Elios’s eyes trembled uncontrollably. The child tried to say something more. Ikanel embraced Elios. With his face buried in Ikanel’s chest, unable to speak any words, Elios made a “pooh” sound like air deflating, with a bewildered expression. Ikanel spoke:

“Do not meet the Saint, Elios.”

Elios’s fidgeting stopped abruptly.

“Father…”

Elios mumbled softly within Ikanel’s embrace. Ikanel himself didn’t understand why he was acting this way. The Emperor was not in a position to act emotionally. He needed to think rationally, but at that moment, it was simply impossible.

Thus, Elios was prevented from visiting the Saint. Until then, he had been an obedient, adorable child. But Ikanel hadn’t anticipated that such forceful prohibition would only make Elios’s longing for the Saint grow stronger.

Afterward, Elios would place a chair by his window and gaze outside endlessly whenever he had time. While others couldn’t understand why the prince behaved this way, the Emperor knew the reason. Ikanel knew that Elios wanted to meet the Saint again, and he vaguely thought that the child might understand the relationship between the Saint and the weather.

And six years passed.

Saint Bernadette’s coming-of-age ceremony was approaching in a few days, and around that time, Elios received a loyalty oath from Count Callisto, the commander of the Astal Knights. Count Callisto. He was the one standing guard beside Ikanel, who was now sitting on the imperial throne, deep in thought.

At that point, no one doubted that Elios would inherit the throne and become the next Emperor. As the Emperor’s first son, Elios was fully qualified to attend the Saint’s coming-of-age ceremony. However, Ikanel repeatedly denied Elios’s request to be allowed to attend the ceremony.

This was because the child had been acting as if he were infatuated with the little girl he had seen just once as a child. It was laughable. How could he know how the Saint had changed over six years?

Around that time, Elios began to leave the imperial palace more frequently. He always skillfully evaded the Emperor’s surveillance, so it wasn’t exactly known where he was headed.

However, Ikanel could guess that he was going to the temple to meet the Saint. After all, Elios at that time closely resembled Ikanel himself when he used to sneak out of the palace to meet Freia. Sometimes he was too excited to focus properly on his lessons, sometimes he was weak as if suffering from a fever, and sometimes he acted as if he had lost all will to live.

Ikanel, sitting on the imperial throne and tapping the armrest with his fingernails while thinking of various matters, eventually turned his gaze toward Lord Mihail Callisto, who was standing before him with perfect posture.

Lord Callisto.”

“I await your command.”

“Bring Elios to me.”

“…”

Lord Callisto twitched his eyebrows with a somewhat dubious expression, but bowed his head deeply. Ikanel had kept Lord Callisto by his side for quite some time and knew what he was thinking when he made such an expression. So he added:

“Bring him. I do not intend to scold or punish the child.”

At those words, Lord Callisto’s face relaxed a bit. He soon left to carry out the Emperor’s command.

Around the time when the Emperor became convinced that Elios was privately meeting the Saint, he summoned Mihail Callisto, his old friend and the commander of the Astal Knights.

♣ ♣ ♣

“You know where Elios goes sneaking off to every night, don’t you?”

When Emperor Ikanel learned that Elios habitually slipped out of the imperial palace and headed to the Grand Temple, he asked Mihail Callisto, the captain of the Astal Knights, this question. Ikanel even knew that Elios secretly took knights from the Astal Order when leaving the palace. As the commander of the Astal Knights, Mihail surely knew where the prince was heading every night. However, Lord Callisto simply bowed his head deeply and replied:

“Your Majesty, if I may dare say, if the prince does not wish to reveal his activities, I cannot disclose them either. My lord is Prince Elios.”

Ikanel made a groaning sound and pressed his forehead with one hand. After some thought, he decided to be direct.

“Fine. Then let me ask straightforwardly. Is Elios meeting privately with Saint Bernadette?”

Lord Callisto gave no answer. The moment he affirmed the Emperor’s words, he would be betraying his lord, Prince Elios, and the moment he denied them, he would be lying to the Emperor. Immediately grasping this, Ikanel frowned and said, “I thought so.”

“I told him!” Ikanel slammed his fist on the solid armrest of the imperial throne.

“I told him not to meet her!”

Lord Callisto, who hadn’t seen the Emperor so furiously angry in a very long time, raised his head and stared at Ikanel. With a coldly hardened face, Ikanel asked Lord Callisto:

“How did it seem to you?”

“…What do you mean? I am too foolish to understand Your Majesty’s question.”

“Did those two look like they were truly in love?”

“…”

Lord Callisto pressed his lips shut again. But Ikanel was not one to misunderstand that this silence was affirmation. Feeling his head boiling like lava with rising anger, Ikanel spat out:

“Summon Elios here right now. No, wait. Increase the guards in front of his room. Not the Astal Knights. My direct subordinates, yes. The Pavante Knights. About five or six of them. He must not be able to escape through the window either. I warned him to be careful, yet he still causes trouble. Love? How ridiculous. A green boy whose head is still wet behind the ears. What does he know?”

“Your Majesty.”

“You haven’t done well either. As his subject, you should have admonished him properly.”

Ikanel took a breath. And finally revealed his deep inner thoughts.

“Haven’t you clearly witnessed how immature romantic feelings can ruin a person and lead them to destruction? How is the child’s dallying with the Saint, who must live her entire life in celibacy, any different from when I used to meet the Nigritia daughter?”

Ikanel thought that Elios was committing the same mistake as he had.

“If you cannot stop when you still can, you will only hurt everyone like a sword without a handle.”

Mihail Callisto closed his eyes tightly as he absorbed each word from his friend and the Emperor of this country. He had made Ikanel Riman Akelan like this. The Crown Prince Ikanel who used to laugh so well in the old days…

“Your Majesty. Do you perhaps remember a conversation we had long ago, a very long time ago?”

Ikanel, who had been muttering obsessively with his head half-lowered, “Love? Such a thing doesn’t exist,” raised his head at Mihail’s question.

“Which conversation?”

“You know my wife.”

“You mean the Countess Callisto? How could I not know her? There wouldn’t be anyone in the empire who doesn’t know her.”

The love story of Mihail Callisto and the current Countess was famous. Mihail, who was thought to prioritize principles and loyalty to his family above all else, a model of upright and pedantic nobility, fell in love with a lady from a much lower-ranked, declining baronial family. Despite everyone’s opposition, they eventually married. Even now, they were known as a couple with an enviable relationship.

Mihail Callisto, a knight who would break rather than bend, was particularly distracted and foolish during that time, and Ikanel used to tease him constantly. In those days, Ikanel was a mischievous and playful young man.

Back then, he might have teased Mihail by asking, “Was it Lady Aior of the baronial family? Can you focus on your work when you want to see her?” But the current Ikanel didn’t believe that Mihail had truly married out of passionate love for some baronial lady named Aior or whatever.

Lady Aior of the baronial family, who became the current Countess Callisto, was more beloved by the people than any previous mistress of the House of Callisto. Through charity work, relief activities, service, and aid—she was a compassionate mistress who excelled in every aspect. Mihail had simply recognized her true worth early on. So in the end, love did not exist.

Ikanel looked directly at Mihail with a sneer. Mihail, undeterred by Ikanel’s cold laughter, steadfastly continued:

“Didn’t Your Majesty once ask me? Whether I had ever tried to forget that baronial lady even once, whether I had never wavered in a situation where it was difficult to be together.”

Ikanel frowned.

‘Yes. I certainly did ask that.’

He had learned by chance that the woman he had decided to marry might be a daughter of the House of Nigritia, and before confirming this with her directly, he couldn’t sort out his confused feelings and asked Mihail such a question.

“Have you ever tried to forget that baronial lady even once? Have you never wavered among people who declare that you cannot be together?”

Mihail had looked at him with puzzled eyes. Ikanel thought, ‘what am I saying to this fellow’, and tried to brush it off as a joke. But unexpectedly, Callisto gave Ikanel a serious answer afterward.

“Yes. Thanks to the answer you gave me then, I was able to gather my resolve and come this far. I am still grateful to you.”

Ikanel said to Mihail. Mihail’s brow twitched. Ikanel noticed that Mihail was displeased. Mihail spoke, pressing each word firmly as if expelling something rising from within:

“If I had known earlier that it was Your Majesty’s story, I, your humble servant, would never have answered that way.”

“…What do you mean? You clearly told me you had never wavered even once.”

“Then Your Majesty asked me once more.”

Ikanel nodded heavily. The conversation from that day was as vivid as if it had happened just yesterday, and he remembered every word without missing a single particle.

Ikanel had asked his friend, who said he had never wavered once, another question:

“Let me ask again. Nevertheless, if by some chance because of your lady… Yes, if the House of Callisto were to face the danger of extinction. What would you do with the lady then?”

Mihail’s answer to that was quite a sight.