Chapter 70: The Emperor’s Uninvited Guest

“Did you really walk this route every day?”

Keeping his voice low in the eerie atmosphere made even more unsettling by the echoing tunnel, Fria asked Owen.

“You get used to it. It doesn’t actually take that long.”

Owen answered as he led Fria unerringly through each branching passage.

If the Emperor could travel anywhere he wished by walking through streets paved with gold, why had he chosen to come and go through such cramped, dark tunnels? There could only be one reason: to tease him. Was it because he was young?

Unable to understand the Emperor’s strange behavior, Fria dismissed it as a consequence of youth and let out a small sigh.

Mistaking Fria’s reaction for fear, Owen spoke with a playful smile.

“You say heights don’t frighten you, but darkness underground does? Isn’t it usually the other way around?”

He could climb the outer walls where a single misstep meant death, yet he was afraid of a little darkness. Owen found everything about his consort baffling.

“I’m not a child. Why would I be afraid of something as trivial as darkness- ah!”

Seeing something illuminated by the lantern light, Fria cried out and moved close to Owen.

Part of the wall had crumbled away, exposing white bones beneath. They were the remains of a worker who had died there decades ago, perhaps even longer. The bones had fused with the wall itself and could not be removed.

Unlike Owen, who knew the route so well that he no longer noticed his surroundings, Fria had been cautiously scanning every corner, and so he had seen them.

“Are you all right?”

After they had moved away from the spot, Fria asked Owen in a careful voice.

He was the one who had been startled. Why was he asking that? Owen looked at Fria curiously.

“What do you mean?”

“You said you hated seeing people die. That you hated seeing it happen.”

Fria recalled what Owen had said on the rooftop.

“That happened long ago. And they didn’t die in front of me.”

“I see.”

“It’s not death itself that I hate. Somewhere, someone is dying even now. Everyone who is born must face it eventually. To be more precise, I hate seeing someone die before my eyes.”

As he spoke, Owen remembered his elder brother’s final days, watching his life fade day by day, and Yohana’s body lying below the cliff like a crimson flower. His voice turned bitter.

“Then everyone around Your Majesty should stay healthy.”

Hiding the tears threatening to rise in his eyes, Fria forced himself to answer brightly.

Knowing his own end was approaching, he had chosen to become a consort in a foreign empire because he wanted his family to remember him as healthy and smiling.

“That’s right. So don’t get sick.”

Looking at his consort, who had been falling ill with increasing frequency, Owen spoke lightly.

When Fria didn’t answer, he pointed toward one of the many branching tunnels.

“Where does that path lead?”

“There are so many passages that even I don’t know them all. Some lead to the forest by the lake, others to the hunting grounds. We should go explore sometime.”

“If that’s the case, why are you telling me all this? What if I pass the information to a spy?”

Fria asked as Owen casually suggested another excursion.

His eldest brother would never rebel even if he knew these secrets, but if such information fell into the hands of dangerous people, wouldn’t it pose a real threat?

“A few secret passages aren’t enough to bring me down.”

Owen answered confidently.

He had no intention of following the example of former emperors, who had feared rebellion so much that they built escape routes and then murdered the architects and workers who created them.

To Owen, the secret passages were merely shortcuts, detours, and an extension of the forest playground where he and his brother had played as children.

As if inviting him to play together, Owen tugged on Fria’s hand with a mischievous smile.

Fria allowed himself to be led along, looking up at Owen with an expression Owen couldn’t decipher.

****

When they returned to the bedroom, they shared a bed, and Fria accepted Owen’s advances with unusual meekness until dawn.

Afterward, as he looked down at Fria, who had fallen asleep as though he had fainted, Owen sank into thought.

Was he exhausted from traveling back and forth through the tunnels? He looked so fragile that he seemed as though he might stop breathing at any moment.

Should he send someone to Alphenia and bring that physician named Gir here?

Suppressing the urge to wake Fria just to see him glare and argue as he normally did, Owen closed his eyes as well.

****

The first night of the Emperor’s birthday festival, the grandest celebration of the year, had arrived.

Members of the imperial family, ministers, tribute envoys from the duchies, foreign ambassadors, provincial nobles who had traveled with their entire households, crowds filled every corner.

Candied sweets were thrown into the streets, and beggars and children chased after carriages seeking alms, causing accidents both large and small.

Free alcohol flowed from every tavern, and drunken revelers raised their cups and shouted at the top of their lungs:

“Long live His Majesty the Emperor!”

Inside the imperial palace, a magnificent birthday banquet was underway.

Beautiful dancers and clowns entered to the sound of music, waving colorful ribbons.

Each of the seven grand banquet halls glittered with hundreds of mirrors, while chandeliers adorned with rubies, emeralds, sapphires, gold, and silver illuminated the ceilings.

As the invited guests whispered among themselves, estimating the value of the decorations, singers mounted the central stage and began singing in unison of the Empire’s glory.

“Long live the Emperor! Glory to God! Honor to the Empire! O noble bloodline that has endured for thousands of years!”

The halls overflowed with women dressed in gowns as splendid as flowers and men adorned like pheasants displaying their finest plumage.

Women with long white necks draped in dazzling jewels covered their smiles with gloved hands and laughed like fountains to draw the attention of men.

They had practiced those gestures before mirrors countless times, all to display their opal earrings, ruby necklaces, and pearl corsages to greatest effect.

Hidden glances were exchanged behind fans, and lovers disappeared into the palace gardens according to signals arranged beforehand.

The nobles gathered in the Great Hall searched every corner with curious eyes.

They had come with the expectation that tonight they would finally see the infamous male consort.

Yet beside the young Emperor, who had only recently turned twenty, sat not the expected male consort but the Dowager Empress.

Admiring the cold beauty of mother and son, the nobles continued whispering among themselves and straining their ears for gossip.

The Emperor, who had watched the festivities with detached indifference, rose from his seat.

Dismissing the nobles trying to stop him with a single gesture, Owen left the Great Hall wearing an expression of fatigue.

The chief chamberlain hurried after him.

“Your Majesty, shall I have your bath prepared?”

“Tomorrow morning will do. What’s left on the schedule?”

“In the afternoon there will be the preliminary rounds of the equestrian tournament, followed by a theatrical performance celebrating Your Majesty’s birthday. After the formal dinner, you will attend the opera and then the masquerade ball.”

“When are the finals?”

At the question regarding the tournament finals, in which the Emperor himself intended to compete, the chamberlain answered with concern.

“The day after tomorrow, beginning at two in the afternoon.”

“Why do you look so worried? This isn’t my first time participating.”

Pointing out the chamberlain’s troubled expression, Owen quickened his pace.

“Your Majesty was already precious beyond measure before, but now even more so.”

Though simply presenting the prize to the victor would have been enough, Owen had insisted on competing himself, and the chamberlain had failed to dissuade him.

“You worry too much.”

Reaching his private chambers and allowing the chamberlain to help him change, Owen shook his head.

Would he try to stop him from going to war if one broke out?

“That is the purpose of old age, Your Majesty. You’ll understand when you grow older.”

“You’ve worked hard today.”

At the Emperor’s simple acknowledgment of the tireless labor he had poured into preparing the birthday celebrations, the old chamberlain felt his heart melt.

As Owen disappeared into his bedchamber, the chamberlain bowed deeply and smiled with satisfaction.

Someone was there.

Looking at the pale leg protruding from beneath the bed, Owen’s lips slowly curved into a smile.

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