Once the conversation with Arcrayne and Estelle was over, Sachis, now alone, lay on the bed and heaved a long sigh.
Arcrayne excelled at picking up on people’s feelings. After all, he’d been paying close attention to others since he was very young, careful not to say anything they could find fault with, for he had many enemies in high society. While Sachis pitied his son, he also found this skill of his bothersome.
And to make matters worse, this time he’d had to deal not only with Arcrayne, but also Estelle, whose power let her see people’s emotions.
Wish I could take things slow and get some rest, but I can’t afford to do so yet, thought Sachis. There was somebody waiting for him to get in touch.
Sachis took out a pocket watch from the drawer of his bedside table. This watch doubled as a mana communicator. The king slid the dial and a console appeared, displaying numbers. He placed a call to the mana communicator he’d given Truteliese in secret.
“Is it you, Your Majesty?” came Truteliese’s voice from the watch shortly thereafter.
“Yes. I just talked to Arc and Lady Estelle.”
“How did it go?”
“I think they bought my story about you-know-what.”
“Thank you,” said the queen after a pause, her voice dark. She must’ve recalled her abominable past.
Sachis had lied about Mircea beating Truteliese. The duke had abused her, but apparently even he couldn’t raise a hand against a little girl, so the abuse had been mental—primarily in the form of abusive language.
Apparently he’d particularly blamed his children for how little mana they had and the fact that they hadn’t Awoken to any powers.
That fool, thought the king.
The reason his children had less mana and hadn’t Awoken was a ritual held in the palace’s underground. Then again, this was one of the pieces of information that Rosalian kings inherited through an artifact known as the Crown—one of the four regalia. It wasn’t public knowledge, so it was only natural that Mircea hadn’t known about it.
When a future queen entered the royal family, a ritual was held at the altar in the underground Shrine. The ritual “registered” one as a member of royalty. A woman who’d gone through it was said to have her body remade by the Foundation Monument into one that could bear superior heirs.
Mircea, Sachis, Arcrayne, Liedis—all royals of direct descent were born with similar features, and this was the reason.
When the previous king Ethelbert had inherited the throne, Sachis had already been born, so Mircea had never become crown prince. This was the reason the volume of his children’s mana hadn’t exceeded that of ordinary high-ranking nobles, and they’d never Awoken.
Not only had his blame for his wife and children been misdirected, but the constant verbal abuse the people of his mansion had been subjected to had molded Silvio into an unambitious man who was submissive to his father. Meanwhile, the sharp and strong-willed Truteliese had quickly learned to let her father’s bad language go in one ear and out the other.
As she’d grown up in a house completely devoid of love, she’d always disliked her father, but her dislike had turned into intense hatred after a certain truly appalling event.
Those with thick royal blood flowing through their veins tended to be rather devoted. Once they’d found a member of the opposite sex who was special to them, they tended to only ever love that person.
For Sachis, Miriallia had been the one. While he’d been with Truteliese out of obligation, their married life had brought him suffering.
When Arcrayne and Truteliese had grown close, the distance in the relationship between the king and queen had started to shrink, but the time they’d spent as husband and wife had still remained at a minimum.
This, however, had brought tragedy with it.
Growing irritated at the lack of progress in Sachis and Truteliese’s marriage, Mircea had done something unbelievable.
He must’ve originally planned on getting rid of Arcrayne once Truteliese had given birth.
“You think you can bear a child if you only lie with him once a month? Won’t it solve everything if you bear my child instead?”
Those were the things he’d said before doing the unforgivable.
When the deed had been done, Truteliese had bravely and calmly told Sachis about it and asked him to punish Duke Marwick even if it meant she’d suffer for it too.
But Sachis couldn’t do it, because when a doctor had examined her right after the assault, she’d been found to be pregnant with Liedis.
Had the king made Mircea’s actions public, he could’ve charged the duke with high treason, but Truteliese would’ve inevitably come under harm as well.
Also, the timing of when she’d been found to be pregnant had made it clear Liedis was Sachis’s child, but there would definitely have been cruel people who would slander her, doubting her son’s legitimacy.
And most of all, Truteliese had already been in pieces, and he hadn’t wanted her to be hurt any more.
Thinking back on it now, Sachis saw himself as a failure of a king.
“Did he really kill himself?”
Truteliese’s question coming from the mana communicator brought Sachis back from his recollection to reality.
I wasn’t going to tell her if she never asked... he thought to himself and sighed inwardly.
“He didn’t. I had an experimental drug administered to him—a type of painkiller. The dose was intentionally kept small so that it would take time before he died. I was told that the hour and fifty-two minutes between the injection and his death were excruciating.”
The king heard Truteliese gasp. He’d just confessed to taking the law into his own hands.
Did that put her off...? Sachis wondered. Truteliese’s hatred might have run deep, but the man on the receiving end of it had still been her biological father. The king waited nervously for her to speak.
“That was intensely satisfying,” came the reply. “And he was my father, despite all his faults... I’m such an awful woman.”
“I’m no better, as I gave the order.”
The capital punishment for high treason had once been drawing, hanging until dead, and posthumous beheading and quartering. But as it was simply too brutal, it had been abolished a long time ago.
Nowadays, death penalties in Rosalia were all carried out through hanging, as they were seen as more humane. But some part of Sachis found it too mild a punishment.
“Was it for my sake that you disposed of him before he was questioned...?”
“I didn’t want him to say anything unnecessary.”
Dead men tell no tales.
Mircea had believed Liedis to be his son. Sachis had needed to act quickly, before the duke had blurted out something inconvenient.
Also, the doctor who’d examined Truteliese after the abominable incident had already died from old age, and all of Truteliese’s attendants who’d helped Mircea had been dealt with.
Sachis and Truteliese intended to take the duke’s unforgivable sin to the grave with them.
“How is Liedis?” asked Truteliese.
“He regained consciousness yesterday and said many things. He cried as he insisted he had no right to be a member of royalty.” Remembering it made Sachis’s heart ache. “He also said Mircea had a hand in the dragon attack at the hunting contest.”
“What...?!” Truteliese’s breath was taken away.
“Do you remember the endless rains that hit the north two years ago?”
“Yes.”
“A landslide occurred in one of his domains at the time, revealing previously undiscovered ruins. Apparently they held an artifact that could control animals.”
“Please don’t say he used it to control that dragon.”
“He did. He wanted to create a situation where Liedis could distinguish himself. But the artifact broke in the process.”
“That bastard! How foolish could he be?” Truteliese raised her voice.
Sachis felt the same way.
“As for Liedis, he said he wants to study theology. He must be looking for a way to take responsibility.”
Studying theology meant becoming a Messianist clergyman. While the Rosalian Church—the denomination of Messianism that was the state religion in Rosalia—was more lenient than the other denominations, becoming a clergyman meant adhering to rigorous precepts and spending one’s days in prayer.
“Liedis’s misfortune is the result of his being my son...” uttered Truteliese.
“I’ve told him to take his time and think things through until he graduates from the College.”
“Even there, at the College, people will be harsh with him. Perhaps he will be forced to deal with it his whole life...”
“I promise to protect him to the best of my ability. Arcrayne and Lady Estelle also promised to support him. And Truteliese... Will you do it too?”
“What are you asking from a woman who is due for an execution...?”
“I plan to let you escape in secret.”
“What...?” Truteliese sounded taken aback. “I refuse! Someone like me shouldn’t be allowed to be in this world to begin with!”
“I understand how you feel. But I also want you to understand that if I grant your wish and have you executed, many would be hurt by that decision.”
She went silent.
“Somehow or other, I’ll get Liedis to change his mind while he’s at the College, and eventually give him some of Duke Marwick’s territories,” Sachis told the queen about the same imagined future he’d brought up with Arcrayne and Estelle. “I want you to spend the rest of your days there, living in peace.”
“I don’t believe I have the right to live by Liedis’s side.”
Truteliese felt a mix of love and hate for her child. She’d wanted to end her life after being raped, and it had been thanks to Liedis that she’d gone on living. However, she felt that he’d been stained while he was in her womb, so she hadn’t been able to love him properly, and the matter had bothered her all along.
Also, he’d been surrounded by servants loyal to Duke Marwick since the day of his birth. This had made it extra difficult for Truteliese to love her son.
“I believe your worries show that you are very much his mother. And if there’s anything else you want, I’ll do everything in my power to make it happen. Though I’m aware that it’s cruel to ask this of someone who always wanted to die.”
Truteliese went silent again. Sachis would speak no more until she gave some kind of reply.
“Give me a little time...” she finally said quietly, as if struggling to get the voice out.