Diamond Crown (4)

Alicia did not notice anything strange about Reichardt and gently rubbed his back.

Her touch moved as if wishing that, if there was any pain left in him, it would heal.

Accepting the hand that stroked his shoulders and forearms in silence, Reichardt opened his mouth.

“If I had been in pain, I would have gone to wherever you were, Alicia.”

Alicia, who had been carefully caressing all ten of his fingers, froze.

“You knew where I was?”

There was no trace of accusation in her voice.

She had merely hit the mark by chance, and Reichardt flinched.

His golden eyes shook as if struck by an earthquake.

“You were in the study.”

Reichardt answered in his characteristic offhand tone.

“Yes… That’s true, but then why were you sitting out here? No, more importantly, how can you tell? Did you hear something?”

Puzzled, Alicia stroked her fiancé, who might or might not be in pain.

Reichardt’s eyes quivered a second time.

He decided to confess—at least partially.

He also did not want to make Alicia worry even more.

“Did you eat that red Magic Stone back then?”

His expression turned complicated as he asked.

Alicia suddenly felt uncomfortable.

He had told her the stone was hers, but when she remembered how tremendous that Magic Stone had been, she felt a bit guilty.

“Yes…”

Her words naturally trailed off.

“Ever since then, I’ve been able to tell where you are.”

Reichardt spoke seriously, telling a lie with a single drop of truth mixed in.

In reality, he had been able to sense where Alicia was from long before that.

Alicia blinked at his bewildering words.

“Even if I’m outside the house?”

Reichardt paused a moment before answering.

“Yes.”

“That’s amazing.”

Alicia was purely impressed.

“Isn’t it?”

Reichardt replied with whatever came to mind.

“How far does it reach? Too far, and you can’t tell? As long as I’m somewhere in the house, you always know?”

Alicia’s voice was full of curiosity.

“I’m not exactly sure.”

His golden eyes shook for the third time.

Reichardt answered quickly, but his answer was anything but certain.

Alicia looked up at him with a face that clearly said, Go on, tell me the rest.

Her sparkling eyes held only curiosity.

There was no hint of discomfort at the thought that her location might be exposed.

-Why did you go so close to Haime earlier?

Reichardt buried the question he must never ask deep in his heart.

He could not say something like that out loud.

That kind of question would be dripping with clinginess and sleazy possessiveness.

“If you’re in the house, I feel like I can tell where you are, anywhere. I can’t be precise, though.”

Reichardt drastically reduced the true range.

From the moment he first gained that ability, he had been able to sense Alicia’s position anywhere within the same residence.

Now…

It was probably the entire continent.

He simply did not dare tell the truth.

“That’s a relief. Then if you’re ever in pain, you can come to me anytime.”

Alicia had seen every bit of that uneasy trembling in his golden eyes.

She had a feeling the range went far beyond just within the house.

She also sensed that he knew exactly where she was… and that he was not telling her everything.

‘Just how far away can I be and he’ll still know?’

Alicia brushed away the question lightly.

Reichardt watched her smiling face with growing anxiety.

“As long as you’re not hurting, Rei, that’s all that matters.”

At her bold declaration, Reichardt bowed his head and kissed her smiling cheek.

He kissed the cheek where she was hiding her embarrassment.

“Sleep well.”

At his goodnight, Alicia waved and went into her room.

He stood there for a long time, staring at the closed door, suppressing all the words he had not said and all the questions that had not been answered.

-Why did you go to Haime?

It was not a polite question.

Above all, simply knowing that in the first place was not normal.

But Alicia seemed to have no particular problem.

For Reichardt, that was enough.

The real problem was himself.

He had to stop this habit of checking where Alicia was at the slightest excuse.

But even as he regretted it now, he could clearly see how, come tomorrow, he would again tell himself some cowardly excuse like he was just worried and find her location without even realizing it.

What he was doing was shameful.

He ought to confess everything honestly to Alicia, but he could not bring himself to say it.

Just now, too, he had waited there, intending to speak, then ended up showering her with kisses and running away.

Reichardt let out a long sigh and headed for his bedroom.

The next day.

A single letter of denunciation arrived at the imperial palace.

It was a letter accusing Chancellor Marquis Manners and the Marchioness of Belz of carrying on an affair.

A splendid carriage entered the road to Baden.

It belonged to House Belz.

Anyone could tell at a glance that the Marchioness of Belz was inside.

Of all people, only the Marchioness of Belz would dare hang gold decorations from a carriage door handle.

Alongside the large, luxurious carriage, a sleek black carriage drew close.

Knock, knock, knock.

The Marchioness of Belz frowned at the sound of knuckles on the window.

She was on her way to Baden, having been suddenly summoned by the emperor.

As the years passed, the emperor and the imperial family had increasingly treated House Belz as if it did not exist.

In the midst of that, an imperial decree had come.

Since it had given no hint as to why, her mind was in turmoil.

“Marchioness.”

She was about to lash out at her escort knight when a refined voice made her snap her gaze up.

It was Katrina’s voice.

Knock, knock.

The window sounded again.

Schooling her face, the Marchioness opened it.

“Katrina…?”

Katrina’s carriage was running parallel with the Marchioness’s.

“It has been a while, Marchioness.”

The two carriage windows were at the same height, facing one another.

Seeing Katrina’s face on a level with her own, the Marchioness reflexively showed a flicker of displeasure.

But more than that, she was stunned that the woman was still alive and well.

“Katrina, I looked for you recently, but you were nowhere to be found.”

“I was staying on the Western Continent.”

Katrina did not bother to offer any formal bow to the Marchioness.

Perhaps it could be excused because they were in moving carriages, but it still got under her skin.

“I see.”

The Marchioness tried to act like she was happy to see an acquaintance, but she could not quite keep her expression together.

The corners of her eyes and lips kept twitching of their own accord.

Even flustered, she tried to think quickly.

Last time, she had only ordered the destruction of the secret workshop.

That was all she had gotten for dealing with what was supposed to be the greatest assassination clan in the Rune Empire—pure disappointment.

Who should she contact now to dispose of this face before her as quickly as possible?

Katrina was always on the move.

So whenever she appeared in sight, it was essential to place a request and cut loose any future trouble.

The fact that Katrina had shown herself like this was fortunate; it was an opportunity.

“Where are you stay—”

“Marchioness, I must first beg your pardon.”

Just as the Marchioness began to gather information for the sake of perfection, Katrina abruptly apologized.

“Pardon?”

Having already thought of ways to make use of Katrina’s appearance, the Marchioness swiftly recovered her composure.

“I am truly sorry. Circumstances left me no choice but to reveal your relationship with that person, Marchioness.”

Katrina lowered her voice as far as it would go and whispered.

That person? Who?

The Marchioness could not immediately guess whom she meant.

She had summoned Katrina to the marquisate so often that Katrina knew far more than she should.

For the Marchioness, there were many ways to keep a mere merchant clenched in her fist.

She had always assumed Katrina was in no position to let her tongue slip, and that if she ever did, there were plenty of ways to dispose of her.

But the timing was bad now.

Who was she talking about?

Just as the Marchioness began to answer with a leisurely air—

“To think you were being used like that, letting that person make such use of the items you’d ordered from me… Why did you allow it, Marchioness? No doubt you were being blackmailed as well.”

Katrina’s words grew even more suggestive.

“Blackmailed?”

The Marchioness raised her voice, displeasure plain on her face.

“Shh, lower your voice, Marchioness. I know that His Excellency the Chancellor threatened you over your affair and had you gift the Golden Candles to the imperial family. As you told me time and again, the Golden Candles were made for you, Marchioness. There is no way you would willingly use something that dangerous on anyone else, much less on the imperial family. His Excellency the Chancellor is truly cruel, is he not?”

Katrina’s smile deepened in a subtle way.

“…!”

The Marchioness of Belz went white in an instant.

“I truly did want to keep faith with you, Marchioness. But no matter how good a person you are, and even if you were being blackmailed, I am the one who made those things—it puts me in a difficult position if they are used that way, does it not? I had no choice but to write a full report in my own hand on the composition and effects of the Aedria Candles, which were gifted to the imperial family as Golden Candles. I, too, ended up being threatened, and so there was nothing else I could do.”

Katrina whispered with a smile.

“What!?”

The Marchioness’s voice tore out of her.

Katrina kept repeating that she had had no choice, but the smile on her face made it almost impossible to hold back her fury.

“Please, keep your voice down, Marchioness. I do genuinely pity you for being used by a cold-blooded politician. But my life is precious too, so what could I do? I also made sure not to forget writing down in detail how much you ordered and for where you said you would use them. Just in case, I included a list of all the lovers of yours that I know about.”

Katrina’s meaning was perfectly clear.

The Marchioness of Belz had ordered the Golden Candles, but it was by Marquis Manners’s command that they had been used on the imperial family.

If she had to, Katrina would expose every one of the Marchioness’s countless men to convince the emperor.

“…Do you think you’ll get away with this?”

The Marchioness whispered, her voice trembling.

“Since you seem to be on your way to Baden, it must be that the imperial family has summoned you? I sincerely hope you leave the palace unharmed. It seems our connection ends here.”

Katrina dipped her head in a little nod of farewell and closed her carriage window.

The sleek carriage sped away.

“…”

The Marchioness had assumed that someone of Katrina’s lowly birth could never know about the imperial Golden Candles.

She had not worried even if the woman developed high connections and somehow learned the truth.

Katrina bore the original sin of having made the Golden Candles.

Because of that, the Marchioness had dismissed her, certain that even if she learned the truth, she would not dare squeak.

She could not believe that a lowborn merchant was now the one threatening her.

Her head rang as though it had been struck by lightning.

How dare she…

But Katrina was not the real problem.

The real problem was the imperial who, knowing about Katrina’s Golden Candles, was now blackmailing the Marchioness herself.

-If you want to live, you will shift all the blame onto Marquis Manners.

Within the imperial palace, the Golden Candles were practically the Marchioness of Belz’s symbol.

No matter how many explanations she tacked on, she could not erase her responsibility.

The Marchioness even considered ignoring the imperial decree and turning her carriage around for Belz right that moment.

“Are you the Marchioness of Belz?”

A polite voice followed the rapid approach of hoofbeats.

“Who is it?”

“The Imperial Knights, Your Ladyship. We have come to escort you. Shall we go?”

At the words spoken outside the window, the Marchioness squeezed her eyes shut.

“I am grateful for your assistance.”

Forcing out the polite reply, she gave herself over to her thoughts more intensely than ever.

In the end, she had no choice but to follow Katrina’s lead.

The problem was the person she had to convince.

Would the emperor believe her?