Chapter 72
Labyrinth
Eselion’s hand covered Lasilia’s eyes.
“What I’m looking at right now is the face of Lasilia, the Prophet of Delarta. I have no idea what the Empress of Eliahdin looks like.”
“…What… did you just say?”
“What on earth do you mean by that?”
Both Lasilia and Serven were shocked.
Especially Serven, who shook his head so hard in disbelief it practically made a buzzing sound.
“I have served in the Imperial Guard ever since I was appointed! To me, Your Majesty the Empress looks exactly the same as always! Of course, your personality is completely different, but still!”
Lasilia’s trembling fingers touched her own face in confusion.
“This… is my face?”
Eselion and Serven answered in unison.
“Yes. This is your face, Lady Lasilia.”
“Yes. It is exactly the Empress’s face!”
“…”
For her current face to look completely different from that of Empress Cartagena was an absurd notion.
If this wasn’t the face of the Empress, then Lasilia would never have needed to hide her identity in the first place. Everyone in the palace would have immediately recognized that the Empress had been swapped with someone else.
But Eselion didn’t seem to be lying. Above all, now that Lasilia had admitted her identity, Eselion had no reason to deceive her.
“Then you’re saying I share the exact same appearance as Cartagena Pielion, the Empress? …Is that even possible?”
Eselion spoke up.
“I have the same question. Lady Lasilia, did you never see yourself in a mirror while in the Empire? If you looked identical to the Empress, how could you not have realized it until now?”
He was still suspicious that the Empire might have falsely imprisoned the Prophet of Delarta.
But Eselion was wrong.
“Your Highness Eselion, you’ve never seen the Prophet’s chamber, have you?”
“…No. No, I haven’t. That place is off-limits to just anyone. Only a few Dreamkeepers are allowed to enter, as far as I know.”
“That room has no windows. No mirrors, no bathtub either.”
“…What?”
“What did you just say?”
Eselion and Serven wore nearly identical expressions of disbelief.
“And it’s very dark inside. The Prophet wears the same clothes as the Dreamkeepers and uses the same veil whenever stepping outside. For as long as I can remember, I have never seen my own face. The first time I ever saw a mirror was right after waking up in the Empress’s body.”
Serven clenched his fists in outrage.
“That’s… insane! The Prophet is supposed to be God’s representative! And yet you were made to live in such… such a place?”
Eselion was just as shocked.
“I… had no idea. How could they do such a thing…?”
“The Prophet must guard against what is seen. To believe only the truth shown by God, and not be deceived by the illusions of one’s own eyes.”
Lasilia’s expression twisted bitterly.
“That’s what the High Priest told me when I became the Prophet as a child, and at the time, I believed it wasn’t wrong. But now… I think that wasn’t the whole truth.”
“Are you suggesting, Lady Lasilia… that the High Priest intentionally kept you in that room for such reasons?”
“Do you think this would have happened if my face wasn’t the same as the Empress’s?”
“…”
“…!”
Serven’s eyes widened, and Eselion bit down hard on his lip.
Lasilia, however, felt closer than ever to the answer she had long sought.
Now she understood why she had lived in that room even before becoming a Prophet.
That room wasn’t the Prophet’s chamber. It only became known as such later because she had become the Prophet.
It was a room meant to hide a girl.
A girl who looked exactly like the Empress of the Empire.
“Then… does this mean Her Majesty the Empress was born a twin? Like me and Rian?”
After the initial shock passed, Serven asked with a shaky breath.
“If they’re completely identical, that’s the only possible explanation. …But then why was the Empress in Delarta? And why did Cartagena Pielion bear the Mark?”
That much, they couldn’t know. But it was clear something had happened in the Ducal House regarding her birth.
“I can’t say for sure whether I was born the Duke’s daughter, but the Duke knew of my existence. Before I lost consciousness, Duke Pielion mentioned the past. He said there was a child who could threaten Cartagena Pielion’s position as Empress and that she had to be found and eliminated.”
There could be no doubt those words referred to Lasilia, who looked just like Cartagena.
“That’s… insane…”
The thought that Lasilia might have been killed sent shivers down Serven’s spine. He shook his head again.
“No, but something doesn’t add up. There was never any mention of twins being born in House Pielion.”
Cartagena Pielion was an only child. The sole heir of the Ducal House born with the Bonded Mark—that fact was the brightest jewel of Cartagena’s life.
“Could it be that the Duke never knew he had twins? That one child was hidden away right after birth… No, in that case, he wouldn’t have seen her as a threat. None of this makes sense.”
Indeed, it didn’t.
“Your reasoning stops there.”
Lasilia frowned slightly.
“For now, all we can do is hope Duke Pielion wakes up and tells us something.”
Then Eselion spoke.
“That is strange indeed. For the Duke of Eliahdin’s Pielion House not to know where you were… As far as I know, Pielion was closely connected with the High Priest of Delarta.”
“…What do you mean by that?”
Eselion reached into his coat and pulled something out.
It was an envelope sealed with the Pielion family crest.
“These are letters of credit sent by House Pielion to the High Priest over the years. Every year, they sent a substantial donation.”
It wasn’t unusual for noble families to send offerings to temples.
The problem was that these weren’t sent to a temple within Eliahdin, but to faraway Delarta—a two-month journey away.
They must have had a compelling reason.
“This is why I came to House Pielion today. To inform them that the High Priest of Delarta declared his support for my royal claim as the true heir of King Verhoyet, and then to request their backing.”
After Prince Ricardo usurped the throne, factions arose seeking Eselion’s restoration. A civil war had already broken out in Delarta.
And nothing was more crucial in war than money. Desperate for support, Eselion had personally traveled to Eliahdin.
“Would a family sending such generous offerings have any reason to hide the very child they were searching for?”
Of course not.
Serven muttered grimly.
“Quite the opposite. They hid the child and paid to keep it secret.”
“Exactly. But if Duke Pielion didn’t know about it, then someone else did. Someone with the authority to impersonate the Ducal House.”
Lasilia exhaled quietly.
The fragmented words the senile Duke had uttered were finally falling into place.
“It must have been the Duchess.”
“You mean the Duchess of Pielion? She passed away twenty years ago.”
“She might have had an agent.”
“Ah… Yes, that’s possible. If the donations continued annually, then she must have entrusted the task to someone she trusted even beyond death.”
Lasilia added softly:
“It could be connected to the child’s wet nurse.”
“The wet nurse… Do you have someone in mind?”
“I think she was there. In that room. When I was a child, for a little while… But then I never saw her again.”
Her expression must have darkened for a moment.
“Lady Lasilia.”
A hand came down gently over hers.
Before she realized it, Eselion had knelt beside her, resting his forehead on their joined hands.
“Does he really have to…”
Serven muttered awkwardly behind him, half-raising his hand as if to intervene—but he couldn’t. The Empress wasn’t stopping him, and a guard knight couldn’t interfere without her consent.
Eselion didn’t hear Serven’s grumble. His face was clouded with anguish as he spoke.
“Please tell me what I must do. If you want the High Priest punished, I will see it done. He is already dead, but when I become king, I will erase his name from the temple forever.”
“This all happened long ago. And if anyone should bear responsibility, it is the Duke of Pielion, not the High Priest.”
“I… I don’t know what to do. Knowing that you endured such unjust and painful years fills me with a rage I cannot contain.”
Serven nearly burst out with Why on earth are you the one getting so worked up?! but held it back—just barely.
At that moment—
“Piiii!”
Whoosh!
Crimson flames flared outside the study window.
“…Pipi?”
Hearing what sounded like Pipi’s cry, Lasilia turned her head. The crimson blaze melted the entire window frame in an instant. Through the gaping hole, Pipi swooped inside.
“Piii!”
The little phoenix glared fiercely and pecked Eselion’s hand.
“Pipi! What are you doing? Stop that!”
Lasilia hurriedly caught Pipi.
“Piii! Piii!”
The bird flapped furiously in her hands, screeching loudly.
Half of it meant I’m furious right now, so don’t you dare stop me!
The other half was pure insults at Eselion for daring to put his heavy head on her hands.
“…What is that creature?”
Eselion looked up, more baffled than alarmed.
Serven, for some reason feeling oddly relieved, answered for him.
“That is the Phoenix, my lord. I’m not sure if you know the founding legends of our Empire, but the Phoenix is also the symbol of a Bonded Mate.”
“A Phoenix… truly exists…”
Eselion’s expression grew grim.
As Serven said, the Phoenix was proof that Lasilia was the Emperor’s Bonded Mate. Eselion had now witnessed with his own eyes that the Prophet of Delarta was the Empress of the Empire.
As if to confirm it, the next moment, Rescal appeared.
Bang!
The study door burst open, and the Duke’s steward, looking pale as death, stammered out a trembling announcement behind him.
“H-His Majesty the Emperor… h-has arrived…”
The words came far too late.
Rescal was already striding into the study, inserting himself between Lasilia and Eselion.
Lasilia looked slightly startled. She certainly hadn’t expected to see Rescal now.
“What brings you here?”
Ignoring Eselion entirely, Rescal took Lasilia’s hand and pulled her toward him.
“I wanted to see you.”
With a motion far more languid and sensual than usual, Rescal pressed his lips to the back of her hand.
“I couldn’t endure it any longer.”
