When the order came to execute Evangeline Rohanson immediately, Gabriel risked his own life to secure a reprieve. If no true criminal could be found to replace her, Gabriel would share her fate on the day of execution.
Not a single day had passed before Bishop Marik requested an audience with the Emperor.
"First the captain of the Knightly Order of Fararos, now a bishop." The Emperor's voice was hollow, scraping against the silence of the throne room. "My son was so quiet in life, yet in death, he raises such a fuss. Bishop Marik—why have you come?"
The Emperor's face, worn ragged by funeral preparations, betrayed an exhaustion that no amount of rest could cure. With the Crown Prince's death, he had no surviving children. No matter how many funerals one arranges, one never grows accustomed to burying one's own blood. The Crown Prince's funeral had been temporarily postponed—the murderer would be buried alongside him, a sacrifice to appease the grievances of the dead.
"It has been so long since we last met, Your Majesty, and yet you leap straight to business without even inquiring after my health." Bishop Marik's voice carried a theatrical wound. "I confess myself offended."
"Bishop Marik." The Emperor's words were ice. "Are we truly close enough for such pleasantries?"
Despite the venom in his tone, the bishop showed no fear. If anything, her posture straightened with defiance.
"Have Your Majesty and I not overcome great difficulties together?"
The _difficulties_ she spoke of were events from more than twenty years past—what society still whispered about as the Massacre of Heretics. Bishop Marik had once been the Emperor's most valuable ally. In those early days, when he had just seized the throne by murdering his own brothers, he had desperately needed her help to legitimize his reign.
The finance minister—who had dared to call the Emperor a cruel tyrant for exterminating his own kin—was accused of secretly funneling state funds to the magi. His entire family was erased. Many other nobles who opposed the Emperor met similar fates, condemned as malicious dissenters and purged without mercy.
Without question, Bishop Marik had played an instrumental role in cementing the Emperor's power.
"Yes, there was a time," the Emperor conceded, his voice dropping to a dangerous register. "But it ended when you tried to use my son—the one rejected by God—as leverage against me."
If word had spread that holy water could not heal the Emperor's child, the blow to his authority would have been catastrophic. Upon learning that the youngest prince had been secretly rescued, the Emperor had dispatched pursuers—but the child was never found.
He had realized too late that Bishop Marik had not killed the boy. She had _taken_ him.
By then, the trail had gone cold.
Still, those who could not receive the blessing of holy water rarely survived past the age of ten. The youngest prince was almost certainly long dead.
This was how the Emperor consoled himself.
"I have little time to waste on you," he said flatly. "Speak your purpose."
Bishop Marik abandoned pretense and cut to the heart of the matter.
"There is another individual I suspect of murdering His Highness the Crown Prince."
The Emperor's eyes narrowed. "You are saying it was not Evangeline Rohanson?"
"Lady Rohanson remains _extremely_ suspicious, of course."
A holy knight had sworn to share Evangeline's fate. Now Bishop Marik had intervened personally. The Emperor was beginning to accept that a true culprit might actually exist.
"Your Majesty may have received reports of the magic circle inscribed on the floor of the audience hall," the bishop continued. "As you know, it was a demon summoning circle. When I entered that chamber, I sensed the presence of two creatures whose very existence repulsed me."
One of them was undoubtedly Evangeline Rohanson.
The other was the person Marik now named as the criminal.
Unable to bear the pause, the Emperor demanded, "Who do you suspect?"
"Her Highness Tenebrae."
The name struck the air like a thunderclap.
Bishop Marik had pointed her finger at the Emperor's own granddaughter.
The Emperor's hands clenched around the armrests of his throne, knuckles whitening. His eyes, bloodshot and burning, fixed on the bishop with murderous intensity.
"Your Majesty," she continued, her voice carrying a hint of dark amusement beneath the veil, "why does such ominous energy emanate from Her Highness Tenebrae?"
If the cloth covering her face were removed, he was certain a wide smile would be visible across those scarred features.
"Bishop Marik." Each word fell like the stroke of an executioner's blade. "If you were not the temple's bishop—if not for your past service to this empire—I would have ordered your head severed and mounted on the gates."
"Thank you, Your Majesty, for your boundless generosity."
To speak such horrific accusations and then behave so shamelessly—it was _unbearable_.
"I had forgotten how eagerly you exploit my weaknesses," the Emperor snarled. "My son was not enough for you. Now you seek to brand my granddaughter a heretic?"
"I merely speak the truth, Your Majesty."
The Emperor regarded her with imperial contempt.
"Is that all you came to say? The knights of the imperial palace will find the criminal. Do not interfere. Leave."
He would not dance to Bishop Marik's tune. Not again.
Ordered to depart, she rose obediently from her seat. But as she turned toward the doors, she paused—as if remembering something—and glanced back over her shoulder.
"By the way, on the day of His Highness's death, I encountered Captain Gabriel after a long absence."
"What a remarkable coincidence," the Emperor replied coldly. "I also recently met Captain Gabriel."
He had just seen the knight when Gabriel had begged for a stay of Evangeline's execution.
"It occurred to me..." Bishop Marik's voice was silk wrapped around a blade. "Captain Gabriel bears a _remarkable_ resemblance to His Highness the Crown Prince."
At the word _resemblance_, the Emperor's mind conjured Gabriel's image unbidden. Black hair. Blue eyes. Yes, he bore some similarity to the Crown Prince in appearance—but were there not many in the Empire with such coloring?
"If the youngest prince had survived and grown," Bishop Marik mused, "he would have become as outstanding a man as Captain Gabriel."
"Bishop Marik." The Emperor's voice was dangerously quiet. "What are you implying?"
"Since Your Majesty has ordered me to leave, I shall take my leave."
She ignored his question entirely and swept from the audience chamber.
Alone, the Emperor stared at the closed doors, utterly motionless.
_It cannot be..._
Bishop Marik was claiming that the youngest prince _was_ Gabriel. That Gabriel was his son.
_Impossible._ The initiation ceremony for holy knights included a blessing with holy water. The Emperor himself had been present when Gabriel was appointed captain of the order. In full view of the court, Gabriel had bled from the sacred sword and received healing.
Unless... it had all been a pretense. A performance designed to deceive him.
And yet—there was no better place than the temple to hide the youngest prince from imperial eyes and raise him in secret.
_Gabriel is my son..._
The Emperor tried to summon the memory of his newborn youngest child, the one he had never even named, but the image remained frustratingly hazy. Still, in the grown Gabriel, if one looked closely enough, one could discern echoes of the Crown Prince's features.
If he truly was a prince...
Lost in thought, the Emperor's gaze sharpened to a deadly point.
He immediately summoned his most trusted knight. He needed to verify Gabriel's true identity. Bishop Marik could easily find someone immune to holy water and pass him off as the lost prince. Fortunately, there existed a method of confirmation.
An incomplete dragon mark remained on the bodies of all imperial family members, manifesting as a distinctive scar.
"Go and determine whether such a mark exists on Captain Gabriel's body."
"A scar, Your Majesty?"
"Yes. As head of the order, he is undoubtedly covered in scars—but I am not interested in marks acquired through years of service. I seek a _specific_ one. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Your Majesty."
The knight bowed and departed.
Soon, the Emperor received the answer he had dreaded.
"Your Majesty. There is indeed a circular mark on Captain Gabriel's chest."
It had not been possible to undress and examine him directly, but questioning had proven sufficient.
"Rumors have begun spreading among the maids," the knight continued.
The temple had long maintained strict standards of modesty—no one exposed their bodies unnecessarily—so Gabriel rarely changed clothes in public. But on the day of the Crown Prince's death, after wine had been spilled on him, he had changed garments. The maid who assisted him had seen the mark.
Shocked, she had told several of her friends.
"Did you speak with the one who witnessed it directly?"
"Yes, Your Majesty. She is mute, so I had her draw what she saw."
The knight unfolded a sheet of paper before the throne. The Emperor pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to quell the throbbing pain building behind his eyes. The drawing was crude, but it unmistakably depicted the dragon pattern—the mark reserved exclusively for members of the imperial family.
Without seeing it in person, it would be impossible to reproduce such a form.
This meant Gabriel was the Emperor's long-lost son.
_Why now... and only after Laudes's death..._
The reason Bishop Marik had chosen this moment to reveal Gabriel's identity was painfully obvious. If word spread that Gabriel was the youngest prince, he would become first in line to the throne—ahead of Oratorio.
Using Gabriel, Marik would attempt to establish a regency.
But the Emperor wanted otherwise.
If the world learned that a child abandoned by the gods had been born into the imperial family—a dynasty that prided itself on divine impeccability—the throne's authority would crumble. After him, the crown _must_ pass to Oratorio's grandson, who bore such a striking resemblance to his grandfather.
Fortunately, Bishop Marik's target was not Oratorio.
It was Tenebrae.
The choice crystallized with terrible clarity: if the Emperor defended Tenebrae, Marik would reveal Gabriel's existence to the world. One was the child he had once tried to destroy. The other was the granddaughter whose life he had saved despite every ominous sign.
The Emperor weighed both sides.
Should he announce to the world that Gabriel—who had refused the blessing of holy water—was a prince, and expose all the secrets that came with that revelation?
Or should he portray his granddaughter, who had murdered her own father, as a merciless monster?
Both options cut into him personally. The decision was agonizing.
Hoping to buy time, the Emperor wrote a letter and ordered his knight to deliver it.
> "The treasures of the count's family are locked in the underground vault. Do you truly wish to add the old man's necklace to them?"
Bishop Marik's response arrived swiftly.
> "The God of Rachel will not desire two precious stones."
The Emperor drew a long breath and clutched his head in his hands.
As he had initially feared, Bishop Marik was using Gabriel as leverage, blackmailing him into compliance. It was precisely this fear—of being manipulated like a puppet—that had driven him to attempt killing the prince immediately after birth.
Now the Emperor's choice was clear.
He mourned for his granddaughter. Truly, he did.
But first and foremost, he needed to appease Bishop Marik.
---
## — Three Days in Darkness —
---
I have been in prison for three days now.
Jelly, taking advantage of the guards' relaxed vigilance, brought me word that Hena had returned safely to the mansion. According to him, she and Kanna had shared a touching reunion—embracing and bursting into tears together. But because I had not yet returned, Kanna continued to weep.
All outsiders, including Misa, had been escorted from the house. The Rohanson gates were now locked tight. They had tried to send Dolline away as well, but she declared that she would stay and share whatever fate befell the household. Daisy's younger sisters—the ones she had purchased from the aristocrats—appeared to be remaining in the mansion too.
As for the Count...
They say he is ready to disown me at any moment.
Because of the dagger _he_ gave me, I now find myself rotting in this cell. The feeling of betrayal is unbearable. While I seethed with fury, Jelly made me a promise: the moment the Count officially renounced me, he would seize the old man and hand him over to the guards as an accomplice.
_That_, at least, brought me some grim satisfaction.
By all logic, I should either be found guilty or released by now—but I remain trapped in limbo, still merely a _suspect_.
_Ha..._
I am so tired.