“…That was for the greater cause. It was a way to strike both the former king and House Claudia simultaneously.”

Herman knew everything too. That all the rumors about Ines were fabricated by Carlos. However, he asked as if wondering what the problem was.

At his words, Carlos twisted the corner of his mouth.

“No, I was just taking petty revenge on Ines who betrayed me, under the pretense of a greater cause.”

The flower of Tezever, the jewel of House Claudia, Ines Claudia.

I wanted to mar your beautiful and noble self.

That was the price for betraying me. But.

“Then suddenly I had this thought…”

What if, as you said, you really were an illegitimate child?

If those terrible scars on your back were actually traces of abuse?

If the reason you abandoned me and chose Joseph was simply because you couldn’t disobey your father?

“If Ines didn’t betray me of her own will, if that’s really the case, then I…”

Unable to finish his words, Carlos clenched his fist.

He was afraid. The moment the truth he knew crumbled. The price that would weigh him down.

Herman, who had been watching Carlos, answered.

“I’ll look into it further first. I’ll start by finding the butler whose whereabouts are unknown. If we find him, we’ll know the truth.”

When a family is exterminated, the butler who works as a close aide in the mansion usually loses his life. But because they failed to catch the butler who quickly fled during the rebellion, they couldn’t behead him.

However, there was no need to waste manpower just to chase after one butler. They hadn’t bothered to look for the runaway butler until now.

“So if you just wait a little…”

Just as Herman was about to continue.

Carlos raised his head at the sudden presence felt from outside.

Instinctively rising to his feet at the strange feeling, Carlos strode across the room and opened the door. However, contrary to his expectation of finding someone, there was only a half-open window swaying outside.

Though he looked around just in case, there was nothing to be seen as the surroundings had already been cleared.

“Was it my imagination? I could have sworn I felt someone’s presence.”

As Carlos muttered in a serious voice, Herman, who had followed him out, closed the open window.

“It seems you were mistaken because of the suddenly opened window. I’ll have someone fix the window latch more securely.”

At Herman’s words, Carlos looked at the window. The uneasy feeling remained – it felt too suspicious to dismiss as just a sound from the window. However, there were no traces of anyone having been in the corridor, nor had they seen anyone.

Thinking he must have been oversensitive, Carlos returned to his office.

* * *

In the empty corridor void of people,

Rapid breathing mixed chaotically with the sound of a cane hitting the floor. There was even a sense of urgency, as if being chased by an assailant.

After walking like that for a while, as if fleeing, Ines reached a place with few people and hid her body behind a pillar. She had exhausted her strength to walk to her chambers in the Lily Palace.

“Ha, haa…”

Having sprinted with her heavy body, Ines, who had spent all her energy, exhaled rough breaths.

Her hands, gripping the pillar to support her tired body, trembled. Ines couldn’t properly gather her thoughts, as if she had been hit hard on the back of her head with a blunt object.

Which palace she was in, what thoughts had brought her here – she didn’t know.

Because right now, the words she had heard earlier kept echoing endlessly in her mind.

‘You know that I was the one who spread the necklace incident that made everyone point fingers at her, and those filthy and obscene rumors about Ines.’

If there was something that even children in Tezever knew about, it was the diamond necklace incident and the s*xual scandal surrounding Ines.

Because of the diamond necklace fraud incident, she had to go through a trial, and for months, she was pointed at by all the subjects of the kingdom.

Once, there were even people who threw filth at her carriage as she was heading to the courthouse. Moreover, the gossip surrounding her was enough to make her insides rot with pain.

The rumor that she had been intimate with Joseph before marriage when they were engaged was humiliating enough. But the rumor that she had fallen from a railing while rolling around with another man, causing her to limp, was so shameful and horrible that she couldn’t go outside for a while. And that scandal…

Ines lowered her head to stare at her left leg.

“It was a scandal that arose the day I took on Carlos’s wound.”

She recalled that time about a year ago, when she had first used her healing power of her own will.

The event of a summer night when there was a banquet celebrating the victory.

That day, she had gone to find Carlos, who was so drunk he could barely stand.

It was to fulfill the only thing she could do for him, who had even become a cripple because of her.

Blood had seeped from her lips which she had bitten hard to suppress her screams, and her mind had grown distant from the terrible pain she had never experienced before.

Additionally, to create an excuse for becoming lame, Ines had deliberately thrown herself down the stairs. It was to avoid her father’s anger for using her ability without permission.

Though she ended up with injuries beyond just her leg from tumbling down the stairs, she didn’t regret it.

For her loved one, she considered it a small price to pay as punishment for him who had suffered in war for years for her sake.

But that incident became an unthinkable stigma that strangled her. She had to accept her father’s fury like a whip, and bear Joseph’s fierce criticism and people’s pointing fingers all at once.

Even so, she had never once regretted that choice. But…

“Carlos was the one who orchestrated those things…?”

Ines shook her head as if denying the truth she had heard. The confession made by his own mouth couldn’t be a lie, but she just didn’t want to believe it.

Her two legs, which had been barely holding up, finally gave way. The cold marble floor stole away Ines’s warmth.

The necklace incident and the scandal surrounding her leg were enough to crash her reputation from the peak of social circles.

In an instant, Ines became a villainess who, blinded by luxury, had destroyed a happy family, and a woman who had betrayed her fiancé, blinded by lust.

And all of this had been Carlos’s scheme to bring her down.

At this miserable truth, Ines lowered her head.

“Revenge…”

All of this was revenge directed at her. With that single word, everything she had barely managed to endure crumbled. She felt lost, wondering what she had been enduring and trying so hard for.

Plop, drip drop.

Droplets rolling down her white cheeks gradually wet the floor. Her hand carefully wrapped around her left ankle.

“If…”

If you had known that the reason I became a cripple was the price for healing you, would you still have done such things?

A meaningless question circled in her mind.

Soon, gentle sobs quietly echoed through the corridor. Fearing someone might pass by, Ines cried while holding back her voice. Her shoulders intermittently shaking and the tears wetting the floor seemed to show just how great her sense of despair was.

After some time had passed like that.

The sound of women chattering broke the quiet space. They seemed to be maids passing through this area.

Only then coming to her senses, Ines hurriedly wiped her tears with the back of her hand. Then she looked around to check where she was.

Looking closely, it was the empty palace between the Sun Palace and the Lily Palace. It was also the palace where the prince would stay once he was born and became the crown prince.

“…Let’s go back first.”

She didn’t want to show her miserable state to anyone. With that thought, Ines slowly got up.

And just as she took a step to go to the Lily Palace.

“Ugh!”

At the sudden abdominal pain, Ines collapsed back to the floor.

“My stomach, it… hurts…”

An terrible abdominal pain came that was too intense to even continue speaking. Ines bit her lip hard while clutching her stomach. Though it was still far too early for the baby to come, why…

Just as her face contorted with confusion and pain.

Suddenly feeling a chill down her spine, Ines hurriedly put her hand under her skirt to check something.

What came out on her hand was…

“Blood…?”

Bright red blood.