Episode 15
The words Lucas uttered, his lips barely moving, truly startled Helen.
“I intend to propose to you.”
“A proposal?”
Helen blinked rapidly. What sort of bolt from the blue was this? Had he proposed outright, she wouldn’t have been this surprised. Giving advance notice seemed to have backfired instead.
“Yes. I have a feeling that if I don’t do it now, I’ll miss my chance forever.”
Lucas took a sip of the black tea, the bottom of the teacup nearly visible. He had no idea who had brewed it, yet the harmony of bitterness and sweetness was perfect.
In contrast, the surface of Helen’s cup, from which not a single drop had vanished, rippled with the reflection of a woman with red hair pinned up, trembling with anxiety.
Today had taken the first step into the week that would pass before Liandor returned, only to collide with a massive obstacle. Helen tried desperately to untangle her jumbled thoughts.
“Your Majesty’s words are the same as making me Empress. How could the Emperor of a nation treat such a grave matter as a private affair?”
Helen herself grew fearful of the words she had tossed out merely to evade the situation. The fact that her opponent was the Emperor made it so.
To offend the most noble Emperor of the Empire—what punishment awaited her was obvious.
He might not remember, but the time she had stayed by his side was a full year. She knew better than anyone what kind of person Lucas Drifon was.
Helen quietly closed her mouth and inwardly regretted not simply gulping down her cooled tea. She had foreseen that for her thoughtless remarks, the Emperor’s knights would come rushing in with fiery rebuke or drawn swords, but what actually came was an exceedingly calm response from Lucas.
“My lady, I have never handled any matter as a private affair. Nor do I intend to.”
“…….”
“As you know, I have a past of losing someone precious. I simply do not wish to repeat that mistake.”
Someone precious. The beloved Imperial Princess of the Empire. The Emperor’s half-sibling. A person now left in this world only as a name. Violet Drifon.
Helen could not gauge what words she should offer. Should she comfort the Emperor steeped in sorrow, or should she fervently dissuade him from the proposal? In truth, more than such worries, she was saddened that Violet’s death remained a mistake to him.
That she had left his world was never his fault. The thought that he had lived all this time blaming himself left her heart in turmoil.
More certain than her feelings of anxiety, sorrow, confusion, and affection was the fact that she had to help Lucas forget Violet. So that he would have no occasion to recall Violet and grieve. So that Violet’s death would not remain his fault in his world.
Helen was certain that if she stayed by Lucas’s side, there would inevitably come a day when an action or words that reminded him of Violet would slip out unintentionally.
“Your Majesty, this is a marriage of state. Please choose someone suited to the qualities of an Empress.”
It was advice befitting a loyal subject of the Emperor. Several seconds passed before Lucas, looking into Helen’s firm green eyes, let out a snicker. Soon he was laughing as though he might double over backward, clutching his stomach. Watching him, Helen worried he had lost his mind.
Fortunately, nothing truly worrisome occurred. Instead, Lucas wiped the moisture from his slightly upturned eyes with his fingertips.
“Do you know? You will go down in history as the one who refused the Emperor’s proposal. I guarantee it.”
“…….”
“And I guarantee this as well—today will not be the last proposal I make to you.”
“Your Majesty!”
“Yes, I am the Emperor of this nation. I am well aware.”
Lucas leaned his back against the plush sofa and crossed his legs. Becoming the Emperor of a nation where winter was the longest of the four seasons was a destiny decided from birth. He had merely taken appropriate measures to hasten that day.
He had not planned to eliminate the Former Emperor from the beginning. As far as he knew, the man had been a good father. He had always emphasized that the people’s peace was the Empire’s peace, and that only the Emperor could bestow peace upon the people. Thus, he said, only those with the proper qualifications would become Crown Prince.
So Lucas had devoted himself to learning. Living while guarding against his brothers was arduous, but he endured imagining a father who would one day acknowledge him. While he coveted the position of Crown Prince, he desired the acknowledgment of the father he admired even more.
The moment he harbored thoughts of turning against that Former Emperor was when he learned that the man considered the Imperial Princess—born of his own mistake—his only flaw, and discarded her with his own hands.
At that time, he had hated the Former Emperor, but he had not yet conceived of killing his father.
But from some point on, watching the Former Emperor descend into bloodlust, he felt the Empire would be ruined. Ah, it must have been then. The night his father killed his mother. The flashing lightning and rumbling thunder in the night sky had been frightening. It felt as if an assassin would come to kill him, and he could not sleep.
Thinking that this night might truly be his last, he decided to go see his mother. She would surely be asleep, yet he wished to see even her sleeping face. His mother was the noble and beautiful Empress of the Empire.
Through the slightly opened door, he witnessed the father he admired killing his mother. That night, the noble and beautiful Empress stopped breathing without uttering a single sound.
And on the day of the Empress’s funeral, her father, the Duke, died. The next day, news of the Duchess’s death reached the palace. It seemed less a coincidence than a curse upon the ducal house, yet it was difficult to believe they had taken their own lives from grief over losing their daughter when the Duke and Duchess had two other children besides the Empress, and perhaps even a grandson who might become the next Emperor.
Before the Duke and Duchess’s funeral had even ended, the next Duke was decided. He was the Empress’s younger brother, a fool unable to distinguish right from wrong. He also had a younger sister, but she had long since married into another house and borne children. It was truly an “unavoidable” affair.
“The Former Emperor loved no one. Except for the perfect children who inherited his blood.”
He did not even love them as a father would. He considered his children nothing more than creations of his own blood. Lucas did not care to wonder what the man had thought watching his children kill one another to become the next Emperor. It was obvious.
“Fortunately, I am different from the Former Emperor. Of that, I am certain.”
“……How are you different?”
Just as Violet had, Helen likewise had no memory of seeing the Former Emperor directly while he lived. What Helen had seen through Violet’s blue eyes was the cold corpse of the dead Former Emperor.
And the blood drenched upon the sword of Violet’s guard knight standing before the fallen Former Emperor. The Emperor’s audience chamber, where that blood dripped down. There, Lucas had entered belatedly and closed the Former Emperor’s unseeing eyes with his own hand.
It was a coup accomplished roughly a month after Violet was taken from the darkness.
The corner of Lucas’s mouth curved upward in a grin.
“Because I know how to love with all my heart.”
The blue eyes symbolizing the legitimacy of the Imperial bloodline sparkled dazzlingly in the winter sunlight. His blue eyes hardened into a resolute gaze directed at Helen.
It was natural that Lucas could not forget his beloved sister. Every time he looked in the mirror, he would always meet a sister who looked half like him.
“Your Majesty knows how to lie as well.”
Lucas narrowed his eyes as if to ask what she meant.
“You do not love me.”
“How do you know that?”
“If you loved me, you would not have proposed to me, who does not love you. Because Your Majesty is that kind of person.”
“You only saw me for the first time yesterday, yet you pass judgment on me.”
Watching Lucas shake his head in disbelief, Helen gave a sad smile. As he said, they had first met yesterday. But he did not know they had met over a year ago.
Helen thought long and hard over various answers. Unable to explain that she was Violet, she ended up glossing over it.
“Well, I know a thing or two about reading people.”
“It is fortunate you do not take after the Count. The Count is terribly dull.”
“He is rather strong in that regard.”
Lucas looked regretfully at his completely empty teacup and rose from the sofa.
“I shall take my leave for today.”
’For today?’ Helen’s gaze followed the Emperor’s figure as he moved toward the door. An anxious heart made her stand.
“Do you truly intend to come tomorrow as well?”
“Did you think I was lying?”
“Yes.”
At her concise yet firm answer, Lucas removed his hand from the door handle. He then swept up his bangs with that hand.
“Ha. You are unmistakably the Count’s daughter.”
The heads of House Platini had been renowned for their stubbornness and will, generation after generation—unyielding even if struck ten times. Lucas wondered just how many blows it would take before Helen Platini, who had fully inherited the current head’s blood, would finally fall.
Lucas turned around and walked toward Helen with heavy steps. His stride was considerable, and in just five steps he stood close enough that only a fist’s width of space remained between them.
Startled by the sudden proximity, Helen could not flee. There was no room to step back, and with the sofa unfortunately right behind her, even if she ran, she would only end up seated upon it.
Helen felt her vision shake violently. What had drawn close was not merely the distance to Lucas. Staring into those clear blue eyes, some emotion swelled within her.
Her head buzzed—perhaps it was fear. Yet her heart tumbled downward with heavy thuds—perhaps it was longing.
In the midst of that coexistence of fear and longing, Lucas’s eyelids closed once and opened again. Along with that, his blood-flushed lips parted, heavy and deliberate.
Helen’s violently shaking vision focused on one point. She thought she should look somewhere other than those blue eyes, yet her body would not obey.
That’s right. The reason her head had been buzzing was not longing, but fear.
From Lucas’s parted lips, words flowed without pause and without hesitation.
“Helen Platini. I believe I have fallen for you after all.”
Fear soon turned to despair.