“Ahh…!”
“Then all that vast golden land will belong to the Jaksens!”
The Count and Countess of Jaksen turned pale. They looked at each other, then spoke to Heteubiga as if pleading.
“Oh my, Your Majesty the Empress… You should have told us such a thing beforehand… What shall we do?”
“We couldn’t understand because you didn’t explain it clearly…… Ahh!!”
Then, the count clapped his hands and spoke.
“There are two ladies!”
Heteubiga nodded as if in agreement.
The countess’s expression brightened at once, but soon darkened. Her son’s stubborn voice came to mind.
‘Rosette Taylor? Anyway, that woman isn’t my equal, is she? Then even if I die and come back to life, I will not hold a wedding, Mother!’
But that lasted only a moment. The countess’s expression brightened again. If they could get the golden wheat fields into their hands, who would care? Jack would accept it too.
“Contact Duke Taylor’s household again. Tell them we wish to proceed with the marriage between Rosette Taylor and Jack Jaksen. However, there is essential work that must be done before Lady Rosette and Jack marry.”
“Please tell us.”
Heteubiga clicked her tongue as if asking why they bothered to ask, and spoke in a greatly subdued voice.
“You must kill Grace Taylor without fail. Wouldn’t it be troublesome if she appeared at the decisive moment and claimed the right of inheritance?”
Count Jaksen bared his teeth and laughed.
“Have no worries. We are already pursuing that audacious wretch. News will come soon.”
Heteubiga nodded and conveyed that she was tired and they should withdraw. The Count and Countess of Jaksen, who had arrived with tearful faces, returned with much brighter expressions.
But once they left, a shadow fell across Heteubiga’s face.
There was more than one matter giving her a headache. She was about to call a maid to finish tending to her nails when another guest came looking for her.
“Your Majesty the Empress. Lord Hazel Chernin has arrived and requests an audience.”
Had he been an insignificant person, she would have sent him away, but he was a very important guest. Heteubiga hurriedly composed herself and had him shown into the room.
Count Hazel Chernin.
He was a man with mysterious blue hair and blue eyes. A man who had appeared in the capital like a comet alongside Empress Heteubiga.
“I will have a private audience with Count Chernin. Withdraw.”
“Yes.”
Once the servants withdrew, Heteubiga suddenly shot to her feet in anger. Perhaps worried about listening ears, her voice was very low. But her rough breathing and distorted expression spoke for her state of mind.
“Duke Richmond has returned!! And after you so boasted that he could never return alive from the Wall of Death!!”
“Your Majesty the Empress. Please calm yourself. Even if Duke Richmond has returned, nothing changes. Why are you so anxious?”
Heteubiga bit her lip and paced around the spot.
“Anxious? I’m not anxious, I’m furious! The work isn’t being handled cleanly!!”
“…….”
“You didn’t do me a favor. We made a deal. I gave you the exclusive sales rights to the wheat grown on Duke Taylor’s estates. And that’s not all. The capital cartel! One day you made gambling into something like noble culture and saddled them with all manner of debt. I know you’re playing money games with that, and I’m turning a blind eye.”
“Your Majesty the Empress.”
“If so, the matter should be handled cleanly!!”
“I apologize for causing you worry. But please, truly, do not be concerned.”
Hazel approached Heteubiga and whispered secretly.
“The ones who can least endure this now are likely Marquis Rinko and his wife. They have enjoyed Richmond as if it were their own for over ten years, so they will struggle desperately not to have it taken from them. I shall actively aid them.”
But Heteubiga touched her forehead as if her anger would not subside.
“This is the worst-case scenario I had imagined.”
Over ten years ago.
When carrying out the assassination of Crown Prince Ares, Duke Richmond, and Duke Taylor, Heteubiga had agonized fiercely over whom to save and whom to kill. She had wanted to sweep away both ducal houses and swallow all power, but because of the nobles intricately intertwined like warp and weft, it had been impossible to settle everything at once.
Thus, in the case of House Taylor, she killed the parents but spared Lady Grace. Since she stood to benefit the most from the deaths of the Taylors and Richmonds, it had been better to keep at least one lady alive to avoid the nobles’ suspicion. If her temperament was quiet, she had considered that it wouldn’t be bad to marry her off to Jack Jaksen later and have her inherit the entirety of House Taylor.
The problem was Richmond. Unlike Taylor, Richmond possessed the right to succeed to the imperial throne because of the blood of Eliza Decan. Moreover, having been a house that trained and sponsored knights for generations, they also possessed martial power rivaling the Imperial Knights.
Fortunately, she had succeeded in drawing out Marquis Rinko’s betrayal and killing the Duke and Duchess of Richmond and Crown Prince Ares, but in doing so, Hazel Chernin’s ‘Invisible Army’ was also annihilated.
Still, the advantage had definitely been hers. The old woman who had lost the duke and duchess, her son and daughter-in-law, while the blood on their heads had yet to dry, had gone into seclusion. The knights who were loyal to their master like hounds had been a concern, but she had thought both would die soon anyway.
“This is the worst-case scenario. Grace Taylor turned on us, the Duke returned alive, and Eliza Richmond, that old woman, still hasn’t died.”
“The worst-case scenario? His Highness Crown Prince Jake is scheduled to succeed to the throne soon, and Your Majesty the Empress will become the Empress Dowager. Even if the Duke of Richmond and the Grand Duchess survived, their right of succession cannot surpass that of His Highness the Crown Prince.”
“…….”
“More than anything, I shall ensure Richmond does not fall into the Duke’s hands. My army, which was annihilated by the Richmond knights over a decade ago, has finally been reorganized.”
“Is that so?”
The Empress, who had been holding her head, finally had a gleam in her eyes. Hazel smiled and nodded.
“Yes. Did I not say it would take about twelve or thirteen years to reorganize?”
“Hm. So you did.”
As her emotions seemed to soften, Hazel glanced around the Empress’s room and asked.
“Did you send the head maid to Richmond? Why bother doing such an inconvenient thing? It would have been easier to use my subordinates.”
“Marquis Rinko sent me a falcon. There was a matter that required sending at least a head maid.”
Hazel nodded.
“You may go now.”
Hazel bowed politely and turned. He left the palace of the Empress wearing a leisurely smile. On the signet ring he habitually stroked, a flower with a very unique pattern was engraved.
A flower with four large petals above, and two long, drooping petals shaped like a bird’s tail below. That flower only lived in very special environments, and perhaps because of that, it had very special effects.
The flower’s name was Nightmare.
If the petals were made into incense and burned, it would revive the most terrible memories and drive a person mad; a juice mixed from leaves, stems, and roots would bring up the best memories but ultimately kill them.
The effects did not end there.
If consumed raw before the onset of secondary sex characteristics, resistance would develop in three out of ten cases. If an individual with resistance consumed the flower, they would become an ‘Invisible One.’
Hazel Chernin gazed at Decan’s national flag fluttering from the Imperial Palace spire. A sinister sneer hung at his lips, and his fingertips still traced the shape of the Nightmare flower.
＊ ＊ ＊
“You must appear easy to your enemies, yet show unwavering resolve to those who follow you.”
“It’s too difficult.”
Her teacher deliberated for a long while before grasping her shoulders. Grace instinctively realized that he was suffering.
“You were slapped on the cheek today. Yet you stood up bravely without crying. I heard that even after returning, you did not cry.”
“…….”
“You did well. That is how you must do it.”
Grace nodded and returned to her room. She sat blankly on the bed, feeling somehow cold. Strangely, it was not her body on the outside, but her insides that felt chilled.
She wrapped herself in her blanket and curled up. At times like this, she wished she had the big rabbit doll her father had bought her, but Rosette had taken it away. Today she had been slapped when she asked for it back.
She was covering her burning cheek with her hand when the door opened a crack and Jessie appeared.
“Lady……?”
Eric was beside Jessie. Grace was surprised and quickly ran to them. The welling tears had disappeared at some point. She quickly brought the two inside, closed the door, and asked.
“What is it?”
Jessie faltered and looked at Eric. Grace looked at the boy too. Eric blinked his large eyes several times and suddenly fumbled over his clothes.
“Uh, I brought some ice…!”
“Why? Did you lose it?”
“No, that’s not it.”
She laughed at the flustered appearance of the two. As Grace giggled, Jessie and Eric looked at her. Grace kept laughing, pointing at Eric’s clothes, darkened from being wet.
“It all melted.”
Eric’s face crumpled as if he would cry. His red eyes were just like ripe strawberries.
“Eric, I’m fine.”
She seemed to sense people approaching from afar, so she quickly sent the two out. If they were caught here by the Duchess, Jessie and Eric would be punished.
But honestly, she wanted to ask them to stay with her tonight. Foolishly, she wanted to ask them to hug her back tight. She felt a strange sensation that her back was floating up and away like a cloud, as if it would disappear. Yet conversely, it felt as though a heavy stone was attached to her heart, pulling it downward.
Grace went to the bed, put the pillow behind her back, lay on her side, and hugged the blanket. Still, she was cold and empty.