Chapter 74
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Emperor Albrecht first stopped at his parents' graves and laid down a bouquet of white roses.
His father, the late emperor, had been an incompetent ruler. He harbored many suspicions but lacked decisiveness, and even those suspicions never targeted those who truly deserved them. He relied excessively on his maternal family, the Dukes of Schwaben, entrusting them with power, forgiving all manner of crimes, and defending them.
His mother, who came from the Kingdom of Beltarion across the sea, was a timid person who lived among the small number of Beltarians she had brought with her. She never once displayed the dignity expected of an empress, and likely never desired to do so.
Thus, from his days as crown prince, Albrecht's life was marked by standing alone against the Schwabens. For a very long time, he resented and rejected the late emperor. When he lost his wife and daughter, he swore, blood in his throat, never to return to this grave.
But now, twenty years later, his heart was softer than it had been then. Perhaps it was due to the bitterly long loneliness. Or perhaps he wanted to believe that his parents had cherished him as deeply as he cherished his daughter. In any case, he missed his parents.
"I began to wonder if there truly is such a thing as inescapable fate," he murmured, gazing at the dove sculpture perched lightly atop his mother's tombstone.
Beneath it was engraved: <May the soul fly to a place of happiness>. His mother's spirit had surely flown back to her homeland.
One could not live as one pleased, especially if born into noble rank and the duties that came with it. So Albrecht still resisted. Until his death, he had to fulfill his duty as the heir born to the Sirah throne.
But now he couldn't help wondering if this outcome was truly his destiny.
When he lost Via, the imperial house of Sirah was already finished. Even if Loella was born of his blood, she was not a princess of Sirah, but merely a stepping stone to hand the crown over to Schwaben.
He bowed silently before his father's tombstone. The late emperor surely never imagined matters would reach this point. He had believed Schwaben was the most powerful legacy he could pass to his son.
Foolishness was a sin, but even as his son, he couldn't bring himself to blame him. Resenting the dead wouldn't bring back his wife and daughter.
"If there truly is an afterlife, please watch over my wife and child."
He murmured this silently, then raised his head. Well, it was hardly people one could trust to grant even such a request.
Then he turned and walked slowly toward his wife's grave.
In the section where Adelheid was buried, there were two tombstones. One was the standard-sized tombstone of an empress, the other a small crystal tombstone carved with an angel. It bore only the inscription <Via>.
He placed red roses before his wife's tombstone and pink roses before his daughter's.
Originally, children's graves were not made separately like this. Before reaching their second birthday, two out of ten children died, and many more perished in the epidemics that swept through every winter. The wealthy and nobility fared slightly better, but the god of death had a particular fondness for young children.
Therefore, in Sirah, there was a custom of only giving a child a formal name once they reached the age of five.
The imperial family followed this practice as well. Even for royal children, those who died before age five were not necessarily recorded in the genealogy. Instead of building tombs, they were cremated and their ashes placed in the columbarium where the remains of young royals were kept.
But Albrecht could not bear it. The thought of his daughter, who had died so tragically, lying alone in the columbarium without a name, separated from her mother's embrace, was unbearable.
So he had a separate grave built here. Opposition was fierce, but he ignored it all. He insisted that even if he had to retrieve her remains and send them to the columbarium after his own death someday, he needed a place to remember his daughter while he was still alive. That was why he buried her here.
He couldn't count how many tears he shed as he personally lowered the small coffin into the pit and covered it with earth. Even now, Albrecht felt his throat tighten.
He lifted his head. He wouldn't cling to his wife's gravestone and weep. Hadn't twenty years passed? He had grown indifferent to everything, no longer crushed by sorrow.
That was when it happened.
"Have you come to ask for forgiveness?"
A gentle woman's voice spoke from behind him. Albrecht turned around in shock.
Then he froze, stiff in place. A woman dressed in black mourning clothes, a black veil drawn down to her chin, stood beneath the clematis arch marking the grave section.
Instantly, Albrecht thought she was the ghost of Adelheid. But that couldn't be. Ghosts didn't appear in broad daylight, and looking again, she was clearly someone else.
"How did you get in here?"
"Aren't you curious about who I am?"
"I am curious, but once I know the 'how,' the question of who you are should be answered too."
"I was already here."
"There must have been guards, and the royal guard would have searched too."
"It seems the entire guard doesn't line up in a row for a thorough search."
The woman answered in a calm voice. Albrecht looked at her, a slight flicker of interest crossing his otherwise cold face.
"You found a hole in the palace's surveillance network too?"
"With the Empress being deposed this time, many people have left. Even the Schwabens couldn't fill all the newly replaced senior positions with loyalists."
It was said Schwaben's spies were everywhere. Stories of parents disappearing after their children's denunciations, or friends who left a tavern for home never to return, weren't urban legends but commonplace realities.
And the place with the most spies was none other than within Schwaben itself. The late Duke of Schwaben had expanded his power through legitimate violence, while the previous Duke had established a system of denunciation and mutual surveillance, creating an unbreakable structure where no one, from the highest to the lowest, could betray Schwaben.
However, with the Empress's recent deposition, there was a massive personnel shakeup. The new Chief of the Palace, who took over managing the imperial palace instead of the head of Sofia’s maids, chose to run the palace with a small staff rather than bring in untested personnel. Yet this too led to security issues.
It was impossible to reduce the number of low-level employees handling menial tasks like cleaning and laundry. Consequently, the few administrators were burdened with excessive workloads, and the mutual surveillance system within the palace ceased to function properly.
Albrecht had also surmised this process. Ezekiel's acceptance of his request to leave likely included this reasoning too. He feared that if he didn't grant him an opening, Ezekiel might break through a larger hole instead.
Even so, ordinary capabilities wouldn't have sufficed to penetrate this far.
"I understand you are not the Duke of Schwaben’s man. Now it's time to hear your business."
For a moment, he wondered if Ezekiel had deliberately found a woman resembling Adelheid somewhere and pushed her in to unsettle him. But that didn't seem to be the case.
The woman asked in a quiet voice.
"Do you love your late wife?"
"Is that even a question?"
He felt the woman watching him silently from behind her veil. Albrecht was flabbergasted. This woman hadn't even properly greeted him, and now she was standing there, chin held high, staring at him.
"How rude. Do you even know who I am?"
"Your Imperial Majesty. And the man who took another woman and fathered a child not long after his wife died."
"That...!"
He started to get angry, but suddenly found himself so flabbergasted he let out a hollow laugh. It was too long ago for him; it was absurd to be revisiting this story now, especially at his wife's grave.
“Why do you care about such things? What difference would it make if I told you I still love my wife, and there’s a story behind it?”
“It would make a difference. At least to me.”
“Who are you…?”
The woman slowly lifted her veil. Albrecht forgot to speak mid-sentence.
It wasn't an exact replica. People who had forgotten Adelheid's face might not recognize her. But he, who still gazed at his wife's portrait every day, knew.
The elegant jawline, the shape of the full lips, even the sharp bridge of the nose tracing a graceful curve—it was identical. Her eyes were that longed-for turquoise, and beneath the drawn veil, her hair was a pure, high-grade gold.
"Our daughter will be pretty, too. When she turns five, we'll name her Flavia."
He agreed with that opinion. Many children had golden hair, but his daughter's hair color was an exceptionally sparkling blonde.
Albrecht fumbled in his pocket with trembling hands, pulling out his pocket watch and opening the back compartment.
He had cut a lock of his daughter's hair as a keepsake when she was young. He had kept it for a long time, but the color had faded, making comparison impossible now.
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