Episode 19
“The Platini family. I thought your house had no interest in power. I believed you focused solely on amassing wealth, but I was mistaken.”
As Lucas said, the Platini family possessed such enormous assets that it would hardly be an exaggeration to say almost nothing remained if you removed their business ventures.
With ordinary families, even if they had no interest in politics at first, once their wealth reached a certain level, they would naturally dip their toes into politics. But the Platini family was different. Unless it was a policy that would positively affect their business, they showed no desire to get involved in politics. Lucas had found that rather amusing.
“But now, it seems you’ve developed an interest in power?”
“Your Majesty……”
“There’s no need to be afraid. I’m asking because I’m genuinely curious.”
Lucas didn’t even harbor any expectation of hearing an answer from Rosie. The answer was already set in stone from the start. Every human harbored greed, and once one desire was fulfilled, they would harbor another.
“What do you think of me?”
For a moment, Rosie’s shoulders flinched. It was an unexpected question. She had already sensed earlier that the Emperor was the type to toss out whatever came to mind without considering the other person. Even so, she was just as surprised now as she had been before realizing it.
“Th-that is……”
Should she say here that she harbored feelings of attraction toward him? While Rosie was wondering what answer would be appropriate for the question, she recalled the words Helen had left behind.
“Rosie, I’m Helen Platini. You’re Rosie Platini. We’re both members of the Platini family.”
“That’s obvious.”
“Why do you think His Majesty sought me out? In my opinion, His Majesty needs our family. Not me, but the overflowing wealth of the Platini family.”
“…….”
“So, as long as it’s someone from the Platini family, His Majesty wouldn’t care whether it was me or anyone else.”
When she had heard this from Helen, she had thought it was nothing but a made-up story. Even though she had thought so, she had wanted to believe it.
Because she had wanted to be of help. To the Platini family, and to the Count and Countess.
And to Helen as well. While listening to Helen’s words, she had harbored a small greed in her heart. The greed that if she became Empress because the Platini family was needed by the Emperor, she would gain the courage. The courage to tell the Count not to hate Helen.
“I love Your Majesty.”
So she would have to win the Emperor’s heart.
Rosie grabbed the hem of her skirt with hands beaded with sweat from nervousness. She began to fear Lucas’s soon-to-come response to the words she had already thrown out.
For over a minute, Lucas kept his lips tightly sealed and gazed at the empty air. Sitting with his legs crossed and arms folded, what he was looking at was truly nothing but empty space. If one insisted on finding a target, it was a light gray wall. An empty wall devoid even of windows or paintings.
Rosie hated this silence. It wasn’t because she was bored. The longer the silence stretched, the more it meant Lucas was deeply contemplating.
No matter how long the silence lasted, the answer that would come afterward was one of two things: acceptance or refusal. Between ordinary people, there was no other path besides those two.
However, since her counterpart was the Emperor, it was worth expecting another alternative.
Soon, Lucas’s lips parted. It was a moment Rosie had awaited with desperate longing, albeit brief.
“Does your sister dislike me? In other words, I’m asking what Helen Platini’s feelings are.”
“Your Majesty……”
It was truly an unexpected question. The alternative Rosie had imagined was nothing more than a vague answer saying he would think about it.
To ask about the heart of another who wasn’t here, in response to a confession of love, was more painful and more cutting than words of refusal.
The small mercy was that it wasn’t entirely heartbreaking. Though he hadn’t uttered the word refusal, Lucas’s words were a refusal in themselves. Rosie had already anticipated his rejection.
Was that why? Even at the first words of refusal she had ever heard in her life, she could let a smile touch her lips.
“My sister said this. Since Your Majesty does not yet love sincerely, she cannot love Your Majesty either. One cannot love someone who does not love oneself, she said.”
“But it’s Your Majesty? It’s none other than Your Majesty……”
“You’re right. He is His Majesty. But there is nothing as sorrowful as not loving each other. At least, I don’t want to become desperately lonely.”
She spoke as if she had been abandoned by someone she loved. Rosie had no memory of being abandoned by anyone, so she had taken Helen’s words lightly—little did she know she would use them like this.
When Rosie released the strength in her fist clutching her skirt, she had expected Lucas’s face to turn fierce. But instead, he quietly nodded with a look that said he understood.
That was all. Lucas didn’t add a single word until he left the Platini mansion. Not even a word about coming back tomorrow.
That night, Helen’s condition worsened. Drinking more of the Repollier flower infusion, in case Lucas might come all the way to her bedroom, became the cause.
Her body became as hot as a ball of fire. To a degree incomparable to the morning. Her thirst could be quenched with the water the servants had left in advance, but she could think of no way to make the burning heat subside.
“It’s so…… hot.”
It was past midnight. The servants who had been nursing her had gone to sleep. Of course, it wasn’t their fault. The servants didn’t know Helen would worsen like this, nor that she had taken the Repollier flower herself.
Barely managing to lift her head, she saw the window was tightly shut. Though it was the tail end, it was winter, so it was only natural.
Helen dragged her heavy body, which refused to obey her, toward the window. If she opened the window to cool the heat, she might be able to endure until morning.
As she thought, the moment she opened the window with all her strength, cold wind surged into the bedroom. Though it wasn’t a strong wind, her hair fluttered gently.
“Still, this is nice.”
It felt as if she had returned to Hexelov. The cold that made her once-pale cheeks burn as red as strawberries, and the white snow piled thickly around the villa, resembled the atmosphere of that place.
“It snowed.”
Just when did it come down this much…….
She had eaten a simple dinner to take her medicine and had been asleep until now; it seemed to have snowed during that time. For some reason, she had a premonition that this snow was the last snow of this winter.
It seemed winter was finally bidding farewell. That long, cold winter was passing, and spring was coming. When spring arrived, fresh green leaves would sprout on those bare branches. Flowers would bloom. Beautiful butterflies would flutter around them.
But……
“I wish this winter wouldn’t end.”
Because spring is a season suited not for Helen Platini, but for Violet Drifon. You stay in your season. I will stay in mine.
Helen closed the window. Then she took out a thick outer garment from the wardrobe.
If that thickly piled snow was truly the last snow of this winter.
* Sibello
She walked and walked along the snow-covered path. Her right foot sank deeply into snow piled about the length of a pinky finger. Where that right foot had just stepped, a clear shoe print remained.
The sound of clean snow being crushed was one of Helen’s favorite sounds in the world. Crunch-, and sometimes creak-. Why she loved this season so much, when even those sounds felt pure.
She had thought winter was merely a cold season. Hexelov, where she had stayed for most of her life after being abandoned by her father, was a place that was only cold.
And yet, the reason Hexelov felt warm must have been solely because it welcomed Helen Platini. The villa’s people who had cared for a child abandoned at an age when she should have been showered with parental love. The estate’s people who welcomed a young lady clearly abandoned by the Platini family. They had been prepared to cherish the lonely young lady from the very beginning. Thinking back, it seemed she had been the one who put up walls against them. Because a child who had experienced abandonment before learning that love was warm did not know how to share love.
Violet had taught that love made not only oneself but also those around them warm. Those around her were filled with people who loved her, and they made her the most beloved imperial princess in the world. Smiles never left the faces of those who stayed by her side.
Violet, who was truly loved by “everyone,” did not suit this cold season. Only a warm season where countless lives were born would suit her best.
Was that why she had wished for the end of this season not to approach?
Helen breathed onto her gloved palm. White breath seemed to brush across her palm before disappearing somewhere.
“I think it’s a bit cold.”
It seemed the fever had subsided. To think a winter night was more effective than medicine. Once the heat brought on by the Repollier flower died down, she might catch a cold. Then she would have a fever again then.
Helen let out a short laugh and stepped forward with her left foot.
Before she knew it, she had reached the fountain occupying the center of the downtown square lined with shops. The fountain without water seemed to be displayed as a decorative art piece.
“Was there a fountain here?”
She couldn’t remember well because it was a place she had stayed when she was very young. Or perhaps the fountain hadn’t existed back then.
Helen decided not to bother digging through her memories and sat on the bench placed in front of the fountain. Before that, she had to clear the snow piled on the bench. It was extremely inconvenient to push away the snow because she happened to be wearing fluffy, fur-lined gloves.
Though she hadn’t managed to clear away every tiny snowflake, she sat on the now fairly clean bench. And with a satisfied face, she raised her head until her vision was filled with the sky.
She had not raised her head to look at the dark sky at an hour well past midnight. She had simply lifted her head high, wanting to know why the snow piled thickly over the darkness was so bright. Somehow, she felt the sky would know the reason.
It was a winter where even the moon rose white and full. If the night sky was that bright, wouldn’t the snowfield beneath it be bright as well?
Lowering her head from the sky to look at the path she had walked, snow was falling over the clear footprints carved in. Watching the footprints gradually erase themselves, she thought she should have stepped harder, yet felt that disappearing like this wasn’t so bad either.
On this night when her body’s heat had cooled and the air she breathed was refreshing, she did not want to return to the mansion early. Even though she thought it was a place she would never set foot in again once Liandor returned, she still hated that place to the point of horror.
Her plan was to leave for Hexelov as soon as Liandor returned with the medicine to erase her memories. Causing a commotion at the Platini mansion after taking the medicine wasn’t a bad idea, but by then she would have already lost all her memories and wouldn’t be able to feel even a shred of amusement. Besides, she was now entangled with Lucas as well. Since the family’s commotion would be directly linked to Lucas too, there was no need to erase her memories there.
Where she would head afterward was a problem to think about gradually. And Liandor might have plans in mind as well.
Still, she was keeping the promise she had made to the Count. That she would do one thing for the family.
“I wonder if Rosie talked things out well with Lucas.”
Rosie, who had gone to see Lucas, had not returned. Helen thought she must have been busy all day, having become the Countess’s object of praise.
“Even if Lucas had another alternative, there is no better choice than the Platini family.”
Even if Lucas had left without accepting Rosie, he would return again. Without fail, someday.
“Still, with his blunt personality, he shouldn’t have said things that would hurt Rosie.”
Helen gently shook her head. Perhaps the reason Rosie hadn’t come back to see her was because she had been hurt. If Rosie, who had received more than enough family love, had heard harsh words, she would have fallen asleep crying.
“You haven’t changed one bit. My……”
Violet’s older brother.
He had truly loved Violet. He had cherished his half-blood sister with a familial heart more than anyone. He had acted as if he would give her anything in the world she desired. Solely because she was family.
Violet had lived happily within his protection for a short—if brief—time. A life she had never enjoyed until then. The warm love of family she deserved, and even the position of imperial princess.
That was probably why. The reason Helen could never love Lucas in the end.
“You merely saw her image in me. And you felt the desire to glimpse a bit more of her.”
If it was a longing that would someday fade, she only wished it would be forgotten a little faster. Longing for someone one could never see again would only tear open the wounds remaining in the heart wider.
“I will cherish you like that.”
Helen’s eyelids slowly closed. Somehow, sleep poured over her. She knew she shouldn’t fall asleep on a street bench in the middle of a winter night, yet her eyes kept closing.
The heat had completely subsided, and though she kept feeling cold, it seemed her body had frozen over. Even as she thought she had to return to the mansion immediately, her body wouldn’t follow.
“If I sleep here…… I shouldn’t.”
At this rate, she would catch a terrible cold before the effects of the Repollier flower wore off.
She blinked her eyelids repeatedly to keep from falling asleep. But that was only temporary. As all strength completely drained from her body, the eyelids she had struggled so hard to keep open slowly closed.
Before her eyelids completely shut and she fell into sleep, she seemed to see a figure. Someone she had always longed for. Someone she had missed even in her dreams.
More than the worry that he would disappear before her outstretched hand could reach him, what she feared most was that he might not accept the fact that she was the one he had loved. But what was even more frightening was that soon she wouldn’t be able to feel even that.
She probably wouldn’t forget even if she died again. So, for just tonight, she desperately prayed that God would permit that name falling from her lips to reach even your shadow.
“Carlisle……”
Because darkness shrouded even her dreams, she could not see that name touch your shadow.