She called him suggestively with a voice mixed with a slight nasal tone. She was curious. Would he value her child so preciously too? If she carried the emperor’s seed, how would he react? Would he cherish her as tenderly as the empress consort? She was tracing her curved chest with a strange smile when.

‘Ack!’

‘If you want to act like a pr*stitute, I can throw you into a brothel right now. What do you think?’

He laughed. Martha, whose neck was grabbed, scratched the back of his hand while choking. Even if she wanted to beg for her life, she couldn’t say anything because her breath was blocked. When she was drooling, her vision almost spinning from his strong force.

‘It would be good to behave properly. If you want to spread your crotch, do it secretly like Toulouse.’

‘Your, Your Majesty. I….’

Martha, who had fallen, tried to get up staggering. The emperor passed by her indifferently and went to her bed. He put his hand inside his wide sleeve and took out a small knife. She blankly stared at what he was doing.

‘This should be enough for today’s midnight deal, right?’

After cutting his forearm and dropping blood on the white sheet, he turned around. Martha nodded her head, wiping the moisture flowing down her cheeks. The emperor left her bedroom.

The next morning, a maid entered with a bright face and stripped off the sheet. The young women who confirmed the bloodstain blushed. Martha looked at them with indifferent eyes and then sharply turned her gaze away.

This was a good deal. Although the Empress Dowager’s temperament was difficult and serving her was challenging, serving the emperor’s mother was a very noble task from the beginning.

Since the empress consort also worked as her lady-in-waiting during her childhood and received teachings, if the emperor recommended her, she would be heard to receive as much favor as she.

It was a good opportunity to break Toulouse. But why did she feel so filled with anger? Martha bit her lip repeatedly and swallowed her tears.

She felt that all of this was because of the empress consort, no, Jeanne. A cruel desire rose. The desire to hurt that woman.

So after much consideration, Martha decided to stage a happening. But she didn’t know it would turn out like this…… She didn’t know the emperor would react like this.

* * *

“I’ve had the palace physician wait. If it’s a pregnancy, it should be properly blessed. Of course, after confirming whether the child in your womb is my seed, which I never planted.”

The Empress Dowager who was drinking tea raised her head. The cold smile on her beautiful face was smooth and sharp like a blade. She stared at the trembling woman. She seemed like no concubine in the rear palace could match her for stupidity, let alone foolishness.

Even Toulouse, who had been seriously dealing with her and putting in effort, seemed ridiculous. She felt like laughing at her son who had tried to attach such a woman to her. The idea of using Martha wasn’t completely unreasonable.

No. Although her vain greed was laughable, if she played along with it appropriately, there wouldn’t be any problems. But Cesare’s weakness had always been his woman. The woman who, after being taken in as his wife, couldn’t leave his side for a moment and became not a wife but a master.

Pregnancy or whatever…… It was an obvious lie. Soon, all the palace people who should know would notice and gossip among themselves…… By that time, Martha would put on a show saying she had a miscarriage.

Cesare, who couldn’t stand it and twisted his carefully crafted plan, was ridiculous. What on earth was Jeanne, that this woman’s anxiety was his fear?

“I understand. So why don’t we leave it at this? Should we send a message all the way to Acambras to discern the aura of a fetus that doesn’t even exist?”

Acambras was a city of monks 300km away from the capital. It was the base of the diocese and was called the ‘Great Cathedral,’ a city governed by the Grand Monk, the teacher of the monks, as the governor. They had been discerning the imperial blood with sacred objects that could detect an Adam’s aura even after an Adam’s extinction.

The emperor, as an Adam, could also discern a fetus in the womb with the same energy as his own, but for the sake of public credibility, monks were always called in to determine whether the baby in the womb was the emperor’s noble grandchild. It was a kind of procedure performed on women of the emperor who were pregnant.

So what the emperor wanted to do was to disgrace Martha. He wanted to punish the woman who mentioned the emperor’s seed that wasn’t even in her womb in front of his wife.

“Deceiving the emperor with a pregnancy is a serious crime that warrants the extinction of one’s family, Empress Dowager.”

Cold warnings flowed out of his red lips one by one. Martha turned deathly pale at the emperor’s eyes, which were as fierce as they were savage.

But he clearly said he would give her power in the rear palace. There was no better means than pregnancy to break that woman Toulouse. So Martha had moved within the range permitted by the emperor. Martha shouted with an urgent heart.

“But Your Majesty. Clearly that night to me…!”

“When did I permit such deception? And even insulting my wife!”

He roared. His clenched fist slammed down on the table with a bang. Martha looked like she was about to faint at the angry shout that made the Empress Dowager’s chambers ring. Martha, who was completely frightened, knelt down on the floor.

Now there was only fear on her face, which had been stiff with resentment. No matter how angry he was, it was in front of the Empress Dowager. She didn’t know he would get so upset. Martha, truly afraid, began to sob. The emperor looked like he would drag her out and have her beheaded at any moment.

“I’m, I’m sorry, Your Majesty. Please spare me. I, I didn’t properly understand Your Majesty’s heart!”

She burst into tears and banged her head on the floor. She wasn’t so stupid that she couldn’t understand the emperor’s mind.

Since she had never said she would use the pregnancy card, from the emperor’s perspective, it would be considerable deception and mockery. Especially if his deal with her was to protect his fragile wife. So there was no room for forgiveness.

Martha bit her lip until it bled and shrugged her shoulders. She was beginning to make sense of the situation. Ridiculously, now that she was scared, she began to see the situation clearly.

How foolish she had been…… Blinded by jealousy and inferiority…. What if this incident endangered her father too? A sense of distance rushed in. Martha, who couldn’t compose her rapid breathing and was panting, raised her head and put her hands together.

“How dare you……”

“That’s enough, Your Majesty.”

The empress consort, who had been silently maintaining their center like a clear glass flower, pulled her husband’s arm. Martha looked at the woman. Her features, as fresh and splendid as her husband’s, were calm and peaceful. She seemed completely unrelated to this commotion.

Despite everything clearly happening because of her. Martha found that detachment terrible all along. In fact, she had rarely encountered the woman since entering the palace. Now that the Empress Dowager had stepped down from the position of empress and secluded herself in the Sacred Palace deep in the inner palace, the position of empress was vacant.

Although the empress consort was the emperor’s primary wife, she wasn’t the empress. This meant that she could only exercise half the authority and influence she could wield. So her nickname was also half-empress. Half-noble and half-empress.

That was the empress consort’s situation and current position. Even after having six of the emperor’s children…. She lowered her gaze. Suddenly, the woman who had been pulling her husband’s arm and confronting him tensely rose from her seat.

She carefully helped Martha up.

Martha got up creakily, swallowing her tears. The emperor’s neurotic gaze flew like a blade. Martha hid behind the empress consort like a frightened dog. A sweet fragrance emanated from the rustling silk dress.

The soap scent mixed with honey and flowers was friendly and warm enough to make her heart flutter. Martha looked up at her with a shabby appearance.

‘She’s beautiful.’

Although it wasn’t her first time seeing her up close, the woman’s beauty felt new. She was used to seeing her from a distance, and she was a woman who shone even from very far away. The woman was always in the emperor’s long arms. Anyone could see at a glance that she was special to him. She was a woman too much for Martha.

She was too high and too distant. She was excessively beautiful and also excessively pale. She was like a cloud over a lake. Martha recalled the morning when she first saw her.

* * *

In a palace without an empress, the empress consort was practically the same as an empress. She was the mistress of the inner palace, the woman who bore the emperor’s heir, and the Empress Dowager’s daughter-in-law. They say she stayed in the inner chambers of the main palace with the emperor who had returned after completing his service as the head of the army, enjoying their newlywed life before she became pregnant with the First Prince.

The empress consort, who had been called the emperor’s young bride since entering the palace at eight years old in spring and had been in charge of the palace’s household affairs as his wife, was the daughter of Count Spetunia, a great western nobleman, and had been evaluated as clever and bright since childhood.