When the Villainess is in Love

Chapter 6

I stared up at him. Excuse me? Hold on. What did he just say?

Despite my obvious confusion, the emperor continued nonchalantly, “I will excuse you from an arranged marriage, as you desired. However… I will not accept your request to relinquish your right to the throne yet. For the next year, you must maintain it.”

What the hell? He hasn’t granted anything at all! If Rox had given him the official report on my diagnosis, the emperor had to be well aware that I had two years left at most if nothing changed. And he wants to keep me chained to this place for half that time? At this point, I was just exasperated.

“That means you will be free, just as you wish, in one year’s time.”

But I need to cure myself of this illness within the year! And I would be coughing up blood left and right. H-hello? Staying another three months would be tolerable, but a whole year was unacceptable. I couldn’t let everyone witness me suddenly cured of this supposedly incurable illness in just a year. It would make sense for me to “find a cure” somewhere far away, but not here.

In the end, he hadn’t granted my wishes at all. I was so frustrated that I couldn’t help staring at the emperor with my mouth agape. That was when I noticed him surreptitiously avoid my gaze. Hey! Just what is he trying to pull? But I knew that I would have a one-way ticket straight to the guillotine if the emperor could hear my thoughts.

Suppressing my indignant complaints, I cautiously said, “Your Majesty? But I—”

“You may take your leave now.”

Resistance was futile. I was all but thrown out of the room, contrary to how I had left the throne room just a few days ago.

* * *

The doors to the throne room thundered closed. The emperor squeezed his eyes shut after watching the princess leave. There was blood on the corner of her mouth… The emperor recalled the smear of blood the princess had failed to conceal from him. He let out the deep sigh he had been suppressing in her presence.

The physician confirmed her claims. Rox, the princess’s personal physician, had appeared before the emperor himself rather than simply sending a report. Rafaelis. The princess really was being ravaged by that horrible terminal illness.

He was searching for a cure but said that it was most likely a lost cause. Rafaelis had been considered an incurable illness for many years, after all. The fact that Rox was even attempting to look for a cure was a fool’s errand. There was no way for the princess to survive.

He sighed. After his beloved wife died, the only loved one remaining to the emperor had been the crown prince. He had never once cared for his daughter Libertia, the child of the empress. The girl herself had been hard to love, but her family ties made it even more difficult. Her mother had been part of a great noble family. Not only that, her mother had been Empress Lysian Vanus, the most evil woman in the empire’s history. To care for his daughter anywhere near as much as he cared for the crown prince would have been impossible.

But I didn’t think it mattered. Members of the imperial family rarely concerned themselves with trifles like familial love, after all. However… Despite it all, the emperor found himself rattled by this news. He couldn’t possibly treat her as coldly as he had just three days ago, especially now that he knew that she was terminally ill.

At first, he was planning on simply granting her wishes. If freedom was all she wanted, he saw no reason to turn her down. He also figured that, just as the princess had said, such a situation would in fact be advantageous for the crown prince. He had meant to summon the princess the day before but had found himself unable to do so. But why?

It took him a whole day to discover the reason. The princess had only just turned nineteen and had another two years left to live at most. That time would be plagued by horrible pain until, at the tender age of twenty-one, she would leave behind nothing but a small grave.

The emperor sighed again. “Why did it have to be that illness of all things?”

Though he had neglected her, he had never meant for something like this to befall his daughter. He recalled the faint smile she had given him, elegant as always. It was so different from her mother’s, yet he hadn’t been able to bring himself to care for her. He wondered if he had merely imagined that her smile had seemed less frigid than usual. And when he thought about her suffering beneath her brave smile, his heart ached. She had looked at him as though she would never see him again.

As little affection as he had for her, the emperor had found himself very much affected by such a look in her eyes, and he was much more disquieted by it than he had thought possible.

“She said she wanted to live out the rest of her days somewhere far away, free from worries.”

And that she wished to meet her end at peace, away from the palace.

Certain flowers bloomed on the graves of those who had fallen victim to rafaelis. They were called wind flowers because the beautiful, blue petals resembled the breeze on a warm day. Some said those flowers were their souls and that those lost youths sang of their yearning for freedom.

“Freedom…”

It was the word the princess had mentioned so many times these past few days. The emperor roughly ran a hand through his hair—because the nineteen-year-old girl had spoken of death as if it were nothing, and because she wished for so little.

This is wrong. The emperor had mulled it over many times in a short period before coming to such a conclusion. The princess had shown no sorrow in the face of death. She merely wished to leave and find peace.

That makes it clear just how painful residing in this palace must have been for her all these years. It all seemed so pointless now. The princess, who had always been so incomprehensible and always acted so haughty, might have simply been lonely. The thought kept occurring to him.

“Foolish girl. If she were to leave right away, she would be assassinated immediately, even if she were to relinquish her right to the throne,” muttered the emperor, his expression uncharacteristically conflicted.

The princess had many enemies. Those of her family were hers as well, but her side of the family wouldn’t offer her protection. Besides, anyone with a vendetta against Lysian Vanus was undoubtedly waiting for a chance to attack Princess Libertia. That was why the emperor had ordered her to stay for a year.

However, the emperor sighed yet again. “Here I am, after neglecting her all these years, attempting to aid my daughter when it is too late.”

He debated whether having her stay for a year was the best decision. After all, giving her the freedom she craved was also an act of kindness. But he ultimately decided it was best for her to stay. He felt that he would regret it if he allowed her to leave with only memories of her father’s abandonment. His decision was fueled by a selfish desire to bid his daughter farewell in a dignified manner when the time came.

“In the end, I suppose I am a terrible father to her either way.”

The emperor squeezed his eyes shut.

* * *

The story began when the main characters were still children. The prologue had detailed moments from their childhood before the story skipped ahead to after they had all grown up.

The naive, young Ariel had had a safe and uneventful childhood in a well-guarded villa due to her father’s overprotective nature. Her only excitement came when a young boy her age would visit from time to time to play with her. He had red hair and blue eyes. Ariel didn’t know the boy’s name, but he would come to see her occasionally at the villa since she was ten years old. She called him “Mr. Fairy” and followed him around.

One day, the boy asked her, “Ariel, you’re mine, aren’t you?”

“Mm-hm!”

The clueless Ariel interpreted his question as him asking if she was his friend. The boy looked pleased as he relished her bright, innocent smile.

After the prologue, chapter one of the novel picked up years later, once Ariel had turned eighteen. She attended the National Foundation Day celebrations to make her debut in high society, met the boy she hadn’t seen since she was fifteen, and discovered that he was actually Crown Prince Lavrov.

“That made everyone they knew suffer even more,” I muttered as I took a bite of the cookie I was holding.

“Pardon?”

“Your Highness?”

Linny and Irene, my maids who were sitting around the tea table with me and partaking in the sweets that had been laid out, tilted their heads in confusion. Perhaps it was because they were both still young, but they had become attached to me in a matter of days.

I looked at them with glassy eyes as I replied, “I was just thinking… If someone else’s actions were to cause me grief, what would be my best course of action?”

“If anything like that happens, you should run away!” Linny exclaimed ardently, her cheeks puffing up in an adorable pout.

“Right? I see you agree with me, Linny.”

“Of course I do! By causing you grief, you mean being forced into a terrible marriage, don’t you? Your Highness, I believe you ought to run away before anything like that happens.”

Irene and I stared at Linny in awe.

“I’m not sure what to say to that,” Irene said, shaking her head.

I agreed with Irene, who looked dumbfounded at Linny’s fantastical thinking. “Me neither. She’s right, but it sounds a bit strange, doesn’t it? Linny, you’re fifteen this year, right?”

“Yes, Your Highness!”

“I see.”

I guess that’s old enough to be forced into an arranged marriage in this world. Linny likely sounded so naive because she was several years younger than us.