The hazy air of dawn tickled her closed eyelids.

Kareina slowly opened her eyes. Perhaps because she had slept soundly for the first time in a while, her condition seemed particularly good today.

Kareina sat up and briefly placed her arms against the headboard, then lowered both legs to the floor. When she cast a brief glance at the chair beside the bed, the image of the man who had been sitting there soon came to mind.

The last conversation she had with him before falling asleep also crossed her mind.

The possibility that something had gone wrong with the child. No, the possibility that something had already gone wrong long ago.

Her muddled mind settled coldly.

In the perfect stillness of early morning, Kareina simply waited for someone to enter. Eventually, a maid carrying medicine opened the bedroom door.

“Good morning, Your Majesty. I’ll prepare your meal shortly.”

The maid placed a medicine bottle on the table with a cheerful greeting. Kareina stopped her as she immediately turned to leave.

“I have something I’m curious about.”

“Curious about?”

Even before the question was asked, tension appeared on the maid’s face. It was strange. She must be a lady from a good family who had perfectly mastered etiquette and carried out her work calmly. Yet why did she tense up whenever spoken to, showing signs of discomfort?

To blame individual personality would be insufficient—the court physicians who came and went, the maids, all were similarly alike. They would act kindly but immediately become uncomfortable after just a few words and show signs of wanting to leave.

Kareina thought she knew the reason.

“By any chance, is there something you’re hiding from me?”

“……Pardon?”

“Just as I said. I get the feeling there’s a secret everyone wants to hide from me.”

The maid’s small face instantly turned pale.

“I-I don’t know what you mean. I’m sorry, Your Majesty!”

She repeatedly apologized and fled the room as if escaping. It was a conversation without much gain. But that alone was enough.

Kareina, drawing an empty smile at the corners of her mouth, stroked her belly out of habit. Her abdomen, which should have swelled somewhat by now, was flat as a lie.

“I should have known sooner.”

There was no child. She shouldn’t have expected the child to be fine after drinking that poison that had ravaged her insides in the first place.

A fishy taste soon emerged from her lower lip that she had been grinding.

The unpleasant taste permeating her mouth was irritating. And equally irritating was something else.

The title ‘Your Majesty’ that had somehow attached itself to the mouths of the palace servants coming and going from the bedroom. And the all-too-familiar appearance of the quarters that gave the illusion that the master had merely returned from a brief outing.

Kareina picked up the medicine bottle the maid had left behind. She didn’t know exactly what was inside. But she was certain it wasn’t medicine manufactured with consideration for the fetus’s safety.

Kareina opened the bathroom door and poured all the medicine in her hand into the white washbasin.

Simon’s new envoy passed through the northern checkpoint. It was the very next day after the unofficial envoy that had returned from the capital crossed the border.

This time it would be an official visit.

Raul focused on understanding Simon’s internal situation with newly acquired information alongside his ministers. The situation remained poor. The spy planted in Simon reported the information gathered thus far.

“Simon’s king is worried about rebellion. Though the northern campaign failed, in the process the forces on the side of the third prince, who had poor relations with the king, expanded rapidly. Public opinion favors the third prince over the king, so it’s difficult to arbitrarily eliminate him.”

“From their position, if they could send the disliked son to the battlefield and dispose of him without lifting a finger, that would be the best result. But we must also calculate the possibility of the third prince staging a rebellion before that.”

In the midst of this, Wynter Tirant seemed to be standing on the king’s side, instigating the outbreak of war. Though it seemed despicable, meeting and cutting him down on the battlefield wouldn’t be bad either.

After finishing the meeting, Raul’s steps naturally headed toward the Empress’s palace.

Kareina, who had said she had strange thoughts about the child, had been quiet for two days since that day. She couldn’t possibly be quiet, yet she was. It was reason enough to check.

Arriving at the Empress’s palace, Raul discovered Kareina sitting by the lakeside. She seemed to be watching the white swans on the lake.

The sky-blue dress flowing along her body lines harmonized with the mild season, like a single painting. Raul sat on the grass following Kareina.

Kareina began the conversation in a calm voice.

“The one who poisoned me was Wynter Tirant. As you know. He said it was revenge for Princess Charlotte Simon’s death. He also knew I was with child. By harming the child, he seemed to want to hold you responsible for the princess’s death as well.”

“I know. Wynter is being monitored, so don’t worry. I’ll behead him soon and make him pay for his crimes.”

“But I never killed the princess.”

Kareina, taking her eyes off the swans, turned her head toward Raul. Her large eyes seemed to contain the color of elegant swans, somehow looking pale. Raul felt his mind becoming disordered.

“I saw people come from Simon. Did they demand you hand over the murderer?”

“That doesn’t matter. Whether you really killed Simon’s princess or not, I won’t hand you over to Simon.”

“It matters to me. Your Majesty hated me more because of the Simon princess’s death. So the truth is important to me. Charlotte stabbed her own neck herself. Not me.”

The image of Kareina from the past, holding a knife while covered in blood on her clenched face, overlapped. Suppressing his churning insides, Raul thought again about Charlotte Simon’s death.

The truth of the incident that had only been buried began to be clearly organized.

Charlotte, who came to Tirantus for the engagement ceremony, was particularly concerned about Kareina.

At the time, he had dismissed it as the whim of a woman facing marriage. But it wasn’t something to dismiss. The evidence of collusion between Philip and Kareina discovered after Charlotte arrived at the imperial palace. Though not decisive, when gathered together, that evidence that was sufficiently suspicious was clearly Charlotte’s doing.

However, at the time, hatred had blinded him and he hadn’t realized. Even when Kareina shed tears and begged that she hadn’t stabbed the princess, he hadn’t believed her.

But,

“You changed your story afterward. You said you lured and killed the princess to take revenge on me, and that you also helped Philip enter the imperial palace……”

“Because I thought you would execute me. I lied because that seemed more comfortable.”

It felt like bees were buzzing in his ears. However, Kareina continued coldly.

“I know the child is dead.”

“Kareina.”

“I know you’ve been lying about the child in my belly all this time. Did you enjoy watching me smile obsequiously and beg you because of the child?”

“No. That wasn’t my intention. I was just worried you’d be shocked,”

Raul pleaded desperately and tightly grasped the white hand on the grass. Kareina, who had tried to pull her hand away then gave up, closed her eyes tightly.

“Fine.”

The eyes that opened after a long while had settled quietly.

“Your intentions don’t matter. Whether you enjoyed it or not doesn’t matter anymore. Because Your Majesty is now a person completely unrelated to me.”

Kareina, standing up abruptly, left words like a notification.

“Please let me leave. I’m no longer royalty or Empress, so there’s no reason to stay here anymore.”

Raul, standing up while holding the hand that tried to shake him off again, instead grabbed both of Kareina’s shoulders and trapped her so she couldn’t escape.

“Please stay in the palace and receive treatment from the court physician at least until you’re fully recovered.”

“……”

“It’s the Emperor’s command, so you must obey.”

Unlike his insides where fierce waves seemed to rise, Kareina looked up at him with a quite detached face. What happened in an instant was her taking something from her bosom and placing it against her own neck.

“!”

Raul, barely coming to his senses, twisted Kareina’s slender wrist. Along with a groan, red blood droplets scattered across the green grass. A piece of glass stained red fell with a thud on top of it.

Raul’s face, confirming the blood, turned deathly pale.

However, fortunately Kareina’s neck was unharmed. The moment he twisted her hand, only her palm was cut by the glass shard.

Kareina muttered calmly before the Emperor who seemed unable to breathe.

“You can’t keep me locked up here.”

Blood dripped behind her as she turned back toward the Empress’s palace.

Raul, unable to move for a long while as if rooted, slowly bent his knees. The glass shard that had fallen to the ground was transparent once the bloodstains were wiped away.

The maid who confirmed the glass shard’s identity together had a pale face.

“It seems to be part of a broken medicine bottle. I’m sorry. Her Majesty said she would clean up what she broke, but it seems she didn’t clean it all up.”

“……The medicine. Did she drink all the medicine given to her?”

“No. She refuses, saying it’s unnecessary.”

Raul clenched his fist tight. The sharp fragment crumbled into several pieces and blood trickled between his fingers.

“Y-Your Majesty!”

The startled attendants fidgeted restlessly and stamped their feet.

But Raul didn’t feel much pain. No, this degree of pain was nothing. Compared to the hell the woman he had ruined was currently trapped in, this was nothing at all.