‘Does Her Majesty the Empress know about Wyverns?’
Joseph learned about his brother’s royal marriage from Commander Macrome, Secretary Raphael, and Chief Steward Stian, who visited to check on his condition.
They took turns telling him about the Empress.
However, none of them mentioned that the Empress from the Shattonil Kingdom was connected to Wyverns.
Joseph longed to meet the Empress more than anything, but he was unable to.
Three years had passed since the ice had completely encased him.
Initially, the ice surrounding Joseph’s body wasn’t as extensive as it was now.
But, as the sorcerer’s prophecy had foretold, the volume of the ice gradually increased over time.
Because of this, as soon as Joseph was cursed in the Valley of Death, Rinell’s aides immediately moved him to this secret location within the Rafion Imperial Palace library.
Fortunately, they succeeded in erecting a barrier in this secret place to prevent the ice from growing further, but there was no way to eliminate or reduce it.
The only people who knew about Joseph’s condition were his brother Rinell, Commander Macrome, Secretary Raphael, Chief Steward Stian, and a few trusted knights.
After the Valley of Death incident, Rinell couldn’t meet his younger brother Joseph.
If Rinell, who had received the same curse, got too close, the ice surrounding Joseph would become harder and larger.
This was a cruel aspect of the curse from the sorcerer of the Southern Continent, designed to inflict pain on the two brothers.
Instead, his three closest aides often came to see Joseph, but even they couldn’t withstand the intense cold emanating from the cursed ice for long.
When they entered, they wrapped themselves in thick coats and briefly spoke with Joseph, who could only blink his eyes, before retreating.
When Joseph heard about Rinell’s royal marriage, he wanted to ask what the Empress looked like.
But the three men didn’t describe her appearance.
They often told him that the two were very affectionate, and as the days went by, the emphasis on that aspect increased.
Had his brother really opened his heart to the Empress?
Joseph recalled a conversation Rinell had with him, where he had sat him down for a serious talk.
“Joseph, listen carefully.
Never give your heart to others carelessly.
And always be wary of betrayal.”
“Then, can I trust the wife I marry later?”
“There are no exceptions.
That is the fate of the imperial family.
We must always maintain composure.”
He had said that so clearly… But the news his three closest aides were conveying about Rinell was unexpected.
“These days, His Majesty always seems to be in the Empress’s Palace.”
“If Her Majesty the Empress said a crow was a Wyvern, he would believe it!”
“It may be hard to believe, but lately, His Majesty’s mood seems to depend on the Empress’s every word.
Moreover, he has started laughing alone for no reason.”
. . .
Joseph’s curiosity about the Empress, who had so profoundly changed his cold-hearted brother, grew day by day.
Then, suddenly, a baby Wyvern appeared and mentioned the Empress, using the title ‘Master.’
‘How can His Majesty’s wife, the Empress of the Rafion Empire, be a Wyvern’s master?’
He had heard that the war stopped on the day he was cursed in the Valley of Death.
No continent had yet claimed the habitat of the Wyverns.
So, it seemed impossible for the Empress to have a Wyvern egg.
Joseph was frustrated because he couldn’t directly ask the baby Wyvern, who introduced himself as ‘Moya,’ as his mouth wouldn’t move.
Anyway, Moya had confidently declared that he would break the cursed ice, so he had been expecting it, but it seemed to be just boasting.
Perhaps because he was still a baby, the firepower he was currently emitting was far from enough to break the ice.
Moreover, this wasn’t ordinary ice but ice cursed by a sorcerer, so it wouldn’t melt so easily.
Before, Commander Macrome and Secretary Raphael had made numerous attempts to break the cursed ice, but all had failed.
Perhaps because of this history, Joseph wasn’t greatly disappointed.
Still, because it was a Wyvern speaking, he had unknowingly harbored some expectations.
“I’ll really come often and melt it for you.
Since you’re stuck there, just bear with it a little longer!”
Moya shouted even louder, feeling unnecessarily sorry for Joseph.
“Miyaaong? (But can I come here often?
It seems a bit dangerous?)”
“You’re such a cowardly furball!
If it’s dangerous, I’m more in danger, not you!
Even if you get caught, people will just pet you!”
“Miyaong. (I guess so.)”
“Cold kid, I’ll leave for today.
My throat hurts too much from overdoing it.”
Moya cleared his throat and said to Joseph.
“Oh, right, you can’t tell anyone that we came here… especially about seeing this great Wyvern!
Got it?
Blink if you understand.”
At Moya’s command, Joseph obediently blinked once.
“Miyaong. (He’s saying all sorts of things to someone who can’t even move his mouth.)”
Aoshi looked up at Joseph with pitiful eyes and gently stepped on Moya’s foot.
I hugged him tightly again before telling him the whole truth.
“Zelda, that’s too intense.”
He complained that his ribs felt like they were crossed in an X-shape, but he didn’t shake off my arms.
So I hugged him even tighter, and there was a sound of something actually breaking.
“……Was that me, or you?”
There was the sound of a bone breaking somewhere, but the source couldn’t be pinpointed.
We stared blankly at each other before quickly checking our own bodies.
“I’m fine?”
“Me too.”
He whispered that he was relieved and chuckled.
We hugged each other again, but this time with no strength in our arms.
There was no more time to delay.
I took a step back from him and slowly opened my mouth.
“Prince Tesler is trying to use Bonis to threaten me.”
“Threaten?
What kind of threat?”
“He wants me to prepare to step down from the Empress’s position.”
“……What?”
His neat eyebrows twitched several times.
“I’m… a fake.”
My voice felt like it was stabbing me.
The peaceful expression on his face was gradually cracking, and his expression was breaking.
Betrayal seemed to be changing him.
And my heart felt like it was bouncing in all directions at the words he uttered quietly.
“Are you saying… you are a substitute Empress?”
Rinell’s voice was lower than usual.
It was as if when people experience something too shocking, they become indifferent; he was exactly like that.
He stared at me intently with a complex look that couldn’t be expressed in words.
“Yes, I am the person who was sent.”
How much I had worried and how much fear I had lived with until I brought up these words… Every time he looked at me with loving eyes, every time he shared love with me and called my name with a joyful voice, these were the words that hung dangling from the tip of my tongue before I swallowed them again.
“I’m not the Empress…”
I felt a pain as if something was being torn out of my chest raw.
Each word had a heavy weight attached to it, and I felt like I was falling into the abyss every time I spoke.
I dropped my head.
I held my breath and stared silently at his shiny shoe tips.
What was he thinking right now?
He must be wearing an expression filled with betrayal.
I had expected some silence.
Perhaps I would never hear Rinell’s kind voice again.
Rinell’s silence lasted longer than I had expected.
I wanted to lift my head and look into his blue eyes, but I held back.
But I couldn’t hold back the tears of apology that were falling onto the marble floor.
“It feels different actually hearing it in person.”
I raised my head without realizing it at his quiet, mumbling tone.
“Yes?”
“I had a hunch.
Wasn’t this what the rabbit was trying to say before?”
“……That’s right.”
“So, the core issue is that your existence is a lie?
Or is it that you have been lying to me?”
He asked after a long silence.
I could feel bitterness in his voice.
My heart ached again.
“My existence is a lie, but I have never acted against Your Majesty.”
“Really never?”
I foolishly confessed to Rinell’s questioning.
“……Come to think of it, just once.”
“When?”
“On the first night… when the priests came in.”
“Ah, that time.”
Rinell closed his mouth again with a short sigh.
It seemed like an intentional silence for some reason.
Or maybe he was thinking of what to ask me.
“Was it really not acting after that?
No, there’s no need to go far.
What was that we shared last night… what was it?”
It felt like he was asking on purpose, knowing everything and feeling my heart.
“Hey, substitute Empress.
You answer the Emperor immediately.”
Rinell urged me, casually mentioning ‘substitute Empress.’
“It was… love.
You know that.”
I replied to him with sincerity in my voice, even though I was just a substitute Empress.
“Yeah, it would be strange if it wasn’t love.
It wouldn’t make sense.”
He sighed and muttered.
“I… couldn’t help it either.”
“What, last night’s sleep?”
“Ah, no!
I mean… coming here.”
“Listen, substitute Empress.
Do you know that more than 90 percent of the people who do wrong to me, the Emperor, and ask for forgiveness start with those words?
They say they couldn’t help it, that they were wronged.”
“You may not believe it, but I really am.”
My voice came out a little grumpy, feeling somehow wronged.
“That excuse always comes as a side dish.”
I was momentarily speechless, but I carefully retorted again.
“It’s true.
I was checking the quantity in the bath supplies storage room until the morning I left for the Rafion Imperial Palace!”
I stopped speaking, thinking that I had raised my voice too much, considering I was the one who had deceived him.
He swirled one hand around.
“Keep going.”
“It was Prince Tesler’s coercion, and there was no choice.
Even if I had refused, I would have been forcibly dragged here in the end.”
I couldn’t bring myself to talk about the magic potion.
I really didn’t want him to find out about the burn scar on the right side of my face.
“Hmm, if you are a substitute Empress, that means there was an originally designated Empress position, do you know who that was?”
“Yes……”
“Who is it?
Who was originally meant to be my wife?”
Hearing Rinell refer to another woman as ‘my wife’ from his mouth, I felt like the blood vessels in my forehead would burst.
“It was Princess Resilia.”
I answered sullenly.
“I thought so……”
He nodded as if he had expected it.
“Let’s say you had no choice but to marry me because of the Prince’s threat.”
Excuse me, Your Majesty?
I’m… a substitute Empress, you know?
He was treating this as something less significant than when the lunch menu was wrong.
“It must be one of two things.”
He paused and asked with a serious look.
“Either you are still acting perfectly, or you completely ruined the mission of the substitute Empress from the beginning.
Which one is it?”
“You already know.”
I mustered the courage to look him straight in the eye.
“Honestly, yes.
But as someone who has been deceived all this time, I need to hear it directly from the person involved to feel comforted, wouldn’t you say?”
He deliberately frowned and shook my shoulders slightly with both hands.
“It was completely ruined from the start.
The substitute Empress mission…”
I wiped away tears with the back of my hand and replied.
“If I wasn’t this handsome, would you have completed the mission?
Tell me.”
“Maybe I would have…”
“Ha, a substitute Empress who cares too much about looks?”
“Your Majesty doesn’t care enough.”
“What are you talking about?
I’m very picky.”
Rinell retorted as if he was sulking.
We both sighed at the same time and looked into each other’s eyes.
I felt guilty and looked away again, apologizing once more, and he shrugged and said this.
“We weren’t in a pure love either, well.”
The conclusion he came to about the fact that I was a ‘substitute Empress’ was absurdly simple.
But the more he did that, the heavier my heart became.
“Are you… not angry?”
I asked cautiously, watching his expression, and he said firmly.
“I know.
I’m also embarrassed that I’m not angry.”
“Rinell……”
“I can only imagine how you felt.
In the library, I mean.
That was what you were trying to say with such a dying face, but I don’t care then or now.”
He added that he felt even more sorry for himself.
The speed at which he forgave this huge lie was faster than an arrow, and I became even more helpless.
“I’m really sorry……”
“That time when you were trying to tell me the truth.
I remember your eyes, your expression, everything.”
He grabbed my face with both hands and made me look into his eyes again.
Then he closed his eyes and kissed me softly.
It was a kiss filled with many meanings.
There was comfort, there was trust, and… there was love.
“That’s enough.
You were going to tell me the truth.
It was me who said I would listen later.”
“But I……”
He stopped me and shook his head slowly.
“You didn’t do anything wrong.
The one who did wrong was that bastard out there.”
Rinell said, staring sharply at the lounge door.
“To dare to play tricks on the Emperor of Rafion.
And even threaten my wife.”
The look in his eyes was so cold that I felt a chill.
I suddenly became concerned and cautiously opened my mouth.
“If this fact becomes known to the ministers……”
“It will be a problem.
Not only the ministers but also the priests will rise up.”
Rinell’s expression was darker than when I revealed that I was a ‘substitute Empress.’
“They will demand to replace the Empress.”