“A chill?”
“Uh huh! A chill!”
“What kind of chill even... Ah. Family problems.”
Bale frowned.
“But where did that suddenly co from?”
Tie shrugged.
“I don’t know. The princess suddenly...”
After glancing around, the child crooked her finger as though asking him to co closer.
When Bale bent down, Tie whispered into his ear,
“She suddenly hugged Tie and started crying really, really hard. Can you believe it?”
Bale froze and looked at Tesetan.
Tesetan silently stared toward the empty corridor.
Beside him, Tie continued chattering away.
“Brother, rember how Tie said before that maybe the princess gets bullied at ho?”
“Yeah, I rember.”
“You know why Tie thought that? The princess is supposed to live happily in a super pretty castle. But the Association Head Princess even joined dangerous things like the Watchtower assault.”
“True.”
“And then! Today Tie realized she was right. When she was talking to the emperor, he looked at the princess like he really hated her— Mmff.”
Bale covered the child’s mouth with his palm.
Tie’s eyes widened, and ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) she frowned indignantly.
“Mmph! What was that for?!”
“You can talk about that later. Later.”
After saying that, Bale looked back at Tesetan.
“Vice Captain. Shouldn’t you go?”
Only then did Tesetan turn around.
For several seconds, he stared seriously at Tie before nodding at Bale.
“Take her inside first.”
Tie watched in confusion as Papa headed back toward the direction she had just co from.
A heavy sigh ca from behind her.
“This is complicated. Damn complicated...”
Tie turned her head.
“What’s complicated?”
Bale stared at her for a long mont with an unreadable expression.
Then very gently poked her forehead with his finger.
“You don’t need to know yet.”
“But Tie wants to know too!”
“And what exactly am I supposed to explain? When the ti cos, you’ll figure it out yourself.”
“Hmph!”
Bale took the pouting child’s hand.
Then led her toward the banquet hall doors.
Tie puffed out her cheeks and glared at Bale, but eventually nodded reluctantly.
Even so, her gaze kept drifting back again and again.
Ardiana could still hear Tie’s subdued voice echoing in her ears.
‘They said it’s a burden...’
Covering her aching eyes with one hand, Ardiana leaned back against the old chair.
A short distance away from where she and Tie had walked together was a secret place known only to her.
This corner of the western garden had long since been abandoned.
At one point, they had planned to build a pond there.
But after construction was halted because the ground was unstable, the entire area had beco overgrown with grass and trees.
It was Ardiana herself who had made a small path leading here and placed the old chair the empress had loved sitting in during her lifeti.
‘Tie will never hold Papa back.’
Why did those words feel like a knife?
Maybe that was why Ardiana had simply held Astie tightly and cried for such a long ti.
Unable to say a single one of the countless things she had wanted to tell her.
While she sobbed, only one thought kept repeating in her mind.
‘Why are you even worrying about sothing like that?’
Why would you think such a thing?
Why would you say it out loud?
Astie was only four years old.
She was not at an age where a child should fear being hated by soone.
Not at an age where she should worry about becoming a burden.
‘Please don’t hate Papa because of Tie.’
Just hearing that single sentence made Ardiana feel as though she had suddenly seen all four years of the child’s life.
As though the hidden loss the little girl carried inside herself had finally beco visible.
‘I kept hoping it wasn’t true. That it couldn’t possibly be true.’
Her absence had already left a mark on the child like a scar.
Ardiana bit down on her lip as if her heart were collapsing apart.
And at that mont—
“Ardiana.”
Amid the rustling leaves, soone called her na.
She lowered the hand covering her face.
Through vision blurred by tears stood Tesetan.
“So this is where you were.”
Breathing heavily, he approached her.
Ardiana stared at him blankly.
Tesetan spoke.
“I searched for you for a long ti. Then I rembered you once briefly ntioning this place...”
“I rembered everything.”
Ardiana interrupted him.
Her eyelashes trembled.
“Everything you wrote in the letter. Everything you said I needed to know.”
Tesetan fell silent.
Tears stread down Ardiana’s cheeks.
“That’s why I ca. This banquet never should have happened, but I... I wanted to see the child so badly.”
“......”
“Sniff... I wanted to talk to her. I wanted to say sothing, anything at all. To tell her everything I couldn’t say before. But the words just wouldn’t co out.”
Ardiana lowered her head.
It felt as though sothing sharp had lodged itself in her throat, making it painful to speak.
And if that were the only problem.
But after her mories returned, another thought had lodged inside her like a thorn.
“What’s going to happen to Astie now...?”
Ardiana looked up.
Magic activated through spatial distortion.
A child born in a place and ti where she was never ant to exist.
“Answer .”
Even knowing almost nothing about magic, Ardiana instinctively understood—
Great magic always demanded a proportional price.
Miracles never ca for free.
“Answer . Tell that Astie, my daughter, will not beco that price.”
When she decided to oppose the emperor.
When she secretly began contacting the nobles of the late empress’s faction.
All this ti, she had thought—
If she started moving now, she could still change things.
That doing sothing was better than standing still.
That this way, she could protect the child.
But all of that hope only had aning under one condition.
If Astie remained alive and unhard.
Yet Tesetan remained silent.
Ardiana shook her head as if denying reality itself.
“No.”
With trembling hands, she repeated again and again,
“You can’t do this... I can’t...”
Tie’s voice comforting her while patting her back echoed through her ears once more.
‘Association Head Lady, you can cry more if you want.’
‘....’
‘Tie also, hic, cries all alone for a really, really long ti when she’s sad. But afterward it feels better.’
The words about how the child had beco used to crying alone stabbed painfully into her heart.
It felt as though the little girl had already learned far too well how to hide her emotions.
She had clearly learned much too early how to stand alone instead of simply laughing, whining, and crying in soone’s arms like an ordinary child.
“...There’s a way, isn’t there?”
That was why Ardiana could no longer stand by and rely watch.
She could not leave Astie like this.
That was why she was prepared to overturn the entire Imperial Palace.
Even if it ant staining her hands with blood.
She wanted to give Tie a world where the child would be safe.
Only then would Astie finally be able to laugh and cry like a real child.
But if Tie disappeared from this world?
If the child vanished as the price of magic?
Then what aning would any of this even have?
“It can’t be without Tie, Tesetan...”
Ardiana grabbed his hand.
“If she’s gone, everything loses its aning. Everything, absolutely everything...”
Her body trembled.
But Ardiana still forced herself to steady her ragged breathing.
After wiping away her tear soaked eyes, she looked directly at Tesetan.
“You have a plan, don’t you?”
Ardiana knew Tesetan as exactly that kind of person.
Soone who prepared the best option, a backup option, and even a final escape route in case everything failed.
“Tell . What do I need to do?”
Tesetan’s gaze grew heavy.
A cold wind lingered between them for a mont.
Finally, he spoke.
“When we reach the Central Continent, I was planning to investigate the World Tree.”
Ardiana frowned.
“The World Tree...?”
Tesetan nodded.
“Do you rember? The mont in the underground plaza beneath the Imperial Palace when Tie and I were dragged into another dinsion.”
Ardiana fell silent.
How could she possibly forget?
That day, enduring the poisonous energy, she had destroyed the heart of the Magic Crystal.
And then Tesetan and Astie had appeared from beyond the collapsing wall.
But there had been no ti to rejoice over their reunion.
“...Yes. Sothing erged from the heart of the Magic Crystal back then.”
That golden, shining thing had instantly disappeared into Astie’s chest.
Tesetan lowered his voice.
“If my guess is correct, that was the World Tree.”
Ardiana’s brows furrowed even more deeply.
That golden creature was the World Tree?
“But...”
She looked at Tesetan uncertainly.
“Tesetan, the World Tree is corrupted. According to the Church, it entered slumber in the Forest of Rokshe to restore its holiness.”
“But nobody has seen it.”
Tesetan said quietly.
“There are only claims that it went into seclusion. But no one has actually seen the World Tree with their own eyes in the Forest of Rokshe.”
His gaze lifted toward the top of the palace chapel in the distance.
The sacred spear, symbol of the Temple, pointed toward the Central Continent where the Church headquarters stood.
“Except for Pope Luciano, who acts suspicious every single ti.”
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