Chapter 18: The Weight of a Secret

The gentle voice now sounded like a serpent hissing. Selonia merely curved her lips in silence.

“Ah, is this it?”

Alix, who had been briefly scanning the approval documents, leaned back against the chair and crossed his legs in a relaxed posture.

His golden eyes held a smooth, languid glint as they settled on her. Selonia, barely recalling Princess Consort Camilla’s words, parted her lips.

“She asked that you verify it as soon as possible.”

Alix glanced over the documents for a moment, then raised his head to look at her. His golden eyes shimmered with that same languid, knowing light.

“I suppose I’ll have to verify it today. Would you care to stay a little longer? I’ll have some tea brought in.”

Her mind felt so tangled, as if it had been stained an inky black. Alix’s voice buzzed around Selonia’s ears, a dull drone in her dazed state.

Barely managing to shift her gaze, she clasped her hands tightly together and shook her head slightly.

“Ah, no. I merely came to run an errand for Her Royal Highness, the Princess Consort. It seems I don’t have the right to stay long.”

“…If it’s about qualifications, couldn’t I simply create them?”

His voice, low and resonant, reached her. As if parched, Alix moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue, his gaze lingering on her with an intense scrutiny. His subtle tone was laced with overt desire and temptation.

A chill crept up Selonia’s neck, and she bit down on her lip.

Until now, she had somehow managed a precarious tightrope walk. Her ambiguous stance kept him at a distance while subtly not rejecting his favor.

Perhaps it would have been better to simply drink the tea and retreat, but the images she had seen earlier churned in her mind, making it difficult to maintain her composure.

She felt on the verge of tears, or perhaps a torrent of furious curses might erupt at any moment; nothing would have surprised her.

She knew that a single misstep could ignite his obsession, yet she could no longer remain in his presence.

‘Wasn’t it already obsession, the way he had been receiving reports on her every move and biding his time to approach her from the very beginning? At this point, what did it matter?’

“…I’m not feeling well. My apologies, but I’ll take my leave now.”

She barely managed to utter the excuse, a polite transgression. Selonia forced a faint smile and rose, seemingly unable to delay any longer.

In that instant, her legs momentarily gave out, and her vision tilted precariously. As she stumbled, a firm arm swiftly steadied her.

“Are you alright?”

His voice was low, feigning concern, yet the grip on her waist tightened perceptibly. She glanced up, and the blatant desire swirling in his golden eyes made her stomach churn.

Selonia managed a slight nod.

“I’m fine, Your Majesty. I was just a little dizzy.”

She took a step back, attempting to pull away from his embrace, but his hand remained firmly clasped around her waist. Alix’s gaze clung to her, as if unwilling to let her go.

When she subtly exerted pressure, a silent plea for release, Alix, who had been slowly lowering his head toward her neck, reluctantly loosened his grip.

The sensation of his breath on her neck felt unpleasantly sticky. Unable to bear it any longer, she bowed her head deeply.

“…I will take my leave now, Your Majesty.”

As soon as she finished speaking, she fled toward the door as if escaping. ‘There was nothing she could do but leave this place.’

Passing the confused aide who stared at her, her heart pounded so fiercely it deafened her ears, even as she exited the main palace.

***

She had no idea how the rest of the day passed. Her mind had been elsewhere all afternoon, to the point where Camilla had subtly inquired if anything had happened at the main palace.

Though she had expertly deflected, claiming nothing was amiss, had it been so obvious? She was angry at herself for not being more meticulous.

The cool air of an early summer night permeated her room when she returned, yet it felt as though she were suffocating, standing once more upon a pyre.

She had merely sought to uncover Alix’s reason for approaching her, but that simple plan had led her to confront a colossal conspiracy, one too immense for her to handle alone.

Selonia sat stiffly on the bed, knees drawn up, in silent contemplation for a long time.

The breeze from behind ruffled her hair and the hem of her chemise, as if trying to clear the oppressive atmosphere, but she felt nothing.

How many hours passed? As the chirping of insects outside her window began to fade, she descended from the bed with a determined air and walked slowly.

Her pale, bare feet, having forgotten slippers, trod softly upon the carpet.

Sitting before a small table, she retrieved the notebook that had previously confirmed her regression. Her fountain pen glided smoothly across the high-quality paper supplied by the imperial palace, drawing lines.

To ensure she wouldn’t forget what she had witnessed in the office that afternoon, several words were inscribed on the paper: ‘Witch,’ ‘Mana Extraction,’ ‘Experiment,’ ‘Aetheria Clan,’ ‘Manifestation,’ ‘Soul Stone’…

Some of these terms she didn’t even understand.

However, one thing she could be certain of: the mana of women branded as witches was being forcibly extracted through artificial and horrific means.

They were bleeding them just enough to keep them alive, then repeating the process. And it seemed not only the imperial family but also the Grand Cathedral might be deeply involved in these experiments.

“…But why?”

Her trembling breath mingled with the dawn air. Why would they extract mana in such a way? Was it simply because these women were witches?

Every citizen of the Empire knew that women could not possess mana.

While women could wield magic using magic stones imbued with mana, it was different for those who inherently possessed mana within their bodies.

The only known method for artificially generating mana was through the conversion of life force.

Those who routinely operated mana within their bodies through such acts were deemed descendants of evil gods or heretics, branded as witches.

For a very long time, the Empire had sought out hidden witches and punished them.

Witches guilty of grave offenses were sent to the pyre, but as public executions could not be held every time, the rest were dispatched to the Grand Cathedral’s underground dungeons.

No one knew what became of the witches sent to the Grand Cathedral—not even the common priests of the Cathedral itself. Selonia now had a vague understanding of that secret.

She, too, had once believed that such women, engaged in wicked deeds, deserved their fate.

No one questioned how they came to possess mana within their bodies, or what happened to those dragged to the Grand Cathedral. ‘They were beings who deserved to die.’

But was that truly the case? ‘Wasn’t she herself unjustly accused of being a witch?’ She had never learned magic, nor had she barely ever seen a mage cast a spell, yet she was branded a witch.

All because mana flowed in her blood.

Selonia stared down at her palms. ‘Could it be true that I possess mana?’

She had always believed she was falsely accused, but after glimpsing Alix’s study, conviction became difficult.

‘Alix must have approached her with such persistence precisely because there was something about her that even she didn’t know.’

Her mind was a tangled mess. Her thoughts flowed incessantly, trying to grasp a reason, but she found it utterly incomprehensible.

If converting life force into mana was a deserving offense of death, then how could one explain the imperial family and the Grand Cathedral extracting witches’ blood and converting it into mana?

‘And where, exactly, did that extracted mana go?’

Her body screamed with fatigue, yet the more she delved into her thoughts, the clearer her mind became. Selonia remained seated, lost in thought, throughout the night.

As soon as dawn broke, she went to the imperial library to research the Aetheria Clan, but found no results.

To find no information in a vast library that seemed to house every book in the world was disheartening. ‘What good was knowing a secret if it offered no path to a solution?’

She pondered the matter for another entire day. Yet, no matter how much she thought, there was only one solution.

The Emperor had decided to use her, monitoring her from the moment she was at Count Brienne’s estate. With such tenacity, it was clear that even if she resisted his temptations, she would still be exploited one way or another.

‘I must escape. From the imperial palace. No, I must flee and hide somewhere the Emperor’s reach cannot extend.’

The place where she now breathed was no safe haven; it was akin to thrusting her head into the jaws of someone intent on stealing her blood and exploiting her flesh and bone.

Her decision was swift. She had already died once and returned to life; thus, her fear of death itself had been diluted. However, that didn’t mean she could foolishly squander this second chance at life.

‘But how would she escape?’

Entering the imperial palace was difficult, but leaving was no easier. If she quit her position without a plausible reason, it would be tantamount to never having another opportunity.

Should her status as the Princess Consort’s lady-in-waiting disappear, even the thin veil of protection it offered would vanish.