The Empress Tames the Tyrant - Chapter 20

After exchanging a few more words, Cayenne returned to his chambers with a somewhat uneasy expression.

“Your Majesty, your nightclothes.”

“Enough, everyone leave.”

As always, Cayenne refused assistance with his bath and even his nightclothes, throwing off his top and lying down on the bed. Compared to Rubeo’s barracks, it was a very spacious and plush bed, but for some reason, his heart felt restless.

“Is it because I left Rubeo?”

The Imperial Palace had always been a foreign place to him. After his mother, who was said to be beautiful and kind, died, his father gradually went mad, and that arrow soon turned towards the innocent 7-year-old Cayenne. However, that was also just a story he heard from Count Hayer later, so it didn’t feel very real.

Count, does Father still hate me?

Cayenne had been a clever boy since he was young. There was no way he wouldn’t have noticed the increasingly hateful glares from his father. Moreover, he understood perfectly well that the only prince leaving for Count Hayer and the territory of Rubeo was as good as being exiled.

Your Imperial Majesty was originally a strong and benevolent person. However, the wounds in his heart are so deep that he has become ill.

Because Mother died because of me?

Count Hayer was a warrior with a warm heart in a huge, rock-like body. He knelt down and matched his gaze to the boy’s eye level, then wrapped his arm around his shoulder.

Prince, that is not the case. Mother died because of a reckless assassin. It is never your fault.

But, Father said it was because of me.

No matter how much the people around him tried to comfort him, they couldn’t hide all of the Emperor’s anger towards Cayenne.

Your Majesty is suffering from a mental illness right now. Those words are not his true feelings. Both the Emperor and your deceased mother loved you very much, you know?

Cayenne, who was just a young boy at the time, kicked a random stone to answer instead.

Soon, when His Majesty’s mental illness is cured, he will look for you again. You know I don’t lie, don’t you?

Really? Then can I go back to the Imperial Palace soon?

Yes! Don’t forget, the Imperial Palace is where you originally belong.

That day never came.

Perhaps Count Hayer knew it too. He feared that the Emperor, who had lost his mind over his wife’s death, would kill the innocent prince, so he volunteered to go to Rubeo with him. To the very end of a territory where not a single blade of grass grew, where barbarians frequently pillaged, and where even the people could not properly settle.

“The Count was bad at lying.”

Whether it was because they suddenly came to harsh lands or because they were originally weak, Count Hayer’s wife died in vain when Cayenne and Glenn were 12 years old.

Glenn and I will serve you for the rest of our lives. You are the only one who can succeed His Majesty the Emperor now.

Unfortunately, Count Hayer did not see Cayenne ascend to the throne. He died from a fall from his horse during battle shortly before the late Emperor’s death. Glenn kept his promise and stayed by Cayenne’s side, but that alone was not enough.

“There is no place for me in this Imperial Palace.”

Cayenne’s black eyes were tinged with a slightly sad light. It was a side he would never show to others. Even his close aide Glenn had never seen Cayenne’s weak face like this.

“Is anyone out there?”

Feeling a little too bitter for no reason, Cayenne raised his voice. However, this was not Rubeo’s barracks, so the thick door blocked his voice. Unable to help it, he got up and rang the bell by his bedside, and only then did a servant bow and enter.

“Your Majesty, did you call?”

“I’m hungry. Bring up what you brought from the Empress’s Palace earlier.”

“Yes.”

It wasn’t like he had never eaten cookies before, but the shock of the moment he chewed on the cookie was still vivid. Not only that, but how stimulating was the feeling of chewing on fried chicken and washing it down with dark beer?

-It tastes like grass.

-Well, it’s chrysanthemum tea. But if you eat it with a cookie, it will be harmonious.

Whether by coincidence or not, all the impressive foods in the Empress’s Palace had elements that harmonized with each other.

“Bring up chrysanthemum tea too.”

“Yes.”

Even if it was tea that tasted like grass, it felt soft and subtle when paired with cookies that were so sweet they made stars appear before his eyes.

“Your Majesty, I will bring up the snacks and chrysanthemum tea you ordered.”

The familiar voice was not the head attendant but Emma. As befitting an elderly lady, her tone was calm, but her movements were quietly swift.

“It was you, Madam. Would you like to try one?”

Cayenne asked, naturally reaching for a cookie.

“How dare I, a humble servant.”

“No, try one and tell me what you think.”

He wondered if Cayenne was unable to adapt to the culture of the Empire because he had eaten poorly in Rubeo, or if the food in the Empress’s Palace was truly special.

“Then I will eat it with gratitude.”

Emma picked up a cookie, carefully turned her head to savor it, and looked at Cayenne with a slightly surprised expression.

“This is…”

She had worked in the Imperial Palace for many years and had risen to the position of head maid, but this was the first time she had tasted something so sweet. It wasn’t just sweet, it was to the extent that the sweetness she had known until now was being denied.

“Are these kinds of snacks common in the Imperial Palace?”

“This is my first time.”

“Then outside the Imperial Palace?”

Cayenne’s face was filled with curiosity. Even so, his hand kept reaching for the plate of cookies. The warmth of the chrysanthemum tea made the sweetness of the cookies not boring.

“Your Majesty, it is said that the best of the Empire gathers in the capital. Also, the best of the capital tends to gather in the Imperial Palace.”

Only the most precious things in the Empire gathered in this Imperial Palace. However, even Emma, who had lived in the Imperial Palace for almost her entire life, had never tasted anything like this before.

“It is a sweetness that cannot be felt anywhere else.”

“So, the Empress’s Palace was special after all.”

Had the Empress finally made up her mind? It was important for the current Empress to attract the Emperor’s attention in any way, so Emma wanted to support her.

“Yes. Perhaps it is because Her Majesty the Empress is a special person.”

“Hmm, did the chef of the Empress’s Palace come from a foreign country?”

However, it would not be easy to completely seduce this man, who was a little lacking in perception.

“No foreigners are allowed in the Imperial Palace. Also, everyone receives the same education and serves, so the chefs in His Majesty the Emperor’s residence and the banquet hall also have the same knowledge.”

At those words, Cayenne frowned slightly.

“However, the food I ate in my residence and at banquets was all boring. Why is only the Empress’s Palace different?”

“Perhaps. Her Majesty the Empress put in extra effort to serve you, Your Majesty?”

“So it’s all the Empress’s idea? Go ask her tomorrow.”

“I am afraid I cannot dare to ask Her Majesty the Empress about her intentions.”

Emma’s support was only up to this point. The rest had to be done directly by Cayenne and Alicia.

“Then, I will ask her later.”

“Yes.”

Cayenne spoke as if he would visit the Empress’s Palace tomorrow. Considering that he had no interest in the Empress even on their wedding day, it was a big improvement.

“I will take my leave now.”

At Emma’s words, Cayenne lay down and turned his back without answering.

Unlike in the battlefields of Rubeo, where he would fall asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow, he couldn’t fall asleep tonight for some reason.

“The Empress.”

He had often heard stories of people changing after suffering from a high fever. However, it was strange that there were only such good changes. Even Alicia had more intelligent and sparkling eyes after suffering from the high fever.

“I don’t want to agree with that disgusting Lucan’s idea, but it seems that wisdom fever really exists.”

As he tossed and turned for no reason, the gestures and eyes that Alicia had shown today kept coming to mind.

Her jewel-like blue eyes widened several times, her pink, clear lips shyly answering his questions, and her platinum blonde hair fluttering in the night breeze.

“The Empress.”

Cayenne rarely repeated the same words. It was a mystery why the woman, who was just a Lucan surveillance, was now attracting his attention.

“Well, she’s just a woman, after all.”

His mutter lingered on his tongue, unlike usual. Like the sweet taste of the cookie earlier.

“Empress, Empress, huh.”

When he recited the marriage vows in front of the Pope, when he lifted her veil and roughly kissed her cheek, he thought it meant nothing. Also, he believed that his heart would not change even as time passed.

From the beginning, her existence was humiliating to Cayenne. Wasn’t it a condition offered by the capital nobles and the great sage of Lucan, who joined hands because he lacked the qualities of an emperor in the first place? The Lucan-born Empress was a condition that he had no choice but to accept due to the growing power of the nobles and Lucan’s influence, as the late Emperor had not taken care of state affairs at all in his later years.

“The daughter of Lucan who has forgotten Lucan.”

Her blue eyes and clear cheeks, her pink lips retaining the freshness of twenty years old, were not fabricated lies. She was not the woman who used to recite Lucan’s teachings and write letters to the battlefield whenever she had the chance, until she suffered from the high fever.

“Perhaps similar to me.”

As Emma reported, the Empress had no private life. She had no people to interact with, no friends, and only her nanny maid was still by her side.

“So…”

Even her parents had died early, and she came to the Empire as a tool of Lucan and became the Empress.

“She was alone too.”

Cayenne murmured in a low and slow voice. The woman, whom he had never considered to be the same kind as himself, had been coming closer to him lately. And perhaps the reason was,

“It was a sense of kinship.”

Cayenne, who had defined it clearly, then lay on his side to sleep comfortably.

“If so, it makes sense.”

However, he turned over again in less than a minute. His eyes staring at the air were clear, and he was not sleepy at all.

“Come to think of it, she’s not Lucan anymore now.”

Since she had become the Empress, her surname was now Darius, the same as his.

“Her name…”

Once you become an Empress, the individual disappears. So, to recall her name, he had to go back to when he recited the marriage vows a year ago.

Do you swear in the name of the sacred God to protect this marriage vow until the day you die, and to remember it even in death?

Marriage is a truly ridiculous and cruel vow.

Yes. I, Alicia of Lucan, swear in my name.

The voice that shyly rang out from under the veil was the same as now.

“Right, Alicia.”

One year after the wedding, and when Alicia alone had lived two lives, Cayenne finally remembered her name.