I assigned Tristan to watch over Lilia.
I warned him sternly to monitor her every movement, and if following her directly proved difficult, to use every insect in the capital to never lose track of her whereabouts.
'It could be a bluff.'
It might just be a story hastily fabricated to escape a momentary crisis.
But thinking differently, it could have been something that was supposed to happen in the life that Birth had granted to Lilia.
Or perhaps... to stop the resurrected agent of Death, Birth may have urgently made new contact with her own agent.
'A Temple, suddenly. Does that mean an oracle will descend?'
I paced anxiously by the window. I had written an urgent note to Samuel, who should be at the pre-arranged lodging, and sent it tied to Zigor's leg, but I couldn't gauge whether meeting him would clearly resolve anything.
In the first place, whether Lilia's words were a prophecy or not could only be confirmed after they came to pass.
So at least 5 days later.
'But I can't just sit idle.'
At minimum, I need to check what kind of atmosphere the Temple has right now. And how much influence Samuel has within it.
I had naturally contacted the Imperial Palace as well. I have a communication channel that allows direct contact with Heinri.
If the incident Lilia spoke of actually occurs...
Bang bang!
Startled by the sudden sound, I came to my senses. Falides, who had been absorbed in knitting while sitting in a chair, quickly hid her yarn under a cushion and shot to her feet.
Someone was pounding on the door so violently it was embarrassing to call it a knock, and before I could give permission, they threw the door open.
It was Frijian unni with bloodshot red eyes.
"It seems important. You look rushed, unlike yourself, unni."
"Anelli."
She approached me with a terrifying face as if she would strangle me at any moment.
"Please step back."
I stopped Falides with my hand as she quickly moved to block the way, and gazed at Frijian unni.
"Did you finish talking with Father?"
"What is this behavior?"
"What do you mean by 'what behavior'?"
At my words, she opened her mouth wide as if about to explode in anger. But immediately, she clenched her fist and suppressed her emotions.
Her trembling eyelashes conveyed the anger she was suppressing intact.
"Your... value has become higher than mine. I suppose it's only natural that Mother chose you."
Frijian unni, who had been gritting her teeth, took a deep breath. Perhaps unni had talked not only with Father but also with Mother.
My older sister's face, acknowledging with her own mouth that her 'value had decreased,' was full of wounds.
It was easy to glimpse her wounds. Because that emotion was exactly what I had felt in this mansion sometime in the past.
And the person who took the lead in replacing me, who had become worthless, like a spare part was Frijian unni before me.
"I'm glad you understand. The Imperial family is a good place. Especially the food seemed to suit unni's taste. The bedding..."
"But there's something Father and Mother don't know."
Frijian unni cut off my words with a strong tone.
Amidst her grief, the desire contained in her blazing eyes hadn't diminished in the slightest.
"The fact that you have not a single bit of affection or interest in this family."
Yes, that was exactly the Frijian unni I knew.
I didn't answer and gazed at unni blankly. When I showed no reaction, Frijian unni forced out her words.
"You just want to vent your anger. At Loam that abandoned you. At all of us... who put you on the execution platform."
As much as I knew unni, unni must have known me well too. Otherwise, how could she read my intentions so accurately?
I parted my lips with a faint smile.
"What a scary thing to say. I left the Imperial Palace and came here. Why do you think that's venting anger?"
"So, suddenly wanting to become the next Duke of Loam? Don't make me laugh. You weren't interested in such a position from the beginning!"
"But I didn't aim for the Empress position particularly because I was interested in it either."
"What you wanted wasn't the Empress, it was Maksel!"
I was momentarily speechless at Frijian unni's sharp rebuttal.
While I missed the timing to answer, Frijian unni's words, fully poisoned, continued.
"You're the one who couldn't capture even one man's heart! Because you didn't get what you wanted, are you trying to drag me down into the mud too?"
I felt a chill run down my spine.
I, who had been looking at Frijian unni expressionlessly, slowly parted my lips.
"I wanted Maksel?"
"Yes! Are you planning to deny it?"
If I said no, unni was ready to mock me immediately.
I had no intention of denying it. I...
"Unni knew that?"
I thought there was nothing more to be disappointed about, but it was a little surprising to learn there was still bottom left to fall.
Everyone had criticized me for being obsessed with the Empress position. That since I was born and raised to be Empress, I was being greedy for that.
Even words of love were merely hollow expressions to package my own greed.
"Knowing that, you argued that Lilia should be pushed to Maksel's side instead of me?"
Naturally, I had thought Frijian unni thought that way too. I really didn't know that unni had properly recognized my feelings.
The mockery about not being able to capture the heart of someone I loved was just an expression to ridicule me, or so I had thought.
"That's... you were sick anyway!"
"Even knowing that, you said I couldn't capture a man's heart? You said such things?"
Unni seemed speechless, opening and closing her lips a couple of times before closing them.
I was so dumbfounded that I couldn't even laugh.
"...I was too harsh."
After a long silence, the words that came out were hard to call an apology.
Even she probably wouldn't have said that if Frijian unni wasn't cornered right now.
"You're the one who drove me to this state. I'm sufficiently humiliated right now and... in despair. So let's stop."
Yes, unni certainly looked despairing.
For someone who had reigned above others as a minor duke all her life, it was plainly visible that she wasn't used to making apologetic sounds.
But you know. Is the despair she's feeling right now really everything?
"In the Imperial prison, you can only eat once a day."
I began to speak in a quiet, calm tone.
"Very hard, stale bread, and soup with a foul smell that I don't know what was boiled in it—that's all."
"Anelli."
"You can't bite into the bread, so you have to soak it sufficiently in the soup. If there's mold on the bread, you can see black lumps floating on the soup. Someone's spit might be mixed in the soup."
"...Stop, Anelli."
I don't know what I said so much that she's shuddering like that. I was just slightly describing the meals available in prison.
"After forcing such things into my stomach to survive, I was sentenced to beheading. Do you know how I felt then? I..."
"Stop it!"
Frijian unni cut off my words like a scream.
However, after breathing for a moment, I continued speaking slowly again.
"I was so relieved."
"I understand, so please..."
"Sufficiently humiliated and despairing? No, unni is not like that at all. When a person truly hits rock bottom, they don't even feel that."
Frijian unni was twisting her expression painfully as if just hearing it was tormenting her.
She couldn't bear to look at me and was fixing her gaze on the floor.
"Nothing remains."
And when you reach the end, you only feel liberation.
Frijian unni, who had been listening to my words while biting her lip hard, eventually turned away without a word.
I, who had been staring blankly at her retreating figure without any greeting, clicked my tongue lowly and closed the door she had left open.
Now then, shall we think again about the countermeasures that were interrupted earlier?
"Captain...."
A voice mixed with crying reached my ears as I was about to head to my desk.
...Crying?
"Falides?"
Doubting my ears, I turned to where the sound came from, and saw Falides trembling while clutching a handkerchief with both hands.
"Captain, I... I didn't know the Captain had suffered such hardships... hup, and stupidly just doing knitting... hik, saying I'd make the Captain a scarf...."
I don't know if one can cry without a head, but the voice was certainly full of tears.
I soothed her with as calm and rational a face as possible.
"Falides. It's all in the past."
"Hik...! The Captain really went through all that...! Heo-eok...! I didn't even know that... and was knitting...!"
"My past and your knitting are completely unrelated matters. So you can continue that knitting. I permitted it in the first place."
"But don't...! What's the use of all this eooo...!"
Making crying sounds I'd never heard in my life, Falides covered the eye holes of her helmet with both hands.
"Falides, it'll be fine as long as such things don't happen in the future."
"Of course, of course I'll... beat up all the bad bastards...! Heheo-eong...."
"Falides, Falides?"
It was only after quite a while that Falides finally regained her reason.
* * *
"It's a good thing I don't have a head. If I did, my eyes would surely be swollen?"
"Yes. And I... learned that Dullahans can cry too."
I muttered in an exhausted voice, and Minthe, who was sitting on the windowsill, said with a sigh.
[To think such a spectacle occurred just because I left my post for a moment. Falides, you're too soft-hearted.]
"Minthe, you're the one who's too inhuman."
[In the first place, we're not human right now, Falides.]
"Goodness, how can you say such cruel words?"
I had been listening to Minthe and Falides' conversation in a daze when I inadvertently spoke.
"Falides, don't cry."
"Ah, yes! I understand!"
How exactly one should comfort a crying headless being, I really don't know....
"But thanks to the Captain comforting me, I calmed down quickly!"
I didn't do anything? No, before that. Was that calming down quickly?
I wondered if my shocked expression was visible, as Falides said in an excited voice.
"The Captain is truly so kind!"
I don't know at what point she felt kindness. I feel like the past Captain is taking all the good image.
"I'm different from that Captain of the past you knew, I tell you."
"No, not the Captain of the past, but the Captain before me!"