“There’s nothing he could do now to hurt us. As long as the Light is acting up, everything else is trivial,” he said plainly before heaving a great sigh. “But unfortunately, the palace isn’t entirely on the same page in that regard. There are those growing suspicious of his whereabouts the past few days.”
“I see...”
“It wouldn’t be a problem if we weren’t in the middle of a crisis with the Light. And being a Light bearer, he’s got more than a few pairs of eyes watching his every move.” Seren would fall under the same scrutiny if his true nature were ever revealed. “What’s worse, on the day after the first aberration, the damn thing happened again the instant he set foot in the villa. In hindsight, at least we now know it’s ticking on a schedule.”
“Oh no...” At the onset of the incident, everyone had feared a second occurrence. And it had come just as Sidis had entered the villa, which understandably struck dread in the hearts of many. “What poor timing.”
“Just bad luck, I guess. That said, even I don’t have a clue what Sidis is thinking right now. How am I supposed to cover for him when he won’t tell us what he’s up to?” Egbert complained, aggrieved. “That’s why I need you, Lyse. Track him down for me.”
“Very well then. Please entrust this matter to me, Your Majesty,” Lyse readily agreed. She was already concerned about Sidis’s behavior, so this made for the perfect opportunity to investigate.
“I don’t think it helps that he’s been frequenting the coops to talk to Seren either. Asking a foreigner for help with this whole mess is only putting him in a deeper mess.” Egbert sighed once again.
“It’s hard to blame him. We all want to resolve this as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, even though Sidis and I possess the Light, neither of us have the ability to interfere with it directly,” Lyse commiserated. The radiant pillar was simply that strong—lethally so, even. “However, it seems like Lord Sidis is searching for Donan stones, or so I heard from Seren.”
“He is? Seren said that?”
Lyse nodded. “Yes, Your Majesty, though he wouldn’t explain why. He insisted he couldn’t go back on his word as a man or some such.”
“Interesting. I figured the stones might play into the aberration somehow...” Egbert considered that perhaps Sidis had gleaned something from the formulae display. In a show of poor manners, the emperor planted his elbow on his desk. “I mean, I understand his desperation, but I just wish he were more keen on how this all looks. Hard not to worry about what’s going to happen after I abdicate, you know?”
“Sorry?” Lyse made an unwitting gaffe by inquiring further. “Are you still joking about that, Your Majesty? I was certain that Alcede and the others are quite opposed to the idea.”
Egbert had suggested relinquishing the throne to Sidis many times, citing his stronger mana and inner Light. It was indeed customary for the strongest noble to take rule of Razanate. And more than anything, Egbert simply wanted to be true to himself. His greatest wish was to spend his time frolicking as a dog whenever he pleased. That desire for freedom was truly what pushed him to turn the crown over to Sidis, even if no one else agreed with the decision.
The emperor’s expression grew grave before he spoke up again. “What makes you think I was ever joking? Each and every day, I can only hope that they’ll find me unfit to rule because of this whole aberration nonsense. It’s just that...” Egbert paused before continuing, “Up until now, I’ve never had a serious reason to step aside. Sidis abhorred the Light because of you-know-what, which he claimed made him unsuited for the job. But I, too, was there when you—when Qatora—died, though I didn’t take it nearly as hard as he did. Because of that, and because I couldn’t bring myself to hate something so foundational to our lives as the Light, I resigned myself to this fate.”
Egbert had always spoken in a half-kidding tone about the matter before, but Lyse sat straight up as she listened to him now. He couldn’t have sounded more sober.
“Sidis’s resentment for the Light should have softened now. I’m sure his reunion with you has helped mend those old wounds. He’s perfectly capable of succeeding me now, and that should solve everything.”
“You mean to say the situation will resolve itself if Sidis takes the throne?”
Sensing Lyse’s doubt, Egbert explained, “If the aberrations continue at this rate, it would be difficult to maintain and defend the imperial capital. It would shake the very core of the empire, and her people would suffer for it. But should it come to that—before it comes to that—I plan on extinguishing the Light.”
It might indeed be simpler to destroy the Light rather than restore it to normal, but the repercussions of doing so would be monumental. Lyse trembled imagining what chaos it would bring to the world. The mana of the imperial nobility would gradually wane, rendering the empire weak in the inevitable wars to follow.
“By extinguishing the Light, the imperial family would undoubtedly lose face. After the Light is destroyed but before people lose hope in it too, Sidis should take the throne and announce that you—his empress and pillar of support—also possess the Light. The people will be relieved, if only temporarily. If we use that borrowed time to create another Light of Origin...I’m sure it’ll work out.”
Passing off a resurrected Light as a demonstration of the new emperor’s power was indeed a clever plan. Lyse understood it to be Egbert’s contingency plan in the event they couldn’t solve the mystery of the Light or save it. But in truth, she wanted Egbert to remain emperor. Everyone did. That was why Karl was studying as hard as he could and Sidis was searching every crevasse of the country. And yet...Lyse found herself lost for words. She was downcast, disappointed in herself for not being able to come up with another plan.
“When the time comes,” said Egbert, “promise me that the ascension will be grand and lavish. Having the ceremony in front of the Light of Origin is a little lackluster, don’tcha think?”
“Lackluster, Your Majesty?”
The thought that an ascension ceremony would ever be lacking in grandeur had never once crossed Lyse’s mind, but when she stopped to think about it, she’d never actually attended one before. The previous emperor had ascended the throne before Qatora was born, and Egbert had done so after she passed.
“There really isn’t much to it. The imperial family prances around the Light, then they all stare at you while you dump some mana on the lawn. You plant your hands on the ground, let out some magic, and Bob’s your uncle. Then you say your goodbyes.”
Putting it like that, the ceremony did actually sound quite humdrum. “But isn’t that Razanate tradition?” Lyse asked.
“It’s what they’ve done generation after generation without fail. There is celebratory feasting and drinking in the capital, but us imperials are too stuffy to party for more than one night,” lamented Egbert. He then clapped his hands together as if he’d had a grand idea. “Oh, I know! Why don’t you have your wedding at the same time?”
“Our wedding?!”
“Indeed! Have the coronation and wedding together, and you can throw a three-day banquet or something. That’ll make a lasting impression on the people for sure,” he declared, his face alight. “Plus, if you reveal that you’re a Light bearer and say it’s all for the sake of the relighting ritual, they’re bound to eat it up.”
Lyse could get behind the idea. The tricky part would be getting Sidis on board as well. She feared that would be quite an undertaking, but Egbert’s enthusiasm only grew.
“To that end, we must dispel the suspicion cast upon Sidis. If anyone catches wind of him looking for black stones, there will be trouble.”
“Quite true, Your Majesty...” Lyse, too, had considered that danger. Even with Egbert still in power, his confidant-cum-successor coming under such scrutiny wasn’t exactly a good thing.
“So go track down Sidis, Miss Lyse.”
“Understood, Your Majesty,” she said with a bow, then excused herself.
“But what’s he going to do with the stones?” Lyse mused.
She couldn’t imagine anything other than excavating the deposits and using the lode to extinguish the Light, but Sidis would never do something like that. As she figuratively scratched her head, Lyse spied a white bird flying ahead of her. It was only a smidge shorter than she was and carried a lone rider—Sidis. It was still before noon, but the great raptor’s wings in the clouds shone brilliantly in the sun.
Lyse had taken the day off from her lady-in-waiting duties to commit to her mission from the emperor. She’d first spied Sidis visiting Seren again for another talk, and she’d then watched as he went to fetch a raptor and took off. She’d thus mounted a bird of her own and taken flight after him.
“I wonder where he’s going...”
Lyse had prepared two days’ worth of rations just in case this trip turned out to be a long one. Sidis was headed directly northeast, where only the sea lay ahead.
“Perhaps he’s searching the coastal cliffs?”
It wasn’t particularly dark there, unless there happened to be caverns along the rock face. Lyse watched as Sidis landed by the ocean, just as she’d predicted. She did the same some distance away and tucked her avian monster back into her pocket. A sharp wind kicked up suddenly, sending Sidis’s mount back into the air. He gazed down at his fiancée with a troubled look.
“Lyse?”
She’d been discovered. The jig was up, so she steeled herself and looked straight up at her beloved. “I apologize for sneaking after you, but I needed to see what you were up to, Lord Sidis.”
“His Majesty’s doing, no doubt...” Sidis muttered to himself dejectedly, realizing that Lyse had followed him under orders. “And here I was thinking you missed me.”
“That’s what you’re upset about?!”
It was true that she’d been lonely, but that was no reason to get in the way of his work. (In fact, if she’d been busy enough with her own work, she never would have hounded Seren over Sidis’s whereabouts.) But this was just who Sidis was. Lyse had been so concerned over his behavior lately that she scarcely realized how relieved she was to see him unchanged.
“Hurry,” he urged her. “We’ve little time. Come with me. I can’t bear the thought of leaving you all alone and vulnerable, so stick by my side.”
“Very well,” she responded simply. She had a bone to pick with what he’d just said, but his permission for her to tag along trumped everything. She happily took out her avian monster again and followed after Sidis.