That relentless Selot girl would never let that opening pass.

“What do I do? How do I keep my place?”

Natalia squeezed her eyes shut and forced them open again. Her sharpened gaze caught the reflection of a woman in the smooth glass of the window. Adelaide had stepped close.

Natalia startled and pressed a hand to her chest.

“Mom! You scared me. Make some noise when you walk!”

“I’m sorry. But……”

Adelaide leaned in close and whispered with a voice full of worry.

“Natalia, do you remember? That ‘luck’ I mentioned before. I think this is the moment it’s needed.”

Her mom had always said it, like a refrain.

Adelaide, a poor knight’s daughter who had been nothing more than Count Coumont’s mistress, had become a noblewoman because of a special ‘luck.’

And that luck had been the timely passing of Countess Coumont.

Natalia asked bluntly.

“But can you wish for luck and have it come? And that woman, Dad…”

Natalia fell silent.

She had recalled the note her father, Count Coumont, had left before shooting himself two years ago.

Count Coumont had confessed to personally killing his first wife in order to marry Adelaide. He had said he was revealing this because he wanted to preserve his last shred of honor.

Natalia couldn’t understand her father.

Was his own honor all that mattered? Was that why he had thrown her and her mother into the gutter?

Why had he crossed out her name and her mother’s from the will the day before he died?

Why had he changed the will to leave everything, his entire estate and title, to Vincent Dohimer? Why had he only looked after that worthless son from his first wife? Natalia truly, truly could not understand.

Fury surged up to her throat and shook her whole body. When Natalia trembled, Adelaide gripped both her arms firmly.

“Luck is luck, no matter who brought it about. And it only comes to those who reach for it.”

“…Reach for it?”

“That’s right.”

Her mother was saying things that made no sense again. Natalia let out a hard sigh, and then Adelaide leaned in and whispered in her ear.

“You can’t make an empress out of a sick woman.”

“…Well, obviously. But I’m healthy, Mom!”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“Then what?”

Adelaide smiled a faint, unreadable smile and slipped into the side room.

She reappeared moments later with a long glass bottle in her hand.

Inside the bottle, shaped with a narrow waist like a vase, a clear transparent liquid swirled gently. The lid was carved in the shape of a delicate swan, smooth and beautiful.

Perfume, perhaps? It was clearly expensive at a glance. A craftsman-made glass bottle like that had to be worth at least three million pesi.

Natalia estimated the price and asked.

“What is that?”

“Just a little. Only a little.”

Adelaide’s expression was entirely serious as she unfolded Natalia’s slender fingers one by one and pressed the bottle into her hand.

“What do you mean, Mom?”

“It’s a strong medicine. Let’s try giving her just five doses.”

A strong medicine. Did she mean poison? And why did Mom have something like this?

Natalia blinked and stared at her mother, but her face was perfectly calm.

That strangely composed manner sent a chill crawling along the edges of Natalia’s face.

She had never plotted anything so bold and dark.

Of course, she had told Francis a few very small lies here and there. But those had made Francis happy, so they hardly counted as wrongs.

She had also pushed a pumpkin pie at the empress in rightful revenge for being made to eat ostrich eggs. But the empress hadn’t touched it, so no harm had been done.

Sending that dreadful expensive wine to the insufferable Marchioness Rosalet hadn’t exactly been her finest hour either. Still, the marchioness had seemed quite pleased with it.

But……

Compared to the petty mischief she had done until now, this was something of an entirely different order.

‘Is this really all right?’

Natalia’s heart began to beat in a strange rhythm. The trembling running down her arms spread all the way to her jaw.

“It’s nothing, Natalia.”

Natalia had been clenching her teeth so hard they clicked. She squeezed her eyes shut and forced them open.

“Nothing?”

“That’s right. Five drops of this medicine and the lady will go back to her principality. Would she stay in a foreign country while her body is failing? And once she returns home and rests, she’ll recover in no time.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

Adelaide smiled softly. Those familiar green eyes, like looking in a mirror, reflected Natalia back at herself.

Drawn in by that warm, loving expression, Natalia nodded as though in a trance.

‘Mom will be right this time too. She always is.’

Come to think of it, hadn’t that arrogant girl drugged Francis herself? And on top of that, she had taken her tiara.

The memory surfaced, the imperial jewel keeper’s cold eyes as he carried away The Heart of the Empire.

His manner had said it all without a word: how dare you damage an imperial treasure. He hadn’t said it aloud, but the air around him had made it plain.

He had clearly been thinking that a penniless girl from a ruined count’s family had no business making a scene.

A single look had been enough to make her feel utterly beneath him, and just thinking about it was enough to make her stomach turn.

Right. Compared to what that Selot girl had done, what she was about to do was nothing at all.

“All right.”

Her mind made up, Natalia finally gave her mother a smile. Adelaide then explained what to do. It wasn’t difficult at all.

Natalia called for Countess Joubert right away and began by flattering her.

Her connections were so wonderfully reliable. Count Joubert might seem like a rough sort, but his son surely took after his mother and must be a truly, truly fine soldier.

If the opportunity arose, she would put in a good word for the son with His Majesty. Surely His Majesty would take notice of him then, and so on……

An awkward smile appeared on Countess Joubert’s face. She seemed somehow uneasy, or perhaps lost in complicated thoughts.

Natalia watched her for a moment, then got to the point.

“Countess Joubert. I find I have a small need for your connections……”

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

When Aella reached the corridor outside the emperor’s study, a raised voice slipped through the slightly open door.

Francis was in the middle of a heated argument with the Minister of Defense, the governor of Siren’s territory, and several other aides.

“The Minister of Defense has brought the southern suppression matter back to the table.”

The emperor’s secretary slipped over quietly and murmured in her ear. The meaning was clear, the emperor was in a foul mood, so she should tread carefully.

A chamberlain guided her inside, and Aella quickly scanned Jean Chaplain’s face.

He wore no particular expression, but his wide-set yellow eyes burned with sharp intensity.

He would have heard about the situation in the south from the local administrators. He must be deeply troubled.

Jean Chaplain, that gruff-looking veteran of a hundred battles, was, surprisingly, a man of great compassion. He had once been badly wounded trying to evacuate imperial citizens, which spoke to just how selfless he was.

The very fact that he had brought the Tugal suppression campaign back to the table, after the emperor had already rejected it, said everything.

He was fundamentally different from the emperor’s faction nobles, who refused to cross the emperor’s will in order to protect their own positions.

‘But his loyalty runs deep.’

The House of Bernadore, a family of founding meritorious subjects, had served the imperial family for generations. His devotion could not be shaken in a single blow.

That was why Aella had decided today to put just a small crack in that steadfast heart.

“What brings you all the way here?”

Francis tapped his fingertips against the desk and asked. The question was soaked in barely contained irritation.

Francis was an emotional man, and when he was like this, the atmosphere in the room became as precarious as thin ice underfoot.

But Aella intended to break through that ice and send a ripple across the surface.

With the root of Francis’s patience already exposed and fraying, provoking him was easier than breathing.