Chapter 105
Chapter 105. Ansha’s Wish
“So, why has this appeared now?” Vinea asked in a frosty tone.
Tatar shrugged lightly. “Who knows? Perhaps the temple had been secretly keeping it and decided to bring it out now. Isn’t that right, Priest Nemil?”
At Tatar’s words, Nemil shook his head, his face turning pale as he hastily pulled his cloak from underneath the Sefitiana.
“No, it truly was discovered in a basement under construction! While moving the debris—”
Vinea raised her hand to cut him off. There was no need to hear the story again.
“Anyway, it’s an item that couldn’t even be used during the sacred trial. Why bother bringing it all the way back to the palace?”
On the day of the sacred trial, Nemil, who had tried to enter the temple with Tatar, only arrived long after the trial had ended. Vinea’s gaze fell on Nemil’s bandaged left leg. Tatar smirked at him.
“Were you trying to follow His Majesty?”
“That, well…”
Nemil had thought that riding a horse wouldn’t be so difficult, seeing how easily His Majesty did it. He had managed to mount a horse just like Sir Deron but fell off while trying to mimic the way of holding the reins.
Thus, now, presenting himself as the custodian of the gift sent by the temple as an apology and atonement, Nemil had once again brought the Sefitiana into the palace.
“There truly is no one else I can trust with the Sefitiana. Please take care of it. If there is any more turmoil here, the temple really might not recover, Your Majesty.”
Nemil bowed deeply. Despite the Grand Priest’s misdeeds, his loyalty remained with the temple because his faith was in the gods, not the man.
“Even the mere existence of the Sefitiana will cause a lot of disturbances. It’s just a useless rock… but still.”
Nemil admitted that the Sefitiana could not perform any miracles. He had prayed fervently for world peace while carrying it here, yet nothing had happened.
“If you pour holy water over it, it glows, but otherwise, it’s completely safe. Please take care of it…!”
Vinea looked at the Sefitiana with weary eyes. How much trouble had this vague clue caused her? And now, when they were close to ending this cycle, there was hardly anything about the Sefitiana that she needed to know.
What to do? After a moment’s hesitation, Vinea stood up, Tatar’s gaze following her.
“Empress?”
“Step aside. There might be some splinters.”
Vinea, who had already had a scraping experience, warned Nemil. Before Nemil could even move the Sefitiana from the table, Vinea was quicker.
She tore off a diamond necklace from around her neck and slammed it down onto the Sefitiana.
Clang!
A sharp sound rang out, and Tatar slightly furrowed his brow. Vinea, too, stared at the unchanged Sefitiana.
“…Strange.”
“Ah, how could you try to destroy the Sefitiana! It won’t break against anything, Your Majesty…!”
“No, that’s wrong. It was shattered into pieces once before.”
“What…?”
Tsk. Vinea clicked her tongue lightly and sat back down on the sofa.
“Leave it be.”
“Does this mean you’ll take care of it?”
“As long as it’s kept secret. Even if someone threatens you with a knife to your throat, you’d better bite your tongue and die rather than reveal anything about the Sefitiana.”
It was a grim directive. Nemil nodded awkwardly and set another box he had brought onto the table.
“I was instructed to leave the gifts downstairs before coming up.”
“Since it’s a sensitive item, I brought it up myself.”
Click. The box opened, revealing two rows of small bottles, each containing a clear liquid.
“It’s holy water. The new Grand Priest instructed me to deliver it to you.”
“As if it’s a rare treasure from a never-drying stream. Didn’t you already give me a bottle when I returned to the palace?”
“The Grand Priest said to tell you to ask for it whenever needed. It neutralizes most poisons when mixed with food.”
Tatar, who had been sitting, stood up and closed the box with a snap.
“Instead of this stuff, make sure to control the priests’ tongues. You know what kind of talk is circulating about the Empress?”
The miraculous light seen on the sacred trial platform. The central temple’s priests and the order of holy knights who witnessed it. Despite instructions not to spread word, the story of that day inevitably leaked, given the sheer number of people involved.
Journalists, eager to find out how the Empress managed to prove her innocence uniquely in history, had caught on, and this morning’s newspapers spread across the empire proclaimed the Empress as a true envoy of the gods.
“They seem to be planning to establish a sect in her name. Tell them to behave before I lead an army over the temple. If they prefer not to personally discover that human swords are scarier than divine retribution.”
Nemil wiped the sweat from his brow at the Emperor’s feasible threat, nodding. Having achieved his purpose somewhat, he bowed and retreated from the room.
Thud. The door to the reception room closed, and Vinea and Tatar were left quietly staring at the Sefitiana.
The Sefitiana, unlike before, no longer showed its strange form or broke apart. It had lost its light.
Tatar, looking at Vinea’s profile, uncertain of her thoughts, finally spoke.
“Isn’t it time to stop torturing yourself? If it wasn’t your intention to cause agony.”
“I still haven’t heard it yet.”
Vinea turned away from the Sefitiana.
“Why did you do that on the night we returned from the temple?”
“That night…”
Tatar swallowed his words. Right after returning from the temple, he had put off a mountain of tasks to repeatedly engage with Vinea, intent on filling all the short gaps that had emerged between them with his mark, again and again.
The seemingly endless night finally paused when Vinea collapsed from exhaustion. After washing up and lying in bed, Vinea had dozed off, but what Tatar did next raised questions.
“Why did you pour holy water on my stomach?”
That was why she hadn’t startled awake from her accumulated fatigue, despite the sudden envelopment in a bright light. Had the curtains not been drawn, perhaps everyone in the palace would have witnessed the glow.
“You didn’t do that just to check on that day’s event. What’s the real reason?”
He had quietly scrutinized Vinea from head to toe until the light completely faded, as if searching for something.
Catching his gaze, Tatar hesitated before sighing deeply.
“I had a dream. About the time I was incapacitated by Eurene Castallo.”
He briefly explained—a dream returning him to the memories of the day the regression started. In the vivid dream, he and Vinea had witnessed the shape of the light right after they had died.
“We saw a woman in the artifact, whom Balak Utar identified as the woman named Ansha. You never told me more than that. It’s about time you did.”
Vinea sat up, having harbored the dilemma of how and where to begin explaining for several days.
“I have a place to show you.”
* * *
The place Tatar followed Vinea to was a room hung with portraits of past emperors and empresses of Tessibania.
As he opened the door, he entered a gallery he had only been in as a child. The room felt both familiar and alien, maintained by magic but filled with the eerie stillness of a space long untouched.
They walked past their own recent portraits and stopped before two large paintings, each split by a red curtain.
“Ancestors Abraltan and Magnolia.”
“I won’t go into detail. You’ll recognize it soon enough.”
Vinea touched the gilded frame of Abraltan’s portrait. Tatar’s eyes followed, examining the portrait.
Sharp features, a thin scar running from above his left eye down his cheek, imposing silver hair, and brown eyes, and a mouth set in a firm line. Despite his handsome appearance, there was a severe aura that framed him not just as a man, but as an emperor.
Vinea then touched the portrait of Magnolia next to it. Tatar’s gaze shifted to this ancestral figure.
Tightly coiled green hair, golden eyes, stubbornly pursed thin lips, and heavy eyelids…
Next, Vinea moved to the portrait of Emperor Imperon, their child.
Though not resembling his mother, many of Imperon’s features echoed Abraltan’s, clearly marking him as Abraltan’s lineage. The characteristic silver hair and eyes of the Tessibania imperial family had descended from Emperor Imperon.
Vinea turned around, her gaze sweeping over the long line of portraits in the corridor.
Unlike the diverse portraits of the empresses, the emperors’ portraits all shared the distinct trait of silver.
“What are you trying to say?”
Vinea looked intently at Tatar.
“Look again. Not at Magnolia but at Abraltan, Imperon, and their descendants.”
Tatar revisited Abraltan’s portrait, then his son Imperon, and the ancestors hanging on the wall. The more he observed, the stranger the déjà vu felt. There was someone not depicted here, yet who wouldn’t seem out of place if her portrait hung alongside them.
The vision from his dream, and the figure from the artifact, sequentially came to mind.
His eyes flickered with realization, and he turned to Vinea.
“Could it be…”
“Ansha was Abraltan’s concubine. That’s why her portrait isn’t here.”
Vinea looked into the eyes of the portrait of Magnolia.
“Despite Abraltan’s intentions to immortalize her existence in the founding myth as a fairy, why did she have to leave the palace and go to the temple? It’s obvious, isn’t it?”
“…Magnolia de Tessibania.”
“Yes. A woman who was once a noble lady of the mighty Orbanteon Kingdom.”
A woman not even Emperor Abraltan could dismiss.
“Empress Magnolia never stepped down from high positions. A woman who rose from a noble lady to an empress, would she ever accept the emperor’s illegitimate child? Look at the date Emperor Imperon was born.”
“About 9 months after the Foundation Day…”
The timeline fits roughly with knowing of a pregnancy and giving birth.
“The day of Tessibania’s foundation, proclaimed as a miracle. And Ansha, who had the Sefitiana. Something must come to mind.”
“The column of light that poured into the palace on Foundation Day?”
“Yes. ‘A brilliant column of light emerged behind Abraltan as he declared the foundation. The light that split the sky and the palace was a blessing from the gods.’ Doesn’t it seem odd? Why did the light appear at the palace and not where he stood?”
“…Because Ansha was there. And because she made a wish on the Sefitiana that day.”
Vinea lifted her blue eyes, now alight. The traces of Abraltan and Ansha on his face could be seen as evidence of that wish.
“It wasn’t a wish for Abraltan’s eternal love, but for the child in my womb.”
