Side Story 2
Starting with Bistor, the first Emperor of the Bistor Empire, secular monarchs across the continent had historically been crowned with the help of the Pope—or at least a high-ranking clergyman. It was a way to lend divine radiance to a grand title.
Naturally, those attending today’s coronation assumed the Pope’s authority would be used in this ceremony as well. Why wouldn’t it? Everyone knew how close the Pope and the Imperial couple were, so there would be no need for some enormous bribe.
So when Pope Ren Fayel remained seated in the VIP section even after the coronation began, a stir rippled through the attendees.
Those who could speak discreetly whispered to each other. It doesn’t seem to be part of the agreement, does it? The officials look like it’s perfectly normal.
And indeed they did. The Imperial couple, and the Pope as well, showed no change in expression. It was as if no secular power could add to the Emperor’s authority. At the front of the grand banquet hall stood no high-ranking officiants—only the Imperial couple. Just a few insignificant lower-level officials, as far as the nobles were concerned…
“I swear.”
When the Imperial couple answered in unison to the ceremonial question the official recited—“Do you wholeheartedly pray for the prosperity of the Empire and love its people?”—there were only two attendants standing beside them.
No one present had ever heard of attendants being present at a coronation. Still, no one objected. They all knew.
That this ceremony was both a coronation and the wedding of the Imperial couple.
That their oath was both a pledge as monarchs and a declaration to all that they were ascending the positions of Emperor and Empress together, as husband and wife.
They had already been wed before the Pope and even had a child, but holding an official ceremony again before others didn’t strike the nobles as strange. A wedding before the Pope made the marriage legally binding, and any high-ranking noble would naturally hold a separate celebration among their own people.
But a couple rising to the highest positions at the same time… that was astonishing. In the Empire’s history, the Emperor and Empress had always been nominally equal, yet in reality the spouse had only stood behind the Emperor with the Azure Jewel Eye.
The Imperial couple swore their duties as monarchs against the backdrop of incense burners in a sunlit space. The vows were brief, filled with abstract words, but the sight of the young and beautiful couple standing together carved itself into people’s memories—especially because of how affectionate and tender they looked whenever their eyes met.
“Do you swear to cherish and treasure each other for the rest of your lives?”
“I swear.”
Even vows like that were included. At noble weddings held before relatives, such words weren’t usually spoken at all. Wouldn’t they boast instead about the union of two powerful families?
When the official finished reading the list of monarchical precepts he had prepared, ornate crowns inlaid with jewels were brought before the Imperial couple. The Bistor Family had many excellent crowns stored in the Imperial treasury, but since those crowns could no longer be used as they were, artisans had created new ones.
The crowns were presented by the two attendants. In the Empire, there was a belief that if a bride and groom were too happy, misfortune would surely follow—so a peer dressed similarly had to stand nearby to blur the eyes of bad luck. Of course, the attendants couldn’t wear clothing that would truly confuse them with the Imperial couple, so their attire was simply beautiful formal wear.
The Emperor lifted the Imperial crown and placed it on his head with practiced elegance. The Empress already wore a tiara, so with the bride’s attendant’s help, she removed it before receiving the Empress’s crown.
A crown made of velvet in the same color as their garments, trimmed in sable fur and studded with star-like jewels. A golden scepter in hand. An orb… flawless.
Even those who had come only to calculate how the birth of a new Imperial Family would affect themselves and their houses felt a lump rise in their throats.
As the newly crowned Imperial couple turned to face their subjects, the official who had recited the precepts knelt first. Those in attendance rose and placed their hands over their hearts, save for a few who deemed it inappropriate.
“Long live His Imperial Majesty, Her Imperial Majesty!”
“Long live!”
The subjects followed the official’s solemn lead. The two—now formally Emperor and Empress—linked arms and walked out of the grand banquet hall at an unhurried pace.
Celebratory fireworks painted the sky. People not high enough in status to enter the hall cheered and welcomed the new Imperial couple. They passed through the castle corridors, then waved to the crowd beyond the gates before boarding the prepared carriage. Led by the band and followed by the Platinum, the procession was scheduled to circle Penmewick once.
Amid the pouring cheers, Nerys lifted her chin slightly.
High in the sky, something golden—something that wasn’t the sun—flew like radiance.
It was a dragon blessing this day.
❖ ❖ ❖
“It’s finally over.”
Nerys spoke in an exhausted voice after barely making it back to the bedroom once the commemorative banquet ended.
The door between the two rooms—once called the Grand Duke’s bedroom and the Grand Duchess’s bedroom—stood wide open. Now they were the Emperor’s bedroom and the Empress’s bedroom, but nothing about them had changed much.
They usually spent most of their time in the Empress’s bedroom, but today several people were needed to remove Nerys’s adornments, so Cledwyn had no choice but to undress in his own room. His reply came from beyond the open doorway.
“Finally.”
Ellen worked briskly, removing Nerys’s clothes layer by layer. As her body grew lighter, the fatigue that had been held back all day swept over her at once. After wiping her face and rinsing her mouth with herb-infused water, she wanted to fall straight into bed.
“Arbyone is sleeping well. The adults must have been noisy all day, leaving her out, but she doesn’t seem fussy. I’m glad we hired a good nanny. I like her.”
“Mm.”
At last, with her hair let down and only a white linen nightgown on her body, the room quieted. Ellen neatly guided the maids out, taking everything that had been used today with them.
Around then, Cledwyn—also dressed lightly—entered Nerys’s bedroom and closed the door behind him. Nerys lifted an eyebrow.
“Why have you been giving such short answers?”
Cledwyn grinned as he came closer and kissed his wife.
Soft lips met again and again, fragrant breaths mingling. The memories of countless shared moments flared through her senses in an instant.
The fatigue dissolved sharply.
“Your Imperial Majesty.”
After parting his lips for a moment, Cledwyn pulled Nerys into a tight embrace and whispered into her ear.
“Has this humble subject failed to please Your Majesty’s ears with his poor eloquence?”
Teeth grazed her earlobe, followed by his low breath. Nerys’s face flushed, her own breathing turning unsteady in the quiet, heavy night air.
Hot lips trailed down her pale, slender neck. Wherever they passed, faint red marks bloomed. The tingling sensation rose from beneath her thin skin, climbing all the way to the crown of her head.
To keep from losing herself to the swelling heat, Nerys clenched her teeth and shut her eyes. Cledwyn lifted her and carried her to the bed, then looked down with a mischievous smile.
“What shall you call this subject tonight? A lowly servant, an unjust knight, even a damned enemy—whatever Your Majesty says is right.”
Looking up at her husband’s face, faintly flushed in the candlelight, Nerys glared at him. So that was why he’d been answering so curtly—he’d been thinking this up.
“Don’t. You know I have a hard time with that kind of thing.”
“Your Majesty, why are you speaking so formally to this subject?”
“Rea~lly.”
Nerys chuckled at his brazen reply. Sometimes he wanted to play these games, but she’d never been able to properly indulge him. Even when she tried, she ended up overthinking what he wanted her to be, and the excitement would fade.
But Cledwyn didn’t back down, even with refusal written plainly on her face. Usually, if he sensed she disliked something, he stopped at once.
“Your Majesty.”
A peck. His shapely, strong lips briefly enveloped her small, slightly reddened lips, then parted.
“Always.”
A peck. The left side of her neck.
“Thinks.”
A peck. Her collarbone.
“Too.”
Peck, peck, peck—skin rising softly each time he touched it.
“Much.”
Cledwyn marked the places his wife liked best, pausing between each syllable. Clothes scattered across the floor. Candlelight cast their shadows over the ceiling and the bed. Nerys let out a soft moan at the heat that flared wherever he touched. Her spine arched, her head digging into the bedding without her noticing.
“Ah, hng…!”
“This humble subject respects Your Majesty’s desire to always be dignified… but I hope you know you don’t always have to do well.”
Her thighs burned—especially the inside, where he had bitten. Her toes spread.
His low voice whispered sweetly, like a devil.
“Your Majesty is the master of this country. This subject and others like me exist only for Your Majesty’s pleasure, so only think about what you ‘want’ to do.”
The air around the bed turned damp.
“Your Majesty’s pleasure is what this subject seeks, so why do you try to satisfy this subject in return?”
Her moans began to break.
“Just ask. Command. What can this subject do to please you?”
It felt as though every hair on her body stood on end. Tears clung to the man’s thumb as he brushed them from her flushed eyes. Arms—slick with sweat like a horse after a hard run—held their bodies close.
Breathing in the air her husband occasionally pressed into her, Nerys gradually stopped thinking. A bewitching sense of release seeped through her.
He was right.
She didn’t have to do well. It was only a game for pleasure.
She had simply forgotten that, because she’d never done anything in her life that she ‘didn’t have to do well’ at.
“…Rude, hng, ah… thing.”
Her damp purple eyes narrowed as she glared at the culprit driving her mad—at her husband, relentless as a beast chasing prey.
“I’m, hng… your master, so why are you looking down on me like this?”
“I will follow Your Majesty’s command.”
Whirr. In an instant, their position reversed. Looking down at her husband—who had lifted her above him in a heartbeat, grinning—Nerys felt she was in danger. Dismay flickered across her face.
“…I’m not good at this…”
“Your Majesty. Do not think about whether you are good at it. Whatever Your Majesty does to please yourself is right.”
Cledwyn leisurely took his wife’s hands and kissed them. His words were true—yet the flaw he’d pointed out was already surfacing again.
What’s the right way to do this? I have to think—
The moment he saw the bewilderment on her face, Cledwyn proved he could do as he pleased even from below. With her hands taken, Nerys parted her lips. Just enduring was already too much.
“Your Majesty, is this not different from what you asked?”
“Shut up—ah—stop—too…!”
In the end, laughter burst from Nerys, tangled with pleasure and amusement, and she bent down. Cledwyn wrapped an arm around her upper body and rose. Smiling, he kissed her greedily.
“Don’t think. Do whatever you want.”
“It’s hard…”
“It’s okay. We’ll do it until you get used to it.”
“I don’t like that. We can do it without saying weird things, you know.”
“I’m not only going to talk. The war started right after we got married, and then we had a baby after I came back… I had too little time to learn what you like. Until I know everything—even what you didn’t know yourself—I’m going to try everything you’ve ever wanted to do. Especially the things you’ve been too embarrassed to do.”
Nerys felt dizzy.
“What about my right to refuse as a dignified person?”
“Oh, that’s strange. Does someone who recklessly trapped herself in a Seal without telling me, and locked me away in a place where I couldn’t even speak to you for so long, really have such a thing…?”
He was right. Even if she had ten mouths, she had nothing to say.
In the end, on the first night of their second honeymoon, she learned again—until dawn—what she ‘liked.’