Eden, whose mind had been consumed with worry for Loa, returned to his study with a heart full of jealousy at the sight of her worrying over Siobhan more than her own condition.

Not long after entering the study, a brief knock was heard. At his response to enter, the one who appeared was Dias.

“My lord.”

At the unexpected face, Eden paused what he was doing.

Even when Dias returned to duty, she did not usually come to find him in person, so the fact that she had come meant it was a matter of great importance.

“There is something I must tell you.”

At Dias’s words, Eden gave a short nod. It was a signal for her to speak.

“…The poison the lady drank appears to be one that is circulated within the Marquis Shaga household.”

“Your basis?”

“My mother.”

A knight that Eden had personally brought from the Marquis Shaga household, and the only female knight of the Hylus Ducal Estate. That person was Dias Shaga.

Back when it was not yet known that the Marquis Shaga family was part of the “anti-bloodline faction,” an agreement had been made to exchange members of each other’s households for the sake of harmony among nobles. Dias was the one he had personally brought from the Marquis’s estate during that visit. It was something he learned afterward, but she had apparently been looked down upon within the family for being a child born of a man whose bloodline was unknown.

“My father was forcibly separated from me and my mother. After that, there was no way to trace my father’s whereabouts. Only now do I think that perhaps the Marquis Shaga had a hand in it. He is a man who is obsessively fixated on bloodlines.”

“……”

“After that, my mother waited only for my father, who never came, and in the end took her own life. Before she did, she said something to me.”

Dias paused for a moment, swallowed a trembling breath, and then opened her mouth again.

“She told me never to drink the poison of this household. Then she poured the blue liquid from a small glass bottle into a teacup and drank it just like that.”

“……”

“At first, I thought it was medicine. Because my mother did not collapse right away. But when I returned from training alone, my mother was vomiting.”

For a brief moment, the voices of the two overlapped.

“Like Loa.”

“Like the Duchess.”

A short silence fell over the room.

“My mother is a cousin niece of Marchioness Aibel Shaga. She and I are even more distantly related. The Marchioness Shaga interfered with and controlled the bloodlines of even distant family members. That is why, to the Princess…”

Dias did not continue. She could not bring herself to finish.

After the Emperor introduced the culture of divorce and abolished the culture of concubinage, it came to pass that a common woman came to occupy the position of Empress. It was around that same time that the anti-bloodline faction began to emerge.

Considering that the leader of the anti-bloodline faction was Marchioness Aibel Shaga, it was likely because he believed the imperial bloodline had been tainted.

That was probably why he had tried to kill Princess Resilla.

Princess Resilla was a Princess born of the abandoned Crown Prince of the imperial family, who had mingled with a woman of unknown origins.

“The Marquis Shaga household places bloodline above all else and enforces it with thorough discipline. The reason the one who had been a Marchioness was able to become the head family herself was partly because the previous Marquis died early, but also because she had eliminated many of those whose bloodlines were unknown.”

Since Dias rarely spoke of her own affairs, he could not help but pay close attention to every word she said.

During the brief silence that followed, Eden recalled the day he had brought Dias to the ducal estate.

For someone who had undergone knight’s training, she had an exceptionally small frame. Muscles were visible through her lean body, but she was so thin that it was hard to tell whether they were muscles or simply bones protruding from the thinness. The first order he had given Dias after she arrived at the ducal estate was to participate in the official training of the ducal knight order. On the condition that she gained ten kilograms.

Upon hearing the order to participate in the official knight training with that condition attached, Dias had come to his room unannounced.

“If I gain ten kilograms, I am permitted to participate in training?”

“As long as you do not lose it again.”

“Yes.”

After her brief reply, he called out to Dias as she turned to leave.

“Dias.”

“……”

“If you wish, I will let you change your surname.”

“……”

“Dias Hylus.”

“The name Dias was given to me by a father whose face I do not know. The surname ‘Shaga’ is the surname given to me by my mother, who was my only family.”

“……”

“The only thing left to me is my name.”

“As you wish. If you ever change your mind, say so.”

“On the day you brought me here, my lord, I vowed to give my life to you.”

“……”

“It is a memory I only glimpsed briefly, but they grow flowers within the Marquis estate.”

Most nobles had gardens, so growing flowers there was nothing particularly special.

“Among them, there is a garden that only Marchioness Aibel and those she has approved may enter.”

“……”

“I wish to go there.”

If Dias were to bring back evidence of the poison from that place, it would be an excellent opportunity to bring down Marchioness Aibel Shaga. However, if Dias were to be absent at this time, it would create a gap in Loa’s protection.

“I cannot decide right away.”

At his answer, Dias gave a short nod as though she had expected as much.

***

No sooner had the day dawned than the great gates of the ducal estate rattled. In front of a carriage bearing the imperial family’s crest, the ducal estate’s servants stood in a line, as though serving the owner of that crest.

I watched the small figure stepping down from the imperial carriage. Behind that figure, gift boxes stacked as high as the carriage itself were packed in abundance.

“Your Highness, what is all of this…”

“It is a humble gift for the Duchess who nearly died because of me.”

Resilla’s imperial court etiquette had improved considerably since I had last seen her. Feeling the effort she had put into it, a laugh escaped me before I could hold it back.

“It is far too generous, Your Highness.”

When I lowered myself to her eye level, Resilla burrowed into my arms.

“I was so worried. I’m sorry, Duchess.”

The voice that spoke only for my ears to hear was filled with the kind of childlike vulnerability befitting her age.

Only after we had entered the drawing room and the servants had withdrawn did Resilla seem to relax, and her words began to flow freely. Seeing her say over and over again how relieved she was to see me and asking whether I was all right truly moved me.

Had Resilla drunk that poison, it would have been a lethal dose. Even the small amount that had gotten on the handmaiden’s hand and reached me had done this much to me. If that full amount had been drunk by that small body…

“It’s all because of me…”

“It is not because of you, so please do not feel too sorry.”

Since Resilla kept apologizing despite my attempts to dissuade her, I brought up a different topic to change the subject.

“What was the reason Sir Enoch’s name came up at that time?”

He had clearly not been there in that moment.

“Actually, Enoch helped me.”

“Sir Enoch?”

The full account I heard from Resilla was as follows.

A minor issue had arisen with the King of the Western Kingdom, that is, Enoch’s father. He had come to convey that he would likely be unable to attend the scheduled tea gathering, and upon finding the room empty, had been on his way back. It was then that he had spotted me from a distance, running in a hurry. He had hastily followed after me and discovered the Princess, who had fallen.

Fortunately, he had not seen me use the magic stone.

“I won’t ask where you were hurrying off to, Duchess. I think it would put you in a difficult position if I did.”

“Your Highness…”

“Instead, please have tea with me like this from time to time.”

“Pardon?”

“I want to become like the Duchess!”

Resilla’s eyes, which seemed to have gotten something quite wrong, sparkled in a way that was difficult to refuse.

If you lived in the Republic of Korea, you would develop a steel-like mentality too.

From her visit, I was able to gather quite a bit of information. Before coming to the imperial palace, when Resilla had lived on the frontier, she had heard stories about the considerable number of sorcerers who had been there, and she shared those stories with me.

Among them, one had gone to meet a young noblewoman at the introduction of a noble, but when the young woman did not wake up, he had fled all the way to the frontier.

It was possible that the sorcerer the Princess had mentioned was the very person I was looking for.

I needed to meet with Eden as soon as possible and hear what he knew about the sorcerer Ter Giuo had mentioned. It weighed on me that my exchange with Eden the day before had been cold, but there was no time to dwell on that now.

I stood before his study, going back and forth hundreds of times over whether to knock. Just as I steeled myself and was about to knock, the firmly closed door swung open.

“Come in.”

Eden had opened the door before I had even knocked.

“How did you know?”

He gave no answer to my question and simply shrugged. Following his lead, I stepped into the study almost without thinking, and there I came face to face with someone I had been wanting to see.

“Sir Sio!”

“I have no face to show you.”