CHAPTER~18
You should have done it better when you had the chance, so why now?
It had been about three years; one would think the Emperor would have regained his senses by now, yet the Admiral took a deep breath.
“If this continues, Your Majesty will truly collapse.”
“…….”
“Your Majesty.”
Only after calling twice did the Emperor glance up. Even that casual gaze felt empty and hollow.
“Perhaps it is time you took a rest. The session is about to begin, and overexerting yourself like this…”
Rustle. The Emperor set down the documents, removing his leather gloves and placing them on the desk as he replied.
“If you have no intention of increasing my workload, stop disturbing me and go get some fresh air.”
“But, Your Majesty…”
“Why do you repeat the same words to me, Diego?”
Only when his name was spoken did the Admiral fall silent, and the Emperor picked up his pen again. Diego listened to the scratching of the pen for a long while before finally leaving the office.
Thud.
Wrinkles formed sharply on the leather glove over the Admiral’s clenched fist as he stepped into the corridor.
He stared at the floor as if standing punishment, when the sound of someone walking came from the other side.
The Admiral’s gaze flicked toward the source, traveling up the long hem and ankles, settling on the shoulders of a woman with her hands clasped under her thick cloak.
“Why are you standing here?”
It was Dona.
Even when asked, the Admiral did not respond.
Dona, staring into his eyes, gray as an overcast sky, added casually, unconcerned.
“Since the weather is nice, I thought I might bring a little sunlight to His Highness the Crown Prince, but perhaps it’s better to come later. Your Majesty seems very busy.”
“…Don’t even speak.”
Only when Dona made a remark about the Emperor did the Admiral finally speak.
“I don’t know when you intend to fully regain your senses.”
Dona looked straight at the Admiral, as if appraising his disgusted expression, then glanced at the soldiers standing nearby.
“Whoever hears this would think it’s a serious matter.”
“I speak no falsehoods.”
“You get dismissed every time for speaking like that, don’t you?” Dona scoffed. This behavior wasn’t new; the man had always been rigid, like a traditionalist noble who never changes once he decides what is right.
Even while showing such a dissatisfied expression, he clung to the Emperor as if it were comical. Does he even realize how absurd it looks?
“Indeed.”
Yet Dona agreed with him on one thing: the Emperor had lost his mind. It had been nearly three years since Airi disappeared.
Legally, a person missing for three years in Histania is considered dead.
Rumors had long circulated that the Emperor was mad for searching endlessly for a practically dead Empress while rejecting marriage proposals for the Valencia lady.
Feeling understood, the Admiral exhaled a small breath and muttered.
For a moment, silence fell in the corridor.
The nearby soldiers tensed, casting glances, and only then did the Admiral notice Dona’s expression.
Her smile had faded.
“Señor is right.”
Dona’s eyes turned cold in an instant. The Admiral belatedly opened his mouth, but Dona’s reply was faster.
“It has already been nearly three years. You claim to be searching for a wife whose survival you don’t even know, spending military resources in peacetime, managing a palace with no master, and giving money to a noblewoman who exists in name only.”
“…….”
“Your Majesty’s waste of treasury on trivial matters must be distressing, but still, you cannot send all the pink-haired women entering the city gates, causing the soldiers of Toledo to suffer, away across the river.”
“…….”
“To lighten the burden on Señor’s shoulders, that shameless noblewoman should be sent beyond the river immediately.”
The Admiral replied stiffly to Dona’s sarcasm.
“That was not my intention.”
“Not your intention? Then what was it?”
“…….”
“If you didn’t intend to reprimand this useless noblewoman, then calling her an unfaithful dog for digging up a grave of someone whose master is dead, was it?”
“I already said it was not my intention.”
“Ah, I see.”
“……Twisting others’ words unnecessarily is a bad habit, Señora.”
“Is it not because you are ineloquent and ignorant?”
The Admiral’s face stiffened sharply. Dona covered her mouth, pretending to be startled.
“How frightening. Just your expression could kill someone.”
“I do not like repeating myself.”
“And if words fail, what then? Will the valiant Admiral lay a hand on a worthless woman with only a name?”
Dona snickered at the silent Admiral, thinking men go silent when disadvantaged in battle, no different than masters or dogs.
“……I acknowledge the misstep in speech.”
The Admiral said to Dona, who glared at him with her chin high.
“Señora, you could benefit from learning a little about manners.”
“I would not wish to hear that from someone who cannot even properly advise his master to rest and gets sent out of the office, but fine. Humbly acknowledging one’s shortcomings is also a mark of a fine woman.”
The Admiral furrowed his brow, but Dona ignored him, placing her hand on his shoulder.
“Please, Señor, teach this ignorant woman what courtesy is.”
The Admiral said nothing. In the tense air, Dona stared directly at his hardened face.
“Did my request burden you so, to make such a ghostly face?”
“…….”
“Naturally, it was unreasonable to request such a thing from an Admiral who spent his time on the battlefield rather than learning manners. I beg your pardon for imposing with my hasty judgment…”
“It would be wise not to insult me further, Señora.”
Dona laughed incredulously at the curt reply.
“Let me inform you, Señor: this is not a battlefield. Cutting off a woman’s words like that, you’ll never dream of marriage in your life.”
“…….”
“And since you are still young, I’ll teach you what ‘insult’ means. No one else will. Listen carefully and remember it well.”
“…….”
“An insult is calling me ‘Señora’ even though you haven’t wed me, speaking ill of Her Majesty the Empress in front of me, and raising your chin arrogantly without even an apology in such a situation, Señor.”
“…….”
“Truly, not gentlemanly at all.”
Dona muttered as she turned away, the Admiral left speechless.
“This is why soldiers are….”
The Admiral turned his feet after Dona, but said nothing further.
Passing the glances of the watching soldiers, Dona strode back, gripping her hem tightly.
Though she had vented fully, her anger remained. Before that arrogant Emperor, she couldn’t utter a word.
She muttered to herself, “No, no…,” letting out a dry laugh. What truly baffled her was the Emperor himself.
On the first anniversary of Airi’s disappearance, when the ministers cautiously suggested remarriage to stabilize the empire, what did the Emperor say?
‘I already have an Empress who bore my heir; to remarry is absurd.’
Dona still remembered the silence that swept through the grand hall at that moment. His face had been so composed that she almost imagined Airi was somewhere in the palace.
Except for the observant Valencia lady, no one dared mention remarriage for a while.
Nobles assumed the Emperor would eventually give up, yet he continued searching for Airi to this day.
Dona could not understand his actions. Why not appreciate her while she was present?
Even when the Valencia lady tried to lure him to the office, the Emperor remained unmoved. Dona assumed it was a political maneuver to temporarily suppress Valencia’s influence, but he truly never remarried.
Even now, in the third year since the Empress disappeared.
Other kings might discard an absent wife to take another, but he could have remarried freely since his absent Empress was unreachable. Yet he continued to brood over one woman like a lifeless fish.
What right did he have, who hadn’t touched her hair for three years…?
