“The Empress was said to be a delicate and kind woman who feared even a single small insect. That innocent, pitiful woman…… at such a young age, helplessly perished.”

If Rockfort had been there, things would have been different. But the Empress died while he was away, so everything was his fault for not properly protecting his wife.

“I am sorry, Your Majesty.”

“No. It’s not time to mourn yet.”

Rockfort looked straight at Jayden.

“Someone harbored filthy desires and killed the Empress. They must have had…… the nauseating thought that if the current Empress died, they could make their daughter the new Empress.”

Deep hatred could be felt in his frost-like voice.

“I have seen many such people. You who have served me all your life know this too, don’t you?”

Unable to answer, Jayden knelt on one knee and bowed his head.

“Mobilize the entire Imperial Knight Order to thoroughly investigate the circumstances of this incident. Even if there were no witnesses, the Imperial Palace has eyes and ears in the walls. If we dig persistently, the truth will surely emerge.”

“I will follow your command.”

“I command you not to discriminate against anyone, and to use any means necessary. Suspect everyone, and investigate everyone. I permit it in the Emperor’s name.”

The position of Empress of the Holy Petrion Empire, which held hegemony over the continent, was a sufficient motive for murder.

“……I will keep that in mind.”

“I will find that devil, and avenge the Empress with my own hands.”

Rockfort drew his sword and thrust it into the floor of the tent.

It meant that the men of the Petrion Empire were swearing to God with everything they had.

* * *

Through hazy consciousness, a completely white light appeared.

Was it death again?

Reality was always more cruel than Elia thought. The sensation of falling with Cecilia remained vivid.

“Elia? Elia, are you conscious?”

Could this also be an auditory hallucination after death? She rather wished it was.

“Elia, look here…… everything is fine now.”

Her mother’s voice became clearer. As her eyes gradually adjusted to the light, she could tell this was her bedroom.

“How…… possible……”

Clearly, Elia had fallen from a high tower with Cecilia. She distinctly remembered the fear and terror of that moment, the pain throughout her body, and the darkness.

“I should be dead……”

Had another incomprehensible thing happened?

“Elia, don’t worry. God helped you. When the fall happened, you hit a large tree first, which absorbed the impact.”

If that was truly God’s help, she wanted to refuse it.

“Sister Cecilia……”

Her mother’s face subtly hardened.

“She was unlucky. The imperial physician said she would have died instantly, so there wouldn’t have been any pain.”

Wrong. Until the end, Cecilia had repeatedly uttered words of obsessive curse to Elia. She had barely used her last breath for that.

“Everyone leave.”

At the Duchess’s stern command, the head lady-in-waiting and physician who had been attending withdrew.

When the door closed and they were alone, Lorelaine approached Elia so close that her breath touched Elia’s face.

“Elia, I’m going to ask you a very important question now, and you must answer honestly to everything I say.”

Elia had seen this look before. It was a look filled with fearsome strong determination and ambition.

“What exactly happened between you and Cecilia that day?”

Elia reflexively frowned. The last image she had of her sister was not the person she had known all her life. Just recalling those malicious eyes gave her chills.

“Our family’s fate depends on this! What did Cecilia do? Whatever it is, tell this mother everything that happened that day. Hurry!”

Cecilia was a monster. And the same was true of her mother who was now pressing Elia.

“Sister…… forcibly embraced me and threw herself out the window. No matter how hard I tried to break free, her strength was frighteningly strong…… I don’t remember anything after that.”

She wanted to cover up Cecilia’s last words, not telling them to anyone.

She wanted to preserve the memory that Cecilia, now dead, was once her kind sister. After all, she had committed adultery and paid for it with her life.

“Before that, what conversation did you have? Why were you alone together? Did Cecilia perhaps……”

Elia sighed faintly and stared at her mother.

“Don’t worry, mother.”

Lorelaine unconsciously flinched at Elia’s blue eyes that seemed to see through everything. They weren’t the eyes of the young daughter she knew.

“No one knows…… that you secretly sent abortion medicine through me. No, now that sister is dead, only you and I know.”

Elia looked straight at her mother’s hardened expression.

“I knew. Sister needed abortion medicine, and you disguised poison as abortion medicine to try to kill her.”

“Elia? What are you saying……”

“Sister is dead anyway. Just as you wished. So there’s no need to deny or hide it anymore.”

The tragedy had all unfolded where Elia couldn’t see. Her mother’s desire to kill Cecilia with poison out of jealousy for becoming Empress had made Elia a criminal.

“When sister requested abortion medicine, were you happy that an opportunity to poison her arose? What were you thinking when you handed me that poison, knowing I was completely ignorant?”

Lorelaine firmly gripped Elia’s wrist and looked straight into her eyes.

“Elia, watch your words! I never even thought of such a thing! I simply couldn’t turn away from Cecilia’s request. She lost her virtue and conceived another man’s child while His Majesty was away at war…… What else could I have done?”

A child conceived through adultery while her husband was away, not having even consummated their marriage. The sister’s foolishness in trying to abort that life had invited death.

“Yes, sister did wrong. Everyone did.”

But why did Elia, who knew nothing, have to bear the punishment alone?

In her previous life, Rockfort had suspected and hated Elia until the end.

“Sister Cecilia wasn’t the only sinner. What you gave her wasn’t abortion medicine, but poison.”

To prove her innocence to Rockfort, she had drunk the medicine her mother gave her, only to realize the cruel reality again.

“What meaning would there be if I took the Empress’s position after committing such a crime? His Majesty is not a foolish person.”

Rockfort would have known the truth from the beginning.

That’s why he didn’t recite the vows at the wedding ceremony and looked at Elia with cold eyes.

“Have you ever thought about how harsh a life I would have to live because of mother’s and sister’s mistakes? If I become the second empress like this, would I be able to live as a human being?”

Emotions welled up suddenly. Elia had always thought she could never surpass her dead sister. That the shadow of the already dead Cecilia was so large in Rockfort’s mind that there was no place for her to live.

But that wasn’t it. It was all, all their fault.

“……No, no. Elia, you’re making a big misunderstanding. Did Cecilia tell you that?”

Elia closed her mouth.

“You don’t know, but Cecilia always had a cunning side that hid her true intentions. She pretended to be gentler and kinder than anyone on the outside, but……”

“Stop it! Sister is dead, just as you wished. Isn’t that right?”

“No.”

Lorelaine looked at Elia with a frightening expression, then sighed.

“It’s true that I gave Cecilia abortion medicine. She asked me to. I was shocked, but…… for the sake of the family’s honor, I had no choice but to grant her request. Even your father doesn’t know about this.”

The hand that had been gripping Elia’s wrist loosened. Instead, Lorelaine stroked the back of her daughter’s hand.

“I don’t know what Cecilia told you, but I…… had no intention of making you Empress. If I had wanted that, I could have sent you instead of Cecilia from the beginning, so why would I use poison later?”

The former Emperor’s promise was to marry ‘a daughter of Duke Theon,’ with no stipulation that it had to be the eldest daughter.

Moreover, since Cecilia wasn’t the Duchess’s biological daughter, there would have been no problem sending Elia instead.

“But what you gave me was a deadly poison. Don’t lie to me.”

Lorelaine bit her lip firmly. Contrary to Elia’s expectation, she looked quite perplexed.

“That was medicine I asked a trusted person to obtain. Right now…… that’s all I can say.”

If Lorelaine’s words were true, then she had handed over the poison without knowing it was poison.

Was it true? It was difficult to judge at this point.

“Please believe that I had no reason to kill Cecilia to make you empress. If I had wanted that, I could have simply sent you to the Imperial Palace from the beginning.”

Though she thought she couldn’t trust anyone anymore, that reason was credible. Rather than going through the trouble of killing Cecilia after she became empress, it would have been easier to send Elia as Empress from the start.

“Since it’s come to this, I’ll tell you this as well. The reason I decided to send Cecilia to be empress instead of my own daughter was…… because I didn’t think a gentle and kind child like you would survive well in the Imperial Palace.”

Lorelaine’s words were actually correct. In her past life, Elia had been shunned by everyone in the Imperial Palace, crying silently every day until eventually even her tears dried up.

“In comparison, Cecilia, though appearing gentle on the outside, had a strong personality and ambition, so she would not only take care of herself but also benefit our family. Your father and I discussed it and decided together.”

In the past, Elia wouldn’t have believed that Cecilia was cunning. That the Cecilia who always called Elia with a shy smile and gentle voice had such a harsh side.

“You are my only child. Naturally, your happiness was my only wish. A woman’s life changes completely depending on whom she marries.”