Chapter 11: A Planned Game

Elana looked at Robellina, who still hadn’t abandoned hope even after hearing that Calliod had returned alive, with an expression of utter disbelief.

The intent in Elana’s gaze was clear, and Robellina’s face gradually twisted in response.

She seemed to realize something.

“M-My son… Where is our Alan? Where is Alan right now?”

The voice that had always been so shameless now carried a faint tremor.

She had never hesitated to harm others, yet when it came to her own child, her attachment was this deep.

“Who knows.”

Elana’s reply was deliberately vague.

“Tell me! Are you trying to get revenge on me like this?! What happened to my son?!”

Robellina’s shrill scream filled the air, red veins spreading across the whites of her eyes.

At the word “revenge,” Elana fell briefly into thought.

‘Revenge…’

She hadn’t considered this process to be revenge.

But now that it was being called that, she wondered.

‘If this could be my revenge… would it be more agonizing for her to never know Alan’s end? Or to know it?’

While Elana kept her mouth shut, Robellina was nearly driven mad with frustration.

She had assumed that since she herself had been kept alive, Alan must be safe, and now her anxiety grew sharper.

“Tell me! I said tell me! Are you toying with me right now?!”

Robellina raged, clutching her hair and pounding her chest in frustration.

After repeating the same outburst several times, she seemed to decide she needed another approach, and her demeanor shifted.

Fiddling instinctively for jewels on her person, she spoke.

“I-I’ll give you everything I have. Everything that’s mine. Just tell me what happened to my son. You’re going to be Empress, aren’t you? Please… spare Alan. He didn’t know anything about what happened back then. It was all me. Me alone.”

Her desperation for Alan—at least that much—seemed genuine, and Elana’s brows twitched faintly.

“Eight years ago, I was exactly like this.”

“Huh?”

Robellina blinked in confusion at Elana’s self-mocking tone.

“I said the same thing—that you could take the throne, that I would give up all my rights—if only you would spare the House of Ridges.”

At that time, the noble council had been quick to shift its allegiance to Robellina, knowing precisely where power was flowing.

The only thing Elana could do was kneel before Robellina, who sat at the top of the council, and beg her to spare the lives of the Ridges family.

Just as Robellina was now.

“And so I spared the princess’s fiancé. So this time, you—”

“Don’t speak as though you were granting mercy, after driving the innocent to their deaths.”

“…B-But he lived, didn’t he? He lived to unite the continent and make it here, didn’t he?”

Even in her wretched state, imprisoned and disheveled, Robellina still didn’t seem to grasp her own position.

Elana, convinced this was a woman beyond saving, ended her earlier deliberation and spoke.

“He surrendered. Signed the papers to hand over the nation.”

“I-If he surrendered peacefully, then he must have—”

“He was beheaded.”

“What?”

“He was generous, at least. To take his head in a single stroke, without letting him suffer.”

Elana smiled as brightly as a blooming flower, showing not the slightest trace of pity for Alan.

“W-What… what nonsense are you spouting now?!”

“Your esteemed son now rests in a place where all can see him. His body and head hang outside the city walls.”

“Lies! Don’t lie to me!! That’s impossible! My son—our king—why would that happen?!”

Clang. Clang.

Robellina, beyond mere agitation and deep into frenzy, shook the iron bars wildly.

Flakes of reddish rust fell in clumps from the violently rattling metal.

Elana briefly wondered if, with that kind of strength, Robellina might actually be able to break the bars and escape.

“Did you really think… that Calliod would leave Alan unharmed?”

“No! No, he couldn’t have! He couldn’t!! He’s our king—our sun—this is a dream. A foul dream… just a dream…”

Robellina’s voice swung between screaming denial and muttering like a madwoman.

She paced the cell, rejecting reality over and over again.

But every sensation was far too vivid.

She tried to dismiss it as a nightmare, but biting her nails, yanking her hair, even slapping her own cheeks didn’t wake her.

The more she insisted it was a dream, the sharper and clearer everything became.

Most of all, Calliod’s face rose before her eyes—etched in such vivid detail.

A dream that would not break could only be called one thing: reality.

With bloodshot eyes, Robellina glared at Elana and spat her words through clenched teeth.

“It was you. You ordered it, didn’t you?! You told them to take my son’s head! Just for revenge! That’s why you’ve been so meek and obedient with me all this time, isn’t it?!”

“What does it matter if I did or didn’t? All that matters is how satisfying it was for me in that moment.”

“You wretch!!”

Robellina thrust her arms through the bars again, clawing desperately to grab Elana.

But she had no hope of reaching her—her fingertips couldn’t so much as brush Elana’s clothes.

Elana slowly lowered her eyelids, then raised them again, her voice dry and rough as she asked,

“Have you truly never imagined such an end? After all the monumental crimes you committed, did you really sleep peacefully every night?”

“W-Wait. Now that I think of it… that wasn’t an accident, was it?”

“…”

“You planned it. You saved him at the mines. That was a staged accident, wasn’t it? Ha… it was you, you!”

When she found she could not physically reach Elana, Robellina drew her hands back, grinding her teeth so hard it was audible.

“Of course I planned it. It was sheer luck for me that you were so drunk on victory at the time that you couldn’t see a thing.”

Elana took a heavy step forward and shoved her hand through the bars, seizing Robellina by the collar and yanking her hard.

The force slammed Robellina’s face against the iron.

“Ghk—!”

Elana ignored the choked grunt, her eyes burning with poisonous light.

“You should have agreed at letting Killian live. You never should have handed me the right to judge.”

Though her voice was parched, a faint trace of emotion seeped into it.

Eight years ago, on that day, Robellina had spared Calliod’s life—but only after attaching a condition.

A condition born from her desire to savor Elana’s pain and suffering.

Forcing Elana to personally cut away her beloved and his entire household without mercy—

Making the esteemed princess pass the death sentence on the one she had loved for so long, and dragging that cherished person down into the status of a slave—this had been a delightful amusement for Robellina.

The more Elana suffered, the happier she became.

Elana didn’t need to ask why Robellina had set such a condition.

She could see right through her—not just the reason for the condition, but the reason she had spared Elana’s life in the first place.

With a derisive scoff, Elana let out a short, mocking laugh.

“No… you never should have kept me alive. I’m sure it was entertaining—watching me writhe in agony. And I’m certain there was some calculation in it as well. You thought that if you spared me and at least pretended to treat me well, you wouldn’t lose public favor.

But you shouldn’t have done it.”

For whatever reason, Robellina should never have let Elana live.

That cruel act—done for her own profit and pleasure—had given Elana a very small, but very real, chance to bring a storm upon her.

Her voice dripping with scorn, Elana openly mocked Robellina’s complacency and stupidity.

“Grhh… l-let… go…”

Robellina’s words came out slurred as she struggled to break free from Elana’s grasp.

But no matter how much she tried, it was useless—there was no prying loose the grip of the seemingly frail princess.

‘I didn’t even feed her properly—how does she have this kind of strength?!’

With nothing left in her but malice, Elana only tightened her hold, completely ignoring Robellina’s desperate struggle.

“Do you know this? That mine he was sent to—just beyond the mountain it sits on lies the Gladius border.”

At those words, Robellina’s eyes flew wide despite her pained groans.

“Oh… then maybe you don’t know this either? That I bribed the mine’s slave overseer.”

“I—I took everything you had with my own hands, urgh! H-how could you bribe anyone? D-Don’t make me laugh—kgh, ngh!”

“Did you really think I’d hand over everything without keeping something back?”

For example, something like my mother’s keepsake… something I always kept on me.