Chapter 140 – Don’t Come Here (1)
Unfortunately, today was the day I would dine with Sovieshu. Because I had just returned from my trip, I could put it off on the excuse that I was tired. Instead of doing so, however, I quickly washed, changed, then went to the eastern palace as soon as it was time.
“How was Wirwol, Empress?”
Sovieshu smiled at me, as if he hadn’t had my room searched while I was gone.
‘Didn’t Sovieshu give the order?’
I couldn’t let my guard down. He had confided to Rashta about how he would divorce me, and then treated me calmly the next day. I wasn’t the only one who knew how to control my facial expressions.
“I met the dean and Evely at the academy.”
I sat down at the prepared table.
“Is she alright?”
“She’s struggling with the loss of her powers.”
“Ah…is she still losing it?”
“When I arrived, it was completely gone.”
Sovieshu blinked in surprise.
“Oh.”
He shook his head sadly.
“She must be very upset.”
“She said she felt worthless.”
“It can’t be.”
Sovieshu looked genuinely worried.
“If her mana is gone, then she can’t attend the magical academy…how about moving her to a regular academy and giving her some support?”
Unlike the magical academy, where tuition and accommodation were completely free, regular academies were expensive. As a result, there were two types of commoners that attended these academies—those who were not n.o.bility but were too wealthy to ignore, and those who were smart enough to receive scholars.h.i.+ps.
n.o.bles, on the other hand, were allowed to enter any school as long as they pa.s.sed the entrance test. As a result, there was a great deal of tension between the n.o.bles and common people.
For me to push Evely there? The child who almost became a mage?
“I will do it if it’s what Evely wants, but I strongly recommend against it.”
“But it won’t be easy to send a child that went to the magical academy back into society.”
“I asked the dean to revise Evely’s schedule. Most of her magical cla.s.ses are now theory-based. The scholars will research together on how to restore her mana.”
“Research? Make the child a subject?”
“Evely agreed.”
Sovieshu looked at me incredulously, and went on to criticize me.
“She’s in a difficult position. She’s just a child. Shouldn’t you, the empress, stop her from making that choice?”
“It was the best thing for the child’s mental wellness.”
“If it doesn’t seem like her path, you need to know how to make her give it up.”
“It’s Evely who decides whether it was her way or not. Not you, Your Majesty.”
Sovieshu’s eyes trembled. He held his goblet tightly and stared at me, until he finally turned away. Sensing his sudden weakness, I blurted out the question I’ve been wanting to ask him all this time.
“Did you search my room?”
He flinched slightly. Instead of answering, he carefully cut his grilled lobster and posed a question of his own.
“Are you hiding something from me?”
“No.”
The weakness I had seen in him suddenly disappeared. He snorted and stood up, then walked away somewhere. I continued to eat, and he returned, carrying a small box. There was no lid on it, and he overturned the box, spilling the contents inside. I could tell immediately that they were my letters with Heinley. Sovieshu really had gone through my room and stolen my letters.
“Hiding nothing, you say?”
Sovieshu spoke in a cold voice and sat down casually in his chair.
“Yes.”
I stared at him calmly.
“It wasn’t necessary to tell you.”
“Not necessary?”
“You have terrible table manners.”
“You exchanged private letters with the womanizer king. You didn’t think to tell your husband?”
“When Miss Rashta takes etiquette lessons, you can sit side-by-side together.”
Sovieshu angrily gulped down his goblet of water. In the meanwhile, I picked out each sc.r.a.p of paper that was stained with food and sauce. We hadn’t actually exchanged many letters.
When I picked up the fourth one, Sovieshu slammed down his gla.s.s then s.n.a.t.c.hed the letter from my hand. He quickly grabbed the other letters, placed a candlestick to his side, then held the end of one letter to the flame. I threw a furious glare at him.
“What are you doing now?”
“I’m burning them.”
When he finished with one, he threw the sc.r.a.p aside, then held up a second letter to a candle.
“The letter friend that Prince Heinley had been looking for before. Was it you?”
“Why ask a question you know the answer to?”
“Did you have fun?”
“?”
“Was it fun to connive with Prince Heinley and make Rashta look like a liar?”
Sovieshu burned each of the letters, brushed the ashes from his hands, and stared at me with a grim expression. I feigned a laugh.
“Didn’t you already know that Miss Rashta lied about that?”
“Rashta’s behavior is a separate matter. The Empress should not laugh at Rashta.”
“I think she said for sure that she was not Prince Heinley’s friend.”
“You said it mockingly in front of others.”
I really wondered what was going in Sovieshu’s head. Rashta had acted deceptively towards Prince Heinley, but he insisted that she was the one being treated unfairly.
“If you really cared, you would have come to me and quietly revealed the truth. Or you would have told Rashta not to come forward because you already knew it was someone else.”
It was useless to try to reason with him. He was just trying to get me out of the way to make Rashta the Empress. No matter what I said, I was the villain here.
“My food is a mess. I can’t eat it anymore.”
Instead of continuing to fight about the past, I stood up from my chair as gracefully as I could.
“I’m not done yet.”
“I’ll consider your words. After all, you’re going to say it’s all my fault, right?”
Sovieshu got up from his chair and stood right in front of me. He looked into my eyes and spoke forcefully.
“You probably used messenger birds for the letters. Not anymore. I will order the knights to shoot all the birds that try to come to your room.”
“I don’t see why with whom I exchange letters with has anything to do with you.”
“I am your husband.”
“But you are not my lover, are you?”
“What?”
I turned aside and left the room without answering. What good was it realizing that I actually liked him? Sovieshu turned into a completely different person when it came to Rashta.
My eyes filled with hot tears, and I walked as quickly as I could. Fortunately, when I managed to go outside and take a breath, my tears subsided. Maybe I had gotten used to this, or maybe I had been prepared.
However, I became curious about one thing. I thought Sovieshu searched my room to find a reason to divorce me. Why would he burn the evidence with his own hands?
“…”
Well, there were one or two things that I didn’t understand about him. I cleared my head, and hurried back to the western palace. When I arrived at my bedroom, I asked Countess Eliza to bring me a blue cloth.
“You mean a blue cloth, not a blue dress?”
“Yes.”
Blue was the color symbolizing danger. Sovieshu had threatened to shoot all the birds that would come to my room, so I wanted to hang a blue cloth ahead of time. I couldn’t get in touch with Heinley by messenger bird anymore…
Although I felt gloomy, my first task was to make sure no birds died.
“Please get it as soon as possible.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
When I saw the end of Countess Eliza’s dress as she went into the drawing room, I realized that I had made a mistake.
“Just a moment.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Get me a red cloth, not blue.”
The symbol of danger in the Western Kingdom was the color red. Queen was smart, but he was still a bird. If he was trained as a bird of the West, he would know that a red flag meant not to come near.