The smile haunted her.
It had been fleeting, almost unreal, but she had seen it.
The Emperor had smiled.
Now Himeka needed to know why he was carved from stone. Why her love was hitting walls of ice.
---
The palace whispered.
"Do not speak of it."
"His childhood was… unnatural."
"Silence, if you value your head."
But Himeka would not stop.
At last, in the still garden, she cornered Lira.
"Tell me," she whispered, clutching her maid's trembling hands. "What happened to him?"
"My Lady… please…" Lira's voice shook. "It is cursed. He does not forgive those who speak it."
"I am his wife," Himeka said, her eyes burning. "If I do not carry it, who will?"
Lira closed her eyes, as if speaking the words was a death sentence.
"When he was three… His Majesty's mother… she was—" The words broke. "Violated. Before his eyes. Then killed."
The world tilted.
Himeka froze, her heart breaking with a pain she had never known. Three years old. Just a boy.
Lira whispered on, trembling. "They say he did not cry. Not once. He only watched. With those red eyes. Silent."
---
The whispers grew louder in Himeka's ears as she walked the halls.
"I was there when he was crowned at thirteen," a general muttered. "He executed six ministers the same day. A child, with more blood on his hands than a battlefield."
"He never laughed, never wept," a maid whispered. "It's as if his soul froze the day his mother died."
"A demon child," a minister muttered under his breath.
The words swirled like ghosts around her. But when Himeka entered their chamber that night, all ghosts vanished into silence.
He was there, as always, sitting by the window. His crimson eyes gleamed faintly in the moonlight.
Himeka's heart pounded painfully in her chest. Fear coiled through her veins like ice. But so did something else. Love.
She stepped forward, her voice breaking. "…I know."
The Emperor turned his head slightly, silent.
"I know what happened. When you were three. What they did to her. What you saw." Her hands trembled, tears threatening to fall. "I can't even imagine that pain… and I am terrified, because I don't know how you kept breathing after it. I don't know how you became… this."
Her knees buckled, and she fell to the floor before him, pressing her forehead against his cold hand.
"But even if I'm afraid… I love you." Her voice shook violently. "Even if you never love me back. Even if your hands are soaked in blood. Even if you look at me like stone—I'll stay. I'll stay because someone has to."
The silence was suffocating.
For a long moment, he did not move.
Then his fingers twitched — the faintest, most imperceptible movement — as though acknowledging her trembling grip.
His voice was as cold as ever, a blade cutting the dark. "…You should not say such things."
Himeka lifted her tear-streaked face, smiling through the fear. "But I already did."
His crimson eyes lingered on her, unreadable, terrifying. Yet he did not pull his hand away.
For Himeka, that was enough.
---
End of Chapter 22
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