WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

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Chapter 153: At Winter's End (2)

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Elysia stared at her older half-brother with a confused mind.

The blond young man who had just entered the room did not look much different from how she remembered him.

They had been quite close as children, but had gradually grown distant as they got older.

Her older half-brother, with whom things had become awkward after her mother died.

Like her, he had platinum-blond hair. His turquoise eyes, which seemed gentle at first glance, were the same. He was tall and strikingly handsome, the kind of person who naturally drew attention. His splendid clothes and graceful bearing gave off an unconscious dignity. He looked every bit the model Crown Prince.

"...Elysia."

Maximilian had entered without knocking. He looked down at Elysia with complicated eyes, and undisguised pity and sympathy lingered in his clear turquoise gaze.

"Did you cry?"

"......."

"You must be confused if you only just woke up. Calm down. I did not come to harm you."

After noticing Elysia's reddened eyes and the rumpled blankets on the bed, Maximilian walked to the table in one corner of the room. He held something long wrapped in white cloth.

"How long... have I been unconscious?"

Elysia, who had been sitting weakly by the window, spoke again just as Maximilian carefully set the object in his hand on the table.

"A day and a half."

"......."

"You had no serious external injuries, but you were severely exhausted. If not for Sir Cassius, you might truly have died. That is what the priest who treated you said."

Cassius Mortein.

At the mention of that name, Elysia's body flinched.

The first thing she felt was vague anger. Helplessness and despair followed after it. What remained in the end was a residue of emotion that was close to resignation.

What could someone like me possibly do?

Everything had effectively ended the moment she had been dragged here. Duke Mortein, the Emperor's sharpest sword and Commander of the Celestial Knights. And the former First Princess, who had been reduced to nothing more than a traitor.

It was obvious whose side the Emperor would take.

How foolish. I was pathetic, and so were my circumstances.

For some reason, a hollow laugh kept trying to escape her. An unbearable sense of self-loathing washed over her.

"Elysia?"

"What happened while I was unconscious, Brother?"

Even so, she had no choice but to ask.

Maximilian hesitated for a while before swallowing a sigh and speaking.

"While you were unconscious, the war with the Federation entered a lull."

"......."

"And..."

For the still-dazed Elysia's sake, he began explaining everything that had happened, one thing at a time. The Imperial Army's advance, the movements of the Celestial Knights, how Elysia had been captured by Duke Mortein, and what had happened until they reached Archandia.

"Kyle..."

"The final Commander of the Knights of Ash is dead."

Maximilian spoke firmly.

Elysia's heart dropped.

Hearing someone else say the words she had desperately wanted to deny somehow made them feel unreal.

"But... what if..."

"I do not know how the two of you came to travel together, but you seemed quite close. I am sorry, but Duke Mortein personally confirmed his death. If you still cannot believe it, it would be quicker for you to see for yourself."

He unwrapped the white cloth around the long object he had placed on the table.

Elysia watched Maximilian's movements in silence, then her eyes widened as though they would split apart.

"It is Kyle Baldrick's sword."

"......."

"Duke Mortein recovered it. He said he confirmed that Kyle had stopped breathing before bringing you here, so there should be no mistake."

Maximilian lifted the sword, still inside its scabbard, and held it out to Elysia.

With trembling hands, she barely managed to take it.

Ah.

The heavy feeling that traveled through her palm.

The shape was unmistakably that of Kyle's sword. Elysia felt her breathing grow ragged again. Slowly, she gripped the hilt and pulled the blade free. The star iron blade gave off such a brilliant shine that it hurt her eyes.

And faintly stained across it was dried blood.

Kyle was really dead?

The dreamlike reality she had refused to accept returned as a cruel blade. Like a fool, Elysia stared at the dark red bloodstains on the sword.

The moment she thought that blood belonged to Kyle, another hollow laugh slipped through her lips.

"Am I... going to be executed now?"

Elysia raised her head and looked up at Maximilian.

A strange smile rested on her lips. Another tear of resignation ran down her cheek.

"Elysia, I..."

"No. Perhaps this is for the best. I have no reason to keep living anymore, so..."

"Elysia!"

Maximilian raised his voice.

He knelt before her and gripped both of her shoulders.

"Pull yourself together. Your fate has not been decided yet."

"......."

"The Empire is split in two right now. One side wants to continue the war, while the other wants to wait and watch carefully. The Emperor's opposition has practically been finished. Before long, a major change will come, one way or another."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"Among your belongings, there was one book that seemed important, apart from Kyle Baldrick's possessions."

The book Alfred had written himself.

A priceless volume containing all the research records he had left behind for Kyle and Elysia.

Elysia's shoulders twitched. Seeing her reaction, Maximilian continued.

"You must tell me everything honestly. That is the only way I can protect you."

"Are you telling me to crawl at the Emperor's feet?"

"Elysia, please. Do not go against His Majesty's will. Follow Father's wishes. It is the only way you can live."

Father?

Elysia gave a mocking snort.

Maximilian furrowed his brow in confusion.

"Elysia?"

"Are you telling me to become that monster's dog?"

"What?"

"If you read the book, you should know."

Father was dead.

Her kind biological father from the past no longer existed. All that remained was a shell of a body, little different from a puppet, with the First Emperor's will imposed over it.

After meeting Alfred and learning the Imperial family's secret, Elysia knew that. It had been written in the book as well. If Maximilian had read it, he should have understood what she meant.

"It seems you have not read it."

"What are you..."

"Perhaps it is better that you do not know. To the Emperor, we are not children connected to him by blood. We are nothing but chess pieces."

Maximilian frowned, unable to understand.

Elysia gave him an order to leave.

"You should leave as well, Brother. If you become any more involved with me, you will suffer for it."

"...Do you still resent me? Because I reported your mother?"

Elysia glared at Maximilian in silence.

Unable to meet her eyes, he lowered his gaze.

"I am sorry. It was my fault. I was young then, and I did not think things through. I... I only..."

His voice grew quieter and more incoherent as he spoke.

Maximilian's face twisted in pain as he recalled the past.

Even though it had all happened long ago, the memory of that day remained vivid. The destruction of House Lucent, and young Elysia's screams as she wailed. Elysia's biological mother, who had vanished to create Izra's Thorn, and his own foolish self.

A past steeped in regret, where he had only trembled in fear without understanding what he had done.

"Elysia."

After a long silence, Maximilian moved his lips several times before finally speaking.

"I will not ask you to forgive me. You may resent me for the rest of your life."

"......."

"But I truly do not want you to die. Your mother is already gone. I cannot lose you too. Please, think of yourself instead of me. If you die like this, would the sacrifices of those who gave their lives for you not be meaningless?"

Sacrifices.

At that word, life returned to Elysia's lifeless golden eyes for the first time.

The faces of countless people who had died for her passed through her mind. So did Kyle's back as he walked away, someone whose final moments she had not even been able to share.

"Let us stop here for today."

"......."

"Rest now. You should keep that sword for the time being. Duke Mortein did not say anything about it."

Maximilian removed his hands from Elysia's shoulders and rose to his feet.

His turquoise eyes, which continued to glance at her, were filled with deep guilt.

"I will come again. Then... for your sake, I hope I can hear a better answer from you."

With those words, Maximilian turned around.

Just as when he entered, he left the room without a sound.

Only Elysia remained behind, staring endlessly at the place Maximilian had left through. She tightly held the sword that had now lost its owner against her chest.

* * *

"Duke Mortein."

A dry voice echoed calmly from the far end of the vast audience chamber.

The blond middle-aged man seated on the throne examined the book in his hands from different angles.

"What happened to Prisia's Dragon Heart?"

He had a gentle appearance, but his eyes were anything but. Bright red eyes, as though every emotion had been restrained within them, looked down at someone kneeling below.

There stood a massive black knight clad in full black armor, with a crimson cloak draped over it. He lowered his head deeply as though ashamed.

"I apologize. We were unable to find it."

"Why?"

"Contrary to expectations, the First Princess's belongings did not contain the Dragon Heart."

"When you killed Kyle Baldrick, did you not sense Prisia's mana?"

"No. Regrettably..."

Cassius did not move as he kept his head lowered.

At that moment, a slender man standing beside the Emperor's throne stepped forward.

"Are you certain Kyle Baldrick is dead, Duke Cassius?"

Lorian Rovein.

The head of House Rovein and the Imperial Chancellor of the Elandor Empire. With House Lucent destroyed, he was now effectively one of the Empire's two pillars.

He spoke as his narrow, curved eyes glared at Cassius in rebuke.

Cassius, who had kept his head bowed until then, finally raised it.

"I personally confirmed his death. I watched his breathing stop."

"But did the two wyvern knights you left behind to handle the aftermath not die in the end? It was an obvious failure. Why did you not cut off his head?"

The urgent report had only just arrived.

While Cassius had returned first, the two knights and Wyverns left behind to handle the aftermath had been found brutally murdered. Naturally, they had also failed to recover Prisia's Dragon Heart.

Everything was full of unanswered questions.

Why had the two wyvern knights, who had been handling Kyle Baldrick's body after his breathing stopped, been killed?

And where had the Dragon Heart gone?

The black helmet covering Cassius's face stared directly at Lorian.

The slender Chancellor did not avoid Cassius's gaze.

Why had he not made certain of the kill? Had things gone wrong because, as a fellow knight, he had extended some pathetic mercy at the end?

That was what Lorian asked without words.

The two had never gotten along particularly well, which made his accusation all the sharper.

"Enough."

The Emperor, having watched long enough, raised a hand.

Cassius and Lorian both looked toward the Emperor seated on the throne.

"That is enough, Duke Rovein. Even if he had cut off his head, the result would not have changed."

"Are you saying... that the final Commander of the Knights of Ash is immortal?"

"A powerful current of causality sometimes becomes a wave that cannot be resisted. Fate has already slipped from my grasp."

The Emperor's red eyes sank deeply.

"The assimilation has already been completed. So it was a failure."

At the word failure, not only Cassius but even Lorian lowered his head.

The Emperor stared at the book in his hands for a while before gesturing toward the great closed doors of the audience chamber.

"Leave. I will summon you again later."

Cassius and Lorian said nothing more.

After briefly exchanging looks, they left one after the other.

Only after he was left alone in the vast chamber did the Emperor's red eyes begin to shine with a chilling light.

Before him stood a vermilion sword embedded upside down in the floor.

Dawn, the Emperor's sword passed down through generations.

The Emperor's red eyes slowly traveled from the sword's pommel to the tip of the blade buried upside down before him.

A faint current of fate passed uncertainly before his eyes.

Unlike Prisia, the Emperor could not see the future. He could only sense it and prepare for what was to come.

Now, he could not even be certain of that.

The Emperor sank into deep thought as he faced a future whose ending he could not see.

"Prisia..."

Footnotes:

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