To Watch You Suffer
“Do you know why I want to marry you?”
Barcas gazed at her in silence. She pressed the words into that expressionless face as if packing them down hard.
“To watch you become unhappy. That’s why I want to marry you.”
“…….”
“I want you to hurt. A great deal.”
His eyes sank deep.
She held her breath and waited for his answer. She hoped that impassive face would crack, that he would fly into a rage, shudder with revulsion, and shove her away.
Just say it won’t work.
Tell me a woman like me could never be your wife.
Even if her own heart crumbled past all recognition, at least they might still salvage what remained of each other’s lives.
But as always, he betrayed her expectations.
As though he had heard something of no particular consequence, Barcas let out a short sigh, peeled her hand from his clothes, and straightened.
“The wedding will be held at the earliest possible date.”
Then he walked to the window and opened it.
The wind that brushed past him spilled across her face.
Thalia quietly took in the sight of him steeped in the light of the setting sun. His deep voice drifted to her as if from a great distance.
“That would be better — for both of us.”
What did he mean by that?
That troublesome business was better finished quickly?
Thalia watched his eyes as if searching for an answer, then felt a deep weariness settle over her and lowered her lids.
It no longer mattered. She would not strain herself any further trying to dig into his true feelings.
If he had accepted her out of a sense of duty, she had chosen the place at his side to return every wound she had received. So she would not do anything so foolish as to expect something from him.
She repeated the vow she had made a thousand times before.
That tonight would be the last — that she would put a period to this cursed love.
And yet she knew.
That the love she killed today would come looking for her again tomorrow…
Before long, the entire imperial palace was in an uproar over the Second Princess’s impending wedding.
Under the Empress’s direct command, the maids of the main palace began dressing the ceremony hall in lavish splendor, while the servants hurried endlessly between the food stores and the kitchens, preparing the wine and dishes that would be set before the guests.
And yet, for all that bustle, a heavy, unsettled air hung over the palace.
As Edric was leaving the quartermaster’s depot, he spotted a knot of apprentices huddled in a corner of the training grounds, whispering among themselves, and his brows drew together. An utterly distasteful conversation had just wormed its way into his ears.
“So in the end, mother and daughter both had their men stolen from them, generation after generation.”
He studied the boy who was snickering so flippantly. The son of Viscount Kenden — a troublemaker who had already formed a faction among the apprentice knights.
The boy set his practice weapon on the rack and went on.
“I hear the Second Princess is the spitting image of Her Majesty the Empress. With a face like that, it’s no wonder Sir Sierkan fell for her.”
“You think the Commander would?”
A larger boy shook his head firmly.
“It never would have happened if His Majesty hadn’t ordered it. The First Princess is the one I feel sorry for.”
“Oh, come on, you innocent fool. Do you really think a house like the Sierkans would just swap out a fiancée on a single word from His Majesty?”
The boy clicked his tongue.
“He accepted it because he wanted to! And wasn’t Sir Sierkan the Second Princess’s personal guard knight? For all we know, the two of them had their eyes on each other long before this. People who were on the pilgrimage say the two of them were acting a little strange…”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. Do you have any idea how hard the Second Princess rode the Commander when he was her guard? Pretty face or not — I watched that temper of hers up close. As if those two could ever have fallen for each other.”
An apprentice who had been sorting arrows for target practice snorted loudly.
“And on top of everything, the Second Princess was crippled in that accident. Who in their right mind would leave someone like the First Princess and marry a woman like that? She must have pulled some underhanded scheme behind the scenes—”
“Seems training these days is done with the mouth.”
Edric stepped in before he could listen any further. The apprentice knights startled and snapped to attention.
He raked them with a cold look.
“Are you aware that the conversation you just had could be construed as lese-majesty against the imperial family?”
The boys’ faces went pale at once.
Edric studied each of those faces carefully, then added in a stern voice,
“The Roem Knights were formed to protect the imperial house. If you intend to become members of that order, you would do well to remember at least this much: you do not speak carelessly of the imperial family in a public place.”
“W-we’re sorry, Sir Lubon.”
The boys bowed, faces rigid.
Edric looked down at them in silence for a while, then slowly turned and started toward the knights’ quarters.
At that moment, a heavy arm dropped onto his shoulder.
Edric turned his head and found himself staring at his senior knight, Sir Theodoric Hart, eyes wide.
The man grinned.
“Very sharp discipline.”
“What brings you to the training grounds at this hour, sir?”
Edric looked up at the clock tower with a puzzled expression.
It was not yet noon. This was the busiest time of day for the senior knights, all of them occupied with duties at the main palace.
At that questioning look, Sir Hart gave a short laugh and ruffled Edric’s hair with one large hand.
“I came running the moment I had good news to deliver. Your confinement has finally been lifted. Starting tomorrow, you’ll be back with my unit.”
Edric hesitated, looking up at him. It was welcome news, without question — and yet a complicated feeling washed over him all at once.
He asked, almost reluctantly,
“Then who will be assigned to Her Highness the Second Princess’s guard?”
His superior’s eyes narrowed slightly.
He took his arm from Edric’s shoulder and let out a heavy sigh.
“The Roem Knights have been removed from the Second Princess’s guard entirely. Her Majesty the Empress raised the question of whether we had deliberately neglected Her Highness’s protection. She even went so far as to declare that the Second Prince’s guard would no longer be entrusted to the Roem Knights either.”
Edric’s face hardened. It was a measure that amounted to grinding the honor of the Roem Knights into the dirt.
Since the founding of the empire, the Roem Knights had served at the side of the imperial family, protecting them. That very identity had just been denied.
Edric hung his head.
“I’m sorry. Because I failed in my duty, the order has been subjected to this humiliation…”
“It wasn’t your fault. No one could have predicted what happened. So stop blaming yourself.”
Theodoric clapped him on the shoulder in consolation.
When Edric’s face still refused to ease, Theodoric rubbed the back of his neck as if wrestling with something, then abruptly led his subordinate out of the training grounds. Edric followed him, bewildered.
They walked in silence for a while. Only when they reached a deserted clearing did Theodoric speak.
“I know you’re a responsible man. But this truly wasn’t your fault, so don’t waste your heart on it.”
Edric’s brows drew together.
“I was her personal guard knight. If you look at it properly, the primary responsibility for the failure of her protection rests with me. How am I supposed to—”
“The attack that day was the result of the Empress’s scheme.”
Edric stopped dead and stared at his superior’s face with dazed eyes.
Looking down at the ground with a dark expression, Theodoric continued in a calm voice.
“Doesn’t it strike you as strange? That a pack of wyverns would attack an army at a time like that… Large magical beasts like wyverns don’t attack armed forces unless their nesting grounds are being encroached upon. And our camp was a long way from their territory.”
“Well — I thought it was strange too, but… that alone isn’t enough to conclude the Empress arranged it…”
“Before the attack, there were reports of suspicious movements among the Second Princess’s attendants.”
His tone hardened.
“On top of that, traces of high-level magic were found near the site of the accident. Someone deliberately stirred up the wyvern nesting grounds.”
Edric’s mouth fell open.
As the meaning of his superior’s words became clear, a cold sweat broke out along his spine.
“But the Second Princess was on that pilgrimage as well. How could anyone do such a thing when her own daughter might have been harmed…”
“And that made it all the easier to deflect suspicion.”
Edric had nothing left to say. He stared at him with a bloodless face.
Theodoric went on in a grim voice.
“The Empress is a terrifyingly thorough woman. We conducted a discreet investigation from the moment the accident occurred, but beyond a few circumstantial clues, she left not a single piece of decisive evidence. And the greatest victim of this entire affair is the Empress’s own daughter. Under circumstances like these, who would dare raise a question?”
Edric slowly lowered his gaze.
The image of the princess weeping, buried under a pile of rock, rose in his mind.
So did the way she had writhed in agony through every moment of the emergency treatment.
That woman had been reduced to that state by her own mother.
His stomach turned.