The next day, my personal cavalry unit arrived at the royal citadel.
“Your Highness!”
“You have arrived. Good. From now on, the royal citadel is your place of service.”
“Pardon?”
“Standard-bearer, turn your horse north and relay the order for additional troops to come to the royal citadel. Then deliver this letter to my younger siblings.”
“Yes.”
Five hundred northern cavalrymen had arrived.
The Lion Unit, the core force that protected the kingdom and royal authority, was currently absent from the royal citadel.
The royal citadel’s guard numbered around fifteen hundred. Perhaps because they were conscripted infantrymen, few of them knew how to ride a horse properly, and their armament was poor compared to the Lion Unit’s.
They were only capable of handling security in the royal citadel—something like a lightly armed police force.
‘If the Lion Unit returns, the royal citadel’s finished.’
For any contingency, I had prepared one thousand cavalrymen and three thousand heavily armored infantrymen from the North’s standing mobile strike force.
I had decided to become Regent, and I was a warrior who had lived as the kingdom’s sword.
While I served as Regent, I intended to run the kingdom as a military state and settle every disturbance requiring force before the Queen could rule in her own right.
For that, my loyal military group would need to make the royal citadel its base and guard it for the time being.
The North would be weakened, but there was no other choice at present.
“Deliver this to my younger siblings and tell them to thoroughly protect the North for the forces that have left. So long as they do not greatly violate this strategy, they will be able to hold out for three months even if one hundred thousand Imperial soldiers invade.”
“I understand.”
They would be familiar with the northern defensive operational plan I had established.
But with four thousand troops leaving on top of the five hundred elite cavalrymen, difficulties would blossom in carrying out that plan.
Thus, I had written a new strategy in the letter to prepare for that as well.
After giving orders for the unit’s placement in the royal citadel, I went to see the King again.
“Your Majesty.”
“I heard the sound of hooves.”
“The Northern Army you ordered has arrived.”
“When you came alone, I was worried that something might have happened in the North. This is good.”
“How could that be?”
“You have more talent for war than for fighting.......”
He meant that I would need soldiers.
The King had worried because I came to the royal citadel alone.
‘They still rate me as the weakest.’
The kingdom was a military state that regularly assessed martial reputation.
The King and the generals of the four directions were human weapons capable of taking on one hundred knights apiece, the kingdom’s pride.
Each general had been appointed a Grand Duke and was responsible for national defense, but among them, I was rated lowest.
At least outwardly, I was one-eyed.
“I enjoy making use of soldiers even more....... Your Majesty!”
The King seemed slightly improved after hearing the horses’ hooves, so I tried to exchange a few words with him. Then he vomited a great deal of blood and cried out.
“COUGH, COUGH, HACK! Gather everyone in the palace, the Privy Council, and the nobles within the capital.”
“Did you hear His Majesty? Carry it out at once!”
I shouted in place of the King, who was having difficulty speaking.
The King summoned all those in the palace.
At death’s door, he wanted to proclaim me Regent himself before everyone.
But moving him when he could barely move at all required carrying the whole bed itself.
I briefly objected, thinking a king should not make such an undignified spectacle of himself, but the King’s will was firm, and I could not stop him.
On the way to the Great Hall, his office, I heard the gathered nobles of the royal citadel talking.
There was a wall between them and me, but I could see through it to some extent.
So long as there was even a single crack.
“Who is the person who has just entered? Cavalrymen bearing a different crest have entered the royal citadel.”
“Do you not recognize that silver hair and covered eye? It is the Grand Duke of the North, the Dragon’s Eye.”
“Does summoning the Grand Duke of the North mean?”
“What else could it mean? The throne will pass to the Princess.”
“At a time when the Lion Unit has not returned?”
It seemed they were people who gave some thought to the nation.
The Lion Unit, the highest force of royal authority and the royal family’s greatest unit, was currently absent from the royal citadel.
Most people who understood politics—including the King and me—seemed to expect that, though the Princess stood first in the legitimate line of succession, the one who held this unit would ultimately seize royal authority.
That was what they expected.
“The Duke of the East overreached. He ended up bringing in the Dragon’s Eye.”
“Though the Grand Duke of the North has never known defeat, if he comes to blows with the Lion Unit.......”
“He is on good terms with the Duke of the East as well. There is no knowing, though.”
“Still, if the Northern Army enters, the Duke of the East will not readily reveal his ambitions.”
The Lion Unit was currently putting down an eastern rebellion under the Duke of the East, the King’s brother and third in the line of succession.
From what I knew of the Duke of the East’s military ability, commanding the Lion Unit, it would not take him long to suppress the rebellion.
However, once the King became gravely ill, the Duke of the East suddenly began a protracted campaign and had allegedly not returned the reinforcement troops from the royal domain.
I could not know whether the Lion Unit, which served the King’s bloodline, had sought a new master, or whether it was merely the Duke of the East’s stubbornness.
Still, I had heard the absurd story that the royal treasury had become even more impoverished of late, leaving the standing Lion Unit’s wages overdue.
That was why the King had made me take control of the royal citadel.
“But will the Grand Duke of the North truly be loyal at once?”
“The Princess is young and unmarried, so perhaps they will announce that she is to marry him and rule with him as co-king.”
“The Grand Duke of the North....... Then this would be a remarriage, would it not? Into the royal family? And they would marry a man remarrying to the first in line?”
“Ah, right, he's been married before. That does seem questionable. Still, in a situation like this, it is not as though it cannot be done, is it?”
As I eavesdropped, attendants caring for the King’s bedchamber passed beside me, laying down a carpet.
Unable to listen any longer, I entered the Great Hall. The Princess and the Privy Council’s ministers had arrived and lined up in their places.
“His Majesty the King enters!”
“COUGH, COUGH, move aside. Urgh.”
The King, even his eyes red and bloodshot, shook off the support of his guard knights and entered the Great Hall, holding himself up with a cane.
“Your Majesty!”
The King could barely continue speaking through his coughs. With a bloodshot glare, he skipped even the customary greeting to his subjects and shouted.
“I cede the throne to my daughter, Casertania.”
“Ah.”
At that moment, every subject’s eyes turned to the young girl standing in the place of honor.
Then the King pointed his cane at me and spoke.
“Because my daughter is young and immature, I appoint the Grand Duke of the North as Regent. As head of the Privy Council, the Queen’s teacher, and at times her father, he shall represent the kingdom and be honored.”
It was exactly as the subjects and I had expected.
“Your Majesty!”
To receive the command, I stepped before the Great Hall’s carpet and bowed.
In the meantime, the King’s decree continued.
“Furthermore, appoint the Grand Duke of the North Lord Protector. Excluding the Lion Unit, see that no use of the royal citadel’s guards, all military forces of the kingdom, weapons, warhorses, ships, or mages takes place without his knowledge.”
The Lord Protector was a position like a supreme commander-in-chief, who could wield all the kingdom’s military authority in the King’s stead.
The Lion Unit had become the force that symbolized the public authority the King used to defend the realm, but originally it had been the King’s personal loyalist unit.
It was loyal to the royal family, not the kingdom.
Thus, excluding that unit was only natural.
But.......
“No—HACK. I will amend the command. Have the Lion Unit assigned to him as well until the Princess reaches adulthood.”
“Your Majesty!? That cannot be.”
Giving me that unit was tantamount to telling me to take the entire country for myself, so even I cried out in surprise.
But the King laboriously raised an arm to dismiss my question and continued.
“Furthermore, of the Royal Regalia, the Lord Protector shall take charge of all three pieces other than the crown.”
Though I had been bowing, my head rose on its own.
He was saying he would entrust three of the four Royal Regalia symbolizing the kingdom’s royal authority to me.
The Royal Regalia were treasures actually possessed by the royal family.
The Lion Crown, symbol of royal authority.
The Frost Sword, forged from meteorite iron and magic, with frost engraved upon it.
The Key Staff, marked with the recessed image of a great key that could open the royal treasury vault.
In addition, there was a further piece of Royal Regalia not even disclosed to the nobles.
He was giving me every one of them except the Lion Crown.
It was enough to make the attendants and ministers at his side start in surprise.
“The Royal Regalia?”
“That is right. Bring them.”
“Your Majesty, this.......”
I objected to this as well, but the King’s resolve was firm.
Then the Frost Sword, the royal family’s treasured sword, was placed on my shoulder.
“Can that frail child wield this sword? It is not as though I do not know that, though you were praised as the kingdom’s prodigy, your growth has been slowed by many events.”
“.......”
“My sword responds only to the royal bloodline, but it will open a path to become stronger for one who protects the royal family....... Cough. COUGH, COUGH, HAAACK!”
The King’s blood spattered all over the sky-blue blade of the Frost Sword.
The amount he coughed up was no ordinary amount, and after vomiting that much blood, the King collapsed where he stood.
“Your Majesty, Your Majestyyyy!”
“Attend to His Majesty!”
As though he had used every last bit of strength to cede the throne, the King could not rise again.
***
At dawn, the King briefly opened his eyes.
“Your Majesty, Your Majestyyyy.”
Contrary to the healing mage’s prediction that he would not make it through the night, the Princess, the Archbishop, and I, who had kept watch at the King’s bedside, greeted him in turn.
The Princess had been crying so hard beside me that I pitied her. And having been entrusted with everything in the royal citadel, I, too, had been weeping in mourning, when the King suddenly spoke.
“Does the Dragon’s Eye shed tears too? Hahaha.”
Embarrassed, I stepped back. The Princess stretched out her hand to the King through tears, as though asking him to at least take it.
“Your Majesty, Your Majestyyyy!”
But the King sternly brushed away her hand.
“Stop crying.”
“Ah.”
“You must become Queen. You are no longer a child, so stop crying. Do not cry before the Lord Protector or at this father’s funeral.”
While the King was unconscious, Princess Casena had literally cried all night long.
‘Even when you were asleep, whenever I cried, you woke up and ran to me. You will wake up this time too. So I will cry. There are things I need to tell you. There is something I absolutely want to tell Royal Father.’
It was not for me to stop a child from crying as she sent a parent away, so I listened. But she truly cried all night, as though she had endless strength, and it had been difficult.
The King sternly stopped the Princess’s crying.
“Yes, I will. I will, Your Majesty.”
The King reached out and briefly stroked the Princess’s hair, but seemingly without strength, he could not move his hand any further.
With difficulty, he moved his lips and spoke to me.
“Grand Duke.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Do you remember that battlefield?”
“Of course.”
“I miss those days when I could move my body freely.......”
“You will recover. I will search the whole world and bring back a healing mage. When you rise, I will relinquish the regency.”
The King did not answer and closed his eyes.
Then, moving only his lips, he left behind a final sentence.
“I feel as though I could fly free after taking off this ailing body and heavy crown.......”
The King’s hand, which had been pointing toward the dawning sky beyond the bedchamber window, dropped limp.
“Y-Your Majesty, Your Majesty. Ah.”
A hand reached toward the Princess, who was unable to speak through her tears, but it fell before it could even graze her cheek.
The Princess welled up again, but as though trying to fulfill the King’s final instruction not to cry, she pressed her lips tightly together until they were enough to draw blood.
Still, she opened those small lips and finally spoke one word in a low voice.
She spoke softly, as if she did not want me to hear, but I heard.
“......Dad.”
Perhaps it was only my imagination, but the deceased King’s remains seemed to have heard his daughter’s voice as well. The corners of his mouth appeared to curl upward with rigor mortis.
And so, the King passed away.
He had ascended the throne at the young age of sixteen and endured many invasions and rebellions that targeted a young and inexperienced king.
He had suppressed them all, strengthened royal authority through military achievements, created the Lion Unit, discovered the strongest warriors known as the Dukes of the Four Directions, and greatly increased the kingdom’s military strength.
But beyond becoming weary of the countless wars he endured in his youth, he suffered the betrayal of the Queen who had married him as part of a peace settlement and lost their precious son.
Then he lost the mistress he loved and even their child, who had not yet been born. Even that robust King let go of life.
In the first half of his reign, history would record him as a brave king who protected his land and subjects. In the latter half, as an incompetent king who abandoned governance, but.......
He had been an unfortunate and pitiful King whose loved ones each left him before he did.
“May you sleep eternally—no.”
I was sorry that, with the Archbishop present, I could not leave the King a final word.
That there might be an afterlife.
***
“This....... This is Royal Regalia?”
To receive the Royal Regalia, I opened the royal treasury vault with the Key Staff.
And within the royal treasury vault was the final piece of Royal Regalia, unknown not only to the public but even to the nobles.