IDIBC Chapter 30

Count Enehaz’s Evening Party (3)

The Crown Prince looked at the refreshing liquor and chuckled before glancing up at Ricardo.

“Do you remember? That I used to be the best dancer in this empire?”

The Crown Prince shifted his gaze from Ricardo and stared down at his toes, which wouldn’t move at all.

“Well, you earned that reputation because I rarely danced.”

At those words, the Crown Prince giggled in an uncharacteristic manner. “Is that how the story goes?” Even his follow-up words still carried traces of laughter.

“Mariette is having a very hard time. She loved dancing, you know.”

Ricardo briefly recalled the scene of a couple sweeping across the dance hall. It was a sight anyone would call beautiful.

“The paralysis starts from the parts furthest from the heart. The toes stiffen, then the legs stiffen, and eventually it becomes difficult to stand. Soon the hands and arms won’t move either, and in the end, even the heart will stiffen.”

“……”

“I wish the heart would stiffen first.”

Ricardo set down the glass he was holding through a servant and picked up a new one to offer to the Crown Prince. Seeing him, Stuart smiled weakly.

“I won’t drink.”

“Didn’t you used to enjoy it?”

“If I drink this, I’ll have to go to the restroom one more time, and that will inconvenience many people.”

Stuart had been a rather unusual member of the royal family even before the onset of his illness. A Crown Prince should not tolerate the inconvenience of anyone but his own faction. In fact, it would be more accurate to say they don’t even think about such things.

But he was different. Perhaps it was because he was this kind of person that Ricardo had sought out Stuart back then. His wife probably loved her husband so deeply for this very reason.

“I heard Mariette went to see the Young Duke.”

“……”

“You have to understand. Suddenly I couldn’t walk and collapsed, so she behaved as if her reason had been paralyzed. No matter what I say, she can’t accept it. That my life hasn’t shortened but has actually lengthened.”

Ricardo’s face remained impassive. In truth, he couldn’t understand the feelings of someone who had to leave things behind. He understood Mariette’s emotions intellectually, but he couldn’t say he felt them in his heart.

What had he been thinking on that day that only the Crown Prince remembered? He didn’t even try to recall it. Until now, there had been nothing inconvenient about it.

Only days without enthusiasm and nights without sleep.

Only today, racing toward an unwanted goal, and tomorrow, the desperate despair to be grasped after achieving it all.

“This was exactly the age when you first came to find me.”

“……”

“So much has changed. That’s why Mariette is anxious.”

“Nothing has changed.”

“Mariette doesn’t know you well.”

Ricardo found those words rather amusing. He didn’t even know himself well.

“Then does Your Highness the Crown Prince know me well?”

“No, but I know well the promise of that day. I know that it’s a promise that cannot be broken carelessly, and I know your nature—that you went through with it despite knowing this.”

“……”

“And I also still know the fact that God loves me exceptionally.”

Ricardo downed the lukewarm champagne that had gone flat in his hand in one gulp. Stuart, whom God loved so exceptionally, was destined to die soon.

His father, the current Emperor, had been born in the year marking the thousandth anniversary of the empire’s founding and thus received the name of the founding emperor. Wesley II was as ambitious as the first emperor of Dermeier and was obsessed with expanding the empire’s borders.

He had grown the empire to be stronger than ever beneath the pillars of Rochester. But unfortunately, when he received the emperor’s oracle, there was no map to the labyrinth.

The Emperor’s misfortune did not end there. His eldest son Stuart would die within five years at the earliest, or within ten years if God showed a bit more mercy—probably somewhere in between.

It was an utterly devastating matter for Wesley II, but the royal family’s power had been given to Stuart, his son who would soon die. This was probably the proof that the Crown Prince, who would soon face death, meant when he said God loved him exceptionally.

An Emperor without a map to the labyrinth, a Crown Prince who inherited the royal power but would never become Emperor.

There was no one in this empire who didn’t know that the Emperor’s anxiety had reached its peak. So his next move was clear.

Though he had hidden the timing of the onset, he couldn’t hide the clearly visible symptoms. Now that he couldn’t walk, the Emperor would soon make his move. Even while Stuart was still alive, the Emperor would try to depose him from his position as Crown Prince and make another son his successor.

Stuart now had one five-year-old son. If he died, all that remained for his son was death at his grandfather’s hands, or death at his uncle’s hands, or else ending his own life, unable to endure the harsh waves of life.

And his wife as well.

That’s why Stuart had welcomed Ricardo when he came to see him back then. Perhaps he too considered this proof that God loved him exceptionally.

No matter how the situation was unfolding, wasn’t this too rapid a change in stance?

Ricardo clicked his tongue as he watched a group of people making a noisy entrance. Since when had the Second Prince dared to set foot in a banquet where the Crown Prince and the heirs of the three ducal houses were meeting?

And leading people who were clearly provided by the Emperor, so ostentatiously at that.

“He’s in a hurry.”

The Crown Prince laughed hollowly, as if he had anticipated this too.

“There’s no place where rumors spread faster than here, so can it be considered a smart move?”

“He’ll encounter his enemies that much faster, so it’s a foolish choice.”

“Since that enemy will be you, it must indeed be a foolish choice.”

The two men looked down at the crowd from the place with the best view of the hall, as if with the gaze of gods. Seen from on high, everything seemed small and infinitely trivial. Perhaps feeling the same way as Ricardo, the Crown Prince uttered words tinged with mockery.

“At times like this, I think there’s only one reason why God differs from humans.”

“What… is it?”

“Love.”

Ricardo’s brow furrowed at the incomprehensible words. Love was the most ill-fitting, unfamiliar word in this situation.

“The reason humans can’t help but be desperate about life is all because of love. If I hadn’t loved my wife and son……”

Ricardo felt as if he had already heard the rest of what he was hesitating to say.

If he hadn’t loved his son and wife, he wouldn’t have accepted Ricardo’s proposal that was almost like blackmail. Then their damned fates wouldn’t have become so entangled, giving birth to yet another fate. So perhaps his words were right.

Even if it was an emotion he didn’t remember, the choice Ricardo had made must have been based on love.

“In any case, if a person wants to become like the gods, they shouldn’t love. To think that’s humanity’s greatest weakness. Isn’t it absurd?”

“It seems you’re becoming a philosopher now that death is near.”

“Yes, death must really be at hand. Seeing how the end that felt so frightening is no longer frightening.”

Ricardo laughed. He too wasn’t afraid of death. But at some point, he had become afraid of something unknown. It was a vague fear of losing something he had never possessed.

Ricardo always kept those emotions well tucked away inside. As a result, living had become truly boring.

He didn’t know when such cynicism had come to exist within him.

Of course, there were things gained from becoming cynical enough to make people shiver with cold.

Ricardo had acquired the ability to observe all situations with the eyes of a third party. To him, the world was nothing more than a farce unfolding before him.

Most things felt like someone else’s business.

“To think that my wife’s grief at being left behind, the danger that will befall my son, is far more frightening than my own death. It truly seems that humans have no weakness other than love.”

“……”

“Ah, there’s the only human who doesn’t consider that great love a weakness.”

The Crown Prince spoke excitedly, as if he had discovered an interesting animal.

The only human he mentioned was Julian.

Julian Bow Paquin, heir to the Paquin ducal house.

“We could call him a peacock today.”

A beautiful handsome man with brilliant red hair and sweet honey-colored eyes. Men called him the greatest playboy of the age, women called him everyone’s lover, but Ricardo simply called him an opportunist.

“I heard one of the family’s ships sank recently, and they lost a tremendous amount of money to the sea.”

For the first time, the same shaped smile appeared on both Ricardo’s and the Crown Prince’s faces.

“I can guess what kind of trouble he’s caused again.”

“One could live like that, I suppose. Light as the wind. Just like his lower half.”

“Today’s yellow roses should really all go to the Paquin house.”

“No, he doesn’t need yellow roses. He must become a yellow rose himself today.”

The mockery on both men’s faces deepened. The sinking of Paquin’s ship meant that his family’s fortunes had declined by that much again. So his target today would be Countess Sullivan, who had recently lost her husband and inherited a massive fortune.

“There’s a reason he’s dressed more lavishly than usual today.”

“Shall we make a bet?”

“What kind of bet do you mean?”

“Whether Julian will go to the Second Prince first and make his acquaintance or not.”