Chapter 12

Graham’s funeral was supposed to take place three days after he arrived at Red Hall. However, because his twin sister Jenna leaned against the coffin, refusing food and drink for more than three days, the priest could only visit Red Hall on the fourth day. 

If Graham had been a commoner, such a thing would have been unimaginable. As the son of a chancellor with the title of Earl, his body was treated with chemicals to prevent decay. Thus, even to the mourners, Graham appeared heartbreakingly lifelike. 

Jenna ate the thin soup and drank the water that Magda brought to her in her room. Magda was even more worried by the Lady’s calm demeanor and kept glancing at her nervously. 

“Lady… the funeral for the young Earl…” 

“…What about Father?” 

“In fact, His Highness the Crown Prince was also struck by a poisoned arrow and is in critical condition, so he went to Autumn Palace. Upon hearing the news of young master Graham, he fainted. After seeing the body himself, he has not left his room.” 

If her father couldn’t come out, then Graham’s funeral naturally fell to Jenna. 

“Did you hear… how he died?” 

Magda shivered as if she had heard something she shouldn’t have. 

“I heard it was strangulation, Lady.” 

Strangulation. 

“There were a hundred soldiers assigned to protect Graham. Magda, can you believe it? They killed him surrounded by a hundred men. Go to Cloud immediately and bring back anyone among the soldiers who saw the situation clearly. I need to know.” 

Magda, with her swollen face from crying, quickly ran out. But shortly after, she returned, still breathless, calling out to Jenna. 

“Lady Jenna! Huff, huff, Lady Jenna! Please come, please, stop Cloud. Miss! It’s a disaster!” 

Her entire body trembled faintly inside the black mourning dress. Graham’s funeral would soon take place. If her frail father couldn’t attend, Jenna herself must scatter flowers at Graham’s farewell. 

What on earth could be happening at such an important moment? 

Jenna followed Magda down the stairs. Magda led her without pause to the annex of Red Hall, where the soldiers and knights resided. 

A group of knights, dressed in mourning attire for the funeral, stood gathered, all looking up simultaneously. Jenna’s gaze followed theirs. 

At the end of the stairs, Cloud’s massive body dangled precariously, a rope around his neck. 

Oh, my God! 

Jenna steadied herself and shouted. 

“Impudent Cloud de Herbon!! Did you love Graham more than Father or I did? Are you sadder?” 

“…” 

“Get a grip! Do you think if you die now and go to Graham’s side, he’ll say to you, ‘Well done, let’s enter the land of the gods together’? The one you cherished has died! You couldn’t protect him. Accept that regret! But… that was a battlefield, and Graham was a knight! On the battlefield, a knight’s life belongs to the Empire.” 

She swallowed her tears as she repeated the words Graham had once said. 

“We all knew that and sent him off. Now come down. Magda, place a table under Cloud’s legs. Let him come down.”

Cloud’s large body, which had been gripping the rope with strong hands, trembled with intense sobs. Blood dripped from his bitten lips onto the table placed beneath his feet. 

Jenna confirmed that he was loosening the rope from his neck and turned to leave. But then, Cloud, who had become fierce again, let out a loud roar like a beast and banged on the table to get her attention. 

When Jenna turned back, the mute knight, who had succeeded in catching her gaze, wrote words on the table with the blood he had shed. He was a clever man who knew how to write instead of speak. Jenna’s eyes followed his fingertips. 

「A demon-like girl with red eyes. I will kill her.」 

Cloud banged his head on the words he had written, as if in unjust sorrow, while sobbing miserably. 

* * * 

A tremendous crowd gathered for Graham’s funeral. 

More than 500 soldiers of the Herbon family from Posys disguised themselves as commoners and stayed around Red Hall. Nobles who came to pay their respects to Chancellor Morgan Herbon, debutante noble ladies and their chaperones seeking suitors even at such a moment, and Graham’s friends and colleagues who loved him. Thousands gathered at the cemetery in Helibet, the capital of Ingénes. 

Jenna stood quietly, swaying as if in the strange breeze of late summer. 

Hundreds in the crowd threw wildflowers and roses. Onto Graham’s coffin. Crimson roses, like Graham’s blood, were scattered over the black coffin, and wildflowers, green like his youth, were added. 

The high priest’s mournful funeral sermon resounded over the quiet cemetery, over Graham’s coffin. 

“…To the eyes of those who do not revere the gods, he will appear as a dead man, but Graham Herbon came into the world as a bright light, and he has returned as light to where he once was. From light to light, from eternity to eternity…” 

Graham, my brother. Do you see these flowers? Walk only on the flowers. You lived as beautifully as a flower, and you were plucked while still beautiful, so walk just like that. To the land of the gods. 

When you meet Mother there, tell her I love her too, and to take me with her. I really hate being alone in a world without you. Graham, my love. Wait for me there. Until this sister steps onto that land. 

The nineteen-year-old lady in black mourning dress greeted the mourners with a pale face devoid of expression, her tears long dried. A quite elderly nobleman, at the forefront of their group, bowed and kissed the back of Jenna’s hand. 

“Lady Jenna, what a sudden tragedy. May the gods bless the Herbon family.” 

“Lady Jenna, sob…” 

The small flowers they threw onto the coffin slashed Jenna’s heart like a whip. 

Jenna stood as if painted, holding the hands of the mourners, when she saw from afar a woman with light blonde hair, dressed in luxurious mourning attire, walking towards her with her hand on the arm of a man who appeared to be in his thirties. It was Emperor Joseph Henrique and Evelyn Fleur. 

The chamberlain, who recognized them belatedly, ran to Jenna’s side, creating a wide path among the mourners and announced. 

“His Majesty the Emperor comes to pay his respects!” 

The mourners hurriedly bowed. The Emperor and Evelyn approached Jenna with slow, dignified steps. Their clear, unwavering eyes swept over her. 

“Lady Jenna Herbon. Such a thing. I came to throw a flower on the path of the young man I loved. Child, where is Lord Herbon, your father?” 

Jenna, like the mourners, knelt and bowed deeply. 

“Father is heartbroken… and is recuperating. Please forgive the disloyalty of not being able to attend you, Your Majesty.” 

You bastard. I will grind your bones one day. 

Though the Emperor himself did not directly kill him, his malice remained vividly in Jenna’s mind. She planned to repay the favor of placing a young knight, not yet even nineteen, in the fiercest battle zone someday. 

“Lady Jenna Fleur. At such a sad time… such a beautiful young man… sob.”

Evelyn’s crying act, with eyes smiling while only making sounds with her mouth, was disgustingly unbelievable even when seen firsthand. If there were no people around, Jenna would have wanted to slap her face.

The Emperor and Evelyn slowly walked to Graham’s coffin and each threw the flowers they had prepared onto the pile of flowers.

Then they returned to Jenna’s side. They had something to say. The Emperor carefully opened his mouth, as if he were considering Jenna.

“Morgan knows well about the difficult situation in White Bloom these days. The Empire is at a major turning point now. Whether the Empire will continue its glory or live humiliatingly by yielding territory to those villains of Lucus.”

If it falls, it will be thanks to you. You, who don’t care if your people are engulfed in war while you pant after eternal life! Incompetent Emperor! You!

Hearing this, Jenna felt a surge of curses boiling deep in her soul.

“In such a situation, what can we do? As Chancellor, he cannot leave his position vacant any longer. Of course, the Herbon family has inherited the Chancellor’s duties since the previous generations. That is an old promise. But… given the current war situation, Jenna.”

The Herbon family has not just inherited the Chancellor’s position since the previous generations but has done so since the existence of Ingénes. It was not merely a duty but akin to an inherited domain, so Jenna knew very well what kind of scam the Emperor was trying to pull on her.

Lay down the Chancellor’s position that has been passed down through generations.

That was what he wanted.

“But Your Majesty, my father is still alive. And Your Majesty, even if my father were to pass away, am I not here? Though still lacking, I have continuously worked hard for a long time to inherit the Chancellor’s position. You know that, Your Majesty. I am a Fleur. Meaning I am not bound by the Salic Law.”

The Salic Law is a law stating that no woman on the continent can inherit her father’s property or position and must abandon her father’s surname if married.

However, Jenna was a Fleur woman, a Stone Killer, thus exempt from that law. Her father, Morgan Herbon, must have made sure Jenna received diligent instruction from a very young age for that reason.