, who grew up as the third son of a Count's family. She was apologizing for her family's involvement in this matter, and for the harsh judgment my son Asha had made himself.
I raised my face from the sofa where I sat and reached out to Laminitia. She responded by taking my hand and sitting right beside me.
"You have nothing to apologize for. That's not... that's not it, but is it true?"
I had to ask. Asha had accepted the military deployment, and instead told me to use it as a weapon. He was cunning, wise, but still only an eleven-year-old child. As a parent, the fact that I couldn't let him be like a child, that he appeared so composed, only intensified my guilt.
And now, Laminitia had brought back a rumor from the Duke's house where she was born and raised.
"Yes, that... upon learning that we were planning a family trip with Asha, they apparently conceived of a scheme to remove him from the imperial capital this time."
"...Why!?"
My voice grew rough. Laminitia, raised so carefully, trembled.
"Ah, forgive me."
"No, Your Majesty's anger is justified. I too am so pathetic..."
Laminitia, with tears in her eyes, was gentle-natured. She could act as befitting a Duke's daughter on the surface, but when she let her guard down, she was like this. She was the complete opposite of my previous wife from the Count's family. Quiet, knowing her place and stepping back, and above all, that self-contained personality.
"Asha may have taken after his mother in personality."
"I have heard she was a wise person."
"Ah, she was resourceful. But unless I said something, she wouldn't speak and would handle things herself. ...Looking back now, I wish she had relied on me more."
That said, she was never cold-hearted. Raised in a family where I was ignored by my father and brothers, and kept at a distance by my mother, I could feel that she was trying to see and understand me without words.
Asha is the same. He surely sees me as his father. Yet he doesn't interfere with the Emperor, knows his place, and decides and handles his own affairs.
"He didn't have to resemble her to that extent."
"...It must have been terribly frustrating."
Laminitia's voice trembling with anxiety was surely because she had thought about leaving behind a child. She also has a one-year-old daughter. If that happened now, she would become a child who doesn't remember her mother's face, just like Asha.
"What can I do for Asha?"
"Your Majesty..."
I haven't been able to do anything already. Asha doesn't blame me for that; rather, he pushes me to gain power as Emperor. Yet knowing that the plan meant to please Asha was being used for ill purposes, I could only hold my head in shame.
"Before, I heard from Helkov and others that Asha said the vacation to the detached palace would happen even without him, so I thought now we could go together..."
"That is something I too once... I am sorry."
Previously, Laminitia had refused the family trip because she was wary of Asha. That's why I had proposed and planned that we could do the family trip now. Until now, Asha had endured. He had shown by his attitude that he did not aim for the throne. Yet now they would go so far as to eliminate his very existence, deploying an eleven-year-old with such absurd measures.
"Asha told me to use this situation, but I still can't be that pragmatic."
"Yes, I know that is correct, but that would only make things too painful for Asha..."
I understand that as Emperor, I should use this. I also understand that I should gain power so that this never happens again. But the power that can only be achieved by sacrificing my child only increases my shame. I wonder if that is wrong both as Emperor and as father. I think so, but I cannot think of any better way to use this or any solution beyond what Asha said.
"Asha says he will return, but when? No, how about recalling him in about a year?"
"Indeed, but that would likely be obstructed as well. We need a reason... Ah, how about preparations for enrolling in the academy in the Kingdom of Rukiusaria?"
"Ah, right. That was an option."
He is eleven now, and will be twelve in a year. If he returns and prepares for a year, he will be fourteen at the time of enrollment.
"The problem is preparing so that no one interferes until then."
Thinking that way, Asha's suggestion to extract concessions from the Dukes using this matter is useful. I understand the methods Duke Lukaios has used until now. It is to overwhelm me with work so I cannot move. Duke Eurasion is similar; he extends his hands everywhere to cause delays. There are other factions that hinder, and factions that sway with the situation. Those who never move but act when their authority is violated—not just the two Dukes need to be watched. But if I don't control both Dukes, there's no point.
"The one who will oppose Asha's enrollment most strongly will be Duke Eurasion rather than my father. His son is the same age as Asha. He is very concerned about the difference in attention and treatment at the time of enrollment. Therefore, he should try to prevent the enrollment from the beginning."
Laminitia knows the upper class much better than I, and understands their temperament. That is the education needed to navigate high society as a Duke's daughter, something I lack. I cannot forgive Duke Lukaios for obstructing Asha either. But thinking that this Duke also raised this wife and made her my wife makes it complicated.
"Is it alright? You'll be scolded by your father again."
"...I would rather think of it as atonement."
Laminitia answered with a downcast voice.
"I was shocked to learn of Asha's life. Knowing that wasn't even everything, I felt dizzy with the weight of my own sins."
Asha doesn't even know his mother's face, has endured silently, and yet remains unrewarded.
"And yet, he calls the children his younger siblings with a smile... Has that child ever been selfish? He is such a good child, which is why I compare him to Terry and the others. I wonder if he grew up without even knowing how to be spoiled."
I have thought that too. Terry, Wernel, and Fel boast and report to me when something happens, but Asha chose silence. To be praised by parents, to boast. I recently realized that I couldn't even allow that child such small happiness; I'm a failure as a parent.
"Laminitia, rather than atonement, won't you think with me about what we can do for Asha?"
"Is that alright? I refused to become Asha's mother."
"But you are still my wife. I fail in many ways as a parent. Please, teach me what I can do for Asha."
I regret it too. Perhaps I am worse for having intended to be a father but failing. Laminitia looked up at me and nodded after hesitating.
"Then, when Asha returns safely, let us finally take that family trip. We should show Father that interfering with us will only make us more stubborn and difficult to handle. That way, he may switch to a conciliatory strategy."
"I see. The direction of driving Asha away has moved to elimination. We should start by changing that direction."
"And above all."
Laminitia paused for a moment, lowering her gaze.
"That gentle Asha would surely be delighted by a family trip, I think."
"...That's right, ah, yes."
Gain power as Emperor, and become a shield against the Duke's schemes as a father. But above all, I want to make Asha happy. That is the fundamental, most important thing.
"Thank you, Laminitia."
"No, I haven't done anything yet..."
When I embraced my wife, ten years my junior, I saw her ears dyed red like a young girl's.