Bonus Chapter:
The Queen’s Outcome
AFTER MY DUTIES had been taken care of for the day, I returned to my room, where Wilhelm awaited me.
“Good work today, Luxeria.”
“You as well, Wil. Thank you.”
He spread his arms wide and smiled at me. I knew what he wanted, but I bashfully side-eyed him all the same. His smile didn’t waver, so I gave up and dashed toward his chest. His arms wrapped around me, and his scent filled my nose. Oh, it made me so happy. Being with him was a true miracle. I never thought the day would come when we could be together again. I closed my eyes and savored the moment.
After dinner and a warm bath, I went to our bedroom. Wilhelm sat in his pajamas, staring out the window.
“What are you looking at?” I asked.
He beckoned to me to come closer. There were still times I had to remind myself of how intimate we were now. After I nodded, he embraced me from behind.
“The moon is beautiful tonight,” he said.
A full, circular moon hung in the sky, not a cloud in sight. It was breathtaking.
“You sure do love the moon, Wil.”
“Enough to start flirting with it, at any rate.”
Heat welled up within me, reminding me of when we first met. “Say, Wil…why do you love me so?” I asked, leaning into him.
“Hm? Is something the matter?”
“No, but I just realized I’ve never asked you about it. I’ve been wondering about it for a while. We barely saw each other in our youth, after all,” I said. “And aside from our first conversation, we’d only talked politics. What was it that made you abandon everything you had just to support me? I simply cannot wrap my head around it.”
“Would you believe me if I said it was love at first sight?”
In lieu of an answer, I buried my face in his chest.
“I’m serious,” he insisted. “I’d never met someone as beautiful as you in my life. From the first time I laid eyes on you, I wanted to spend more time with you. Just the thought of your face had my heart racing.”
“I never realized, given how seriously you presented yourself.”
“Really? I’m glad I managed to not spoil the surprise,” he joked.
I peered up at his face, my body pressing against his.
“I always saw a shadow in your eyes when we played together,” Wilhelm said. “Even when you seemed to be enjoying yourself, there was a sadness I couldn’t quite place—it was as if you’d given up on everything. I so desperately wanted to make that smile of yours a genuine one.”
“R-really? I didn’t even notice.”
“That’s how closely I paid attention to you,” he told me, smiling his sunny smile. “I searched for you afterward, but I could never find you.”
“Of course you couldn’t. I was away from the capital for a long time.”
“But I never gave up. I kept looking. Eventually, I found out the princess was a girl named Ria,” he said. “I then realized my magic was simply too powerful. Fear of my own power overwhelmed me.”
“Why?”
“My magic is Gale, if you recall—manipulation of the winds. Voices can be carried across the wind, so I was able to spy on the royal palace using my magic.”
“Unbelievable. You’d have been in deep trouble if anyone had learned what you did!”
He clenched his jaw and muttered something about being a mere child at the time. Then he went on, “I looked into why you were confined to the tower, but the unthinkable happened while I was in the middle of my research.”
He was referring to the assassination of my parents, surely.
“My wish for your freedom from the tower was granted but at a horrible cost. I couldn’t see you in the immediate aftermath of your parents’ death, and I wasn’t sure what I could do to help you in your lowest moments,” he said. “And while I was busy thinking of what to do, the political marriage had already been decided. The next time I saw you, a deep darkness had taken hold of you.”
His voice had grown cold. As handsome as he was, his expression was rather unsettling.
“At first, I thought that darkness was just from the loss of your parents, but a part of me suspected there was more to it than that. Despite your ‘doll’ act, I could see the anger and hatred burning in your eyes. So I looked into the circumstances of your parents’ deaths, and I was astonished to learn that the Great Five planned the assassination.”
I placed a hand on his chest.
“The darkness within you would never fade, so long as the Great Five continued to exist. They had become a cancer upon the nation. They needed to be destroyed,” he said. “Now I must ask, why did you fall in love with me? I was the heir to one of the Great Five, your sworn enemies.”
“You aren’t the only one incapable of forgetting our first meeting,” I said with a chuckle. “I was struck by how words that came from your mouth and your mind were one and the same. Being near someone as honest as you made me feel at ease. To this day, I’ve never met another man like that. It hurt me when I learned we were to be wed. I didn’t want our reunion to be under such circumstances.”
Our hands joined together, fingers entwined.
“You could say it was love at first sight for me too,” I said.
We leaned into each other.
“I’d love to tell the little kid back then that there’s a future waiting for him at the end of it all,” Wilhelm said.
“Me too.”
“I love you, Luxeria.”
“I love you too, Wilhelm.”