Chapter 69
Perhaps this was why it was so difficult to live with secrets. Her heart felt endlessly heavy as all of Carl’s words and expressions seemed meaningful and strange.
“Why do you think Brita’s attack is a lie? Looking at both the Imperial Palace and outside, everyone else seems to believe it without a shred of doubt.”
“Isn’t the timing suspicious? Revenant was the first to mention the black dragon. And then, coincidentally, it’s her husband’s dragon Brita that gets attacked by a black dragon? Doesn’t it look like an obvious ploy?”
“…It could be true though.”
Sian looked at Carl with anxiety. His attitude of firmly disbelieving in the black dragon’s existence was both reassuring and unsettling.
He seemed to disbelieve the black dragon story from the start. If such a Carl were to learn that she was actually the black dragon’s master, wouldn’t he feel even more betrayed?
‘She was a deceiver.’
Revenant’s words stung at her emotions. The longer she kept her secret, the greater Carl’s sense of betrayal would grow.
Sian pressed her lips tightly together.
I really need to tell him now.
Just as Sian was clenching her fist in the awkward silence with this thought—
“Are you hoping it’s true, or are you testing me?”
After the silence passed, Carl spoke with an expressionless face.
A warm breeze swept under the pergola roof in the middle of the garden. But unlike the cloudless clear weather and the warm wind that required no coat, Carl’s words made Sian’s mind freeze.
“…Testing you?”
It felt as if her heart had dropped with a thud.
She had desperately hoped it wasn’t true.
All along, she’d thought Carl’s subtle words and tones only seemed meaningful because she was feeling guilty.
But could it be… did he know?
Her heart pounded almost unbearably as the shock drained the blood from her head. Not even realizing her face had turned pale, she stared blankly at Carl as he let out a short sigh.
“If it’s difficult to say, you don’t have to. I told you before, didn’t I? You don’t need to face everything head-on.”
He showed neither a frown nor an expression of betrayal. His calm, expressionless face, as if nothing was wrong, made her throat tighten with a groan.
“Morning and night—I definitely said that, didn’t I? I’ve been quite curious about what that meant… Why I am morning, and you are night.”
With his back to the streaming sunlight, he who had always been morning to Sian spoke.
“I have a confession to make as well. Actually, I asked an Imperial Knight to investigate your background at the Dragon Temple.”
Sian finally furrowed her brow.
“And there was an interesting fact in the noble registry recording the death of a nine-year-old girl, Aira Chandler.”
“…”
“For fifteen days after the Count’s daughter fell ill, there were nights without a moon. And after her death, the full moon rose.”
Carl paused there and shifted his position to observe Sian’s reaction. He seemed to be watching whether she would be angry about the secret investigation.
However, Sian didn’t care at all about the fact that he had investigated her background. She couldn’t think about anything else.
Rather, she was only worried about whether he felt betrayed or disappointed that she hadn’t confessed despite having several opportunities, and whether he might consider the black dragon as ominous as her parents had.
“…So that’s why you were night. Coexisting with morning but never together.”
Sian closed her eyes tightly. The musty past she had buried deep in her memories came back as vividly as if it were yesterday.
It was a moonless night.
Like a prophet receiving an oracle, on that night when sleep uniquely eluded her and she lay awake, the black dragon appeared, blocking the moonlight with its black scales, and chose Sian, who had been Aira Chandler, daughter of the Margrave, as its master.
Her father, Count Chandler, felt great fear at the presence of the beast with its gleaming red eyes in the pitch darkness. In an empire that began with the sacred silver dragon, it must surely be a harbinger of disaster.
Count Chandler, who had tremendous loyalty and pride toward the Empire, took the black dragon’s existence as an ill omen. He ruthlessly tried to kill Sian, who had been chosen as the black dragon’s master, and her mother, unable to kill her only daughter, abandoned her secretly on another night when the black dragon darkened the sky.
‘You were nothing.’
The day she was abandoned was, like the day she was chosen by the dragon, a pitch-black night without any light.
‘You were never born into this family, Aira. We will erase all records of you.’
Morning never came. In the long, pitch-black darkness that might never end, all that remained with Sian was the black dragon—the cause of everything.
“…I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you myself.”
“Nothing to be sorry about, since I don’t mind.”
Carl said with a light laugh. His voice was so casual it seemed unfair after all her anxiety.
Unlike what she had feared, there was no anger, no sense of betrayal, not even hurt feelings. It was truly just a matter-of-fact, neutral tone.
“You were anxious, weren’t you? Afraid that I might not accept you, just like the world is condemning black dragons now.”
That was exactly it.
“…My father couldn’t accept my dragon either. He believed it would bring calamity to an empire founded through the war between silver and black dragons.”
“What a foolish person.”
Carl snorted.
“Legends are just legends. Is morning good? Then is night evil by opposition?”
Sian stared at Carl with disbelief. She had never heard such words before.
“Morning is simply bright, and night is simply dark. Who knows who created the standard that brightness is good and darkness is evil?”
As he spoke, Carl casually picked up Sian’s teacup as if it were his own and took a sip, as though his throat were dry.
“Who cares about such petty societal prejudices? A dragon is just a dragon. If you couldn’t tell me because you were afraid of such things, I’m the one who should feel hurt.”
“…”
“In a way, both my brother and I are victims of such prejudice too. Nathan is just Nathan and Idelin is just Idelin, yet people believe the Crown Prince’s Nathan is impure and Idelin is special as Yggdrasil’s successor. They think I must inherit the throne simply because I’m Idelin’s master, when the succession doesn’t matter at all.”
Her eyes suddenly grew hot. Just as she felt tears coming and lowered her head, warm droplets had already fallen onto her clenched fists.
“What, are you crying again?”
Carl, who had been taking another sip of tea, was startled to see Sian’s bowed head and quickly set the cup back down. Sian sniffled and wiped her fallen tears with the back of her hand.
“What do you expect when you suddenly say things like that? No one has ever accepted my dragon like that before.”
“Then just accept it gladly. There’s no need to cry…”
“What would you know? Someone who’s been revered as Idelin’s master since birth.”
“Ha,” Carl let out a derisive laugh.
“What have you been hearing in everything I’ve said? I told you I’m a victim too. I was only eleven when I left the Imperial Palace. Do you think I enjoyed leaving the comfortable palace where I was born and raised to stack bricks in a wasteland?”
