CH 25

25. Sleepless Night

“You are a genius, Ryan! To think all that!”

Serben exclaimed excitedly. Then she kicked him in the shin again.

“Lower your voice before anyone hears.”

“No, sir, ah, it hurts… ha, who listens? There is not a single person around.”

“It’s not all about the people around. It is said that birds listen to daytime talk.”

Serben gripped his shins and groaned, then raised his eyebrows in amazement.

“If a bird hears it, what will happen?”

“It’s going to tell Her Majesty the Empress, well. Then, sooner or later, the evil and insidious plan I concocted will go to nothing.”

Serben let go of his shin and touched Ryan’s shoulder. And he asked with a very serious face.

“Ryan. Are you not feeling well? I am very worried about you.”

“I’m very fine and smart, so there’s no need for that.”

“No, it might be your mistake. There is no bird in the world that can understand human speech and even gossip, you know that?”

Ryan laughed.

“Brother. You seem to have a problem. Did you say that even after seeing the Duke of Shryden?”

“No, that is an exception. So didn’t Duke Brennan intend to inherit the title in the first place?”

“I thought that was very strange.”

“What?”

Ryan pulled on Serben’s ear lobe. Serben made a face of him, but obediently leaned over and held his ear close to her.

“I keep getting caught by birds.”

“Huh?”

“Remember when I said I stole something from Her Majesty’s bedroom?”

“That red stone?”

“Huh.”

Ryan’s expression became serious. Serben also became serious along with his twin sister.

“Remember when I said that the crow stole the stone?”

“I do.”

“When Her Majesty the Empress disappeared earlier, I heard this came out while looking around her room.”

Ryan rummaged through her pockets and pulled out something from her. It was something smaller than an apple seed.

“What is this?”

“A piece of stone that I stole and the black bird stole again. It went back to Her Majesty.”

“Hmm?”

“It was broken and fell to the floor. Judging from the lack of the rest, it must have been accidentally spilled while cleaning it up.”

“Is the stone broken?”

“It can’t be. It wasn’t a stone, could it be an egg?”

Serben shook his head.

“There are eggs that hard? Stones and eggs have a different weight.”

“I know. But look at this. It’s too thin to be called a piece of stone. It’s too hard to call it an eggshell.”

Serben carefully swiped the small piece.

“That’s right.”

“And where Her Majesty is, there must have been a bird.”

“Why?”

Ryan, who packed the stone fragments again, continued her words by blowing air from her mouth into her bangs.

“Isn’t it too amazing to call it a coincidence? Could it be that the crow brought the stone I stole back to Her Majesty? And look what the Duke of Shryden did today. He stepped up and helped at the most embarrassing moment. He even made Her Majesty feel uncomfortable by sticking close to Her Majesty without notice.”

“So what do you mean?”

“The birds seem to be helping Her Majesty. And it won’t be just one or two.”

Serben touched his forehead.

“No, a little… Let’s say the odd thing happened twice. But it’s too much to think that way…  Aren’t you delusional?”

“First companion.”

Serben sighed.

“Ryan, sometimes you are too fast. Explain why the story suddenly jumps there.”

“Isn’t there a record that the first companion was always with the bird?”

“There is a record. A bird with fiery red feathers that never dies…”

“It was called ‘King of the Birds’ by later humans.”

“…?”

“It’s the king of birds. Did that word come about for nothing?”

Serben let out a second sigh.

“Who was the person who said he would give you as many parchments as the number of parchments in the book if you knew who made it a must-read for the royal guards by making it a must-read for the Royal Guard?”

“I believe now. Because Her Majesty the Empress is real.”

“… Ryan. Again, I am still in a position to be cautious.”

“Either that or not. See you later ’cause I’m right anyway, right? I’m going.”

Ryan quickly moved her body and passed Serben’s side.

“Oh, wait.”

Serben hurriedly stretched out his arm, but Ryan passed Serben’s hand very smoothly. So he didn’t block the road, he meant Ryan stopped him. Serben looked at the hallway where Ryan disappeared and muttered something to himself.

“It’s a problem even if it’s not real, but it’s a problem even if it’s real. Then His Majesty will love Her Majesty terribly for the rest of his life, so what should I do?”

At some point, the self-talk became a sigh.

“Now, well, it might look okay. I don’t know why, but she is pretending to have amnesia, so she is pretending to be someone else. But that evil and insidious nature isn’t going anywhere. Ryan, you are fooling yourself there.”

So, in fact, he was almost fooled today too. The Empress looked like a completely different person today. How could she try so hard to save a courtier’s life? She was not at all like the usual Empress.

“No, well, if she is conspiring something, of course you should, but…”

Well, if not. If it was just an ordinary court lady and the Empress had really lost her memory…

“…Oh, that would be nice.”

Serben raised his head and let out his sigh. How nice it would be if the Empress who lost her memory had become a completely different person. He then could live his whole life just praying that those memories would not return to her.

* * *

Today, too, Persson put all his efforts into the Empress’s palace with Lescal decorated like a painting. Dressing up like this at bedtime was actually against everything he thought. Luggage was also brought to stay with the Empress for twenty-four hours, but Lescal went to the Emperor’s palace to dress up for her.

He himself had a hard time figuring out why. He just wanted to show off his good side to the Empress, and at the same time he didn’t want her to notice the fact that he was trying hard to make himself look good. Thanks to this, the attendants of the imperial palace, including Persson, became busy as well.

“Your Majesty the Empress. His Majesty the Emperor is here.”

The guards who announced the Emperor’s visit opened the door. Upon entering through this door, the fact that it doubled as a drawing room came out, and the room on the left was the bedroom of the Empress.

“Don’t follow me.”

Lescal entered the room by himself. There were a few more things that made it hard to know why. When he saw the Empress, he wanted to be alone with her. Whether it was the Royal Guard or the big chick, it was annoying. Fortunately for him, she had reduced the empress’s ladies-in-waiting that accompanied her. Empress Cartagena wasn’t like that from the beginning. Immediately after she got married, she diligently went in and out of her Emperor’s palace for one reason or another. However, without Lescal noticing, the Empress changed her attitude. She shrewd, lied, and treated her face, surrounded by her eight-serving maids.

He paid no attention, for at that time he had no interest in the Empress. He didn’t even wonder why the Empress’ attitude had changed. But now, he was curious about everything about the Empress. He even wondered what kind of soap the Empress used. He wondered if using the same soap would make his smell as good as the Empress, and then he wondered if the Empress would like the smell as much as he did.

“… Doesn’t that mean you like her?”

Lescal, who had opened the door to the bedroom where the Empress would be alone, stopped her and smiled. Saying he liked her was too modest, considering his condition. The desire to stick his nose into her skin, swallow her until all the smell was gone, and keep her inside himself was not what he liked to say. He had no interest in normal human feelings, but he knew roughly what it meant to like. But his desires were different from those gentle, kind words.

Click.

He stopped his thoughts and opened the door.

“…”

He didn’t ask if the Empress came as she always did, with a calm face. She was asleep in the moonlight.

“…”

Lescal suppressed his breathing, which was about to become rough, and walked towards the Empress. Her skin, bathed in blue moonlight, was like fine ivory. Her loose black hair drew beautiful waves across her shoulders and back. She was the first person he felt beautiful. She was that, but he had a hard time taking his eyes off her the first time he saw her. The black eyelashes were in the shape of a half moon, so he wanted to put his lips on them. The straight nose had a rounded tip. The lips beneath it seemed to quiver like a fragrant fruit he had never touched.

“…”

Lescal, who had been approaching the Empress as if possessed, stopped his stride. He was not confident he would not touch anywhere.

Just as Lasilia realized that she had to draw a line for the Emperor, so Lescal had noticed that there was a line she had drawn for himself as well for the Empress. When he showed his instincts, which were not gentle and not amiable, the Empress stiffened her body and retreated out of her line. Even though the suddenly cold gaze and the words to let go now didn’t seem like a big deal, it continued to leave small scratches.

He wasn’t supposed to do anything she didn’t like. Then she might end up hating him altogether. Lescal was numb to his emotions, but his other senses were keen. With today’s events, he had learned when the Empress disliked him less. Just as she kept holding his hand after accepting his request, he had to create an opportunity like that one by one.

“…”

Lescal, having finished his thoughts, approached the Empress, mortifying his footsteps. He carefully picked the empress up and laid her on the bed.

Fortunately, the Empress only wiggled her eyelashes and did not wake up. Lescal sat under the bed and leaned his head against the bed. With his head resting in front of her head, he could clearly see the Empress’s face.

Even in the moonlight of the underworld, which made beings on earth look cold and dark, the Empress was beautiful. Feeling the demon blood squirming inside of him, Lescal held his breath and looked at the Empress.

It was a sleepless night.