Meanwhile, around that same time...
“Carla? It’s not often you contact me first. Did something happen?”
“Liscia! Thank goodness! I finally got through to you!”
After calling out to the mini-mini jewel over and over, Carla had at last managed to reach Liscia. The small projection that appeared before her wasn’t wearing Liscia’s usual red uniform; instead, she was dressed in a simple jacket and knee-length pants—an outfit that made her look a bit like a scout...or maybe a certain Super Hi**shi-kun.
Much like her mother, who was still captivatingly beautiful even with age, Liscia, though in her mid-thirties, looked barely older than twenty. Perhaps somewhere far back in the royal bloodline there had been someone of a long-lived race, but in this world of many races, it wasn’t all that unusual for some people to age slowly.
Liscia tilted her head, looking at Carla’s flustered face with mild curiosity. “What’s wrong? You look completely panicked.”
“Where do I even start...? Your son, His Majesty Cian, just proposed to me!”
“Oh, he finally did it, huh? I thought he’d get around to that not long after taking the throne.”
In contrast to Carla’s frantic tone, Liscia’s reaction was calm, almost indifferent.
Carla’s eyes went wide. “Wh-What kind of reaction is that?! Your son just proposed to your friend, you know?!”
“It’s hardly unusual in a country as diverse as ours,” Liscia said, matter-of-factly. “When people of different races age and mature at different rates, these kinds of relationships happen all the time. So long as you’re not blood relatives, it wouldn’t even be strange if one of my great-grandchildren married your mother.”
“I’d really rather not picture that!”
“Besides, hasn’t Cian always had a soft spot for you? I still remember how he started calling you by name before he even learned mine.”
“You’ve been holding a grudge over that for more than a decade?!”
When they’d been babies, Cian and his twin sister Kazuha had called Liscia “Maa” for “Mama,” but they’d started calling the dragonewt maid “Cala” before that. Liscia laughed lightly at the memory.
“Even back then, he was always saying, ‘When I grow up, I’m gonna marry Carla.’”
“He was, yes... But you can’t take something like that seriously. That’s just childish talk.”
“Oh, I always thought he meant it. He is my son, after all.”
“Ah...!”
And in that moment, Carla understood.
Back in her school days, Liscia had been so striking in both lineage and beauty that she had been often confessed to, yet she had rejected every suitor with such cold precision that people had called her the “Golden Ice Palace.” But once she met Souma and saw the potential in him, she had loved him wholeheartedly, through every hardship. Even after Souma took other queens, Liscia had remained steadfast, holding them all together as his first primary queen.
Given how deeply her mother Elisha had loved King Albert, it seemed that when someone from the Elfrieden royal house fell in love, they did so with complete devotion. If Carla had truly understood that, she would never have dismissed Cian’s childhood words as mere nonsense.
Liscia smiled wryly and crossed her arms. “Still, I think it’s a good thing that boy got so attached to you.”
“Huh? What are you talking about?”
“You know how our family is... When one of us decides to do something, the rest will bend over backwards to support it. But none of the children ever wanted to inherit the throne. In the end, things went more or less as planned, and Cian, who showed the most aptitude for it, became king. But he wasn’t exactly thrilled about it.”
“Well, yeah...”
Carla could understand why Cian wouldn’t have been eager. After all, he was succeeding none other than Emperor Souma of the Gran Friedonia Empire—a title Souma himself never used, one spoken with equal parts reverence and mockery.
Souma often said he lacked the charisma of a Maria or a Fuuga, but his accomplishments far outshone those of most rulers in history. He had rebuilt the decaying Elfrieden Kingdom, annexed its old enemy Amidonia to form the Kingdom of Friedonia, resolved the Demon Lord conflict, crushed the ambitions of Fuuga’s bid for world conquest, reorganized the continent’s balance of power, and even opened a path to the new world in the north.
Of course, he hadn’t achieved all of that alone, nor had Friedonia done so without allies. Still, it had all happened during his reign. To later generations who idolized Fuuga, Souma would be painted as a villain who had stood in the way of a “great man.” But to those who lived in his time, he was nothing short of a brilliant ruler.
Cian was now expected to live up to that legacy, even while Souma, still in his mid-thirties, was nowhere near the age when rulers usually considered stepping down. If Souma had reigned until his fifties or sixties and continued to guide the nation behind the scenes, no one would have objected. But he refused to cling to power that long. Even so, Cian must have wished his father had stayed king just a little longer.
“Souma told him this,” Liscia said with a sigh. “‘If you’re going to marry Carla, you’d better be king when you do.’”
“...Come again?”
“‘She might have been freed from her sentence, but marrying someone who once rebelled against the crown won’t be easy. People will talk. There’ll be criticism. You can’t just leave the royal family to escape it, and if you hold a position lower than your detractors, you won’t be able to protect her. So instead, become king and use your power to silence them.’ That’s what Souma told Cian to convince him. It was what finally got Cian in the right frame of mind for the throne.”
“Former Master, don’t go cajoling your son like that!”
“Souma has held his own in talks with rulers from every nation on the continent,” Liscia said dryly. “Of course Cian doesn’t have the experience to avoid getting talked into something by him.”
Souma was a master of the double-edged phrase—statements that weren’t lies but led people precisely where he wanted them. He’d outmaneuvered countless rulers that way. There was no chance Cian could’ve won an argument against him.
Liscia smiled warmly at Carla. “There’s no need to overthink this, is there? It’s not like you dislike Cian, right, Carla?”
“You think I could say I did in front of his mother, the former queen?!”
“Be honest. I promise I won’t blame you even if you did.”
“W-Well... I don’t dislike him. I’ve been watching over him since he was born.”
“Of course you don’t. You wouldn’t have run off if you did.”
Liscia knew Carla’s personality well. If she had truly disliked Cian, she would’ve said so to his face, ending things right then and there. Cian would have been heartbroken, yes, but it would’ve been over. If he’d tried to press the matter, Liscia and the others would have quickly stepped in.
But Carla hadn’t rejected him; she had run away.
There were so many reasons she could have given to turn him down. She could have said he felt more like a nephew or a younger brother, or that becoming queen was too heavy a burden, or that she preferred to remain single. But she hadn’t chosen any of those excuses. She had fled instead, unable to decide. That meant she cared for him enough that she couldn’t bring herself to end things so easily.
“You don’t know whether you love him as family or as a man,” Liscia said gently. “And you ran because you didn’t know what to do... Is that about right?”
“How could you tell?”
“We’re best friends. And you helped raise my children.”
“That’s...pretty convincing.”
“You do want to get married someday, don’t you? Even if Cian wishes to spend his whole life with you, as someone of a long-lived race, you’ll meet many more people over time. Why not marry him and see what it’s like?”
“Becoming queen just to ‘see what it’s like’ is ridiculous... And it would be rude to His Majesty to accept with such frivolity.”
“See? You’re thinking about Cian first and foremost.”
Liscia chuckled softly, and Carla, realizing her slip, turned away.
With a gentle smile, Liscia continued, “If you make your choice after coming to terms with your own feelings, I’ll support you no matter what, even if Cian doesn’t like the answer.”
“Liscia...”
“So first, Carla, you need to face Cian and talk to him directly.”
“Yeah...” Carla nodded, her expression thoughtful.
Perhaps she had called Liscia not so much for advice as for a little push, and Liscia had given her exactly that.
After ending the call, Carla clapped her hands together to steel her resolve, then rose and headed towards the governmental affairs office, where Cian was likely to be.
She knocked, waited for permission, and entered. “Excuse me,” she said.
Inside were Cian, Prime Minister Ichiha, and Chamberlain Tomoe.
“Huh?! Carla?!” Cian exclaimed, startled by her sudden appearance.
Ichiha and Tomoe exchanged a look, instantly grasping the situation.
“Sire, we should be going.”
“See you tomorrow.”
With practiced speed, they slipped out, leaving behind an atmosphere that clearly said, We’ll leave you two alone. (Never mind that Carla was older than either of them.)
As the door closed, silence settled between them. Then, summoning her courage, Carla spoke.
“Your Majesty!”
“Y-Yes!”
“In regard to your earlier proposal...”
And with that, she gave him her answer.
No one else heard what she said, but the Chima couple, who lingered just long enough outside the office, took the silence that followed as all the answer they needed. When the door didn’t open again for quite some time, they exchanged knowing smiles.