For now, she decided to focus on meeting her brothers rather than thinking about their rescue plan, Rondimio, or the nobles plotting rebellion.

She thought she could accept whatever resentment her brothers might have toward her.

Click—. Only after the last two iron doors opened did Louise truly face her two brothers.

“I missed you so much, brothers……”

Tears fell incessantly from Louise’s eyes without restraint.

As soon as the iron door opened, Louise’s two brothers—the First Prince Berus, who had been the crown prince three years ago, and the Second Prince Isel—rushed out together and embraced Louise.

Nestled between her two brothers, who were as tall as Rondimio, Louise wiped away the tears flowing down her cheeks and smiled brightly.

“Louise, my sister… Have you been well? Why are you so thin?”

“That’s not something you should say, Brother Berus…. I’m sorry, I’m really sorry, brothers……”

Berus tightly embraced Louise, who was sobbing like a child.

Although she was a younger sister with some age difference, she had been an adult for several years now, yet he always treated her like a child.

There were surely illegitimate children of the imperial family born from the former emperor, though not officially acknowledged, but the three siblings—the only direct members of the imperial family of the Araceli Empire—had been quite close since childhood.

After losing their parents in an instant and being separated for a long time in the current situation, they couldn’t help but feel more attached to each other.

“What are you sorry for…. I felt like I would go mad knowing I couldn’t protect you when you were young and that I lost you to that bastard without being able to resist even once.”

“It’s true that His Majesty… married me like plunder.”

“That bastard said you were pregnant… Is it true? Did he force himself on you?”

“Ah….”

Louise met the simultaneous gazes of her two brothers, Berus and Isel.

Even before Louise could answer, their eyes had already gone to her lower abdomen, which showed signs of pregnancy.

Despite how precious the child was to her, she felt embarrassed to reveal its existence in front of her brothers.

This child was clearly conceived because Louise herself had loved Rondimio.

Berus, her first brother, perhaps because he had his own child, just sighed deeply without saying anything.

But Isel, her second brother, unable to hide his anger, gripped Louise’s shoulders and began to probe for more detailed facts.

“How far along are you? The child… do you plan to have it?”

“The imperial physician said about four months. The exact date is uncertain because we had s*x every day….”

“That son of a b*tch…!”

Jingle—. Startled by Isel’s intense reaction, Louise accidentally dropped the key, causing the bell attached to it to ring.

Fearing that Marquis Tenul waiting outside the prison might come in, Louise hurriedly sat down on the cold prison floor and covered the key with the bell.

After a moment of silence, Louise peeked her head out through the iron door, but saw no one entering the underground prison.

Louise slowly inhaled and exhaled the unpleasantly nauseating air of the underground prison several times before deciding to tell her brothers the purpose of her visit.

“Did you… know I was coming today?”

“We knew you were coming. He came by and said that if he laid a hand on you, he should be prepared not to die quickly.”

“Rondimio came here in person?”

When Louise inadvertently uttered Rondimio’s name, both men frowned almost simultaneously.

Realizing she had made a mistake in front of her brothers who greatly hated Rondimio, Louise habitually bit the tender flesh inside her mouth.

The two people before her had been imprisoned immediately after Rondimio’s rebellion three years ago.

Therefore, they didn’t know that the fact that Louise had loved Rondimio since childhood had spread throughout the empire.

Even if Rondimio had said that Louise loved him, they wouldn’t believe it.

It had been about a year since Louise had last entered this underground prison.

Including today’s visit, she had entered twice since Rondimio’s rebellion.

Excluding today, she had met her brothers in the underground prison once before, after pleading with Rondimio daily and protesting with her whole body.

At that time… unlike now, she couldn’t have a proper conversation with her brothers in her right mind and just cried until she couldn’t make a sound.

Until the end, not knowing what she had pleaded and protested for by visiting this place.

After that day, she learned that if she pleaded with Rondimio like that, she could meet her brothers.

And she never did it again because she felt like she would die if she tried it once more.

However, thanks to vaguely remembering the names of noble families who had supported her deceased parents, which her brothers had told her then, an opportunity like today could be created.

“Listen carefully to me. Today, I’m going to help you escape from the underground prison.”

“What?”

“Everyone has prepared to help you escape.”

As expected, her brothers, who had studied imperial governance, immediately understood Louise’s words.

Noble families preparing for rebellion—like Duke Havent and Marquis Miko—didn’t serve as Rondimio’s close confidants, yet still held significant influence in the Araceli Empire.

Louise shared everything: her desire to leave Rondimio’s embrace and the plan to escape that very day.

A few years earlier, she had helped Rondimio escape from the same place. Drawing from that experience, she briefly explained how to get out of the underground prison and where to find the nobles afterward.

“So you’ll bring a copy of the Araceli key during lunch time….”

“Yes. Once I give you the key, look for an opportunity to escape from here.”

Berus lightly rolled the key Louise was holding with his fingertip.

This key, called the Araceli key, had naturally been used by Berus, who had been the crown prince until three years ago.

The key, engraved with a remarkably mysterious pattern, had ancient magic cast on it that allowed it to be used when going out from inside the underground prison.

Thanks to her two brothers’ consideration, Louise sat on the very bed where Rondimio had once slept long ago, taking in the interior of the underground prison and her brothers’ faces.

There were several variables in the escape plan, but the most important was whether her two brothers were healthy enough to escape the underground prison with just the duplicated key and small weapons.

No matter how much they had honed their swordsmanship since childhood and were robust adult men, they had been abused by Rondimio…. And it was questionable whether they had received proper treatment.

Before carrying the child in her womb, Louise had begged Rondimio every night to show mercy to her brothers, but she couldn’t trust that he had kept his word.

“Did His Majesty… provide proper treatment after wielding the whip?”

“Honestly… I can’t say yes, but we’re healthy enough to carry out the escape plan you mentioned, so don’t worry.”

“That’s right, how could we not kill the knights outside the prison with poisoned daggers, given how skilled we are with swords?”

“If that’s the case, then I’m relieved… Sigh. I’m really sorry, brothers.”

The emotion close to guilt kept welling up and flowing down her cheeks, making it difficult to fully enjoy the time with her brothers whom she hadn’t seen for a long time.

After spending some time with her two brothers, Louise realized why she didn’t feel discomfort despite staying in this space full of remnants from the past.

Her two brothers carried the sweet fragrance oil Louise liked—a pleasant scent strong enough to mask the stuffy, musty odor of the underground.

It was a fragrance that truly didn’t match at all with the horrifically terrible scars visible through their worn clothes.

She felt pathetic for thinking her brothers were doing relatively well since entering this place.

“I will never forgive His Majesty. And I won’t regret what happens today….”

If her brothers hadn’t laid hands on Rondimio in childhood, she could have argued that he had no reason to imprison and abuse them in the underground prison….

But in their childhood, her brothers had briefly found amusement in abusing Rondimio, who was clearly younger and weaker than themselves.

Now she couldn’t think of Rondimio as just an innocent victim, but until he staged the rebellion three years ago, she had sympathized with him and even hated her brothers for abusing him.

“Louise, you know it’s not your fault. We trust you….”

No, it is my fault, and you shouldn’t trust me….

If I hadn’t loved Rondimio, none of this would have happened. It was all orchestrated by Rondimio so he could love me completely.

Louise couldn’t bring herself to tell the truth in front of her brothers and swallowed her words.

* * *

Soon after, Louise used lunch as an excuse to go to the empress’s palace and brought back a copy of the Araceli key made by the locksmith who had been waiting there.

Now she couldn’t deny that she was a woman who had sold out the country, as the citizens of the empire said, going so far as to freely duplicate an important national treasure.

“But Louise, couldn’t you escape the palace with us?”

“Me, escape the palace…?”

“If the emperor’s confidants find out you participated in the rebellion, they won’t leave you alone. You need to hide before the rebellion starts.”

Louise, who had been handing over the duplicated Araceli key and poisoned daggers with trembling hands, opened her reddened eyes wide at her brothers’ words.