Chapter Text
This was definitely not what she expected when the butler told her that the Emperor had summoned her to his work chamber.
“I want you to sign this letter of appointment for the Royal Consort.”
She stared at the paper in front of her, at the intricate letters weaving through the words, and to his signature at the bottom of the letter. Below it, his name.
Ajax Ivanovich Turgenev
Next to it, she could see a blank space reserved for her. Below it, also, her name.
Lumine Amadea Corvinus
She scrunched her eyebrows and breathed heavily. She looked up from the letter to the man in front of him. There, across the desk littered with documents, sat her now husband, the current Emperor of Teyvat, Emperor Ajax.
“Your Majesty, you do understand that we just got married a month ago, right?” she queried as she took the paper in her hand, examining the content. The man only lift one of his eyebrows in confusion, and nodded as a confirmation.
Lumine scanned the letter, and finally, her golden eyes landed on the name of the Royal Consort-to-be. She snorted a bit when she read it. Of course, why am I even surprised? She thought to herself.
Elena Ilnazovna Petrova
It’s a public secret that the second daughter or Earl Petrov was the Emperor’s lover. There were countless sightings of the two on late-night dates. Their love story was well-known, dating back to their teenage years, where they met in the annual royal banquet. It was said that the Emperor - at that time still Crown Prince Ajax - fell in love at the first sight of the young, beautiful lady. After that, the rest was history. Their relationship flourished quickly, and in no time, almost everyone in Teyvat had known about the prince and his dark-haired, beautiful companion. But not everyone approved their relationship.
The Empire of Teyvat was a vast one, and with it comes great power. Countless attempts to dethrone the Kings and Emperor made up the present Teyvat. Out of the many treasons that happened, the most recent one was the attempt to dethrone Emperor Dimitri, Ajax’s grandfather, twenty years ago. It was led by, among others, the Petrov family. The head of the Petrov family at that time, Elena’s grandfather, together with his allies, tried to dethrone the Emperor. Of course the coup was successfully stopped, but not without price. Prince Ajax’s father, Crown Prince Ivan and the only son of the Emperor, was killed during the siege of the palace, leaving the then Crown Princess Anastasia and Prince Ajax alone. The Petrov’s patriarch was eventually captured and exiled to a remote area somewhere in the Kingdom of Khaenri’ah, while the rest of the family was sworn to complete allegiance to the Empire of Teyvat, and failing to do so would cost them their lives. So no wonder when Emperor Dimitri heard the relationship of his only heir with the daughter of the traitor family, he and the Crown Princess decided to act fast.
This was the reason why Lumine came into the Royal Family, and eventually put in the current situation.
The daughter of the Grand Duke of Mondstadt, Lumine and her twin, Aether, were no strangers of the Royal Family of the Teyvat Empire. Their parents annually joined the royal banquet in the palace, bringing with them the twins to socialize with other noble kids from all over Teyvat, which means she met and knew Ajax. She even managed to capture the attention of Empress Anastasia, who called Lumine ‘her lovely daughter’ as she didn’t have any daughter and always wanted one. That affection continued well even until Lumine had her debutante in the capital, where she jokingly said in front of the noble families and the debutantes that if Ajax were to be married, she would marry him off to Lumine. She could still remember the stares she got from the people for the rest of the night. She also remembered cursing inside her head and wondered why the Empress said something like that. Looking back at it now, maybe that’s when the Emperor and the Empress put their plan into action, because not long after that, a letter with the Turgenev Royal Family sign arrived at her home, asking Lumine and her family to come to the palace for a meeting with the Emperor, Empress, and Crown Prince Ajax. The meeting, turned out, was to officiate the engagement between Ajax and Lumine. She remembered Aether and Ajax opposed the idea the most, and even Lumine herself asked the adults there to reconsider the decision, but their protests fell on deaf ears. And all of a sudden, she was whisked away to the palace, where she spent two years on bridal lessons to be the perfect Empress, and then after her coming-of-age party at age eighteen, she was wedded to the now Emperor Ajax, and became the Empress of Teyvat.
“So, will you sign it or not?”
Lumine snapped out of her reverie and looked back at the man before her. She cleared her throat and put the letter back on the desk.
“Your Majesty, I don’t think it’s appropriate for you to do this right now. We just finished the abdication process of the former Emperor and Empress. Not to mention that we haven’t finished the leadership transfer of the Knights, and there’s also the problem with the-“
“Stop.”
Lumine stopped talking.
“I know that we still have many things to be resolved and finished, but can you please just sign this? Heck, I won’t even ask you to hand it to the Chief Secretary. I’ll do that myself.” He said.
“But, again, Your Majesty, we just got married for a month. What would the people say if you appoint a Royal Consort so quickly like this?” Lumine tried to reason. The man scoffed and laced his fingers in front of him, and sneered at her. She felt a sting in her heart.
“My, I don’t know you will be so invested in our… marriage.” He drawled lazily. He narrowed his blue eyes and looked at Lumine. “Is this the Empress talking, or is this Lumine the Lovely Daughter talking?” He asked mockingly. She felt another sting in her heart.
It’s always like this.
Lumine and Ajax used to be friends. They might be not close friends, but they talk from time to time when they met in social banquets, especially with the two of them sharing the same interest in swordsmanship. However, ever since their engagement, Ajax started to distance himself from Lumine, only meeting and talking to her when necessary. It seemed that he saw Lumine as a ‘pawn’ controlled by his mother to break his relationship with Elena. He always questioned and doubted her decisions and actions, just like what he was doing now.
Lumine herself realized that to some extent, she was indeed a pawn to the current Queen Dowager. But before everything, she was Lumine, the proud daughter of House Corvinus, the princess of Mondstadt. As much as she hated the situation she was in, she would never disappoint nor brought shame to her family. So if living in a loveless marriage with a lovesick idiot of an Emperor while tiptoeing at the edge of a fragile relationship between her husband and his mother would be needed to do that, then so be it.
Well, that was the initial plan.
What she didn’t expect was to fall in love with the said husband.
During her two-year stay in the palace, she learned more things about his husband, and when she realized it, she was yearning for his attention. She would try to be the best in all her lessons, showing off her skills during meetings with the Royal Family, even discussing and offering advices in political affairs; all to impress him, to make him stop looking at her with that disdainful look. But alas, what she did backfired on her. All her stellar achievements indeed made some impressions, but it was to the wrong crowd. The people in the palace started singing praises about her, and worse, even comparing her with Elena. People started talking about how perfect Lumine was, how great she was as the future empress, and how pitiful she was because Ajax didn’t love her. Without even realizing it, Lumine played right according to the Empress’s plan. And as a result, those eyes she desperately hoped would see her as she was, only turned colder as days passed.
The said man now was still looking at her with those hateful eyes, waiting for Lumine to say something. She took a deep breath and steeled herself before speaking.
“Everything that I do is always for the best interests of our Empire; our people.” She spoke as she met Ajax’s gaze. The man seemed rather unconvinced at her words, and Lumine wanted to laugh, because she herself was not sure whether her action right now was purely because of her worries for the Emperor’s dignity, or her selfish wish to have the Emperor to herself.
“And it will always be like that. I am, after all, the Empress of Teyvat.” She continued. “Now, if you don’t have anything else to say, I’ll excuse myself.”
And before Ajax could say anything, she curtsied and left the room.
She walked through the long hallways briskly, trying to calm her heart, with her maids following behind her.
You can do it, Lumine. She told herself.
You can do it.