“You probably don’t remember, Madam. On the day of the attack, His Highness had an injured arm.”

Of course I remembered, though I couldn’t reveal this to Norbert.

The first day I met Carlo, he was sitting in a chair with one arm bandaged.

With his characteristically arrogant demeanor and a gaze filled with utter boredom.

“It was an injury he sustained while returning from his victory in the Northcheshire region. A very minor wound. What surprised everyone was that it came from one of his own subordinates.”

“What?”

“I heard the soldier who swung his sword at His Highness committed s*icide on the spot after failing to kill him.”

S*icide…?

I trembled involuntarily from shock.

The image of him occasionally looking down at the table with mysterious thoughts and cold eyes flashed through my mind.

What had he been thinking about?

The will he had modified just before entering the tea room…?

The face of the soldier who had swung a sword at him…?

Perhaps the poisoned tea his wife was planning to serve him…

“Oh? You’ve injured your arm?”

When I asked about his injured arm, he stared at me with emotionless eyes for a brief moment that seemed to last forever.

I had thought they were just cold eyes that gave the illusion of seeing through people…

But after hearing Norbert’s words, I realized his eyes had held a hollow cynicism, as if asking whether I truly didn’t know.

“His Highness seemed somewhat tired that day when he returned from Northcheshire. Different from usual. He drank a little while receiving treatment from his physician, and lost in thought, he looked exactly like…”

Norbert briefly closed his mouth and took a deep breath, perhaps recalling Carlo from that day just as I was.

“It’s a frightening thought I dare not speak aloud, something I tried never to think about again… but at that time, he looked like…”

Watching him close his eyes tightly and then open them, I felt an inexplicable tension rising within me.

It consumed my thoughts—that first day, when he created such a terrible, intimidating atmosphere that was difficult to face, yet emptily laughed as he picked up the teacup.

“Someone waiting for life to end, thoroughly sick of living.”

Crash!

The moment I knocked the teacup from his hand, the sharp fragments scattering everywhere appeared before my eyes.

Simultaneously, I recalled his pale, frozen eyes staring intensely into mine.

A feeling of something snapping.

The sense of foreboding that had risen to my throat seemed to shatter into pieces and scatter away.

The shock that had just settled felt like broken pieces digging into my skin, making my chest sting and my solar plexus throb.

“At that time… I felt an indescribable sense of déjà vu. The same feeling I had when Lord Wilhelm passed away not long after the late Grand Duke died, and then when we lost the late Madam as well. Of course, it was just my unfounded worry…”

My heart, precariously hanging on Norbert’s words that blamed everything on himself, completely collapsed.

Carlo, that man… could he possibly have wanted to end his life just like that?

“Back then, I lived with a vague anxiety that I might lose everyone I served. That’s why I dared to… express my suspicions about the lamberoo tea Your Highness had prepared. I hoped His Highness would become angry. If that anger made him resolve to seek revenge, at least that would give him a reason to live.”

Norbert looked at me with a face full of guilt.

“But His Highness drank the tea, and you saved him. In the end, you were the one who made His Highness smile again. I had misjudged everything.”

Norbert’s judgment had been correct.

He had lost his entire family but still had to fight to protect the Empire’s northern front. On his way back with news of victory, one of his soldiers tried to kill him and, failing, chose s*icide.

Returning to his castle with bitter betrayal and accumulated fatigue, his wife was planning the perfect murder by offering him Lamberoo tea laced with sleeping medication.

“I’m sorry, Madam… I’m truly sorry. For having such thoughts…”

Norbert bowed his head, acting as if he had committed an unforgivable act by expressing suspicion about the Lamberoo tea.

“No…”

Bewildered, I barely managed to speak.

“No, Norbert… You don’t need to apologize… Please don’t apologize like this…”

Not knowing what to say, I just shook my head as Norbert knelt down.

“It’s all right if you dismiss me, Madam. I deserve punishment for keeping my grave sin silent until now… I selfishly wanted to stay just a little longer because I enjoyed seeing His Highness regain his former self through you. I planned to tell you the truth after watching a bit more. Madam, please…”

“It’s all right. I’m really all right, Norbert.”

I quickly ran to Norbert and tried to help him up.

In truth, I was tormented by my inability to tell him that Lea had indeed done it, that his suspicion had been a report rightfully owed to Carlo.

I had deceived everyone.

The attack was Lea’s doing, but knowing everything, I had shamelessly pretended to have lost my memory and asked Carlo to protect me.

Moreover, when he was suffering alone with a thigh injury from the castle attack, unable to trust anyone, I had even blackmailed him, using his wounded vulnerability to help me gain recognition as grand duchess.

That wasn’t all.

I asked to share a bedroom, complained about the servants’ poor treatment, and constantly tried to deceive him.

He repeatedly caught my lies but never once tried to drive me away.

He saved me from drowning at Rishelt Island, declared my safety was his priority in front of Empress Genevieve, and now…

“See? You’re the one lifting me to the edge of heaven and then burying me deep in the ground, all of it.”

“Let me be clear about one thing. When I kiss you, hold your waist, embrace you—well, even when we do more than that in the future—I’ve never been swept away by emotions, and I never will be. One person is enough for me.”

He even trusts me…

I could no longer even begin to guess this man’s heart.

The scene from the first day I saw him wouldn’t leave my mind, making me increasingly afraid.

Did Carlo really intend to die back then?

Is that why he rewrote his will and casually picked up the teacup I offered?

What kind of mindset would allow him…

To say he trusts me while clearly knowing his wife and others tried to kill him, yet burying all those suspicions deep inside?

My eyes stung as if a thick fog had suddenly appeared before them. I wiped away my tears with the back of my hand and pressed my lips tightly together.

I had no right to cry after stubbornly insisting on staying by his side, shamelessly thinking only of my own happiness…

My fear of the betrayal and pain he would feel after I left was merely my excuse.

I had to find it.

I needed to prepare a way for him to forget me as quickly as possible after I disappeared.

“I’ve been waiting for the day you could help. It’s been a long time.”

Emperor Cedric stroked his face, which looked like nothing but skin remained.

Yet his eyes remained sharp as they glinted maliciously in the darkness while looking at Carlo.

“Your father was excellent. He did his best to protect the Empire and me. Unlike you, who uses me.”

“Of course I’m different from my father. I won’t die for Your Majesty or under the pretext of protecting the Empire.”

Cedric’s wrinkles deepened at the chilling response.

“That’s always been your problem. That habit of being arrogant and speaking without a filter.”

Cedric glanced at Carlo’s scabbard and moved his stiff lips.

“But now the arrogant you has developed a weakness: your wife. I thought you would never create such a thing in your lifetime. Now it’s your turn to show loyalty. You wouldn’t want to appear with blood on your hands in front of your wife, would you?”

“……”

“You need to think about your wife regaining her memories, Carlo. Your wife… she’s of that sinful Azanie bloodline.”

“……”

“If you kill everyone involved in the St. Berte Castle attack to protect your wife alone, what will happen to her as the sole survivor? The day will certainly come when she regains her memories and must confess her crimes, and eventually you’ll face a moment when you must execute her as an example. The Empire’s people will only accept if you apply the same method you’ve used to punish crimes.”

“……”

“But I have the authority to save her even from that, Carlo.”

When Carlo gave no particular response, Cedric took a deep breath.

“You may pretend otherwise, but you probably want to kill me right now. However, outside this door are not only your people but also the Empress’s. If I die, you’ll be executed immediately on charges of killing the Emperor. Of course, if you die, your wife will be executed even more easily.”

Cedric sneered as he saw Carlo’s jaw tighten after deliberately provoking him.

“But the Empress hasn’t been able to kill me because of your surveillance, so I should be grateful to you. If I weren’t grateful, I wouldn’t have mentioned immunity rights.”

As Cedric said, if the Emperor died after someone left his bedroom, both factions were prepared to immediately frame whoever had left as the murderer.

Cedric intended to use this standoff between Carlo and the Empress to finally reclaim his position.

Carlo’s long eyes narrowed slightly as he looked down at Cedric with an inscrutable expression.

“Does this mean you’ll accept my will?”

“I understand, Your Majesty.”

“……”

“Please stay in good health.”

After leaving the Emperor’s bedroom, Carlo quietly gestured, and one of his men among those assigned to the Emperor’s chamber promptly approached.

While giving instructions in a lowered voice, Carlo’s gaze fixed on Crown Prince Aiden, who was striding down the corridor.

As Aiden approached the Emperor’s bedroom, soldiers formed a line in front of the Crown Prince’s entourage as if they had been waiting.

Aiden, already displeased by the news that Carlo was meeting with the Emperor, scowled fiercely as if this were an unforgivable rudeness.

“How dare you block my way!”

Carlo greeted Aiden with a formal bow.

Though Cedric’s counterattack was unwelcome, it wasn’t entirely without benefit.

It had given him a chance to examine his priorities clearly.

“Greetings, Your Highness Aiden.”

What he wanted was for Lea von Hedegen to live as his wife forever.

Yes, in the end, whether she had her memories or not wasn’t important.

What mattered was making her realize that he was her only refuge in the world—not just when she had lost her memories, but even on the day she regained them—imprinting on her the choice to select him.

After his conversation with the Emperor, he resolved to drag everyone except Lea down to the ground.

He had tried to resolve things peacefully for her sake, but hadn’t people already started treating her as a criminal?

So from now on, why not make them all rush at each other like demons and devour one another miserably?

“I regret to inform you, Your Highness, but you and Her Majesty the Empress cannot enter His Majesty the Emperor’s bedroom. These are His Majesty’s orders.”

Politely and discreetly, as if he had done nothing himself.

Because only then would his lovely wife, who called him good and kind, never be able to turn away from him.