For the heart - Chapter 48

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 48

Nina and Casian couldn’t even turn around and kept their mouths shut.

‘We couldn’t sense the presence of someone approaching with such killing intent?’

‘I couldn’t feel anything until the blade touched us.’

Both were people who had considerable skill in detecting someone’s presence.

Casian’s experience came from assassins sent by his stepmother, while Nina’s was accumulated through countless battles on the battlefield.

“…I fell from the cliff. It was too dark and I lost my way, so I was following the sound of water hoping to find a village.”

Casian calmly explained to the man who held twin swords behind us.

The man gripping the twin swords aimed at Nina’s and my necks was pressuring us without any wavering.

He was clearly no ordinary swordsman.

“Do you know how high Ruwan Cliff is? It’s a place where people die from falling even when climbing down with ropes because their strength gives out. But you fell from there? Then are you saying you’re ghosts?”

Since we hadn’t explained what kind of ability users Nina and I were, it was an answer that deserved the man’s scoff.

Through Casian’s predicament, Nina’s voice flowed out calmly.

“I am Nina Arsed. I was returning to Arsed after conquering the Six Small Nations when I was attacked by ambushers. From that attack, I fell down the cliff together with my dedicated healer.”

Clang, clang—!

The moment Nina revealed who she was, the swords in the man’s hands fell helplessly to the ground.

“…Your Highness…”

When Nina and Casian turned around, the middle-aged man standing behind them reached out his hand toward Nina.

“Master…!”

Nina immediately recognized the man even in the darkness.

It was the sword master I had been searching for so desperately, Arsed’s greatest sword, Tark Dagnir.

Nina rushed to embrace the man who was well over sixty.

“Master, how… how… Do you know how much I searched for you?”

“Your Highness, I don’t know if this is a dream or reality.”

The man with a bushy white beard and a magnificent build that was hard to believe belonged to someone over sixty held Nina tightly.

He was the one who taught swordsmanship to seven-year-old Nina.

Emperor Rainer had handed Nina to me as if bringing a young beast from a cage where it had been kept.

Though I had heard that Empress Catalina gave birth to twin princesses and that those twin princesses received an oracle, that was the first time I saw Nina, not Lillien.

Unlike Princess Lillien, who was dressed like the most precious being in the world and taken everywhere in the Imperial Palace, Nina Arsed who was handed to me was a pale-faced, large-eyed, emaciated child.

Rather than a princess, she looked shabby enough to be believed as some servant’s child.

But the young girl’s eyes showed no sign of intimidation, instead shining with a transparent and piercing light.

“Teach me the sword. I am one who received an oracle to sacrifice my body for Arsed, so I must fulfill that role.”

Though she wasn’t even my child, the sight of her holding a wooden sword with her thin wrists made my heart ache.

But Emperor Rainer ordered cruelly harsh training.

“Nina has an immortal body. She will become Arsed’s war weapon, so you must teach her swordsmanship befitting that role. You understand what I mean, don’t you, Tark.”

I had taught swordsmanship to both Former Emperor Magnus Arsed and Rainer Arsed in their boyhood, but unlike Magnus who was naturally gifted and diligent, Rainer had no talent for swordsmanship and would constantly make excuses to run away.

The one who would whine at the slightest increase in intensity was now telling me to teach a seven-year-old princess swordsmanship that involved giving one’s flesh to take the opponent’s bone.

Tark thought that order was wrong.

Even with an immortal body, seven years old was still seven years old.

So he taught slowly, contrary to Rainer’s wishes, starting with correcting her posture.

But Princess Nina eventually had to stand on the same training grounds with other knights.

Because Rainer showed her no consideration.

Every time those small shoulders swayed among the adult knights, my conscience weighed heavily.

Yet the child never cried once.

Without even reddening her eyes, she would pick up the given sword and swing it to the end.

As if she already knew I couldn’t train her harshly, she drove herself to train.

Nina’s skills improved by leaps and bounds, and by age ten, her swordsmanship surpassed any knight in the Imperial Court.

“Teaching one thing and understanding ten—that’s exactly what that was like. His Majesty the Former Emperor was just like that too…”

The more I taught her, the more time passed, the more Tark was reminded of Magnus, the Former Emperor who had died suddenly.

As she grew, her appearance mysteriously came to resemble the Former Empress.

Tark comforted Nina who was crying in his arms.

When had she grown so tall?

“Please come inside for now.”

* * *

Tark brought Nina and Casian into his house.

The house where he lived alone was cozy and tidy.

When the two sat facing each other at the small table in the house lit by a single candle, Tark fumbled with his hand to bring out teacups.

“Master…”

Only then did Nina and Casian realize that he couldn’t see.

Nina stared blankly at her master in shock. Noticing her expression, Tark smiled gently and poured tea from the teapot into the cups.

The tea filled the cups appropriately without overflowing.

“Emperor Rainer persistently sent assassins to find me. I never let any of them live, but one of them spat poison at me before dying. I lost my sight after that.”

Despite saying he had lost his sight, his expression was relaxed.

“Humans are truly tenacious. And I adapted to it like this. Rather, since I can’t see, my other senses have become more acute. Though I couldn’t recognize Your Highness’s face.”

Casian saw Nina’s face darken. She was surely thinking that his loss of sight was her fault.

Casian asked Tark in place of Nina, who had lost her words.

“I heard you gave that sword to Her Imperial Highness. Is it truly the sword of His Majesty Former Emperor Magnus Arsed? We’re coming from seeing the portraits of His Majesty the Former Emperor and Her Majesty the Empress in the Kingdom of Hamer. The exact same sword was depicted in that portrait.”

Tark, who had lightly moistened his lips with tea, slowly nodded his head.

“Her Imperial Highness’s sword… is a sword forged by melting together His Majesty the Former Emperor’s umbilical cord and crystals of frozen sacred blood when he was born.”

The Emperor with an immortal body would rule not just Arsed but the entire continent, so create a sword that would share that Emperor’s life and death.

“It was an oracle received when His Majesty Magnus was born. Following that oracle, Talor, who was a magical weapon craftsman at the time, created the sword.”

“But how did you come to give this sword to me? And why didn’t you tell me then that this sword belonged to His Majesty the Former Emperor?”

Nina was extremely curious about how the Former Emperor’s sword had come to her.

And why her master Tark had possessed the sword of the deceased Former Emperor.

“Twenty years ago, His Majesty Emperor Magnus suddenly passed away, and a fire broke out in the Empress’s Palace, killing Her Majesty the Empress as well.”

Tark’s voice was calm, but deep as if recalling old memories.

“In my memory, that day certainly… Her Majesty the Empress was suffering from labor pains since early morning. His Majesty the Former Emperor was excited with joy at finally seeing the child he had been waiting for.”

He paused for a moment. The steam on his teacup wavered.

“But that night, both of them passed away.”

Furrowing his brow, he continued in a low voice.

“The rumor that Her Majesty the Former Empress committed adultery with Duke Desmont and stabbed His Majesty the Former Emperor’s heart to death completely erased the fact that there was a child between them.”

Nina’s eyes slowly wavered.

Like all the puzzle pieces finding their place, everything up until now connected clearly.

“And on the same day, a child was born between Rainer Arsed Valdern and Catalina Valdern, who held the rank of Duke. Rainer claimed he protected the empire by executing those who tried to overthrow the imperial authority, but…”

He slowly shook his head.

“All of it is probably lies.”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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