Late at night after the banquet, when the Empress returned to her palace and all her servants had withdrawn, she grabbed a cup from the table and threw it. The porcelain cup shattered against the wall. Not just that, she started throwing anything within reach. She wanted to scream but held back, gritting her teeth, thinking someone outside might hear. Her fists trembled with emotions she couldn’t release.

How dare… how dare Aidan toy with her.

The more she dwelled on what happened at the banquet, the more her anger rose. She had intended to show everyone Aidan’s unstable state and humiliate him, but he had been far too composed. To think he could even dance perfectly with Karina without a single mistake.

What had Lloyd actually done? When he said he attacked him, did he just inflict a superficial wound? Otherwise, how could someone who had been stabbed move so normally after just a few days?

Moreover, Aidan’s attire and the chrysanthemums he brought to the banquet had thoroughly irritated her. A funeral… Everyone must have suspected her as Aidan’s attacker. Thinking of his smirking face as he talked about holding her funeral made her stomach turn. If he had instead angrily confronted her about trying to kill him, she could have dismissed it as nonsense and treated him as delusional without showing any reaction.

Though Aidan hadn’t said a word about the Empress trying to kill him, with that smirking face, he had made everyone suspect the Empress. That fact made her so angry her body trembled.

Why did someone who usually couldn’t even properly express his opinions act so crazy today? Could he have hit his head during the attack? It made no sense otherwise. Or could there be strange ingredients mixed into Aidan’s medicine? Since she hadn’t ordered anything, could that also be Lloyd’s doing?

As her head grew hot with anger, she became angry at Lloyd too. Why did he have to handle things so sloppily in the first place…

Knock knock. Hearing the sound of knocking on the door, the Empress, who had been breathing heavily trying to suppress her anger, took a deep breath and asked who it was.

“It’s me.”

It was Lloyd’s voice. Though she hadn’t given permission to enter, the door soon opened and he appeared. He momentarily hesitated and frowned at the sight of the room in chaos from thrown objects. The Empress sat on the sofa without explanation, holding her forehead with one hand. She didn’t invite Lloyd to sit.

“Are you distressed because of Aidan?”

Lloyd asked as he sat across from her. Just hearing Aidan’s name seemed to irritate her nerves, and though she glared at Lloyd, she just let out a deep sigh without adding any words.

“That bastard seems to have lost his mind after nearly dying.”

“Or perhaps, as he said, he’s awakening after accepting Karina as his consort.”

She answered with extreme sarcasm, and Lloyd visibly flinched. The word that made her son react was ‘Karina’.

“Can’t you let go of your lingering attachment?”

She clicked her tongue as she asked, but Lloyd just frowned without saying anything. The Empress briefly sighed and turned her head away.

Well, it’s impossible to control having desire for someone.

She had been the same. When she first met the Emperor, she fell for him at first sight. Though she had already been married once and became a widow after a year, she was only twenty years old. Falling for someone young and charming, who also held the power of Emperor, was as natural as breathing.

She didn’t want to become Empress from the start. Just having the Emperor love her and keep her by his side would have been enough.

The problem was that human greed doesn’t end there.

In any case, her situation back then was different from Lloyd’s. Lloyd was now a proper prince. Moreover, the first prince of this empire. It thoroughly displeased her that someone of his status was so fixated on a woman who had already become someone else’s.

To have emotions strong enough to want to kill Aidan…

Until now, Aidan had acted so timid and stupid that Lloyd seemed to ignore him, but he had clearly changed when his marriage to Karina was decided.

“Well, the other party is Karina Hewitt after all.”

Yes, Karina Hewitt. The young lady of House Hewitt, which held the greatest influence in the Griffith Empire after the imperial family, and the one called the future Empress candidate.

Even though anyone could see that Lloyd was more suitable as Crown Prince and future Emperor than the pathetic Aidan, still, half the ministers didn’t support Lloyd. She was sick to death of their harping about legitimacy. But even they recognized that Aidan was insufficient to become Crown Prince. That’s why their final card was Karina Hewitt.

The prince who wins Karina Hewitt will become the next emperor.

As Empress, even hearing such talk displeased her. ‘Born to be an empress’. That expression itself irritated her, who had been elevated from mistress to Empress. It sounded like they meant their innate backgrounds were different. At the same time, it felt like they still looked down on her.

However, she knew well how obsessed these stubborn palace people were with that background. She herself had experienced that prejudice the longest and most severely.

That was why she had tried to arrange a marriage between Lloyd and House Hewitt despite knowing they held antipathy toward her. Because Karina Hewitt would be the piece to fill Lloyd’s lacking legitimacy, that damned background. As expected, they were rejected at the level of the Hewitt duchy.

She hadn’t expected Lloyd would be this unable to let go of Karina.

“Even so, she’s already Aidan’s consort. Give up.”

It might have been different before the marriage, but now it was too late. Rather, it would be better to find a young lady from a family comparable to House Hewitt as his consort and properly gain the upper hand in the competition for Crown Prince.

“Aidan won’t be able to beat the prince anyway. In every aspect.”

It wasn’t just that he couldn’t win — there was no comparison. As a result of pushing Lloyd since childhood, he excelled in swordsmanship better than most knights and didn’t fall behind in any field of study. She had raised such an excellent prince.

Therefore, naturally, Lloyd should become the next emperor. Not the coward Aidan who only acted timidly and cautiously after the previous Empress died.

“Focus on quickly finding a young lady from a good family as your wife. Don’t linger on meaningless people.”

Since Aidan had taken a consort first, Lloyd needed to take a consort as soon as possible and have an heir before Aidan. This imperial family had always lacked descendants. That was why they tolerated the Emperor’s mistresses. Therefore, whichever prince produced an heir first could gain an advantage in the succession struggle.

Of course, she didn’t think for a moment that Lloyd would lose to Aidan, but since you never know what might happen with people, there was no harm in being prepared.

“Marquis Belmont is taking in an adopted daughter.”

Lloyd said with a frown. The Empress furrowed her brows, wondering why the topic suddenly shifted there during their marriage discussion.

“He kept asking me about her throughout today’s banquet.”

At those words, the Empress tilted her head and narrowed her eyes.

“While handling the aftermath of the previous incident, it seems he wants to make his adopted daughter a prince’s consort as compensation.”

When her suspicions were confirmed, she let out a derisive laugh. While Marquis Belmont was her strong ally, it had nothing to do with Lloyd’s marriage. It was absurd to try to push an adopted daughter of unknown origin as Lloyd’s match.

“Ignore it.”

When she answered curtly, Lloyd visibly relaxed. He seemed to have worried she might force the marriage due to her close relationship with Marquis Belmont.

“A prince’s consort will become the future empress. How dare they…”

As she showed her displeasure with a deep frown, Lloyd agreed with her, saying exactly so.

“Rather than that, watch Aidan carefully. Now that he has House Hewitt backing him, we don’t know what he’ll do. You saw him today, right? How arrogant he was…”

Her mood plummeted again as she recalled it. As she twisted her face and pursed her lips, Lloyd answered that he had a good idea.

“The young lady from the Spencer family still overflows with lingering attachment to Aidan. If we use her, we can lower Aidan’s reputation and create cracks in his relationship with House Hewitt.”

The Empress narrowed her eyes as she looked at Lloyd. His words weren’t particularly trustworthy.

“Didn’t Lloyd publicly declare at today’s banquet that he had cleanly ended his relationship with that Lady Spencer?”

“That’s exactly why she’ll become an obstacle for Aidan.”

The more he had publicly declared it with his own mouth in front of the nobles, the more betrayed they would feel if it was revealed he had done otherwise behind the scenes.

“While Duke Hewitt has continued to take Aidan’s side, talking about legitimacy until now, would he do the same if his precious daughter gets hurt by Aidan’s infidelity? If House Hewitt and Karina abandon him, that bastard will be nothing but a powerless puppet anyway.”

The Empress agreed that if House Hewitt withdrew their support from behind Aidan, Lloyd’s words were true.

“Would that be easy? Aidan already seemed completely smitten with Karina.”

While that could have been an act, whether it was acting or truth wasn’t very important. What mattered was how the nobles saw it.

“What if Aidan’s heart has truly changed?”

“Whether his heart has changed or not doesn’t matter. We just need to make people recognize that he’s still the same pathetic and stupid playboy as before.”

“How?”

At the Empress’s question, Lloyd pulled up the corner of his mouth into a smirk.

“We’ll make Kate Spencer carry Aidan’s child.”

*