As Fey finished her preparations and left the Dahlia Palace, Kyle, who had been cheerfully drinking tea in the gazebo, immediately put down his teacup and approached her to greet her.

“Shall we go?”

Kyle looked Fey up and down in her neat attire and held out his hand. It seemed a little rude, but he was also considerate.

With her hair half tied up and wearing a navy blue velvet dress, Fey was so elegant and beautiful that it was hard to believe in the beggar she had been earlier.

With a face full of tension, Fey placed her hand on Kyle’s.

Kyle immediately drew her hand in the crook of his arm and started walking, as if he was a gentleman escorting his partner at a banquet.

“Kyle. I’m curious about something.”

They were about halfway to the Lily Palace.

A voice with a slight tremor called Kyle’s name. Fey fixed her gaze on the heel of Kyle’s shoe, which was slightly ahead of her.

She didn’t want to ask, but she felt like she had to know.

“What is it?” Kyle replied, and Fey gulped. Her lips were dry.

“Was it Deneb who made the report?”

It was a question about Luné’s death.

She thought it was certain that Deneb had told ‘Fey’ that she had killed Luné. He must have gone with his unique identity, ‘Kaitos,’ to confirm it. Otherwise, there would have been no reason for him to try to get Fey back, even to the point of using teleportation magic.

However, Kyle had never actually heard such a story and could only take Fey’s question as a simple inquiry about her disappearance.

“If you’re talking about Deneb, then yes. He informed the Imperial Palace that Marquis O’Bellie had disappeared.”

At the affirmation, Fey gripped the hem of her dress tightly with her lifeless white hands.

Kyle looked at the crumpled hem of her dress and Fey O’Bellie’s trembling fingers with a puzzled expression.

‘Is she angry? Or is she scared?

‘Surely she doesn’t believe what Godric said at face value.

‘She was so terrified at Ronan Bridge that she thought she was going to be punished… or maybe she just hates the fact that she failed to escape.

‘If she just thinks about it for a moment, she’ll know that she’s not going to be punished.’

Well, he couldn’t understand either way. However, Kyle had always been curious. It was a fundamental question that anyone who had heard the news that Fey O’Bellie had left Brimfe would have asked.

“Marquis O’Bellie. Didn’t you want to be the Crown Princess?”

At the subtle question, Fey looked up with a startled face.

“Yes?”

Unfortunately, Kyle’s question sounded to Fey like ‘Did you kill Luné to become the Crown Princess?’

Kyle could vaguely read the fear deeply embedded in Fey’s eyes. It seemed that she misunderstood something again.

He decided to prioritize his own curiosity rather than trying to clear up a misunderstanding that would be resolved once she entered the Lily Palace anyway.

“But why did you try to run away?”

He had no idea that those words would unravel all the tangled threads of Fey’s mind.

“Huh?”

“Yes?”

Fey asked back, and Kyle reflexively asked again. The conversation didn’t continue any further. An awkward air flowed between them, as if it had been cut off with a knife.

The strange silence, in which they simply stared at each other, ended when Kyle let out an embarrassed laugh.

“Did I ask something strange?”

Of course he asked something strange.

‘Why did she run away….’

She chose to run away because she didn’t want to die. Because ‘Fey’ had killed Luné, and Deneb knew it. Because she thought that he would eventually tell the Imperial Palace about it.

‘So he didn’t come to catch me because of it?

‘No? No, right? Could it be?

‘If not, then why did Kyle come to catch me?

‘Why on earth…’

Fey O’Bellie’s grim convictions began to crumble, ever so slightly. It was when she reached the Emperor’s bedchamber that her rapidly spinning mind drew a conclusion and abruptly halted its operations.

“Kyle.” A desperate voice called to the man. She asked, “Am I not going to die?”

The answer did not come right away. Fey anxiously grabbed Kyle’s wrist.

“Kyle, answer me.”

However, she was completely unaware of her own actions. Kyle was not surprised by the sudden development and instead quietly stared at the wrist she had grabbed. He could feel a faint strength in the hand that held him.

Was this what she had been thinking about all this time, after that strange conversation?

“I told you. Marquis O’Bellie was kidnapped.” Kyle chuckled, his eyes crinkling. “And I was trying to kill Sir Vega Thanatos on Ronan Bridge, not you.”

Kyle’s gaze fell upon Fey O’Bellie’s long eyelashes as she blinked blankly. She looked just like Luné O’Bellie.

“Why would I have brought you here alive, going to such ridiculous lengths to save you, only to kill you?”

“Ah…” Fey gave a deep sigh as she finally came to a profound realization.

“If His Majesty had really wanted to punish you, you would have already fallen to your death on Ronan Bridge. You know that. His Majesty is not a merciful man.”

She thought the opposite because he was not merciful. He would definitely capture her and kill her in a gruesome manner. Despite his roundabout way of speaking, Kyle’s answer boiled down to this: She did not come back here to die.

“Then why on earth did the Imperial Family come looking for me? Even using teleportation magic?”

“That’s…” He began to answer reflexively but quickly swallowed his words. Kyle gently pulled his wrist free. Only then did Fey realize she had been holding onto him, and she looked at Kyle and her own hand with wide eyes. Then, in a small voice, she muttered, “I’m sorry.”

Kyle shrugged, indicating that it was okay, and then gestured toward the marble door with a large lily flower engraved on it.

“You will find out naturally if you go in there.”

“?”

Fey tilted her head at the vague answer. Kyle did not seem to mind and wore the same emotionless smile he always showed in front of others.

“You will not die, Marquis O’Bellie.”

The feeling she had since the soldiers wearing helmets with lily flower designs had rushed out at her on Ronan Bridge. A sense of unease that something was going strangely wrong and a certainty that she could not stop it. That feeling had not yet ended.

* * *

There was nothing.

That was the first thought that crossed her mind as she stepped into the Emperor’s bedchamber.

Aside from the large four-person bed by the window, there wasn’t even a single bookcase in sight. And there were only three servants attending to him in the room.

Was this really the room where the Emperor resides? She wondered. It was so desolate that it felt more like a place where someone was left to die than the bedchamber of an Emperor.

“Your Majesty.”

Yet, the genuine Emperor was here.

An old man, looking nothing like the splendid golden tapestry behind him, sat on the four-person bed. He was the Emperor of the great Brimfe Empire.

“O Greatest of the Supreme Three, Fey O’Bellie greets you.”

Fey bowed. She quickly hid in a stiff face her bewilderment at the Emperor’s appearance, which was far different from what she remembered.

“I have been waiting for you, Fey.”

As his voice, like the sound of gravel scraping, pierced her eardrums, the door behind her slammed shut. There was truly nowhere to run now. Even as she thought that, Fey noticed the affection in the Emperor’s tone.

Leaning against the headboard with his frail body, the Emperor smiled gently.

“Come closer.”

“….”

“Are you afraid of my illness?”

“No, Your Majesty.”

Fey shook her head reflexively. Before she entered, the Imperial Mages had taken various measures.

The ‘Demonic Disease’ that was spreading in Brimfe was incurable once contracted, but it was easy to prevent the infection if one could use advanced white magic.

The problem was that there were only a few people in the world who could use ‘advanced white magic.’

The wealthy nobles and merchants spent a lot of money to always have various barriers around them. In the end, only the poor commoners died from the disease.

And yet…

Why was the man at the pinnacle of the world dying?

Fey approached the Emperor hesitantly but steadily.

In the suffocating silence, the sound of her high heels echoed eerily in the room.

Soon, Fey reached the bedside. The Emperor watched her sit on the chair she had brought forward and slowly opened his mouth.

“How is your body holding up? Are you not tired?”

“I’m fine, Your Majesty. Thank you for your concern.”

In truth, she had been feeling sleepy ever since soaking in the bath at Dahlia Palace, but she dared not tell the truth in front of the Emperor.

“I apologize, Your Majesty.”

Fey spoke before the Emperor could say anything. Partly because she wanted to get the beating over with, and partly because she wanted to test him.

“Despite the grace you have shown me, I shamelessly tried to run away from Brimfe.”

She will not die.

Did Kyle Vellot speak the truth?

Her anxious and flustered behavior was ironically proof that Fey believed Kyle’s words completely. If she didn’t, she would never have thought of leaving the Emperor.

“Don’t say such things. I am relieved that you are safe and alive.”

—