14. The Knot (2)

That place could be called the center of the tangled knot.

Another major incident occurred in the Imperial Capital.

“…His Majesty?!”

At the sudden news, the Empress turned pale and lost her senses. As she collapsed like a puppet with cut strings, her servants screamed in panic.

“Your Majesty the Empress!”

“Call the physician!”

The Emperor had passed away.

Though the Emperor’s health hadn’t been good, it wasn’t bad enough to die so suddenly. Of course, it was revealed that an artificial hand had been involved.

“That insolent bastard dared to assassinate Father!”

The culprit was said to be the Emperor’s head chamberlain.

They say the Prince discovered him trying to suffocate the Emperor with a pillow when he went to pay his respects.

The Prince immediately removed the head chamberlain and executed him on the spot, but it seems the discovery came too late as the Emperor was already dead.

“That’s nonsense! The head chamberlain served His Majesty by his side for over 30 years! Why would he assassinate His Majesty!”

The Princess, who visited the Emperor’s palace to assess the situation since the Empress had collapsed, refuted the Prince’s words. The circumstances didn’t make sense.

“Are you saying I’m lying?!”

The Prince shouted back instead.

“Why did you kill the head chamberlain? If he was the culprit, shouldn’t you have imprisoned him and investigated if there were others behind this?”

“…That was– because it was urgent! Who knows what else he might have done if I’d left him!”

“With just a pillow as his weapon?”

“Shut up! Is that what’s important right now?! Father has passed away! You’re just arguing point by point without shedding a single tear! Are you really the Princess!”

The Princess looked at the Prince with sunken eyes and asked.

“Ha… Are you sure the head chamberlain really did it?”

The Prince had rarely visited the Emperor.

Yet coincidentally, on one of the rare occasions he came to pay respects, he witnessed the head chamberlain trying to assassinate the Emperor?

“W-what? Are you saying I’m lying?! Or huh! Are you implying I did it?!”

The Prince approached the Princess threateningly.

“Huh? Say it! Since your brother has been so generous with you, you can’t even distinguish what should and shouldn’t be said?”

His hand reaching out as if to grab her collar was firmly caught.

“What! Let go of her!”

It was Heviathan, the Deputy Commander of the Princess’s guards.

“How dare you raise a hand!”

“My duty is to protect Her Highness the Princess.”

“You bastard…. Not knowing your place…”

The Prince’s free hand moved toward Heviathan. With a slap, Shapiro’s head turned, but his expression remained unchanged.

He blocked the hand aimed at the Princess but didn’t stop the one aimed at himself. With that one hit to compensate for his disloyalty in grabbing a member of the imperial family, he released the Prince and stepped back.

“Ha, dogs and cattle alike treat me lightly. As soon as I become Emperor, I’ll send you to the border.”

“…Emperor, you say?”

“Since His Majesty has passed away, I must ascend to the throne. We can’t leave such an august position empty for long. It wouldn’t be good for the empire.”

Though his father had died, the Prince was more interested in ascending to the throne than the funeral.

It seems the criticism about not shedding tears when Father passed away only applied to the Princess. The Princess watched her so-called brother with cold, sunken eyes.

“Brother, you haven’t proven your succession.”

“Does that matter? Then who else would inherit that position?”

“……”

“Surely you, a woman, wouldn’t have such an insolent daydream.”

The Prince snorted and turned away.

His tone suggested even he thought what he said was absurd.

‘I should have done this earlier. Now the country is finally finding its proper place.’

The Prince had once stayed in a Southern Kingdom for a year in his early twenties for study (though it was closer to sightseeing). During his stay, receiving the royal family’s lavish hospitality, Gillian was quite surprised by many things.

It was the fact that this small country had more absolute royal authority than the Macfeyden Empire.

That country’s subjects and people served their king almost like a god. How could a mere king live more grandly than an emperor!

Moreover, he really liked their strict primogeniture succession system and concubine system. Besides the queen, there were six royal concubines and countless court ladies.

Isn’t that how a king should be!

There are so many beautiful women in the world! It’s so unfair that even as emperor, not just a king, he could only have one empress!

Prince Gillian began to be dissatisfied with Macfeyden’s succession system from then on.

The irony was that although that kingdom had completely corrupted due to its lazy royal politics, and eventually collapsed unable to withstand foreign invasion after being shaken by peasant revolts due to excessive exploitation by local lords, it remained in the Prince’s mind as the most ideal form of state.

He had a very convenient mental structure that only saw what he wanted to see.

“I’ll find you a good marriage partner. Keep quiet and prepare for the state funeral for now. Make sure the coronation ceremony follows right after the funeral preparations.”

He said women couldn’t do it, yet he assigned all the work to her.

If you’re born a princess, it’s only natural to work hard for your brother’s convenience. She’s quite capable at work too.

‘Of course I’d do better if I did it myself, but I have more important things to do than trivial tasks, so it can’t be helped.’

He had been quite comfortable thanks to the Princess until now, so it might be inconvenient work-wise if he married her off.

‘Should I just tie her to someone suitable within the empire and let her handle the work?’

The Prince pondered.

Come to think of it, he probably shouldn’t overwork himself if he wanted to return his body to normal. He needed to somehow revive that dead thing(?) by summoning every doctor and healer in the empire, and focus again on succession.

Isn’t that actually the more important task?

Then he wouldn’t have time to worry about trivial work.

‘I should compare options. Whether to send her abroad or marry her off to someone manageable…’

The Prince, still lacking in reality awareness and self-awareness, left while busily planning the future in ways that suited him. His retreating figure showed no sign of grief or mourning for his father’s death.

“……”

The Princess swallowed hard watching his back, but she couldn’t change people. There was much work to be done, and in the current situation, there was no time to dwell in sorrow.

“…If I hear that today’s events have spread beyond the Imperial Palace, I will execute all of you who failed to properly serve the Emperor.”

The Princess judged that news of the Emperor’s death should not leave for now in the current situation.

If news of the Emperor’s death spread outside while there was no successor, it could create tremendous anxiety throughout the empire. This could lead to unfortunate events like foreign invasion or civil unrest.

“…Yes!”

The servants answered trembling.

“They say Her Majesty the Empress has awakened.”

“Is that so? Let’s go to the Empress’s palace.”

After earnestly instructing the Emperor’s palace servants and arranging to forbid entry except for a few authorized people, she had them explain to the outside that there had been an assassination attempt on the Emperor which failed, and security at the Emperor’s palace had doubled afterward. This was to prevent unnecessary rumors from the sudden closure order.

Only after taking these urgent measures did the Princess move to the Empress’s palace.

“Arrest the head chamberlain’s entire family immediately!”

The Empress shouted as soon as she saw the Princess.

“What?”

It seems the Prince had visited while the Princess was taking various measures at the Emperor’s palace. Whatever the Prince had said, the Empress’s claims were quite firm.

“There must be some plot. Shouldn’t we arrest them immediately and investigate the inside story? That way His Majesty won’t be wronged…”

The Empress suddenly seemed to realize the Emperor’s death anew and briefly sobbed.

“We can’t do that without procedures when nothing is concluded yet. They’re a family that has served for generations.”

“But they say the head chamberlain did it.”

“What reason would the head chamberlain have to assassinate His Majesty! He was loyal, Mother, you know that!”

Though the Princess didn’t want to raise her voice since the Empress still seemed greatly shocked, she couldn’t help raising her voice at the Empress’s increasingly frustrating words.

“But… the Prince…”

“Mother, you are not only a mother but also Her Majesty the Empress of this empire. The lives of countless imperial citizens rest on the imperial family’s shoulders. You know you shouldn’t make such personal judgments.”

The side effects of bringing in an empress from a humble family due to the Hebeta system often manifested like this.

The Empress wasn’t someone who grew up experiencing the fierce central politics. So when such crisis situations arose, she often showed weakness and inability to make decisions.

Until now, it hadn’t mattered much. There were no other imperial consorts or concubines besides the Empress, and making the Prince the crown prince wasn’t the result of political maneuvering or power struggles either.

As long as there was proof of succession, that fulfilled all conditions, so there was no need for things to become fierce or desperately scheme within relationships and situations.

Of course, the Prince had to receive considerable education as the future Emperor, and after becoming Crown Prince, had to dig deep in fields like imperial studies, politics, and economics, but the Empress didn’t.

Though it wasn’t a small amount she had to work hard to learn and acquire over years to show imperial dignity—like internal imperial affairs, etiquette, and protocol that needed to be newly learned upon entering the imperial family—it couldn’t change her basic nature.

She hadn’t grown much from the passive young lady who lived as a provincial minor noble before suddenly becoming a Hebeta. Moreover, the current Empress was naturally timid, so she struggled particularly with situations like this.

“Surely the Prince wouldn’t have… done that to his father.”

So the Empress didn’t want to accept it.

Though her face and words didn’t quite match, she desperately denied it anyway.

Actually, she knew these circumstances were too obvious. She just wanted to avoid facing it.

How many people would want to believe their son killed their husband when dealing with their husband’s death was already painful enough?

“Brother is more interested in the coronation than the funeral right now. Do you still… think he’s innocent?”

“……”

“Moreover, Brother is currently biologically incapable of succession. Haven’t you heard the physician’s diagnosis?”

For the same reason, the Empress didn’t want to accept that her son was impotent. Though he fell short in terms of character, ability, and biology, the Empress had always avoided facing these facts.

Seeing the Empress’s stubbornly closed mouth, the Princess sighed.

‘Father… What should I do…’

Princess Madielle stood up without further comment.

‘In the end, is that the only way…’

The Princess returned to her palace and wrote a letter.

Soon a messenger carrying the letter left the Imperial Capital.

* * *