TINOT 12

Chapter: 12

“Cullinan Mine… You mean that Cullinan Mine—the one Rowan and Aster fought over without yielding even an inch of ownership?”

At Diamuid’s question, Lisithea replied in an impeccably calm voice.

“Yes. Is there another Cullinan Mine besides that one?”

“…….”

Stunned as if money had suddenly fallen from the sky, Diamuid stared down at his teacup in a daze.

He studied the cup with tea still left in it for quite a while before finally speaking.

“Was my tea really that good? I thought it was fairly ordinary……”

So that bizarre flavor hadn’t been intentional malice?

Recalling the sour, bitter taste, Lisithea offered the most positive evaluation she could manage.

“It… wasn’t ordinary.”

Yes, it certainly wasn’t ordinary. Calling it ordinary would have been an insult to the very concept of “ordinary.”

At her answer, Diamuid took another sip of tea and then shook his head.

“No matter how good it was, that’s far too much to pay just for tea.”

“…….”

The taste of the tea wasn’t important at all, yet seeing his oddly pleased expression made Lisithea feel a strange tickle at the back of her throat.

With the patience she had cultivated over many years, she barely managed to suppress the urge to blurt out the truth.

“Besides, I’ve heard that the Cullinan Mine is an asset that can’t be sold or transferred unless one is a blood relative who inherits both the Rowan and Aster bloodlines……”

“Yes, that’s correct.”

“Then since neither the Rowan nor Aster lineage has anything to do with me, isn’t this impossible from the start?”

Just as Diamuid said, Lisithea’s proposal should have been impossible from the beginning.

Except for one single case.

“That’s why I said it, didn’t I? That I would offer the Cullinan Mine in exchange for unbreakable loyalty.”

“That sounds as if you’re proposing a sacred covenant with me.”

“If Your Highness accepts my unbreakable loyalty, I can give you everything I have. There is no right that can take precedence over a sacred oath, is there?”

A sacred covenant—an oath of unwavering loyalty sworn to a royal with a legitimate claim to the throne.

This ritual, also called a holy promise, allowed one to transfer all of their rights to the royal who became its recipient.

Taken aback by Lisithea’s matter-of-fact response, Diamuid let out a hollow breath and raised a hand to rub his brow.

“My, so something even more terrifying than the Cullinan Mine was waiting for me.”

With another long sigh, Diamuid looked again at the woman seated before him.

The Cullinan Mine Lisithea possessed was an asset so enormous that its value could not even be estimated at present.

Cullinan was the mineral with the highest mana responsiveness among all substances known to exist.

Its mana sensitivity was said to be several times that of diamonds and dozens of times that of pure gold.

Thanks to the conflict between Rowan and Aster, it had never been widely circulated, yet Cullinan alone had the power to sway the entire mana crystal market merely by existing.

Even the Emperor himself had once openly expressed his desire for the Cullinan Mine.

And now such a thing was rolling straight into his hands.

Diamuid had never wished for what he already held to increase further.

“I don’t know what circumstances led you to make such an offer to me. To be honest, I’d prefer not to know in the future either. If I did, it would weigh on my heart. It would be cowardly of me to know when I have no intention of accepting.”

He smiled awkwardly, the corners of his eyes drooping.

Lisithea knew that the man who looked so gentle before her possessed a stronger core than anyone she knew.

He was someone who had confined himself for more than a decade.

It didn’t seem likely that a decision made by such a man could be overturned with a few words.

“I didn’t expect you to refuse so firmly. May I ask why?”

“Well, who do you think sent those people after me?”

Diamuid asked, gesturing toward the pile of masked corpses stacked on one side of the drawing room.

“…….”

Someone immediately came to mind as capable of sending assassins after the Grand Duke of Cassius, but it was not a name one could easily speak aloud.

“You don’t need to worry about committing blasphemy as an imperial subject. It’s not the great person you’re thinking of.”

As if he could read her thoughts, he mentioned the Emperor first.

“The one who sent assassins after me was the First Princess, Florence—my cousin.”

The First Princess, Florence.

She was the Emperor’s eldest daughter, born to Empress Pamela, who hailed from a collateral branch of the House of Spencer.

Since the Duke of Spencer was her strongest supporter, she was also acquainted with Joel, the heir to the Spencer dukedom.

“Assassins in broad daylight… She’s more aggressive than she looks.”

Recalling the few times she had seen Princess Florence, Lisithea chose her words carefully.

“It’s surprising that Princess Florence would do something like that. Since Your Grace is so kind even to someone you’ve just met, I imagine you were gentle with your cousin as well. Why would Princess Florence do such a thing…?”

Separate from the fact that Diamuid had rejected her proposal outright, he had been unfailingly courteous throughout.

A gentle tone, a mild expression, even tea personally served—strange in taste though it was.

The consideration ingrained in him was not something that could be cultivated overnight.

Lisithea thought that no one who had seen Diamuid could deny his inherent kindness.

“What kind of person I am means nothing to her. Whether I’m a hopeless scoundrel or a far better man, she would still try to tame me as she is now. Even if she had to break my neck to do it.”

As Lisithea looked at his elegantly extended white nape, she contemplated Princess Florence’s bizarre actions.

“…But you can’t tame a dead person, can you? If Princess Florence’s goal is to possess Your Grace, this would only hinder her.”

Soon, Lisithea pointed out the princess’s folly.

Someone like Diamuid was not a man who could be obtained through threats to his life.

Princess Florence could not possibly be unaware of that—so what on earth was she thinking?

“She probably thought I wouldn’t die. And what she wants isn’t my heart.”

With a bitter smile, Diamuid brushed a hand over his face.

“Today, I rejected Florence’s fourteenth proposal of marriage—and in return, I received fourteen assassins as a gift.”

Fourteen proposals.

Princess Florence was far more persistent than Lisithea had expected.

“That’s my reason. I don’t want to increase the number of things I have to protect.”

That was the reason Diamuid gave for rejecting Lisithea’s offer.

“I’m sorry. My life is already burdensome enough just protecting what I have. I can’t accept you as one of my people.”

His red eyes looked straight at Lisithea, unwavering.

How many people did those eyes hold as his own?

She was curious—but Lisithea did not desire that much.

“The sacred covenant is merely a formality to give you the Cullinan Mine. You wouldn’t need to protect me.”

She had no intention of binding Diamuid with a covenant.

All Lisithea wanted was to hand over the Cullinan Mine to him.

“No, that won’t do. If I accept you as my vassal, your safety becomes my responsibility. And that is something I don’t wish to bear.”

But he was not the kind of man who could leave a formality as a mere formality.

“Do you truly have no need for the Cullinan Mine, Your Highness?”

“None at all. If I swallowed it without thinking, it feels like it would cause me serious trouble.”

Once again, he shook his head immediately.

Just how had the version of herself in the story managed to persuade this man? She felt as though she were sinking deeper into a labyrinth.

“I thought your seclusion was a wait for flight. Don’t you dream of revenge?”

Lisithea believed that the strongest emotion humans possessed was resentment.

No matter how one tried to swallow it down, that thick, clinging feeling always forced its way out—and Lisithea was confident she could recognize it.

In the story she had read, he had definitely taken Lisithea’s hand.

She could think of no reason for that other than revenge.

So if she could glimpse even a fragment of that dense darkness within Diamuid, she intended to pry her way into the gap by any means necessary.

Her golden eyes, quietly sunken, fixed on him.

Staring into empty space, Diamuid spoke in a calm, gentle tone, like a river flowing steadily.

“Revenge is for those who intend to live on into tomorrow. For someone like me, who is nothing more than a shadow of the past, revenge is too grand, too excessive. It’s enough for me to embrace everything as it is and quietly disappear.”

Around Diamuid as he spoke, dust motes caught the light and drifted as though dancing.

His loose white shirt fluttered in a breeze that had come from somewhere unseen.

His pale golden hair shimmered and rippled in the sunlight.

It was a scene like a moment of perfect beauty preserved forever.

Lisithea felt as though she were gazing at an artifact from some long-lost dynasty, displayed in a museum.

Spellbound as she watched him, Lisithea asked,

“Isn’t revenge something desired by those trapped in the past?”

Lisithea’s world had always remained stuck at a certain point in the past.

She was unable to live in the present, endlessly chewing over and revisiting the injustices that had befallen her.

She believed that people who, like her, were bound to the past were the ones who clung obsessively to revenge.

Yet the man before her said revenge belonged to those who looked toward the future.

She wanted to understand that difference.

“You think so?”

But he did not explain his thoughts.

“If that’s how you see it, then your revenge must be like that. How could the world ever be filled with just one color?”

With those words, he simply affirmed her perspective.