“We were so busy back then, yet you somehow found a sliver of time for us to catch our breath. It seemed so natural that you were ascending back then that I wasn’t anxious at all.”
“But you’re anxious now?”
“Not so much anxious, but...” Sidis took a moment to think before answering, “I’m baffled, I suppose.”
Egbert looked troubled. “As natural as you felt it was for me to assume the throne at the time, it’s now natural for me to step down. I knew from the beginning that I would one day relinquish the crown, and I knew I was going to pass it to you. That’s why I shrugged and accepted it in the first place.”
The two men looked at each other over their teacups.
The emperor continued, “You don’t want to succeed me so you can keep protecting me, and I understand that. But you should also understand that because I have no progeny of my own, you have to take the throne. You’ve been avoiding this for so long, hence your reluctance, right?” He paused for a beat. “If I weren’t sovereign—let’s say Kirstin was and she proposed to abdicate, you know you would think nothing of succeeding because, naturally, the person with the strongest mana should have the throne.”
Sidis remained silent. Everything Egbert had said was entirely true, but he felt the alternative—agreeing with him—would be worse.
“It’s not that I despise my duties as emperor. Hell, I take pride in being able to protect my empire. But I want more freedom. I want to stretch my wings. And what do you think is the best way for me to do that?”
“I don’t know...” Sidis shook his head. He didn’t want to know.
“It’s to let someone else take the crown while I offer support as emperor emeritus. It’s just the right balance between working and living my life. I’ll have time to pursue my own dreams! Is that not a wonderful thing?” Egbert beamed as he held his teacup aloft. “Not to mention, you stand to gain plenty from this.”
“Do I?” That statement piqued Sidis’s curiosity, as he couldn’t imagine reaping a single benefit from this arrangement.
“You normally never get the support of a former emperor. After all, you can’t ask someone on their deathbed—much less a corpse—to lend you a hand, am I right? But here I am, healthy as a horse. When unexpected work piles up, you can call me in. That means you and Lyse will always have time to go all smoochy-smooch. You have my word.”
Now Egbert really had Sidis’s attention, for that was a valid point. If they waited to pass the crown until Egbert met some kind of misfortune, Sidis would immediately be deprived of all the personal time he spent with Lyse. If he didn’t have Egbert around to tag in whenever needed, he would have to sit through every last meeting and stay on top of every last detail personally.
Sidis could still remember how busy Egbert had been following his coronation. There were rites and procedures, and by the time everything was all sorted out, countless hours of sleep had been lost. Even Sidis, who was only helping out at the time, had been wrapped up in it all. Thinking about it now, he expected to lose out on at least a month of personal time with Lyse following his ascension—which was simply unacceptable.
“Most important of all, we ought to think about Lyse. If something happens to me, that will make Lyse empress overnight. And that won’t be easy for her since Qatora wasn’t part of the imperial family. She has no familiarity with the role. Moreover, Mother is long gone, so she can’t exactly pass anything down to Lyse,” Egbert explained.
The transition would indeed be a burden on Lyse. And if she grew busy herself, she would have less time for Sidis. In his eyes, that was a tragedy all its own.
Egbert continued, “But if I’m still in good shape when I abdicate, I can help her out too and make her life easier by serving in an advisory capacity. I could even live in the villa as a dog so you can call me whenever you need me!”
The more Sidis thought about it, the more he saw Egbert’s point. The soon-to-be-wed couple would have a lot more time to spend with each other as long as Egbert was around to help out. Still, Sidis pursed his lips as he mulled it over.
“I don’t want anyone to speak ill of His Majesty if I ascend the throne,” Sidis said with a stubborn look on his face as he wrapped up his explanation of his conversation with Egbert. Lyse nodded sympathetically. “Imagine the vitriol if we can’t mend the Light and he abdicates. Then if I were to put my foot down against the naysayers, they would be forced to hide in the shadows and would say even worse things yet.”
The harder people were pushed against, the harder they pushed back. Even those who might be outwardly amicable could still harbor negative feelings for the emperor and his cousin. Sidis knew that.
He continued, “I really hope we can solve the mystery of the Light while His Majesty still reigns. The only problem is that, well...”
“The truth about the Light of Origin wouldn’t be much of a secret anymore.”
People both inside and outside of the empire believed that the Light was a gift from the gods rather than a man-made blessing. To not only challenge that firmly held belief, but to disprove it entirely... That was bound to spark a whirlwind of problems. Once the world knew the truth, one reaction was guaranteed: “Imperials are using their magics to rob our lands of their fertility!”
Those who coveted the empire’s bounty would undoubtedly jump to that conclusion, and populists would gobble up their drivel. It would open the floodgates of hostility for Razanate and wash out the rickety foundation of the current peace. Just as the empire had contained the Donan threat, the nation would be once again plunged in peril because of the Light. Imminent war would jeopardize the stability the imperials had fought so hard for.
That was why the secret of the Light could never be revealed. Yet at the same time, Lyse and the others saw no way to reconstruct its spell without inviting questions about its true form. The most reasonable course of action might well be to claim that the current emperor was unfit to support the Light, have him abdicate to quell the people’s fears, and then instate Sidis who bore the Light after all. That plan might arouse suspicions of its own, but nothing that couldn’t be stamped out.
Sidis understood all of this, yet he looked so conflicted as he bit his lip. “Is it possible to fix everything while keeping the Light’s secret without having His Majesty abdicate...?”