Almost by reflex, I ducked my head and raised both arms to shield it. A moment of silence passed, heavy as death.

My mind went completely blank. I could do nothing but stay frozen and tremble.

Then, gently, a careful touch entirely unlike what my memory expected grazed through my hair and passed.

“There was… a loose thread. On your hair.”

“Oh.”

In Heliones’s hand was a long ivory thread.

I want to cry. I hate this about myself. What has this man ever done to me, that I have been imagining all manner of terrible things from the very moment I set out for the capital?

Broken inside and out, I feel endlessly small and wretched in front of Heliones, who treats me with the same unfailing courtesy regardless.

Pat, pat. Heliones quietly drew me close and patted my back.

It was warm. Come to think of it, he had held me like this and soothed me during our time as husband and wife too.

The people who had tormented me were far away in my homeland, yet whenever I made a fuss on my own at the sight of a blade, he would hold me just like this and pat my back.

“You are all right. Nothing will happen to Lucian.”

Nod, nod.

“He will not die for you either.”

Nod, nod.

His calm, steady voice settled my trembling body. Lewian was not here. My stepmother was not here. There was only me, still unable to break free from those terrible memories.

Heliones wore an expression I had never seen on him before. Strange, and yet heart-aching, something between anger and the verge of tears.

Looking at his face, a sudden cool breeze swept through my heart.

My heart is already a barren wasteland, dried out without a single drop of moisture.

A sea of sand where even the smallest wind stirs up enough dust to blind you and throw the air into chaos.

An ominous place that can shelter no living thing, offering only death to those who wander within it.

The cool sensation brought me back to my senses quickly, and I pulled away from Heliones and offered him a polite, composed bow.

“Thank you. I am sorry to have shown you this again.”

Heliones was quiet for a moment. He had only meant to remove a thread caught in my hair, yet he neither reproached his rude ex-wife for startling and trembling on her own, nor offered any clumsy attempt at comfort.

“I am fine. I will take my leave now. You must attend the banquet tomorrow, so please rest well.”

“Yes.”

A cracked voice slipped from my lips. I wanted to say I was sorry and grateful, but this was the best I could manage.

“I will see you tomorrow.”

“Yes. I will see you tomorrow.”

After Heliones left, I sank into the chair as though collapsing.

For two years I had made a point of not thinking about it, telling myself the Rodencian royal family, nothing but terrible memories, had nothing to do with me anymore. And the moment Roned appeared, this is what became of me.

Would my existence become a burden to Heliones? Or would I be a useful card, as the last surviving royal?

I hoped for the latter. We were nothing to each other now, but if I could be of use to him, I wanted that.

* * *

His wife had been quite a sensitive person.

She reacted sharply to even small sounds, and the sight of blades or flames would drain the color from her face. On bad days, she would tremble and break out in a cold sweat.

Heliones, on the other hand, had stood on the battlefield since early adolescence and had grown numb to fear. Early in their marriage, he could not understand his wife’s extreme reactions at all.

Later, when he learned she carried scars she never wanted anyone to see, and when he understood that her own family had put them there, he came to despise himself for how indifferent he had been.

He assigned her a tight-lipped maid and gave strict instructions to exercise extreme care even when lighting the fireplace or setting down cutlery, trying his best to ease the weight she carried, but it was never enough.

Before setting out for the battle that would bring Rodencia to its end, Heliones slipped into Lucian’s bedroom in the deep of night. He did this occasionally, checking on his wife as she slept. When she cried and pleaded even in her dreams, he would quietly pat her back.

That night too, Lucian was crying. Heliones offered the same comfort she would never remember, and waited for her tears to stop.

With the powerful ability user who had been the late king now dead, and the cruel, utterly impatient Lewian on the throne, Rodencia was set to fall in this battle.

Heliones had wanted to tell her that when he returned from the battle, no one would ever be able to hurt her again. That even though she would come to hate him for destroying her homeland, she would never have to endure that terrible torment again. He had wanted to give her that assurance.

Rodencia had now fallen, and he had become Emperor. He had believed that once it came to that, everything would be easy. He had not imagined that even removing a single white thread from his wife’s red hair would be this difficult.

All Heliones could do was stroke Lucian’s trembling back. He knew from experience that when she reached that state, she could not hear anything.

As for the Rodencian revival movement, he had deployed spies long ago and kept their every move under surveillance.

The world at large believed that Lewian, Rodencia’s last king, had died in battle, but in truth he had survived through the sacrifice of his close aides and by pouring out every last bit of his own ability, managing a desperate escape.

In an age of railways and electricity, the Rodencian royal family, the last remaining fragment of the sacred on this continent, was an object of longing for people across the land. The factions that followed them, a dynasty that had maintained its kingdom through mysterious power for a thousand years, were still numerous, and many noble houses had pursued political marriages in hopes of introducing divine beast blood into their lineage.

Thanks to that, Lewian had already spent two years hiding from Heliones’s ironclad surveillance.

Heliones had trusted that with Lewian alive, Lucian would be safe. If followers were keeping Lewian thoroughly hidden, there would be no reason to reach out to a non-ability user princess.

But Roned, who had been operating independently and to whom Heliones had paid little attention, had approached Lucian.

Roned was certainly known as an eccentric and an oddity, but he was a man with powerful maternal connections and an intellect that even Heliones would acknowledge. The fact that someone like him had approached Lucian meant that whatever his real reason, he had something in mind.

“Haah.”

This is difficult. Even removing a single thread from her shoulder is not easy.

His wife carried many wounds.

Now that he had become the absolute authority, he had intended to protect her so that no one could ever hurt Lucian again.

‘Should I just lock her away somewhere no one can reach?’

Heliones caught himself thinking something frightening and shook his head roughly.

No more wounds, not even small ones. Even if they came from him.

‘Die? You dare say you would die for my wife?’

How laughable. What does a man like Roned know about Lucian? If he knew her pain and her fear, he could not have appeared out of nowhere and said something like that without a second thought.

He had been willing to kill even his own kin to build a power no one could challenge. Someone like you is nothing.

Heliones’s ash-gray eyes darkened and settled deep. The man who had always maintained a detached calm even in the midst of a blood-soaked battlefield had awakened.

* * *

A parade, it seemed. The heat of the crowd beyond the closed doors carried through to the inside.

Heliones was not the sort of person who enjoyed this kind of event by nature. This was the Emperor’s first birthday since the restoration of the Frianc imperial family, so his retainers had probably insisted a parade was absolutely necessary.

What expression would he be wearing? The way he always had when we were husband and wife, a faint frown between his brows while his mouth held a composed, thin smile? It had been a little amusing, the way his lips would twitch ever so slightly whenever someone spoke to him, almost like a spasm.

“He will pass nearby soon. If you are curious, you are welcome to step outside.”

“?”

Did Elren have some ability to read my mind? I had only glanced at the window for a moment while drawing, so how did he know to ask that?

“I want to see too. I’ve never seen a parade like this before! Can’t we go out for just a little while?”

Hanna too looked at me with her clear brown eyes gone soft and wistful.

What do I do? I had told Heliones at the start that I wouldn’t step a single foot outside, but now that I had agreed to attend the banquet, that promise had lost its meaning, hadn’t it?