The words Ahazan murmured carried a weight that could not simply be dismissed as an empty threat.

Clodine could neither release the arm she clung to nor voice the desperate plea burning inside her. All she could do was send it through her eyes.

Ahazan looked down at her, gave a faint, unreadable smile, and guided her up onto the dais.

Meanwhile, a group of people were bound and escorted out of the chapel by soldiers. Among them was Valoran Lord deemed chiefly responsible for inciting the commotion.

Clodine kept turning her head, watching Valoran’s broad back as he allowed himself to be led away without resistance. The thought that he would be imprisoned for defending her twisted painfully in her chest.

“We will now begin the funeral, Your Majesty.”

The bishop announced the start of the ceremony the moment Ahazan and Clodine took their seats of honor.

Three coffins were carried down the central aisle and placed in a row before the dais. Though heavy amounts of incense had been burned to mask the stench of bodies long dead, an indistinct odor still lingered in the air.

The Imperials, who did not even know the names of the deceased, watched with indifference, as though attending any ordinary rite.

But the Rotermann people wept from the moment the coffins entered.

Barely half of those listed in the invitations had managed to attend, several had already been dragged away to prison, yet the combined wailing filled the chapel with a thunderous echo.

“Who would do such a thing? What did those girls ever do to deserve this?!”

“Your Majesty! Find the murderer!”

“Yes! We cannot simply stand by and watch this injustice!”

Their cries struck Clodine like arrows. Among the agitated voices were the maids’ own family members. Soldiers tried to block their view and silence them, but their fury would not be contained.

“Do you not wish for the dead to finally rest in peace?”

Ahazan’s voice cut cleanly through the noise.

It was not loud, but it resonated through the chapel with commanding force. The uproar died almost instantly.

“Go on. Keep shouting. I will halt the funeral at once.”

Leaning back lazily in his chair, he surveyed the captives with a cold, downward gaze.

Even those who had ignored the soldiers’ threats now hesitated, exchanging uncertain glances. Only after silence fell did Ahazan nod slightly to the bishop, signaling him to continue.

Clodine felt as though she were seated upon thorns.

She forced herself to focus solely on the ceremony. It was the last thing she could do for them.

She wanted to run down the steps, to touch the coffins with her own hands. Instead, she sat upright, fists clenched quietly on her lap.

As she accepted that she must truly let them go, memories of their time together unfurled before her eyes like painted scenes.

‘Farewell, Isla. Wedenia… and Pellier.’

Hot, clear tears streamed down her cheeks. She bit her lip to stifle the sob threatening to break free. Only the bishop’s solemn prayer for the souls of the departed seemed to steady her trembling heart.

Throughout the ceremony, Ahazan’s gaze repeatedly drifted to Clodine.

She had managed to endure the Rotermann accusations earlier, but now her face was soaked with tears.

Her small hands had turned pale, bloodless.

If he had not known how softly pink they usually were, perhaps the sight would not have scraped so harshly against his insides.

The maids’ deaths disturbed him as well.

But unlike Clodin, he viewed them not only as victims, but as a piece of a far darker truth.

Ahazan shifted his gaze to where Yuri von Lernando sat not far away.

Yuri listened to the bishop with impeccable posture. When he closed and opened his eyes in prayer, he looked so gentle, so devout, that one might mistake him for a priest of the monastery itself.

Ahazan tapped the armrest of his chair in a steady rhythm.

The funeral had conveniently gathered several interesting figures in one place. The fragments in his mind began to align.

The image began by marking a point on the timeline the beginning.

The kidnapping of the women.

The discovery of their corpses in the square.

The timing was too precise to be coincidence. Like fireworks igniting exactly at the victory celebration and royal wedding.

That meant someone intimately familiar with the palace had orchestrated it.

When there was no evidence, one must suspect everyone equally.

But when one particular name scraped persistently against the back of his mind, it was often wiser to examine that thread first.

Thus Tomas Orlandor surfaced in his thoughts.

At first glance, he seemed unrelated.

Yet recent investigation had revealed he had received an enormous sum from a powerful patron.

And he had long acted as Yuri’s errand runner.

That was not a detail to overlook.

At such a convenient time—

For what, exactly, had he been so generously paid?

From that suspicion, the picture began to take clearer shape.

And there was still one more intriguing thread one not yet concluded.

‘About the missing maids of Rotermann, Your Majesty… it seems the Ramier family’s private soldiers may have been involved.’

If one considered the timing of Cal’s report, the Ramier name had surfaced almost before the investigation had properly begun. The information had come too easily, like a rumor walking on its own legs to find them.

Wasn’t it strange?

If someone had dared to orchestrate a scheme of this scale, would they truly fail to conceal even that much? It made more sense to assume the trail had been left deliberately.

If suspicion fell upon the Ramier family, then any thorough pursuit of the case would inevitably risk implicating Clodine. To protect her honor, the investigation would be forced into caution, perhaps even stagnation.

If the culprit had calculated that far ahead, then the true target of the scheme would likely include. Myself.

At present, no one had more to gain from shaking Clodine’s standing within the Empire than he did.

Ahazan’s lips curved faintly, almost amused by the thought.

He shifted his gaze leisurely across the chapel to where the Ramier family sat opposite Yuri.

‘Count Helario Ramier. His second wife. Their younger daughter, Cecilia Ramier.’

The three of them huddled close together.

Ahazan’s eyes sharpened.

Clodine and Helario were beyond suspicion in his mind. That left the lady of the house, and Cecilia as potential accomplices.

The women of House Ramier lacked for nothing in wealth. What could they possibly desire enough to risk such a crime?

Yet the pieces connected with unsettling precision.

‘Cecilia Ramier.’

Clodine’s half-sister who had clung to Yuri since childhood.

Even now, with countless eyes upon her and a funeral in progress, she could not restrain herself. She stole glances at Yuri with single-minded devotion.

‘If she provided the private soldiers, the compensation she received from Yuri is obvious without asking.’

Though she merely looked at him, her cheeks were flushed with color.

From a distance, the warmth of her face stood out vividly against those around her.

And suddenly, Ahazan remembered Clodine’s hands, pale, drained of all color.

Even now, they remained that way.

A cold edge, sharp as drawn steel, rose in Ahazan’s eyes like mist.

Until now, no matter who plotted what, he had not allowed himself to be shaken.

There had been moments when fury nearly made his blood boil backward, but he was not the sort of man to lose himself and strike without thought for consequence.

First, he had needed to win the war.

After that, matters could be settled at his leisure. Those who resisted would naturally fall from the center of power. Everything would return to its rightful place.

In other words, he had never intended to stir up disgraceful chaos over a few small fish swimming in his sea.

Yes.

That had been his stance.

Until the ripples of their petty, vicious game reached Clodine.

Ahazan slowly straightened his head and faced forward.

‘They should have kept their hands on me alone.’

Had they done so, he might have repaid them in a manner befitting human adversaries.

But now.

The air around him grew heavy, not merely cold but sinister. Something darker than anger seeped from him, spreading outward like a tangible force.

It was not quite visible. But it felt unmistakably like killing intent.