Please Divorce Me, My Emperor

CHAPTER 3

If public shame and social self-sabotage could not force a divorce, financial ruin certainly would.

Three days after the disastrous success of the Dowager’s tea party, Empress Aurelia sat in the central office of the Imperial Treasury. The room was cool, vaulted in heavy gray granite, and smelled faintly of aged parchment, dried ink, and cold coins. Across the heavy oak desk sat Grand Treasurer Vane, a notoriously stingy, neurotic man whose hairline had been receding for twenty years out of sheer anxiety for the empire’s coffers.

Aurelia held a thick peacock-feather quill, tapping the brass tip rhythmically against a massive ledger bound in pigskin.

"Empress Aurelia," Vane stammered, frantically wiping a sheen of cold sweat from his forehead with a silk handkerchief. "You... you wish to clear out the entire quarterly allocation for the Empress’s Household in a single transaction? All of it?"

"Every single copper, Lord Vane," Aurelia said, flashing a bright, ruthless smile. "I want the vault swept so clean that a mouse entering it would starve."

"May I... may I humbly inquire as to what magnificent, extraordinary purchase requires three hundred thousand gold dragons?" Vane asked, his voice cracking on the word dragons. "Is it diamonds from the Southern Isles? A fleet of gilded pleasure yachts? A palace carved of white marble?"

"Even better," Aurelia said smoothly. She reached into her embroidered sleeve and slid an official purchase order across the desk. "I am purchasing fifty thousand tons of top-grade organic fertilizer, three hundred thousand sacks of high-yield winter wheat seeds, and paying in advance for five hundred master stonemasons to completely rebuild the irrigation dikes in the impoverished Southern Lowlands."

Lord Vane blinked. He picked up the parchment with trembling fingers, adjusting his spectacles as he scanned the lines of precise, elegant handwriting.

"You... you are using your personal wardrobe, jewelry, and gala budget to fund... agricultural infrastructure and manure for common peasants?"

"Yes!" Aurelia declared proudly, leaning forward and placing her hands on the desk. "It is an outrageous, completely un-regal misuse of court funds! I am squandering the Empress's royal allocation on literal dirt and rocks! It is a complete scandal, Lord Vane! You must report me to the Emperor immediately for fiscal irresponsibility!"

She leaned back in her chair, feeling like an absolute political genius.

The high nobility of the Suncrest Empire were notoriously snobbish. They believed royal funds existed solely to display imperial grandiosity—throwing lavish balls, wearing dresses made of imported silk, and drinking wine aged for half a century. Misappropriating royal funds meant for imperial luxury to feed common farmers would outrage the noble faction. They would frame her as a traitor to aristocratic privilege and demand Kaelen strip her of her title to restore the dignity of the crown.

"I... I shall take this directly to His Imperial Majesty at once!" Vane cried, clutching the paper to his chest like a holy relic as he bolted from the room, his robes billowing behind him.

Aurelia smiled serenely, taking a sip of lukewarm tea. Phase Three is complete. Pack your bags, Aurelia. Countryside, here we come.

Two hours later, Aurelia was officially summoned to the Imperial Study.

She marched down the grand hallway with her head held high and her shoulders back, completely ready to accept her public scolding, her stripping of rank, and her sweet, sweet freedom.

She pushed open the heavy mahogany doors. Emperor Kaelen was sitting behind a massive desk carved from black walnut, flanked by towering shelves of military maps and state ledgers. He was dressed in a dark velvet coat, his unruly black hair falling slightly over his forehead. Sitting beside him, looking visibly pale and exhausted, was Lord Vane.

"Empress Aurelia," Kaelen said, setting his quill down. His voice was utterly smooth, his deep violet eyes fixed on her. "Lord Vane came to my quarters earlier in a state of absolute hysteria."

"I am aware, Your Majesty," Aurelia stated crisply, stepping into the center of the room and crossing her arms. "I accept full responsibility for my wildly irresponsible, completely un-royal spending. I spent money meant for diamonds, galas, and fine silks on manure and wheat. It is abundantly clear that I lack the refined fiscal priorities required of an Empress. You may sign my divorce papers now to save the treasury from my madness."

Silence filled the room.

Kaelen slowly stood up. He picked up a newly drafted parchment resting on his desk and began walking slowly toward her. His long leather boots made no sound against the thick crimson rug.

"Irresponsible?" Kaelen repeated softly, stopping just two feet away from her. "Aurelia, for five years, the southern lords have been threatening a massive peasant revolt due to the failing irrigation dikes. My military ministers calculated it would cost two million gold dragons and ten thousand soldiers to put down an armed rebellion in that sector."

Aurelia’s jaw twitched. "I... what?"

"You just solved a multi-million-dragon civil crisis using three hundred thousand dragons meant for silk dresses and tea parties," Kaelen said. His sharp features softened slightly, a breathtaking, intense warmth ignited in his violet eyes. "You didn't bankrupt the treasury, Aurelia. You saved it. And in doing so, you secured the absolute loyalty of three southern provinces without shedding a single drop of blood."

Aurelia stared at him, her brain temporarily short-circuiting. "No! Kaelen, you're missing the point! I bought manure!"

"Which will feed my people," Kaelen countered smoothly. He handed her the parchment in his hand. It wasn't a divorce decree. It was an Imperial Mandate, stamped with the heavy gold dragon seal.

"I am officially granting you full, unsupervised authority over thirty percent of the Imperial Development Treasury," Kaelen said, his voice dropping to a low, velvet hum that vibrated straight through her chest. "You are the most brilliant, cunning, and dangerously effective Empress this realm has seen in a century."

Aurelia looked down at the gold-stamped mandate in horror. "Kaelen! I was trying to ruin you!"

"I know," Kaelen whispered, leaning down until his lips were mere inches from her ear. His warm breath tickled her skin, sending an unbidden, furious shudder down her spine. "Which makes your accidental genius all the more captivating. Try again, my love."