With a sigh, he finally seemed to make a decision, rose from his chair, and strode to the door, flinging it open. There he encountered someone standing outside.

“Lord Callisto.”

It was Mihail Callisto, the commander of the Astal Knights, who had now become Elios’s direct knight order.

“What is it?”

“His Imperial Majesty has ordered me to stay by Your Highness’s side all day today.”

‘Oh my. How meticulous he is.’

Elios frowned. He had been planning to seek an audience with his father, but now he had been preempted.

Lord Callisto was waiting for Elios’s command with impeccable posture.

He had originally been his father’s right-hand man. He had been serving his father since before Elios was born. Now, following that same father’s orders, he had become Elios’s man. But was he truly and completely Elios’s man? This person who had come to monitor Elios on his father’s orders?

“Did my father say anything else?”

“He said… to exercise restraint.”

“And he told you not to let me seek an audience with him today.”

“…That is correct.”

He was indeed not completely Elios’s man. Elios lowered his eyes and spoke:

“Lord Callisto. Kneel.”

Lord Callisto immediately prostrated himself without the slightest complaint at Elios’s unexpected command. Elios looked down at Lord Callisto.

“Who are you?”

“I am Mihail Callisto, commander of the Astal Knights.”

“Yes. And to whom does the Astal Knights belong?”

Elios asked slowly and calmly.

“…The Astal Knights are the knights who protect Prince Elios, who stands before me.”

“I see. Then whose man are you?”

Lord Callisto, as if having realized something, bowed his head even deeper. He answered:

“I have sworn loyalty to Your Highness. I am Your Highness’s man.”

“I see. I was momentarily confused, so I asked you.”

‘For a moment, I was confused about whether you were truly my man or a watchman placed by my father.’

That was the implication.

Lord Callisto had been Elios’s teacher since childhood. Elios trusted Lord Callisto’s character, but separately, he felt the need to warn him. Since receiving the Astal Knights, Lord Callisto was no longer the Emperor’s man but Prince Elios’s man. It had to be so.

Lord Callisto saw the Emperor’s image overlapping with the Prince. The Emperor, who had worn a sculpted face with a sly smile during his prince days, and the first prince, with a gentle smile like the soft sunlight just rising beyond the dawn horizon, were not actually very similar as father and son. However, when Elios displayed such noble dignity as now, this young prince looked remarkably like the Emperor.

“I will seek an audience with my father. Lead the way.”

Although he had just received orders to keep the prince from doing anything rash, Lord Callisto could no longer stop Elios. As Elios had said, Lord Callisto’s lord was now Prince Elios, not His Imperial Majesty.

As Elios followed Lord Callisto’s guidance toward his father, his mind was completely filled with one thought. It was an issue that had been troubling him for a long time. It was also a concern that had been vexing him for six years without resolution.

Six years. That was the time that had passed since he had first and last met the young holy maiden.

Snow. Despite having heard that name directly from her, Elios had still never properly called her by it. The white hair he had seen just once still fluttered softly on his eyelids when he closed his eyes.

Since it was such a long time ago, the holy maiden’s face didn’t come to mind vividly, but the impression that she had been as pretty as if the goddess had manifested was stamped deeply like a seal. Perhaps it was a memory that had been beautified as Elios alone yearned for her over the years.

Elios had tried to visit the holy maiden again many times. But each time, it was none other than his father who stood in his way. When young Elios honestly confessed that he had secretly visited the holy maiden and carefully expressed his desire to interact with her, his father became furiously angry. Even when he grew older and officially sought to receive the holy maiden’s blessing as a prince, his father always blocked him with various reasons.

Tomorrow is Saint Bernadette’s coming-of-age ceremony. Elios was the prince designated for the crown prince position regardless of what anyone said, and he had a legitimate right to attend the holy maiden’s coming-of-age ceremony. It was not an obligation, but it was an occasion where Elios’s attendance would do no harm. Yet his father stood in his way again. This time, Elios had no intention of backing down easily.

♣ ♣ ♣

His father’s room, unlike what one might expect from someone at the pinnacle of power, gave an impression of bleakness and emptiness. That’s why Elios felt as if he couldn’t breathe every time he entered his father’s room.

When Elios was younger, there wasn’t even a single common picture frame hanging in his father’s room. When the youngest imperial princess Galimede, who would turn ten this year, was born, his father had the portraits of the three princes and Princess Galimede hung on the wall. That was all that decorated this large room now. Apart from the large dark red carpet on the floor, everything else in the room was only essential furniture.

But it hadn’t always been a bleak room without decorations. It used to be filled with all kinds of ceiling paintings and lavish gold decorations throughout the room. When Elios was about six or seven years old, his grandfather passed away, and his father ascended as the new emperor. He then stripped away all the decorations in the room and covered the entire wall, including the ceiling paintings, with dark green dye. No one dared even guess the Emperor’s intentions.

“You’ve come.”

The Emperor seemed to have already known that Elios would visit his room. Without appearing particularly surprised, he closed the documents he had spread out on the large desk and looked at his eldest son. Elios couldn’t understand why his father had sent Lord Callisto to tell him to exercise restraint if he had known this would happen anyway.

His father often did things that Elios couldn’t understand. His father had been ruling the vast empire for over ten years. Elios had not yet reached even half his father’s age. He concluded that the reason he couldn’t understand his father was due to the gap in experience and years between them.

“You still haven’t given up.”

The Emperor asked Elios abruptly. There was weariness in his questioning voice. Elios thought it was understandable. Nine out of ten of his visits to his father’s room in the past month had been related to this issue.

“No.”

“I haven’t said anything yet.”

“You want to attend Saint Bernadette’s coming-of-age ceremony.”

Elios bit his lip firmly.

“No.”

The Emperor said once more. Elios felt something bubbling up inside him.

If he were the crown prince, it would be a place he would naturally have to attend. If Elios attended the holy maiden’s coming-of-age ceremony with the Emperor, it would be as good as confirming that the Emperor would pass the throne to his eldest son, which would actually help Elios’s position.

When Elios was young and bravely told his father about his meeting with the holy maiden, and said that he wanted to work harder to become an admirable person like his father, Elios thought that his usually stoic father would praise him this time. However, his father’s reaction was very different from what he had expected.

“I’ve never seen anyone as beautiful as the Holy Maiden in my life! I promised to meet her again, is that okay?”

When Elios said that, his father, who was always rational and calm about everything, lost his temper for the first time. Elios was punished by not being allowed to leave his room for a week, and yet he had no idea why he was being punished.

Only later did his father come to Elios’s room. His father held Elios and briefly said, “I’m sorry.” He must have just realized that he had been too harsh on a young child.

Since he started learning the sword at the age of five, he had been embraced by his father only twice, and that was the first time. However, Elios never understood why his father had been angry.

Six years passed like that. Since Snow was the holy maiden and Elios was a prince, there should have been plenty of opportunities for them to meet. But all opportunities, big and small, were thwarted by his father. Whenever his father sensed that Elios showed even the slightest interest in the holy maiden, he immediately blocked even that tiny possibility.

Not being able to meet her only built up fantasies day by day. The memory of talking for just one night swelled like rolling a snowball. Elios found himself thinking of Snow at every opportunity, and whenever dark clouds appeared in the sky, he would worry all day about whether something had happened to Snow.

Most people who didn’t know about the correlation between the holy maiden and the weather wondered why the prince was so sensitive to the weather, but only his father, the Emperor, took note of Elios’s behavior.

Snow’s white hair was as soft as silk spread out, and every time she blinked her large, gentle eyes, her mysterious silver eyes sparkled, holding stars. She smiled beautifully, her large eyes curving like half-moons at even the smallest things.

That girl was now nineteen. They say she had come of age. She was a girl with a heart as beautiful and delicate as her face. How much prettier had she become, how much softer and nobler?

Elios felt as if he would catch a fever just imagining how that child might have grown. Ironically, his father’s prevention of him seeing the holy maiden had actually nurtured his feelings.

His father was resting his head on his hand, with his elbow on the desk. Elios could not give up on the coming-of-age ceremony, on Snow. He spoke to his father, enunciating each word clearly:

“Akelan is an empire that believes in the one goddess Amir. Although the goddess’s revelations have nearly ceased, the temple still receives the people’s reverence as long as the holy maiden exists, even if not as much as before. Why do you try to prevent me, who will inherit the empire, from being close to that holy maiden?”

“Elios, leave.”

“Father!”

“Must I call someone to drive you out? Leave on your own feet.”