Chapter 47
It was the year Maia Hansberg turned seven.
“Today, I’m going to be Princess Seia! Giovan, you be His Imperial Majesty. And Carlin, you… you’d make a good handmaiden.”
A small-framed girl hid herself beneath the shade of a large tree, watching the group of children gathered ten paces away.
“What? No way! I want to be the princess!”
“Princesses have to be pretty, you know. With all those freckles splattered across your face, you think you can be a princess?”
The golden-haired girl sneered with a sharp laugh.
The child who wanted the princess role began to tear up.
“You guys agree with me, right? I’m the prettiest in the village.”
“…No, I don’t think so.”
The boy who had agreed to play the Emperor spoke flatly. The confident expression of the golden-haired girl, who had been boasting, instantly darkened as her brows knit together.
The boy who had objected avoided her gaze and flicked his eyes toward the tree draped in dense green leaves.
There, beneath the blazing midday sun, a pair of lavender eyes that seemed to hold light within them stared intently in their direction.
The golden-haired girl—Lenia—twisted her green eyes into an ugly scowl.
“Maia Hansberg!”
The sharp voice called out the name of the girl hiding behind the tree.
Maia flinched. She hesitated.
Should she run now that she’d been discovered, or should she step forward and face them…?
“You’d better get lost!”
But it wasn’t her choice that ended the dilemma. It was the cruel, venom-laced scream hurled her way.
Maia slowly raised her trembling gaze.
Lenia was glaring at her.
“…Hey, don’t you think that’s a little too harsh—”
“What are you talking about, Giovan! Haven’t you heard about her?”
Lenia began reciting the words she’d heard her parents repeat countless times, every syllable dripping with spite.
“Her family’s just a bunch of merchants trying to play nobles. And that so-called head of their trading company? She’s a woman, shamelessly rubbing shoulders with men while tossing money around. Actually—maybe it’s not money she’s tossing around, maybe it’s her body. They say even His Majesty the Emperor—”
Tap—
Footsteps sounded. Lenia and the other children turned to look.
The small figure that had been hiding behind the tree was now running away, her white hem fluttering in the wind.
Lenia smirked and muttered in a mocking tone,
“Guess the thief’s conscience is pricking her. At least she knows what shame is.”
“You really—”
“What? Don’t tell me you like her, Giovan?”
Giovan’s expression hardened. Lenia’s eyes gleamed like a gossip-hungry sparrow as she pressed on.
“They say men can’t resist a pretty face no matter the age, but wow… you’re pathetic.”
“….”
Giovan clamped his mouth shut. Lenia, unconcerned, changed the subject as if nothing had happened.
Only Maia, running away all alone, carried the wound of words she had never deserved, clutching it to her small chest.
Maia had no father.
His name and identity were unknown—a foreigner in exile.
With his straight black hair and dark eyes, features so foreign to the people of the Empire, rumors spread that he had come from the eastern continent beyond the reach of the Adalstein Empire.
That man—Maia’s father—left their home for the harbor regions when Maia was still under a year old. For some unknown reason, he vanished without a trace.
Five years passed without his return.
By imperial law, he was declared dead.
Whatever truth lay behind that mysterious man, only Maia’s mother, Lavina, would have known.
But Maia had never once heard her mother speak of him.
The only scraps of knowledge Maia had about her father came from hushed whispers and from Amica, the deputy head of the trade company, who pitied her.
But if that had been the extent of it, Maia wouldn’t have suffered as much as she did.
‘Her family’s just merchants trying to act like nobles. And that woman, their leader, shamelessly mingles with men for profit—or maybe it’s not profit but her body. They even say His Majesty…’
If only it had stopped there.
The Emperor of the Adalstein Empire, the man none dared even look upon—Sahar Lakedaimon Adalstein.
“Lavina’s ability is worth cherishing. Her being a woman is no flaw. I would gladly entrust her with the Empire’s economy.”
The Emperor’s open favor toward Lavina Hansberg was the greatest problem.
Mayus Trading Company had been a small, middling enterprise. But after Lavina inherited the position of head, it grew at a staggering pace.
The real turning point came after the current Emperor ascended the throne.
Lavina Hansberg became the recipient of his unwavering trust and favor—favor so absolute it defied reason.
Rumors and speculation flourished endlessly.
Was Lavina truly that beautiful?
Eyes like lilac petals dissolved in dew, long cascades of shimmering white hair, and an elegance that could steal breath away—a beauty beyond compare.
And the Emperor? Young, striking, nearly her age, and reigning supreme over all.
It wasn’t hard for rival merchants, green with envy over Lavina’s meteoric rise and imperial privileges, to brand her as a temptress who had seduced the Emperor.
“She’s that beautiful… Well, no wonder His Majesty favors her.”
“Her husband leaving—wasn’t it because of that? What man could endure his wife’s affair with the Emperor? Though… abandoning even his child…”
“Maybe she’s not even his real daughter.”
“Don’t tell me… are you saying that child is His Majesty’s illegitimate—?”
The scandal of an illicit bond between Maia’s mother and the Emperor clung like a curse, shadowing mother and daughter alike.
It even rooted itself deep in the countryside manor where Maia lived with her grandmother. With each passing year, the stares grew sharper, the children crueler, their words soaked in the poison of their parents’ whispers.
So Maia had no friends. Every time she left home, she walked under the weight of suspicious, accusing eyes.
She hated it.
If only her mother had been there—if only she’d refute the vile rumors.
Maia, I’m sorry. The company keeps me so busy, I won’t make it down this month either.
But her mother was always too busy.
Bearing the Emperor’s favor and trust was no easy task.
So Maia remained, trapped with her aging grandmother in that tiny, suffocating prison of a village.
“No… it’s not true…”
Tears welled and scattered in the wind as she ran.
Whenever gossip cut into her tender heart like a blade, Maia fled into the forest near her home, where no eyes could reach her.
She didn’t want to worry her grandmother.
But she couldn’t stop the tears.
The only refuge where she could escape this brutal reality was the silent forest.
A clearing encircled by hawthorn trees, carpeted with clusters of Saintpaulia flowers.
Wrapped in the hush of petals and the soft caress of wind, Maia would curl up and cry, wondering faintly—when would this cruel shackle of rumor finally fall away?
The hawthorn grove scented faintly of sweet apple blossoms. But once, long ago, this forest had not been filled with hawthorn.
“…Who planted all these?”
The boy—Hyperion—spoke in a low, astonished murmur.
“Back then… it was only lilac trees.”
He combed his memory, his youthful face shadowed by an expression far too steeped in regret for his age.
The world believed that Archmage Hyperion Ruares lived forever, untouched by death, basking in eternal youth.
But that was nothing more than a baseless myth.
Recognized by Eternity itself, the one true Transcendent—Ruares—was fated to wander through endless reincarnations, carrying every memory across lifetimes.
Each life lasted two hundred years.
After reaching his physical prime, his body ceased to age, remaining forever youthful until the moment life ended.
Then came death, and a gap of roughly ten years before rebirth.
Thus had he cycled through lifetimes beyond counting, until at last he became the being who grasped the truth of all things—a Transcendent.
