Chapter 1
“Are you leaving?”
The low voice echoed through the room.
The hand that had once reached out, urging me to leave together. The letters that had come to tell me I was free from blame. Even the carefully prepared luggage, ready for me to depart at any moment.
They all knew.
“……”
It was exactly what I had expected.
All those who served a young lady who had become a traitor in a foreign land were Lucian’s eyes and ears.
It would not have been an exaggeration to say that he had known the moment my heart had begun to lean toward the choice of leaving.
And yet, the words refused to come.
“Milady.”
Was it the long-faded honorific, spoken after such a long time, that made my heart tighten? Or perhaps it was his trembling voice and the ache in his gaze.
A memory long buried resurfaced.
“Milady! Milady!”
“Please, don’t abandon me, milady!”
“I won’t act beyond my place ever again! Please, milady!”
What I had offered was not chains, but freedom. Yet the child had wailed as if utterly forsaken.
Ten years had passed since that final moment.
Medea now stood before Lucian, the emperor of Setanel.
He no longer needed to crave anyone’s affection, nor fear the pain of being abandoned.
And yet, at the news that I intended to leave, his azure eyes held the same sorrow as before.
“…Yes. I’m leaving.”
To say I was unmoved by that gaze would have been a lie.
Until now, Lucian had been merely one of the people who stirred remnants of past guilt in me.
I had faced the coldness hidden behind that radiant smile before and felt nothing.
What frightened me was the heartbeat that had long since begun to race at his habitual confessions.
If that mouth were to speak no more of love, how utterly despairing would I be?
Better to leave first than to endlessly repeat the days of waiting in vain for someone who would never return.
My reply, stripped of emotion, was almost brutally cold.
“Still worried about the eyes of others? If you wish, I can step down from this place entirely.”
Lucian clasped my hands in his, meeting my gaze.
An emperor offering a palace and lavish care to a traitor from another country. For the nobles, already discontented that a half-blooded prince had become emperor, it was an irresistible target.
Yet they could not attack Lucian directly. The arrows always found their way to Medea.
Becoming a wandering traitor, remaining by Lucian’s side—none of it had been my choice.
“No. I don’t care about anyone else’s gaze. I had intended to leave this place eventually; this is simply the time.”
I drew my hands from Lucian’s and stepped back.
“Could you not take me with you?”
“I do not wish to.”
My desperate eyes met his indifferent ones.
“Have I not told you? The one I serve is you and only you, both in the past and in the future.”
“Your Majesty.”
That single word drew a clear line between us. No matter how we might act as if we were in the past, reality was different.
No longer mistress and servant, but traitor and emperor. The fates that had once intertwined had long since diverged.
Even together, it would be brief. Eventually, I would be left alone, tracing the traces of one who had vanished.
“Thank you for valuing me all this time, despite the brevity of our past connection.”
As I lowered my head, my eyes fell upon the carpet, its spiral patterns etched deep.
“But the past is the past. I wish to leave Your Majesty’s side now.”
“Is that truly what you desire?”
The fractured tone of his voice betrayed his inner struggle.
“Yes. That is correct.”
My answer left no room for hesitation.
At that instant, a small drop fell onto the carpet.
Once it began, the droplets fell relentlessly, one after another.
Realizing it too late, I raised my gaze to meet Lucian’s.
“…Are you abandoning me again?”
Tears had pooled in eyes as deep as lakes. My voice, laden with sorrow, sounded almost like reproach.
“……”
Empty promises of staying by his side would only wound him. The greatest comfort I could offer was merely to brush away the tears that slid down his cheek.
Time passed quickly, and night had fallen.
The room felt still, as if the words exchanged before parting were nothing more than illusions.
Only Lucian’s red-rimmed eyes and the hand I had not let go of, even as I drifted toward sleep, spoke of what had passed.
I neither tore away my hand nor gripped it firmly, simply staring at him.
“Lucian.”
My wobbly heart regained its course.
At the same moment, I withdrew my hand.
Our hands parted with a speed that made the distance between them feel painfully abrupt.
“…Take care.”
Words I had longed to say to the young Lucian I once left behind.
Though even now they might never reach him.
Wherever he was, whoever he was with, I wished him happiness.
Lucian, of course, could not be happy without me.
The day I was saved by his tender words, I had for the first time hoped for life itself.
Had that hope never reached him?
With a brief farewell, my footsteps faded into the distance.
Moments later, his azure eyes faced the darkness.
“Ha…”
Lucian let out a self-deprecating laugh at the reality before him.
False tears, sorrowful gazes—all had been for nothing. I had even pretended to sleep, holding his hand, in hopes he might change his mind.
Leaving only the faint warmth of my fingertips, I departed from his side.
“What will you do, Your Majesty?”
A long-haired man appeared, as if he had been waiting.
He strode without hesitation, stopping before Lucian.
“Seems you’re heading to Pareisa. Shall I go and kneel? Who knows, perhaps my plea would sway you…”
He spoke as if he had long anticipated this outcome.
No, he even seemed intrigued by how the situation might unfold.
Lucian, the man he had seen all this time, would never simply give up on Medea.
I thought to myself that choosing Lucian in the monotony of my life had not been a mistake.
“No. Let her go.”
“Ah, shall I send Hailey? If it’s Hailey, Medea would be satisfied enough.”
Hailey, a knight in Lucian’s service, was the only person Medea had ever cared for among his retainers.
If Hailey followed, Medea would have no reason to resist.
“No need.”
“Pardon?”
The man looked dumbfounded.
Through the nights of torment, unable to distinguish dream from reality, the name I called most often was Medea’s.
It was because of her that I had endured hell and arrived here.
To protect my young lady, now a traitor, better than anyone else.
And now, he would give up so easily?
He had so much he wanted to confess, to dispel her misunderstandings.
Medea believed even the most important truths to be lies.
He wanted to run, seize her, and set everything right—but Lucian remained calm.
The brief laugh in the empty room was over.
Beyond the window, he simply observed.
Two figures moved carefully across the imperial palace.
One glanced back toward Lucian.
Despite the distance, their eyes met instantly.
“…In the end, she will return to me.”
Lucian whispered softly, never averting his gaze.
A faint, knowing smile touched his lips.
