What had driven her to this point. Unrequited love? Hatred for a heart that had changed? Or perhaps, self-loathing for a version of herself that had withered away.

Whatever the answer, one thing was certain. He had never been a consideration for her. In the life of Vivian Kruger, there had only ever been one person: Rubens Einhart.

Kalintz let out a self-deprecating laugh and slowly opened his eyes.

He was about to walk on when footsteps approached from the far end of the corridor.

“You must be on your way back from seeing your mother.”

“I thought I smelled something foul. So it was you.”

At Kalintz’s sharp response, Duke Brienne gave a small scoff.

“Have you decided to abandon the impeccable manners you always kept, Your Highness?”

“You have quite the tongue on you. I could afford to abandon a little more.”

Duke Brienne faltered slightly under Kalintz’s eyes, which gleamed with a ferocity that looked ready to tear into him, but he opened his mouth again soon enough.

“The nobles will be moving to discuss your abdication before long.”

“It’s not a position that changes simply because a flock of parrots makes noise. You seem to have a poor understanding of His Majesty.”

“Ah, of course. He is not the sort to listen when we make a fuss. But the voice of the people is another matter entirely, isn’t it.”

Kalintz raised an eyebrow.

“I’m not sure about that. I’m a rather well-supported heir to the throne for anyone to be discussing abdication over my mother.”

“So you have been, until now. But what about this.”

Willer Brienne narrowed his eyes and whispered.

“Contract marriage.”

A thin smile crossed the Duke’s lips.

“Siana Miller, that woman, gave me quite an interesting piece of information. It was information you deliberately leaked to draw out the alchemist, wasn’t it?”

Kalintz stared at Duke Brienne with an expressionless face.

“I nearly believed her completely. The information was that enticing. Though there is no proof, of course.”

The Duke stroked his chin and continued.

“I never understood why you chose a frons from a nameless viscount’s family as your princess consort…… but a contract marriage. You truly are not someone to be underestimated, Your Highness.”

At the unpleasant, snickering laugh, Kalintz’s brow furrowed.

“Do you think the people will still support you, if it comes out that the two of you, called each other’s fated love, were in fact a contractual arrangement?”

“You said it yourself just now. There is no proof.”

“When someone with power speaks, that becomes proof and fact. You know as well as anyone that is what power is.”

“And you know as well as anyone that things like that crumble the moment that power becomes even slightly unstable.”

Brienne gave a thin laugh.

“Well. We’ll see about that.”

The Duke walked past Kalintz. But he stopped a short while later, as though something had just occurred to him.

“Oh, come to think of it, I had something to pass along to Her Highness the Princess Consort and nearly forgot.”

The moment he brought Blair up, Kalintz’s expression darkened with displeasure. Duke Brienne reached into his coat and held something out. It was a small decorative hairpin.

“She’ll know it when she sees it. It’s something Her Highness gave personally to Siana Miller, or so I’m told.”

Kalintz looked down at the hairpin resting in his palm with a heavy gaze.

“Though I imagine she didn’t expect it to come back as a keepsake.”

The Duke let out a faint sneer and turned away again.

The decorative hairpin pressed into Kalintz’s palm, his knuckles white from how tightly he gripped it.

❀❀❀

“D*mn it all!”

Ernst couldn’t contain his fury and slammed his fist on the meeting table.

“Lady Miller is…… dead?”

Blair stared at the small ruby hairpin with an expression of disbelief. It was the gift she had given Lady Miller on her birthday.

“It’ll be Jake Roman’s doing. The last report Ariela sent said he appeared to be making a move.”

Kalintz ground his teeth as he spoke.

“But Grand Duke Clovitz is in the process of turning his back on Willer Brienne. Count Roman would still act this aggressively on his behalf?”

Something was off.

Count Roman was also a thoroughly calculating man. He was not the type to fall out of favor with Grand Duke Clovitz for Brienne’s sake.

“Who knows. Brienne may have paid him an enormous sum.”

Blair looked again at the hairpin in her hand. It was certainly Lady Miller’s, but something about it didn’t sit right.

“……Has there been any other word from Ariela?”

“Nothing. It seems her movements have become restricted somehow.”

Her report had also mentioned that Count Roman was growing suspicious of her activities.

“Don’t worry. She can look after herself.”

Kalintz noticed the worry that crossed Blair’s face and said it.

“What do we do now? If Lady Miller is truly gone, our evidence becomes far too thin. The chief chamberlain’s testimony alone won’t be enough to prove the Duke conspired against His Majesty.”

Ernst ran a hand through his hair and let out a long sigh.

“And we can’t prove what he did in Valia to try to have Your Highness killed, either.”

He added it in a bleak voice.

“The Duke will now mount a full offensive, tying together Lady Vivian’s situation and the contract marriage. He’ll invoke every justification he can find and push for Your Highness’s abdication.”

It was a desperate situation.

Blair’s head was spinning, but she steadied herself and sorted through her thoughts.

“……For now, we need to stop what we can stop.”

If they floundered in the chaos the other side was creating, it would truly be over.

“We’ll put out an official statement that the contract marriage rumor is groundless. Brienne’s side has no solid proof either, so we can buy time. More important than that is resolving the matter of Lady Vivian.”

“I think the same.”

Kalintz, who had been deep in thought, spoke up.

“Clearing my mother of the poisoning charge is the most urgent thing. With her unconscious, there’s a real chance things will unfold exactly as Brienne intends.”

“To stop that from happening, we need to find out the truth about Anais Brienne’s death.”

Kalintz nodded with a hard expression.

“Ernst, have you still not found the dead maid’s younger brother?”

Olivia’s maid, Marie.

After her death, Ernst had been searching for her younger brother, who had vanished without warning. The reasoning was that he might have received some important information from his sister.

“I’ve confirmed he came to the capital. But after that, there’s no trace of him at all. It seems he bought a new identity……”

“He came all the way to the capital just to buy a new identity?”

Blair asked, puzzled.

Marie’s younger brother had returned to his hometown of Bashar just before the false accusation incident broke out. Marie had likely tipped him off.

But the moment his sister died, he disappeared from his hometown as well.

And now he had come back to the capital. It was a deeply strange set of movements.

“There’s something to this.”

Kalintz tapped the desk and murmured.

“Let’s focus there. Right now, that’s where our only hope lies.”

With Vivian in a coma, there was no answer to be had from her.

“In the worst case…… even if it turns out my mother really did poison Anais, we need to find that evidence before anyone else does.”

Kalintz said aloud the possibility Blair hadn’t been able to bring herself to voice, and turned his gaze to the window.

Dark clouds were thickening, swallowing even the faint moonlight.

❀❀❀

Duke Brienne wasted not a single moment. Within just a few days, every news sheet in the capital was plastered with sensational scandal.

‘Was the marriage celebrated as the fruit of a fated love in fact a scripted arrangement?’

‘The tragic Lady Vivian Kruger — did she horrifically poison an innocent frons?’

‘A petition calling for the abdication of Prince Kalintz has been submitted……’

Looking at the contents, none of it presented any clear evidence. It was nothing but speculation, one rumor piled on another.

“Haah.”

Blair sighed and pushed the news sheets aside.

A knock came at the door, and Lucia entered. She approached carefully, a silver tray in her hands.

“If it’s more news sheets, I’ve had enough for today. I’m about at my limit.”

“Oh, this is a letter, Your Highness.”

“A letter……?”

There wasn’t really anyone she expected a letter from.

Blair frowned slightly and picked up the parchment envelope on the tray.

The sender was none other than Ned.

Ned…… it’s been a while.

It was the first time since she had attended a performance by his troupe at King Rubens’s invitation.

Ned had apparently been startled by the shocking news spreading through the capital and sent a letter.

『What on earth is going on, Your Highness. The troupe members were saying such strange things I thought they’d all lost their minds, but that’s not it, right? A contract marriage, of all things, what absolute nonsense. Then again, knowing the Blair Mervish I knew, it’s not entirely impossible that she’d do something like that……』