Diamond Crown (2)

The voices of the physicians urging her on could be heard even in the waiting room.

Perhaps because of her introverted nature, Pauline seemed to be only bearing down, not screaming.

“Just a little more!”

Only the shouts of the physicians, not the mother’s cries, continued to ring out.

This was Alicia’s second time in the waiting room outside a birthing chamber, so she did not pin her hopes on the doctors’ calls.

When the Baroness of Goggins had gone into labor, she had heard the same words as soon as she went in.

So this time, she decided she would not let herself grow hopeful until she heard a baby cry.

Even the mother’s family had not yet arrived.

It felt like it would be evening before they would be able to predict anything.

“……!”

Reichardt, at Alicia’s side, turned his gaze toward the birthing room.

She thought she heard a short cry from within.

But there was still no baby’s wail.

“Rei?”

Alicia turned to the side and whispered softly.

“It seems the baby has been born.”

At Reichardt’s words, Alicia was bewildered.

The birthing room had not sounded particularly different, and yet he was saying the child had been born.

When Alicia had reached the waiting room, they had said it had been about ten minutes since Pauline went in.

“Keep pushing!”

A doctor’s shout rang out from the birthing room, his voice hoarse.

It still seemed too early.

She wondered if Reichardt had simply misheard.

“Waaah! Waaah!”

A cry erupted from the birthing room, louder than anything they had heard so far.

It was the sound of a baby.

“They’re born?”

The Count of Istevna sprang to his feet as he spoke.

Hurried sounds echoed from inside the birthing room.

The brief moment during which they could not see beyond the door felt as long as an eternity.

In that short span, the baby’s piercing cries struck their ears without pause.

“Waaah! Waaah!”

It had a strength that did not seem like that of a newborn baby.

The crying was so loud that their ears rang.

The Emperor’s expression, as he stared at the door to the birthing room, was no less intense than that of the babies’ father, the Count of Istevna.

Expectation and concern, worry and excitement, joy—

Every emotion was jumbled together on the face that watched the door.

The expressions of the imperial family were all strangely complex.

“…….”

Alicia, too, waited in a daze, feeling as if her heart were melting.

“Waaah!”

In the brief instant when the door to the birthing room opened, the great wail thrust into the waiting room.

Even after the door closed, the ringing power of the cry continued.

A physician crossed into the waiting room and bowed to the Count of Istevna.

“Congratulations, Your Lordship. They are princesses. They’re fraternal twins, and even though they’ve just been born, they look completely different.”

“And Pauline?”

“The mother is in good health. For a first birth, she truly did wonderfully. Please, go in.”

At the physician’s words, the Count of Istevna forgot even to exchange congratulations with the Emperor and headed for the birthing room.

“Waaah!”

The resounding cries of the babies and Kain’s choked voice overlapped.

“Pauline!”

Listening to the baby’s cries pounding against her ears, Alicia’s smile spread.

At the same time, she realized she was crying without even knowing it.

“Alicia? Why are you crying?”

Reichardt slipped an arm around Alicia’s shoulders as silent tears ran down her cheeks.

“Huh… why am I crying…?”

Wiping away the tears running down her face, Alicia muttered in an embarrassed voice.

Her face, overflowing with emotions she could not name, turned toward Reichardt.

“You’re not hurt anywhere, are you?”

“No.”

Alicia answered Reichardt’s question with a stuffy, tear-thickened voice.

For some reason, the tears would not stop.

Ignoring the glances directed at him, Reichardt pulled the weeping Alicia into his arms.

He patted her shaking back to comfort her.

Alicia wrapped her arms around him in return, her feelings in turmoil.

The joy of a birth.

The ache of longing for the dead.

Alicia had helped make it possible for those babies to be born.

And for a brief moment, she had even agonized over whether they ought to be allowed to be born or not.

The twins who had never been born before had now come safely into the world.

The tangle filling her mind was erased by relief.

“…….”

“…….”

The people in the waiting room secretly watched Reichardt and Alicia clinging to each other.

All of them were watching with intense focus while pretending not to look.

Reichardt kept stroking Alicia’s back, soothing her and telling her it was all right.

“Are you all right?”

Everyone in the waiting room knew Reichardt Tessen.

That deep voice, usually so blunt and devoid of emotion, was now filled with worry and pity.

The worry-laden tone sank into her ears.

It was a voice they knew very well.

And yet it carried a resonance they had never heard before.

“…….”

“…….”

The Emperor and Marquis Lennox quickly exchanged glances.

“What is that voice?”

Josephina grumbled in an exaggerated whisper, glaring at her uncles.

“Josephina, what kind of way is that to talk? It’s good that he gets along with his fiancée.”

“Exactly. Josefi, you need to fix your tone.”

As Josephina grumbled, rubbing the goosebumps on her arms despite the midsummer heat, the two imperial uncles sternly rebuked her.

At the betrayal of her two uncles—who, until a moment ago, had been just as astonished as she was—Josephina narrowed her eyes.

“What’s wrong with my tone?”

Josephina behaved confidently even toward the legitimate members of the imperial line.

One of them was the Emperor, but she did not shrink back in the slightest.

Click.

While the three of them were muttering together and Alicia and Reichardt were still locked in an embrace, the door of the birthing room opened and Kain Istevna stumbled back into the waiting room as if his soul had left him.

“Kain, how is the Marchioness of Istevna?”

“She… seems to be in good health, thankfully.”

Kain’s pupils were utterly empty as he answered.

His dazed face made one wonder if they could really believe that the mother was well.

“And the twins?”

The Emperor paid no mind to Kain’s somewhat odd state.

“…One of them is quiet and pretty. But the other one looks just like me. And she behaves just like I do…”

Kain babbled, looking completely spaced out.

“Oh dear. Lord Istevna, what do you say to taking some time off from official duties?”

Marquis Lennox was quick to offer consoling words.

“Just like you? A princess looks just like you? If she’s just like you, then…”

The Emperor could not manage to finish his sentence properly.

“If she looks just like Uncle Kain, then that means an angelic face, a thug-like personality, and the powers of a god of destruction, doesn’t it?”

Josephina laid out the brutal reality in detail.

“…….”

Kain stared at Josephina with eyes full of reproach.

“No wonder her crying is that terrifying. Mother said so. She said, the twins ought to take after Pauline, both in existence and in temperament. If they take after Kain, the two of them will age ten years every year of marriage.”

Josephina imitated Princess Louise’s words, pressing her hand to her head in exaggerated seriousness.

“Josephina.”

“Cheer up, Lord Marquis. I’ll come visit often. You’ll just need to hire ten wet nurses. His Majesty will help you, won’t you, Uncle Renat?”

The Emperor pretended not to hear Josephina.

He patted the stunned Kain on the shoulder and spoke lightly.

“Hurry and decide on the twins’ names and let me know.”

Having tossed that irresponsible remark at his younger brother, the Emperor left to prepare the celebration party.

“Lord Istevna, what do you say to grabbing a nap in advance? If there’s one little one who’s just like you, the marquis’s estate is going to turn into the lair of a King of Destruction.”

“How can you say that about a newborn baby?”

At Marquis Lennox’s ill-omened “worry,” Kain made a displeased face.

Even so, he took a seat on the long bench set up in the waiting room.

“Start practicing taking catnaps now.”

Marquis Lennox, wearing a stern expression, continued to spout nonsense.

“Get lost.”

Kain shot back, his face twisting with emotion.

“I worry and that’s the attitude I get. Anyway, I need to go deliver the news. I’ll come call you when the party’s ready.”

Marquis Lennox left the waiting room.

“Congratulations on becoming a father, Brother.”

Reichardt offered his congratulations to Kain, who was barely holding his soul together.

He still had his arm around Alicia’s shoulders, his hand gently patting in comfort.

“Thank you…”

Kain’s gaze wavered wildly as he looked up at Reichardt.

Reichardt’s build was large, and Alicia’s frame was small, so standing so close together made the size difference even more dramatic.

At a glance, it looked as though Alicia were buried in Reichardt’s arms.

Kain could not take his eyes off the hand with which Reichardt was holding Alicia.

He had never once imagined Reichardt walking around with his fiancée tucked against his chest.

“Alicia, Pauline asked me to tell you she wants to see you. Will you stop by the birthing room before you go?”

“I will.”

Alicia had only just managed to stop crying.

Fresh tears quickly welled at the corners of the eyes that had just begun to smile again.

Kain stared, almost spellbound, at Reichardt as he turned, still holding Alicia by the shoulders.

Josephina, standing beside Kain, also stared blankly at Reichardt as he steered Alicia along.

“…….”

“…….”

Kain and Josephina exchanged secretive looks.

“Did you see that, Uncle?”

“I did. So that’s how it is?”

“What is?”

At Josephina’s question, Kain spoke in a lowered voice.

“Looks like Reichardt is going to get married.”

“I see.”

Josephina, puzzled at first by Kain’s confident statement, then nodded seriously in agreement.

Silence and darkness filled the room.

Outside, it was night.

All of the lamps that had lit the room had been extinguished with the announcement that a guest would be coming.

Katrina sat waiting at a small table.

“Master Katrina.”

The door opened and a gentle voice sounded.

“Lady.”

From the moment the letter had declined to name its sender, Katrina had guessed that her counterpart would not show her face.

The guest had come to her with her face veiled in darkness.

“It has been a while.”

Katrina knew who the guest was.

And the guest, though her face was covered, had no intention of hiding her identity.

Alicia Rain.

A faint scent of Veil Eau de Toilette drifted from the guest.

Katrina instantly recognized it as an early work from her Veil Series, which she considered one of her masterpieces.

Katrina had been overjoyed recently when she improved Veil Eau de Toilette.

She felt she had created a fragrance capable of changing her life.

To smell Veil in a situation like this was strangely disconcerting.

“Command me.”

Katrina took an entirely humble stance.

Alicia was the benefactor who had saved her life.

It was not mere gratitude that made her bow, however.

There had to be a reason Alicia had pursued the Marchioness of Belz, who had tried to kill Katrina.

“Command you? Master Katrina, it’s I who feel uneasy, having to confine someone who has gone through so much. But we need procedures to confirm your innocence, so I must ask for your understanding.”

The voice that flowed out from behind the veil was warm and gentle.

“…….”

Hearing only the words “innocence,” “confirm,” and “procedure,” Katrina realized that Alicia had uncovered the dealings between herself and the Marchioness of Belz.

The golden scented candles.

She had always expected that those things would cause trouble sooner or later.

“Master Katrina? Why are you so quiet? Is it too dark, is it difficult for you?”

“No, Lady.”

Katrina pondered how to appear honest before the woman who had saved her, while still minimizing her own culpability.

During the attack by the Marchioness of Belz, she had been ready to give up the rest of her life—but humans were truly this fickle.

“I call it a procedure, but please don’t think of it as anything difficult. All I intend is to hear your side of things, Katrina.”

Alicia comforted Katrina, who had gone rigid.

“My apologies.”

Katrina strove to remain courteous while somehow regaining her composure.

“Master Katrina, how did you become entangled in all of this? And with the Marchioness of Belz as well. I find it hard to believe. Someone as innocent as the Marchioness of Belz… Though there are people who grumble behind her back that she spends gold coins as if they were water, that’s only because she’s been rich from childhood. She’s simply not interested in the affairs of the world, so she doesn’t know better and was dragged into this, perhaps?”