TINOT 17

Chapter: 17

“What did the Emperor demand?”

Bernadette’s question followed.

Diamyud smiled faintly and shook his head.

“Nothing yet.”

“How strange. That greedy man would never miss such a good opportunity. Did it not seem like he had some other scheme?”

Last month, Diamyud visited the imperial palace to announce his marriage to Lysithea.

It had not been at the Emperor’s summons but of his own will. Since receiving the title of Grand Duke and leaving the palace, he had entered it fewer than ten times by choice.

The Emperor had seemed quite pleased that Diamyud bowed his head first and asked for something.

The self-satisfaction of believing he was taking good care of his orphaned nephew, along with the pleasure of seeing the son of the sister whose shadow he had never surpassed finally submit, made him generous.

“So the child you favor is Aster’s daughter.”

“Yes, that is correct, Uncle.”

“Is she not the fiancée of the Spencer heir? Ahh, what am I to do? I cannot withdraw a monarch’s promise to help if you truly desire her…”

The Emperor stroked his rough chin as though in deep contemplation.

“It is true that Lady Aster was engaged to Joel Spencer. However, it was Spencer who first broke faith. Aster has already sent a formal request to annul the engagement.”

“Is that so? Marquis Baldwin, were you aware?”

“Yes, Your Majesty. Aster demanded the annulment after the Spencer heir allowed the daughter of a baron—whose life he had saved—to stay at his residence in the capital.”

Marquis Baldwin, who had been present, answered respectfully.

During Diamyud’s years in the palace, Baldwin had been assigned as his “tutor” by the Emperor—a polite title for a watchdog. Through that connection, Diamyud had arranged this meeting to coincide with Baldwin’s audience.

“To behave so before marriage… Lady Aster must have been deeply hurt.”

The Emperor clicked his tongue in apparent sympathy.

“When fortune rolls into your lap, you must treasure it. Spencer lacks the capacity to hold someone like her.”

In truth, the Emperor had never liked the Spencer family gaining control of the Cullinan Mine. He readily sided with Lysithea.

The stage was fully set.

All that remained was for Diamyud to act appropriately and uphold the Emperor’s dignity.

Rising from his seat, he prostrated himself at the Emperor’s feet.

“Uncle, I humbly ask that you grant your grace so that no hardship may befall her on the path that leads her to me.”

The Emperor gazed down at him with satisfaction.

Diamyud did not find submission difficult. Nor did he value his knees so highly. He simply did not use them often—if abused, even a weapon becomes useless.

What meaning did such gestures hold? And yet the Emperor delighted in them.

“You burden me with a difficult choice. You are my wounded kin, and the Duke of Spencer is an old subject…”

…

“I have treated the Duke of Spencer very well. Generously. Yet I have done nothing for you, Diamyud. Marquis Baldwin, that annulment request—see that it is delivered to Diamyud when he leaves the palace.”

…

“This is my wedding gift.”

With a single kneel, he had secured a gift worthy of marriage. It was a profitable exchange.

But there was no need to tell Count Dilton the exact price he had paid.

The Emperor was not the only one who clung to meaningless gestures.

“He called it a wedding gift, so I doubt he will make further demands over this matter.”

Diamyud quietly buried the cost he had paid that day beneath a few simple words.

Bernadette, well aware of the Emperor’s fickle and boastful nature, let it pass.

“The power of the Cullinan Mine truly is remarkable. I never imagined His Majesty would strike the Duke of Spencer from behind.”

Though the mine had ignited the Emperor’s greed, that was not the only reason he had refused to side with Spencer.

Diamyud spoke softly.

“His Majesty has been saying something often of late.”

‘Old things are all well and good, but sometimes they break. They stop listening. If you cannot throw them away, there is only one solution—you must make them listen.’

Recently, the Emperor would mutter such words without context.

“I suspect that, to His Majesty, Spencer is something old he cannot discard.”

Bernadette let out a hollow laugh.

“So the old Duke of Spencer will face disgrace in his twilight years. Though, no one else is to blame. His recklessness brought the empire to this state.”

A bitter smile crossed Diamyud’s face.

Those who had followed his mother despised the Duke of Spencer nearly as much as Emperor Oswald himself.

The man who had made a mad prince into an emperor.

The aging monster who, even nearing seventy, still led House Spencer from the front.

Those who served Diamyud regarded the Duke as an enemy he must one day overthrow.

“There is something else I have not yet told you, Count.”

Bernadette raised an eyebrow at his serious tone and deliberately exaggerated her expression.

“Is it more shocking than Your Highness suddenly deciding to marry?”

“…She is a little unwell. If no one else, I thought you should know.”

“How unfortunate. She is still so young…”

Bernadette trailed off.

She understood why Diamyud had told only her. As the one who oversaw the Grand Duke’s estate, she was to prepare in advance—to arrange personnel and supplies in case Lysithea collapsed or fell ill.

It was not a difficult task.

She only had to leave the room and carry out her lord’s command.

But she could not.

For nearly twenty years, she had raised Diamyud as if he were her own.

To Bernadette, he was both her lord and a deeply wounded child—family whom she wished to see happy.

Clutching her skirt as if hesitating, she finally looked up with resolve.

“Your Highness, forgive my boldness, but may I ask something?”

“Of course.”

“Must you truly go through with this marriage?”

“…Because she is ill?”

She knew her words were harsh.

But Bernadette feared for the one who would be left behind, not the one who might depart.

“Not everyone grieves the death of a spouse. Especially if that spouse leaves behind an astronomical inheritance. But you are not such a person, Your Highness. You will not forget. Not for a long time.”

…

“I wish you would not place another dead upon your shoulders. They are already burdened enough.”

He had survived alone after his entire family perished. She did not want him to be alone again.

At her sincere concern, Diamyud gave the faint smile that had long since become habit.

“Count Dilton. No… Master.”

He remembered the first day he had met her, holding his mother’s hand.

She had not been a spy assigned by Emperor Oswald, but the true teacher his mother had carefully chosen to guide the son she loved.

But after his mother died, everything changed.

The one he was to revere as teacher. The beautiful world. The radiant future.

“All of it.”

“My clock broke. It stopped at a certain moment.”

“Diamyud, close your eyes here and count to one hundred.”

“If you hear nothing, you may open them. But if it is still noisy, you must count again.”

“Wait here like that. Mother will come back to you. So wait here. You can do that, can’t you?”

Even now, he had never left that place—that day when he was five years old.

“Don’t go, Mother. Please don’t go.”

“I love you, my son. I love you so much.”

“I don’t want to. I don’t want to be alone. You said you love me. I won’t ask for anything anymore. I won’t skip my studies or training. So please, Mother, please don’t go.”

“Diamyud, I love you too much—that’s why I must go. I know how desperately people wish to return to their families. Sending them back is what we must do.”

She hugged him as though he might break, then hurried away.

His father stood beside her, shielding her as they left.

“One, hic, two, three…”

Chunks of the collapsing building fell. Explosions thundered. Screams filled the air.

“Ninety-eight, ninety-nine…”

The acrid smoke. The taste of dirt and blood in his mouth. The trembling each time something fell.

No matter how many times he counted to one hundred, his mother never returned.

Then came a greater terror.

Only when trapped in suffocating silence did he learn that even ear-splitting noise and screams could be desperately wished for.

“Ninety-nine, ninety, nine…”

By then, he sensed his parents might never return.

He could not bring himself to say one hundred aloud.

He counted and counted and counted again—until he no longer knew how long it had been.

Then, at last, noise returned.

“Here! There’s a survivor!”

“Your Highness, Diamyud! Can you hear me?”

“My heavens, he’s alive! Quickly!”

He was rescued three days after the explosion.

But the world after his rescue was no different from that terrible site.

The world overturned. He became a castoff. His mother’s honor was trampled into the dirt.

Whenever that happened, he would hide within piles of magic he created.

If he counted there, someone might appear and pull him out.

On days he used too much magic, he inevitably returned to that day at five years old.

“Ninety-nine, ninety, nine, ninety-nine…”

Now he knew.

Even if he counted forever, he could never return to the days when his parents were alive.

But his broken clock did not move.

Frozen in halted time, like a damaged gramophone, he could only repeat ninety-nine.

“Ninety-nine, ninety—”

“One hundred.”

From some moment on, the woman who spoke the number he had never dared to say reached out her hand to him.

“Lysithea Aster. Your Highness will take my hand.”

At that moment—

Dong. Dong. Daaang.

The noon bell rang loudly through the sky.

“Master. The moment I met her again, the hands of my stopped clock began to move. Isn’t that reason enough to remain by her side?”

Diamyud recalled those golden eyes, bright as the sun at noon.

It felt as though at least one person should remain to watch over them to the very end.