The Empress Tames the Tyrant - Chapter 4

I couldn’t sleep a wink last night. My thoughts and resolve were firm, but I still lacked the confidence to face him again, and the fear of the past hadn’t completely faded.

However, if the Empress didn’t pay her respects after the Emperor returned to the Imperial Palace, she would face immense criticism. The social circles of this empire were as cruel as Kaien’s cold eyes.

“Your Majesty, the Empress, preparations are complete.”

Agnes’s words brought me back to my senses, and when I looked in the mirror, I saw my face with the shimmering platinum blonde hair neatly styled. The freshness of twenty years shone even without makeup, and even Kaien wouldn’t fault this.

“Let’s go.”

After a long time, a carriage stood before the Empress’s Palace. Alicia boarded the carriage with Agnes. The vast garden scenery of the Imperial Palace passed by, and soon they arrived at the building where the Emperor held his political affairs.

“You must disembark here.”

After getting off the carriage and being attended to by Agnes, Alicia stood before the Emperor’s audience chamber, but it was still quite early.

“Greetings to Her Majesty, the Empress.”

The attendants guarding the audience chamber saw the Empress’s modest procession and gave a perfunctory bow. Their lukewarm attitude made Alicia realize her position once again.

“Her Majesty, the Empress, has come to have an audience with His Majesty, the Emperor.”

Howard, the head attendant of the Empress’s Palace, stepped forward, and the chief attendant nodded.

“His Majesty, the Emperor, has not yet arrived in the audience chamber, so please wait in the reception room.”

Many sought an audience with the Emperor, and naturally, there were several reception rooms attached to the audience chamber.

“Ah, I regret to inform you that we have not yet finished cleaning all the reception rooms, so you will have to stay in the small reception room at the end of the right corridor.”

That place was the smallest and most humble of the reception rooms, a place for a servant serving the Emperor, not for a wife welcoming her husband after a year’s absence.

“Now, Her Majesty, the Empress, has come in person, how can you…!”

Agnes tried to protest, but Alicia raised her hand to stop her.

“Then I will wait for His Majesty in the reception room.”

Alicia wore a serene smile.

In her past life, she would have been hurt by such trivial matters, but now Alicia didn’t even consider it worth caring where she waited.

***

Around the time Alicia had savored a couple of cups of tea, one of the Emperor’s attendants came to inform her that it was her turn for the audience. Two hours had passed since she arrived at the audience chamber, but her face showed no sign of it.

“Her Majesty, the Empress, enters.”

The thick doors of the audience chamber opened, and as the attendant announced loudly, Alicia stepped onto the long carpet and walked towards the towering throne.

Her pace, neither too fast nor too slow, stopped before the steps leading to the throne, and Alicia gracefully lifted the hem of her dress and bowed.

“Greetings to His Majesty, the Emperor.”

After the bell-like voice, a moment of silence flowed. During that time, Alicia saw the dirty and rough military boots in her field of vision.

In one of her past audiences, she had shown surprise at the boots that had come in with mud and blood still on them, and Kaien had clicked his tongue, but now it was all irrelevant.

“If you would allow it, I would like to see Your Majesty’s face.”

Kaien was completely ignorant of the Imperial Palace etiquette, and thanks to that, the past Alicia often had to bow so low that her arms and legs would go numb because he forgot to tell her to rise.

Of course, that was also irrelevant today.

“…Ah, yes.”

A low voice echoed indifferently, as if he had momentarily forgotten Alicia’s existence.

How long had it been since she had seen his face? With a slight sense of tension, Alicia slowly raised her blue eyes and looked up at Kaien.

“I heard you had a fever. But you look perfectly fine now.”

Kaien, leaning casually with one arm on the throne, asked in a nonchalant voice.

“Yes. However, thanks to everyone’s care, I am able to have an audience with His Majesty, the Emperor, in such good health.”

For a moment, Kaien’s jet-black eyes stared intently at Alicia’s face. A strange sense of incongruity, which had not been there before, lingered over Alicia’s face.

“You seem a little different.”

Eyes bluer than jewels, elegant features, the fragrance of a woman just blooming fresh… not those things, but something else, something internal.

“It’s been a year.”

At those words, Kaien raised an eyebrow.

Elegant attire without flashy decorations, a smile lingering on her pink lips, and especially the soft yet confident attitude that didn’t avoid his eyes, made her seem like a different woman than at the wedding.

“Yes.”

Kaien tapped his temple with his finger and spat out a word. The level of communication, which didn’t even reach a normal conversation, let alone the etiquette of the Imperial Family or social circles, was just as Alicia remembered.

“Your Majesty also looks robust.”

“Ah… are you saying that because I’m cutting down barbarians and living in the wasteland every day?”

In an instant, Alicia struggled to hide her hardening expression.

Already, the mere sound of Kaien’s scathing tone, which she had hated and feared the most in her past life, was making her head throb.

“I meant that it’s good to see Your Majesty looking even stronger.”

If she was the same as in the past, nothing would change. Alicia tried to maintain a calm and faint smile. Then, Kaien unknowingly narrowed his eyes and looked closely at Alicia.

“Well… yes.”

The news he had received by carrier pigeon said that the Empress had suffered from a high fever for three days, and that she had changed as if she had suffered from a wisdom fever, so it seemed that the words were not entirely false.

In fact, the letters that Alicia had sent to the battlefield every day had stopped completely after she had a high fever. The tedious words about Lucan’s teachings and truth.

“Recently, the subjugation of the barbarians is almost over, so there has been no opportunity to talk to the great sage of Lucan. I understand some of the criticism that I, the Emperor, am leaving the Imperial Palace empty, but the situation is what it is.”

He preempted the Empress’s nagging, which would have recited Lucan’s will tediously, but rather, Alicia’s eyes widened in bewilderment.

“I am afraid I do not know what you mean.”

Still, a faint smile lingered on Alicia’s pink lips.

“I have only come to have an audience because I am happy that Your Majesty has returned safely.”

This time, bewilderment spread across Kaien’s face. Of course, Alicia didn’t miss that point.

“Is that all you have to say to me?”

“Since Your Majesty is healthy, what more can I say?”

Kaien blinked, closed his eyes, and looked at Alicia again. How could that woman, who had trembled and couldn’t even make eye contact when the veil was lifted at the wedding, have changed so much in just one year?

Moreover, where had the tenacity gone, the tenacity that had made her write Lucan’s teachings in her own handwriting and send them to the battlefield every day?

“It must be very busy for you since you have returned to the Imperial Palace after a long time. I have seen Your Majesty’s robust appearance, so I will withdraw now.”

There was no fear or anxiety in Alicia’s blue eyes.

There was no criticism or contempt like Lucan, no ambition seen in Duke Nigel. It was even different from the loyalty of the people of Rubeo, who absolutely obeyed him.

“Then, I will…”

Before Kaien could see the true meaning contained in those eyes, Alicia bowed gracefully and withdrew.

“…”

Even long after Alicia had disappeared, he was staring at one spot. It was the place where Alicia’s blue eyes had lingered a moment ago.

“Just now, something…”

Kaien frowned, muttering to himself in a low voice.

He had prided himself on knowing the inner thoughts of those around him as Emperor, but his wife, whom he had met after a year, had just shattered that arrogance.

❖ ❖ ❖

Kaien’s morning passed quickly as he received the delayed audiences.

“The nobles are still disgusting. But it’s easier to deal with them when their inner thoughts are visible.”

“That is correct.”

Even with Glenn’s answer, Kaien couldn’t shake off his thoughts.

“Yes. That’s it.”

“Yes?”

“Something felt off… the Empress was strange.”

Kaien felt a strong sense of incongruity from Alicia, who had withdrawn so readily. However, he couldn’t define exactly what that feeling was, so his head was complicated all morning.

“It can’t be helped, Your Majesty. Her Majesty, the Empress, also has the role of conveying Lucan’s words…”

“No, that’s not it.”

If Alicia had been the timid woman he had seen at the wedding, the woman who feared him, he would have forgotten about it without a second thought. If she was still a woman who only repeated Lucan’s words like a parrot, even more so.

“It was like she had become a completely different person in a year. Far from bringing up Lucan’s words first, she readily withdrew, saying she didn’t know what I was talking about even when I mentioned it first.”

At the unexpected words, Glenn also wore a puzzled expression.

In the first place, Alicia was like an envoy sent from Lucan as a condition for helping Kaien, who was criticized for lacking the qualities of an Emperor, ascend to the throne. Her role was only to convey Lucan’s will and remind the Emperor of Lucan’s power.

“Did Lucan… convey a different meaning?”

“No. There was no such feeling either. Not at all!”

Kaien answered immediately.

There was no feeling of any scheme or plotting in Alicia’s blue eyes.

“On the battlefield, you have to read the opponent’s next move just by looking at their eyes. If I didn’t even know the inner thoughts of just one woman, I wouldn’t have this head on my shoulders.”

If Alicia had a scheme, Kaien would have figured it out. It was an instinct honed over many years in the land of Rubeo, which was close to a wasteland.

“Her Majesty, the Empress, suffered from a high fever for three days straight. They say that there are those who have become closer to the truth after suffering from a wisdom fever in Lucan… could it be something like that?”

“Huh.”

Kaien shook his head at Glenn’s sincere answer.

“If there was such a thing as wisdom fever, would Lucan’s hypocrites be so corrupt?”

It was a truly Kaien-like answer.

“If Your Majesty is concerned, I will look into the affairs of the Empress’s Palace.”

When he nodded in agreement, Glenn bowed his head.

It was a strange thing. There had never been anything unclear in his life, but his brief meeting with her had left an emotion that could not be defined or explained.

It was as if a drop of blue paint had fallen on a calm surface of water.

“It seems that it would be faster to see it with my own eyes.”

“Yes?”

“I’ll know when I meet the Empress. How much would be natural?”

Kaien’s face, who rarely sought the opinions of others, was very serious.

“Since the two of you are husband and wife, you can have dinner together or have tea time… anything is possible.”

“I hate troublesome things.”

But more than anything, the smile and elegant figure of Alicia, which had been lingering in his head all morning, were the most troublesome things, constantly returning as question marks.

“Make it a dinner.”

“Yes.”

Once a ripple of emotion had arisen, he could not determine its end.

“Tell the Empress’s Palace immediately.”

Kaien sat with his long legs crossed arrogantly. That much was not much different from on the battlefield or on this shining throne.