Ch152 - Epilogue - The Queen's Chair

When Ebroin V arrived at the scene, everything was over.

Bodies were piled high throughout the drawing room. Severed limbs, ravaged vital organs, evidence of a brutal slaughter. The traces of the desperate struggle were carved plainly into the corpses, vividly reconstructing what had transpired there.

At the time, Eugène had only two weapons at his disposal: a palm-sizedsicaand apistolet. Even allowing for the latter’s repeating mechanism, he could fire only two shots. Once those were spent, the pistolet would have been reduced to nothing more than a heavy, blunted object, useless as a weapon.

“He held them off alone for fifteen minutes.”

Surrounded by fifteen insurgents, fifteen minutes was no brief span.

The rescue party did not arrive in time. The Anti-Chevaliers’ insistence that the imperial children must be rescued had merit, but the Imperial Guard’s judgment that the safety of the remaining Grands could not be disregarded was not wrong either. Unable to reconcile these opposing views, they argued for some time, and in the end could dispatch only a five-man vanguard to aid Eugène.

Even they failed to arrive promptly. Their position was discovered on the stairway to the third floor by a patrol, and a fierce battle broke out across the landing. Five against five. Though the numbers were equal, the terrain placed them at a decisive disadvantage.

Charging upward would likely have led to their annihilation, so despite their urgency, they had no choice but to remain engaged. The fighting dragged on relentlessly until Hunter returned to the estate with the fifty-odd reinforcements he had requested from Victor.

Ebroin V, listening to the hastily compiled reports, could not bring himself to reproach them. Everyone present had fulfilled their duty.

Eugène had as well. To protect his children, he had quite literally given his entire body to the fight and held his ground. He collapsed only after Hunter’s relief force reached the drawing room, and even then, not until more than thirty minutes later. It was only after that that Ebroin V himself finally arrived at the estate, still dressed in full imperial regalia.

“Where is Eugène?”

He mercilessly kicked away the bodies that were trampled beneath his feet as he approached them. A strange foreboding took hold.Why are they all gathered in one place like this?As he got closer, only ominous thoughts entered his mind.Why is Baron Bouilhet’s expression so grave? Why are Hunter’s eyes rimmed with red?…Moreover, some of them had even removed their hats and placed them on their chests as if expressing condolences.

It cannot be.Ebroin V roughly shoved aside those blocking his view and forced his way through them.It cannot be.He felt his mind go blank as he discovered Eugène lying like a broken doll before a blood-soaked tapestry.

It cannot be…

Ebroin V stared down at the horror before him with a complexion paler than blank parchment.

The garments he had chosen that very morning for the man who was returning to him after so long, had been torn to a pitiful ruin. Countless slashes and stab wounds carved across his limbs had utterly mutilated his body.

There was no small number of gunshot wounds either. The thin skin between collarbone and shoulder was caved inward, and somewhere along his waist showed the same. Eugène’s shirt was not merely soaked in blood but twisted and clotted, as though it had become a mass of gore itself. It was impossible to tell where or how he had been injured. Even one side of his face was entirely drenched in blood.

“Eugène.”

Finally, Eugène was there. The face of the one he loved, whom he had yearned for night after night throughout the past week, appeared before him.

“… Eugène.”

But his condition was beyond wretched. It was as though the images that had relentlessly tormented him these past days had not been idle delusions at all, but some kind of prophetic dream made real.What if, by some terrible mischance, you were to lose that person? If you were to regret this decision for the rest of your life?The grim omens whispered by the irrational depths of his mind seemed to have taken form.

No. That could not be.Even as he felt every thought within him slipping into darkness, the Emperor shook his head. He made the best possible choice he could have made at the time. He chose justice even though he had to put the person he loved more than anyone else upon the scales.

Was this all that choice had earned you?The Emperor, crushed by unrelenting doubt and rage, felt a fierce headache bloom behind his eyes. The thoughts surging chaotically through his mind no longer felt distinguishable from phantom voices.

As though trying to gather together his collapsing heart, Ebroin V pulled Eugène’s body into his arms. The stiffened body settled heavily against his chest. It was far colder than he remembered, and strangely withered, as though all warmth had already been leeched away.

No matter how tightly he held him, the Emperor felt as though Eugène were constantly slipping from his arms. In mounting desperation, he clasped his body with not the slightest gap between them. Upon the beautifully tailored robes of deep red and green, congealed masses of blood were crushed and smeared.

“…You cannot do this to me.”

The Emperor raised trembling hands and drew the slackly fallen head into his embrace. Blood stained his ivory white fingers, yet he paid it no heed.

“Wechose what was right. It was not something more important than you, but something thatWebelieved was also important to you. It was not a choiceWedesired.Wechose it becauseWehad no other choice….”

Speaking as though in a soliloquy, Ebroin V pressed his lips to the crown of Eugène’s head. The warmth that touched his lips was lukewarm, like a teacup slowly losing its heat. Despite the Emperor’s desperate longing, Eugène did not so much as stir. Ebroin V brushed his lips across his forehead and whispered in a daze.

“But if you do this.”

…If you leave me like this, what will become of me?

Creeaak–The firm structure of his world twisted. From childhood, his mother had laid the foundation, countless tutors had stacked the buttresses stone by stone, and he himself had plastered the walls and set the roof upon it. A firm and meticulous edifice of character.

snw Twrp Mp Pnw qJWwCMC, bnM bgT grbgjT DdTP gOt kMrt, bnM YwrfwZwt PngP wZwCj knMfkw JdTP Yw Jgtw pCMJ Pnw JMTP CfxnPwMdT TPgOtWMfOP, bgT OMb YwfOx JwCkfrwTTrj bgCWwt. AOPfr PnfT JMJwOP, OMPnfOx ngt wZwC PnCwgPwOwt PnfT fJWCwxOgYrw pMCPCwTT Mp kngCgkPwC. VP bgT g kMJWrwPwt bMCrt, g TfOxrw kfPgtwr, gOt fP bgT grTM qYCMfO H nfJTwrp.

“-tEN.”

It was as if his mind was utterly hollow. It was as though someone had crushed his very brain, leaving him incapable of rational thought.Creaak, creeaak, creaaakkk. The ominous creaking that arises when a massive ice floe begins to fracture, when a minute fissure spreads beyond control, echoed relentlessly in his ears.

snMdxn fP bgT g TMdOt OM MOw wrTw kMdrt nwgC, qYCMfO H rfTPwOwt PM Pnw ngrrdkfOgPfMO bfPn xCgZw gPPwOPfMO, gT PnMdxn fP bwCw g TMdOt PngP PCdrj wmfTPwt.

“… IM…dC… lgD…wTPj.”

ij TMJw fJJwgTdCgYrw TPCMvw Mp pMCPdOw, fP ZgOfTnwt gpPwC kgTPfOx MOrj fPT TngtMb. XMC MOw fJWMTTfYrj tCj gOt kCgkvwt WgfC Mp rfWT TPCdxxrwt PM JMZw, pMCkfOx MdP PbM bMCtT.

At first, the Emperor thought he was hallucinating.

But it was no hallucination. Eyelids that had not stirred, as though consciousness itself had fled, trembled faintly. Eugène tried to open his eyes, yet seemed to lack even the strength to lift his gaze.

His thin lips were forming words. His voice, even the rasp of his breathing, was so faint that it was scarcely intelligible. Ebroin V cupped his cheek with a trembling hand and leaned in to listen.

And Eugène, heavens above, his one and only beloved whom he had truly believed he had lost only moments ago, whispered words that at last brought tears to the Emperor’s eyes.

“Why did you come so late? I had been waiting.”

***

He dreamed of the sea.

Black-blue waters, without top or bottom, only darkness stretching endlessly.

At first, he believed he had died and become a bird. That he was flying endlessly through a night sky without stars. He did not doubt the tireless wings. Perhaps he was not a bird at all, but the wind itself.

But when he glanced below, what he discovered was a vast school of sardines, their silver scales flashing as they swam. Only then did he know that this place was the sea.

He glided through the lightless sea with ease. It was astonishing that he had not realized it until now; he was truly a colossal beast. Vast and wise, yet supple. Strong enough that no one could trespass upon him, yet an elegant ruler who plundered none.

Nothing in the sea could harm him. Nothing could trouble him. Even the orcas, known for their brutality and cruelty towards weaker creatures, would quietly lower their tails before his immense form.

Wherever he swam, small schools of rays fluttered around him in a chaotic trail. Some shameless sea turtles would quietly land on his back to rest their weary bodies, but he would close his eyes, feigning ignorance. On some days, a playful seal, thinking he was merely a natural formation like a reef or ice floe, would approach, only to flee in astonishment upon realizing he was a living colossus.

He was infinitely free in that sea.

But as free as he was, he felt lonely.

The sea stretched endlessly, as if the world itself were one. He had swum beneath the solid ice of the frigid Arctic, where even breathing was a struggle. He had passed schools of herring so abundant that fishing boats sang songs of rich catch while casting nets without cease, and met mischievous dolphins that spent the day leaping across the waves in playful frolic. Further south, after parting from them, he would find the tropical seas, clear and pristine, where vibrant coral reefs bloomed beneath the surface like underwater gardens.

He saw and heard all of these seas. Riding every current he could follow, he swam onward ceaselessly. But nowhere was there a creature of his kind. He was like a beast left alone in the world.

A long time passed. Time, like the currents he crossed, came endlessly from ahead and flowed behind, and as always, he remained alone within it.

To him, solitude was not a guest that arrived without warning. It was a companion that stayed at his side, only occasionally stepping away. It was so old, so familiar, that he had forgotten they were even separate beings, something that simply remained as a matter of course, so that if anyone asked about the nature of their bond, he could only brush it off by calling it a “friend.”

He believed his life would be like that forever. Free, lonely, and at times desolate. Yet because he was alone, no one would be hurt, and no one would be wounded. Simply silent days of stillness.

But one day, by chance, he heard it. When he first heard it, he did not know it was a song.

Just as speech and writing are passed on through learning, song, too, is something that must be learned. He had never heard such a thing even once. Only after listening to it again and again did he barely come to grasp, dimly, the concept of a song, but it was difficult to understand why such sounds were being made without end.

Even so, curiosity arose. It was fascinating at first, then later it became amusing. He wondered what kind of beast could be making such sounds. And yet, he never thought to seek the other out, because the very notion that one ought to do so did not even occur to him.

Strangely, however, from a certain day on, there were times when he longed for that sound. Without knowing who was speaking or what was being said, whenever the song reached him, he would quietly lend an ear. To his delight, it did not end after a single time. From the very middle of the distant sea. Or from a nearer shore than that. Whenever he began to forget it, it would once again find its way to his ears.

When the repeated melody grew excessively familiar, that tune drifted faintly through his dreams like a lullaby. And then one day, without any conscious thought, he found himself placing that melody upon his own lips and singing it.

Oh.Like a flash of light cutting across the night sky, beautiful and vivid, he suddenly realized.

You are calling to me now.

This is a song you are singing to awaken me.

***

It felt as though he were waking from a long dream.

The moment when drifting consciousness settles into clarity is always difficult to explain. When the incomprehensible fragments of a dream, impossible to grasp through conscious thought, shatter and vanish, awareness rises dimly, like a longing clouded with dust. As though wiping clean a mirror left unused for far too long, Eugène slowly began to polish the surface of his consciousness, which had sunk deep below.

“Today, the investiture ceremony was held.”

A voice of boundless tenderness whispered in his ear. Something moist, endlessly soft and warm, pressed against his lips, which had grown rough and dry. He let it continue to moisten his mouth for a moment, then continued.

“It seems there was quite a bit of talk, since it was the first investiture ceremony where the person concerned could not attend. Still, there was not a single one who dared to speak such words before me.”

He whispered in a playful tone that he had simply gone through with it. It was not as though they were being deprived of anything, and it was only natural to give what you were meant to inherit anyway, so would it not be stranger to begrudge it? There was no legal issue at all, and it was something I, myself, was granting. How could they dare to prattle on about it?

“Even so, it feels unsettling to call you by the name with which that man was once addressed.”

As though he had been doing this for a very long time, his touch was deft yet delicate. He carefully wiped away any residue around the eyes, brushed dust from the face along the grain of the skin, and even rubbed behind the ears cleanly, before moving on to the next task.

Eugène felt his heavy arm, which did not seem to belong to him at all, being lifted into the other’s hand. By now, his once hazy awareness had grown clearer, enough for him to distinctly recall who the owner of that voice was.

Your Majesty?

But in the very next moment, Eugène could not help but doubt his own memory.Your Majesty? What nonsense was that? Was the owner of this voice truly His Majesty Ebroin V?

…The man who just now began trimming my nails with silver clippers, is that person truly…??

Click. Click. Click.With hearing restored to its usual sharpness, the sound of nails being cut reached his ears. The Emperor carefully trimmed Eugène’s nails so as not to pinch the tender flesh. All the while, he continued speaking to him.

“Come to think of it, did I ever tell you? The Duke of La Mer. No, that is not right. The Duke of La Mer is you now. Oscar Valentièe, who was the Count of d’Estuaire, has officially been declared dead. That is why the title was given to you, but it seems they still have not found his body.”

He fell silent for a while, as though sunk deep in thought. Listening to this, Eugène began to grow ever more confused.

Wait, what did you just say? Who is the Duke of La Mer? Are you saying that the Duke of La Mer you just mentioned is I?

The story was so shockingly overwhelming that Eugène felt as though the mind he had only just regained might slip away again. He had merely gone to sleep and woken up, yet it felt as though the world had changed beyond all reason.

Why was he being called the Duke of La Mer? And why was His Majesty personally tending to him? He could not understand any of it, and his head began to ache. The mind he had considered reasonably serviceable felt as though it had turned into a sponge.

“Do you know what the very first thought was that came to me when I heard that news? I thought it was a blessing beyond measure. If he had died peacefully on his own after turning you into this, I would never have been able to tolerate it.”

“Because of that,”Ebroin V whispered,“I could not abandon the pursuit.”He intended to use Victor Adelphe and every other card at his disposal to capture Oscar without fail.

However, he did not speak words that were too brutal to the sleeping Eugène. It had only been two months since Eugène had nearly stepped halfway into death and barely returned. Faced with someone who had not even finished recovering, it felt far too careless to put words like death or torture to his lips.

He stroked Eugène’s forehead with a hand endlessly gentle and whispered softly.

“Still, three months is far too long. When will you finally wake? They told me it was too late for me, yet you are the one who keeps me in greater torment.”

Only then, upon hearing those words, did the deeply bewildered Eugène manage to grasp the situation in rough outline. Three months. So that was it. Had it truly been three whole months?Have I been asleep for that long since that day?His consciousness was not yet complete, so he could not recall things clearly, but as he listened, it seemed that fragments of what had happened before he lost consciousness were returning, bit by bit.

Grand Feaute. The gunpowder hidden inside the wine barrels. The rebellion of the Eastern noble houses. The children behind the tapestry. And the desperate battle he had fought until his blood soaked the walls entirely….

So that is why I am this exhausted.

Eugène realized that there was a clear reason he could not move his body at all, as though he were still pinned down even after regaining consciousness. His body was in a state of complete collapse, drained after being pushed to its very limits.

“I warn you, if you continue like this and do not wake, I cannot guarantee what will happen. With the successive rebellions and your affair, the nobles these days are all flattened at my feet. They may whisper behind my back, but before me, they cannot move a muscle.”

Ebroin V recalled, with a bitter smile, the moment just after he believed Eugène dead, when he had failed to control himself and had nearly suffered a complete collapse of reason. No one would have expected that something as simple as love could drive him that far.

In truth, he himself had not known it either.

“I will make one honest confession. Though I have been Emperor my entire life, this is the first time I have ever savored power as I do now. The experience of having everything bend to my will is far too sweet. To be truthful, in my current state, I feel as though there is nothing I could not obtain. The reforms of the Lex Ardica, the reorganization of the Navy, and even a wedding with you that would become a legend spoken of throughout history. I can understand the feelings of those who lose their balance, wield power carelessly, and become tyrants, to the point that I almost sympathize with them.”

He spoke as though it were a jest, yet it was not a joke at all. Ebroin V believed that if Eugène did not awaken, he could not guarantee what he himself might become. Eugène was the only person who had made him recognize Ebroin not as an Emperor, but as a mere human being, at most just one man.

However, that experience was not as sweet or beautiful as one might imagine. Through Eugène, he tasted for the first time not the emotions of a ruler, but those of an ordinary human being. All those bitter, rank, raw emotions, and the very depths of being human itself.

“So return to me quickly. Come back and restrain me. Whether I become a tyrant remembered throughout history, or the ideal sovereign you wished for, rests entirely upon you.”

He seemed to think that Eugène could not hear him, but that was not the case. Eugène was hearing every word. And he was listening with utmost seriousness.

He knew the Emperor as much as the Emperor knew him. The Ebroin V he knew was not a man who would utter such words even in jest. To him, neutrality as a ruler was no different from a sacred, inviolable sanctuary. When choosing a spouse, he had first considered not his own wife, but a suitable Empress for the empire. And yet, why was he saying such terrifying things now?

And in such a profoundly sincere tone, no less.

Eugène was flustered. Never in his life had he been more shaken than this. With great effort, he moved the tip of a finger that would not respond. Though it was a limb attached to his own body, his flesh hung heavy as though it belonged to someone else, and he mustered all his strength to make it twitch.

He put what little strength he had into his jaw as well. His mouth was not dry, since it had just been moistened, but his lips, parched and split, peeled back to expose raw flesh whenever he forced his muscles to move.

“Your… Majesty….”

Eugène called to Ebroin V in a voice like a duck wheezing, barely alive, and on the verge of bursting. The Emperor, who had been about to turn away in bitterness, faltered at the sound. At first, he was not even certain the voice was calling for him, but fortunately, he had experienced something similar before. Unable to doubt himself any longer, Ebroin V turned back at once.

“Eugène? Eugène! Is it you?”

Still lacking the strength to open his eyes, Eugène merely let his eyelids tremble faintly as he tugged the corners of his mouth upward. With no strength in the muscles, the attempt only quivered briefly before falling slack, but Ebroin V recognized that, in Eugène’s own way, it was an effort to smile.

“Your Majesty… your threats… were fright… ening… I could… not… fall… asleep….”

What he had truly wanted to say was, “For someone who bears the title of Emperor, to dare threaten me using the empire as leverage… Where did you even learn such disgraceful conduct?”But having only just awakened, there was no possibility of completing such a long sentence. Unaware of those circumstances, Ebroin V burst into a laugh filled with joy and kissed Eugène on the lips.

“If I had known you were this weak to threats, I would have done it long ago!”

—saying something so utterly oblivious to another’s heart, no less.

Three months after the Notre Magnat catastrophe,

Eugène awakened.

<To be continued in the side story>

T/N:I feel so emotional already, but this isn’t over yet !!! We’ve got 6 chapters of side stories to go and then we can say our farewells, okay ? 🥹 I appreciate you all so much, have a good day 🫶