“Don’t touch me. I don’t like it.”

That meant Ines had no reason to endure him.

The reality of Diosel, who had made the Ines of the past tremble with fear, was nothing more than a deranged man who cast obscene looks at his half-sister.

“……Ha.”

Shoved back with considerable force, Diosel let out a short, amused laugh.

Rather than deal with him any further, Ines turned away immediately. Fortunately, no footsteps followed her all the way to the corner, where she could see the attendant standing before the dining hall.

“Her Highness the Second Princess has arrived.”

The attendant announced her arrival.

She stepped through the open door and was met with two blatant stares and one dry, measured gaze. The former belonged to Leila, and the latter to her last half-sibling, the Crown Prince, Herman.

Ines quietly made her way to her assigned seat.

Since the Empress and the Imperial Consort occupied either side of the Emperor at the head of the table, her seat was always beside Herman.

“It’s been a while.”

Herman glanced at her as she sat and offered a brief, composed greeting.

She knew well that his short greeting carried no particular meaning.

Even so, Ines paused for a moment, because a voice she had heard faintly near the end of her life came back to her.

‘Father, what is the meaning of this……’

‘Tsk. How did you find this place?’

‘You said Ines had died when Rupert’s estate fell. So how is it that she is there, in that state……!’

‘I asked how you found this place.’

‘……Is that what matters right now? With that wretched sight before you!’

‘Herman! Are you defying your father right now?’

‘Father……’

‘This is a life that would not have existed without me. So dying for my sake is only natural, is it not?’

‘……’

‘You must have heard the story. An old man who drank a broth made from the heart of a young mage and grew young again.’

‘What does that…… don’t tell me, Ines…… she was with child? And you……’

‘I cannot very well let the son of a traitor live. It was a life that was going to be extinguished anyway, now put to good use. Is that not a more glorious death for her as well?’

By then her consciousness had already been fading, so she never knew how Herman had reacted afterward. But she knew that he had not turned away from her situation.

In truth, the relationship between Herman and Ines up until that point had been little more than two people who could not quite become strangers, held together only by blood. Even sharing the same space in the imperial palace, they only came face to face at events that required the imperial family’s attendance.

That was why it had been somewhat surprising, even through her delirium, that Herman had raised his voice at the Emperor on her account. The Herman she remembered had always treated her with a flat, slightly cold manner.

That said, if asked whether Ines disliked Herman, the answer was no. He kept his distance, but he never tormented her or looked at her with contempt and fury.

That alone was enough for Ines to feel more at ease with Herman than with anyone else in this imperial palace.

“Yes. ……Have you been well, brother?”

She added the question at the end of her brief reply, and Herman looked at her for a moment with a faintly surprised expression. Only then did Ines recall more clearly what she had been like in this palace in the past.

Always cowed, never initiating conversation beyond a simple reply, utterly passive and suppressed.

She found herself missing Rupert’s estate. It felt shameless to think of that place as home, but it was a thought she would keep to herself and never speak aloud.

“Yes.”

Herman answered briefly. Their exchange ended there.

The fact that Ines had asked after him first, out of character for her, was not enough to change anything between them. It had only been one question, and she had no intention of it being more than that.

“……”

Ines turned her head and quietly absorbed the sharp looks being directed at her from across the table, sinking into her thoughts.

* * *

Diosel arrived with the Imperial Consort after Ines had taken her seat.

Fortunately, the Empress arrived immediately after they were seated, so no commotion arose.

“His Majesty the Emperor, supreme sovereign and sun of the Empire, has arrived!”

The Emperor entered last.

From the moment she heard the attendant’s voice, Ines fixed her gaze on the floor.

Even after the Emperor walked through the open door and took his seat, even after the voice signaling the start of the meal rang out, Ines’s eyes did not turn toward him. She could not trust herself to look at him without letting the fire show.

The moment Killian had drawn his last breath was still vivid before her. The moment her hands and feet had been bound and she had been forced to watch their future taken from her was only a few hours ago.

The price of swallowing down that blazing emotion was a heart that pounded furiously. For a moment her vision seemed to blur.

But Ines was glad for the heart that beat so violently. A surging heart was the privilege of the living.

Because she was alive, she had been given the chance to protect the one she loved and set right what she had done wrong.

“It is good to gather like this after so long.”

And the chance to take revenge on her enemy.

Ines kept her gaze lowered and brought a few pieces of vegetable to her mouth. The salad lingered in her mouth for a long time, refusing to go down, and left no taste behind at all.

By the time the meal ended, all that had been placed on Ines’s plate was a few pieces of vegetable and an untouched piece of meat.

“I have decided to marry Ines to Grand Duke Rupert.”

Near the end of the meal, the Emperor spoke without preamble. A small ripple passed through the imperial family.

Ines was not shaken, but she directed her gaze toward the Emperor’s chin. She did not forget to arrange her face into an expression of surprise.

“What do you mean by that?”

The Empress, who had eaten in complete silence until then, spoke for the first time.

“I felt it necessary to solidify our relationship with Rupert somewhat further. You’re well aware that the entire North falls under Rupert’s governance.”

“Has Grand Duke Rupert also agreed to this?”

At the follow-up question, the Emperor moistened his lips with wine and nodded without any sign of displeasure.

The reason the Emperor, who acknowledged no one above him under the sky, maintained a degree of courtesy toward the Empress was that she was one of the most powerful figures in the Empire, with a long-established ducal family as her background.

“In accordance with the Grand Duke’s request, the wedding is to be held at Rupert, and the departure is set for ten days from now.”

At the word ten days, the Empress’s gaze moved to the Emperor.

Herman, and even the Imperial Consort, showed faint signs of being caught off guard. Herman seemed surprised simply by the abruptness of the marriage, while the Imperial Consort appeared startled that the other party was Grand Duke Rupert.

But the Imperial Consort quickly composed herself. She had sensed that this marriage had not been arranged in any warm or amicable atmosphere. Even setting aside the imperial family, no noble marriage was ever rushed through like this.

The Emperor wore that particular expression of his, savoring his own achievement with satisfaction.

Having decided she had shown enough surprise, Ines dropped her gaze again. She sensed eyes lingering briefly on the side of her face but did not react.

“I would like you to handle the trousseau preparations. May I ask that of you?”

“……I will see to it.”

After a brief silence, the Empress gave her slow assent.

Everything was the same as before.

The fact that no one thought to ask the person most directly involved was treated as perfectly natural. Leila, who was glaring at her as though she wanted to kill her simply because Ines would bear the name of Grand Duchess Rupert regardless of how it had come about. The Emperor, who was looking Ines over with eyes that held both satisfaction and a cold edge.

She had been through all of this once before.

“Ines. Have you understood your father’s words?”

“……Yes, Father.”

And so Ines produced the same answer she had given the second time she heard that question.

The reply of a meek and dim-witted daughter who had never once defied her father in her life.

* * *

The first to leave was the Empress.

“Then I will take my leave first. The preparations seem rather pressing.”

“Please do. I trust you to prepare everything without lacking, Empress.”

Just before she left, the Empress let her gaze rest briefly on Ines.