She thought this person only knew one thing about her.
Lasilia sighed softly inwardly.
“If that’s the case… What should I do?”
Lescal muttered, his entire body frozen.
“That’s not why.”
It was like that until Lasilia said this.
“Really?”
Lescal held Lasilia’s face in both hands and asked her repeatedly.
“Really? The Little Duke has nothing to do with you. Because it was Cartagena that had the Duke as her lover, yes?”
“Yes… And let go of my face. It’s uncomfortable.”
It was because she was nervous rather than uncomfortable. Holding her face with both hands somehow resembled the gesture before kissing her.
“Do I really have to let it go?”
She wondered why those words didn’t come out. Lasilia looked at Lescal without an expression. Lescal soon became sullen and withdrew his hand. Lasilia didn’t know it yet, but the stern face that signified her rejection was quite a wound to Lescal.
“You are my companion…”
LEscal lowered his head and muttered. It would have been useless before, but now Lasilia’s heart had softened considerably.
“Your majesty.”
Lescal suddenly raised his head. The look in his eyes that told her to say anything was a bit burdensome.
“I also don’t know how I became the empress. I thought I was dead, but when I opened my eyes, I was here.”
“Okay…”
Lescal had forgotten that she had told him not to touch her face and squeezed Lasilia’s cheek again. When he was told that she was dead, she seemed to have done it without realizing it, so he just left it at that.
“So I actually don’t know. Why should I become Your Majesty’s companion? How can that be? I still don’t have the confidence that your Majesty feels for me.”
“Ah…”
“If I really am your companion, as your Majesty said, something seems to have been amiss from the beginning.”
Lescal met her gaze and shook his head.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s off. You just have to get it right.”
“Yes. So we need time to get it right.”
“Same thing again.”
Lescal let out a small sigh. His expression looked so glum that Lasilia touched his cheek without realizing it.
“Even if the words are the same, they are different.”
Lescal’s eyes widened.
“How?”
Even as she spoke, he urgently grabbed Lasilia’s wrist and pressed it to his cheek, fearing that she would take her hand away.
“Before, I needed time to stay away from Your Majesty, but now it’s the opposite.”
“If it were the other way around…”
“I believe that if I find out how I was able to become your companion and why, I will be able to accept Your Majesty as my destiny.”
“…”
Before speaking, there was a small sigh.
“You keep me waiting.”
“I know but… Once something is out of alignment, it doesn’t get fixed without any effort.”
Lescal twitched the corner of his mouth. He couldn’t refute it because it’s true, but he didn’t like being told to wait, and it meant that he knew there’s no way to not listen to Lasilia’s words.
“I’ll wait so you can do something for me too.”
It was something he was so familiar with that he felt like he was going to do it now.
“I will listen.”
It meant to say something first. Lasilia knew the way Lescal looked at her lips.
‘Wouldn’t he ask me to kiss him again this time? It’s always been like that… I have to refuse.’
The way Lescal kissed was quite troubling. She knew that he liked to put his lips here and there, such as her cheeks and forehead, and she was somewhat used to it, but kissing his lips was something else. At times like that, he acted like a person who didn’t know the end. She was a little scared because she didn’t know how far he would go if she just quietly accepted it.
“May I ask your name?”
But it wasn’t a kiss.
“No… yes?”
Lasilia, who was about to say no, opened her eyes in surprise.
“Your name. If you don’t mind letting me know.”
“Ah…”
Even though he was speaking normally, Lescal’s gaze was still glued to her lips. The thirst in his eyes was so clear that she felt her throat burning, but Lescal said something else.
“Then… Lasilia.”
“Lasilia.”
Lescal slowly repeated her name. Then her name, Lasilia, sounded completely different.
“Would it be better if I called you by this name?”
“Well… Wouldn’t there be chaos?”
It might be more comfortable for her to go back to being herself rather than being the empress she didn’t fit into. But now, her appearance was that of an empress. She thought it would be impossible to become a different person with the same face.
“That doesn’t matter. What you want is what is most important. If you don’t want to use the empress’ name, you don’t have to. There is a way to formalize the Empress’s absence and make you the new Empress.”
“To others, I would be the same person. We look the same.”
Wouldn’t everyone find it strange?
“Does not matter. For that reason, I will not ask you to pretend to be someone else for the rest of your life.”
Lasilia moved her finger slightly against Lescal’s cheek. Following the movement of her fingers, Lescal flinched and shook his shoulders.
“Then let me think about it. After I am sure that I am your companion.”
“Whenever.”
The feel of the skin under her fingertips was warm and soft. A person’s body temperature played a role in keeping the mind relaxed. It was a moment when she thought she could understand why he often touches her face.
“…Isn’t it strange?”
“Which one?”
“The same face suddenly became a different person one day.”
“Not at all… If I had known from the beginning, I might have done that. But not now.”
It was amazing that that was possible. Unlike himself, Lescal seemed to instinctively sense the presence of his companion.
“Cartagena was rather strange and unfamiliar to me. You…”
Lescal paused for a moment to choose the right words and frowned. The wrinkles between Lasilia’s eyebrows became deeper as she moved her fingers as if telling him to stop letting go of her hand. However, after seeing her let go and her hand gently pressing between her eyebrows, her expression softened like a lie.
“It seems like you should have been here from the beginning. Something was wrong, so you came here late.”
As she listened to him, it seemed impossible for him to even think that she might not be his companion.
‘Will I someday feel like this person?’
After she found out why she had to become a companion. Then, can you feel that you came here to meet this person? Will her new life, where she was no longer a prophet, feel like her life?
‘Perhaps.’
Maybe it’s not that bad.
‘Because I died once.’
So maybe it was right to start a new life. A new life as the empress of an empire.
“Then… Oh, by the way?”
“What’s wrong?”
Suddenly, a thought that she had never thought of before occurred to her.
“What happened to the Empress?”
She herself died and was resurrected in the body of the empress. So what happened to her as empress? She wouldn’t have let the Empress die like she did. If that were the case, she wouldn’t have reacted so harshly when she woke up.
“Nothing.”
So what happened to the Empress, who had nothing to do?
“If the Empress and you had switched bodies, she would have died.”
“Ah…”
She didn’t know the circumstances of the body swap, but that would probably make the most sense. At the moment of her death, her soul was swapped, and instead of becoming empress herself, she would have died as the seer of Del’Arta.
She felt very strange. It was a new life for her, but it was taken away from the Empress.
“The shaman said to be under the Empress’s command may know something.”
Lasilia was surprised.
“Did you know that too?”
“Because Decan has bright ears.”
He said it wasn’t a big deal, but she knew it wasn’t really that big of a deal. As it was an important secret, the Empress and Duke Piellion would have done everything they could to avoid attracting attention. In particular, the person who had to hide the summoning of the sorcerer until the end was the emperor. She realized once again that trying to maintain a lie against him was futile.
“It’s just a guess, but the body change may have something to do with the spell. Now that I think about it, I guess this is what she wanted you to know.”
“Maybe so.”
“Then we just need to find the shaman.”
Lescal suddenly grinned. The sudden smile played an unexpected role. Her heart suddenly started pounding without knowing why.
‘Why are you like this… I was just laughing.’
Lescal placed his forehead against Lasilia’s. She was worried that her heart would sound too loud.
“You don’t like the Duke, and you don’t want to divorce me. So, all you have to do is find a shaman.”
“…”
She felt like she could understand why her heart was pounding at those words.
‘I guess it’s because I like him it much.’
She could tell she was very happy. The only reason she was happy was because he was himself. That fact seemed to shake him up a little bit.
“I need to push Decan.”
Those words implied that Decan was already looking for the shaman that the empress had used. Without any time to stop her, Lescal pressed his lips to Lasilia’s cheek.
“Ah…”
Then he stopped with his lips attached to hers.
“Why are you doing that?”
“I was thinking of going back and singing Decan…”
“However?”
“I don’t want to go.”
Lescal slowly rolled his golden eye.
“I have to go back… If so, can I come again? I won’t stay long.”
That sounded a little strange.
“Didn’t you come here to sleep after work?”
“It’s not over yet. This is not the time… But you thought I came here to sleep?”
Lescal momentarily tilted his head closer to him. Lasilia flinched and leaned her body back as if it was going to touch her somewhere.
“Yes… In the next room, like before,”
Lescal hastily cut her off.
“You sent me back.”
“Yes, that’s…”
It was when she was pretending to be angry with the intention of distancing herself from the emperor.
“Have you forgotten that you did that?”
“No. That’s not it, I thought your Majesty had forgotten that I did that.”
“I guess it means that if anyone had forgotten, it would have never happened.”
“Not necessarily…”
… No, maybe it was. Because there was no longer any reason to be angry. Because there was no reason to keep away from him. And Lescal keenly noticed why Lasilia trailed off at the end of her sentences.
“Then you can forget about me being unfamiliar.”
Before she could ask what that meant, Lescal wrapped one arm around Lasilia. His other hand held her chin. The next moment, his lips approached.
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Translator Note:
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