CFCF 89

Episode 89

“…What?”

The Empress staggered as if she might fall, asking hurriedly.

“What did you just say? That you can purify my son? Are you saying you are a Saint?”

A Saint. Beings who could purify magic power with holy power had only existed in documents until now. Much like the magic sword ‘Belih’, which had been merely a legend before the tome was discovered.

The Empress grabbed Helena’s hand tightly.

“C-Can you purify my son? If… if you do that, I… I will…”

But Helena avoided the Empress’s hand and simply shook her head quietly.

“I apologize, Your Majesty.”

She spoke calmly.

“His Highness the First Prince has already exhausted all his life force and seems to remain in this world solely by the will of the magic sword. Even if I manage to purify the magic, it will ultimately be difficult for him to survive.”

At that moment, Hart’s daughter stood up.

“Sister, what do you mean? Does that mean… you can make our father not sick anymore?”

Helena looked at the little lady with her strikingly clear, imperial red eyes and nodded gravely. She then looked around at the Empress, the Crown Princess, and her children.

“It seems… I might be able to do it. However, the probability is high that His Highness will pass from this world the moment he finds peace.”

Upon hearing this, the Empress suddenly changed her expression and stepped in front of Hart, blocking him.

“Do not touch him. How is what you’re saying any different from killing my son now!”

Her loud voice startled the little child, who burst into tears. The Crown Princess, who had been sitting like a statue with her lips tightly sealed until now, fell to her knees before the Empress.

“Mother, please…”

Hot tears streamed down from her russet-brown eyes.

“Please… won’t you let this man go? In your eyes, Mother, is this person even alive right now…?”

The Empress couldn’t bring herself to answer and finally collapsed before the Crown Princess, sobbing. After Helena spent some time soothing and patting the crying children’s backs, the Empress finally stood up as if having made a decision and looked at her.

“Can you really… do it? Is there… perhaps still a chance he might survive?”

Helena replied in a somber voice.

“I won’t say there is no such probability, but from what I see, it is very low.”

She then looked back at Rurik once more instead of the Empress. He had been standing silently by the door, waiting for Helena. He surely had many things he wanted to say and ask her. But in the end, Rurik nodded and answered.

“If that is your wish.”

Finally, Helena sat at Hart’s bedside and placed her palm over his face. A white light spread widely from under her small palm. No one had ever seen such a pure, even white light emanate, even from the hands of the Tower Master, said to be a once-in-an-era genius. The Empress stood silently with tear-filled eyes, just watching Helena.

Helena remained sitting motionless, her face pale as she gasped for breath, until she could no longer move.

“…Helena.”

Rurik, unable to bear it any longer, approached her, but she didn’t even answer. A considerable amount of time passed. At some point, the First Prince’s face, which had been stained a blackish, sinister color, returned to a state closer to normal.

“…Daddy?”

When one of his daughters called out to him, Helena finally removed her hand. Rurik wanted to immediately pull the panting girl into his arms and check her condition, but fearing it might create an excuse for the Empress to criticize them, he could only gently place a hand on her shoulder.

Then, Hart struggled to move his eyelids.

“Daddy…?”

It had already been a month and a half since he lost consciousness and fell ill. His eyes, firmly shut all that time, finally opened and saw his children. The red pupils, symbolic of Brentania, were clear and bright, unlike when he was collapsed.

“Thera. Cicily.”

They were likely the last names of his daughters he would ever call. Hart’s voice was as fragile as the sound of the wind.

“…Daddy!”

As the children rushed to hug him, Hart managed a faint smile. A single tear streamed from the corner of his eye, which had finally regained peace.

“Hart…!”

The Empress called out to her son, tears pouring down, but Hart instinctively knew the time he had left was very short. So, instead of his mother, he looked at Rurik.

“…Ryu.”

It was a syllable he had never heard before in his life, but Rurik instantly realized it referred to him. The moment their eyes met was very brief. But he couldn’t fail to understand what Hart wanted to say.
‘We are the only two who have become vessels for ‘Belih’ and endured pains others know nothing of.’

Hart’s moment of lucidity was but an instant. The red eyes he had managed to open soon hid beneath his eyelids again, and the arms that had held his two daughters for a brief moment fell to the floor with a thud.

“Daddy! Daddy!”

“Your Highness!”

The court physician who had been by his side the whole time felt for his pulse and shook his head. Then, a scribe’s assistant, who had been sitting in a corner of the room waiting, stood up and announced.

“…His Highness Hart Theuderic Brentania, the First Prince, has passed away.”

He was the one who had not left the room for a single moment since the Tower Master withdrew his magic and the Prince’s life became endangered, staying with the court physician.

The sound of weeping spread like a wave. Palace attendants who heard the news knelt one after another, wailing. After a long while, Rurik finally helped Helena up from that sea of tears and led her away. He wanted to carry her in his arms, but couldn’t, and instead moved his leaden, heavy steps towards the detached palace.

The moment they entered the detached palace, Rurik grabbed Helena’s arm and looked her over carefully.

“Are you alright?”

Helena nodded, albeit with a somewhat listless motion. Then she asked him instead.

“And you, Your Highness? Are you alright?”

Rurik looked down at her as if exasperated, then, regardless of who might see, pulled her into a tight embrace.

“…Your Highness?”

“Just for a moment… let’s stay like this for a moment.”

He was a rival too petty to compete with seriously, yet too distant to be called a friend. He was the one and only brother of lofty status who had made Rurik live as his shadow. They had never shared a single good moment, yet they had been together for an excruciatingly long time. It was an early farewell to such a relative—one he hated, yet sometimes pitied.

Back in the distant past, when Rurik was twelve and Hart was thirteen. It happened the very year Rurik had trained with little sleep and received his Sword Master certification.

“If someone like you can become one, then a Sword Master must not be a big deal, right?”

On his way to the training grounds, Hart, sitting atop a wall, sneered.

“…Yes, it seems so,” Rurik replied without even looking up at him.

Fuming, Hart jumped down from the wall. Only then did Rurik stop, feeling a bit tense.
‘If he misses his step and falls, the blame might unjustly fall on me too.’

He only had such trivial worries, but Hart was furious and blocked his path.

“Is that it? The new treasure sword you received?”

Finally, Rurik understood why the Crown Prince was picking a fight. Despite having inherited the entirety of this empire simply for being the Empress’s son, he coveted the one symbol Rurik had earned through his own ability.
‘Unlike the red hair he was so jealous of, he probably thinks he can easily take this from me.’

In their younger days, when the Crown Prince envied his hair, it was common for him to throw mud or sprinkle ash on Rurik.

When Hart reached out as if to snatch the sword’s hilt, Rurik swiftly turned his body halfway, evading his touch.

“Hey, how stingy! Will it wear out if I just look at it?”

In terms of physical agility, Rurik was in no way inferior to the Crown Prince.

“Your Highness has never shown me any of the items you have received as gifts either.”

Having given that reply, Rurik quickly ran off towards the training grounds. Hart ultimately failed to catch Rurik, but just a few days later, trouble inevitably occurred.

When Rurik woke up in the morning, his sword was gone.

“Have you seen my sword?”

Rurik frantically searched every corner of the detached palace, grabbing every servant he met and asking.

“My sword! The Imperial treasure sword His Majesty newly bestowed upon me!”

Among the servants who all shook their heads, one guard hesitantly spoke up.

“Well, actually…”
“What is it?”
“I saw His Highness the Crown Prince passing through the corridor early this morning…”
Rurik’s brow furrowed.
“And?”
“Somehow… he seemed to be wearing a sword, unlike usual. I didn’t get a clear look if it was the treasure sword!”

Rurik stormed off towards the main palace, but the Crown Prince skillfully avoided him all day, never appearing in his sight.
‘Audience with His Majesty the Emperor, Princely studies, Observing council meetings…’

Hart’s schedule was packed with important events that Rurik couldn’t disrupt. Nor could he go running to his father to whine that his sword had been taken by his brother.

“I said I would bestow the sword upon the more outstanding son, but I didn’t expect you to receive it at twelve. I look forward to your future.”

It was the first time his father had said he expected something from him. He didn’t want to go crying that his sword, bestowed upon him just days ago, had already been taken by his brother.

Four days passed like that. The day he decided he could bear it no longer and resolved to retrieve the sword by force, heading for the Crown Prince’s palace, Hart’s voice leaked through the door crack.