TFM 116

Chapter 116

***

Lucas watched the Empress closely.

Senevere Taren Guirta was seated at the head of the long banquet table, casually chatting with the eastern nobles. And the nobles—who should have been wary of the Empress—were all listening intently to her every word, as if spellbound.

Lucas, who had let out a wry chuckle at the absurd spectacle, glanced sideways at the woman seated to the Empress’s left.

While the Empress captivated the room with her dazzling charm, Talia Roem Shiokan sat with an icy expression, silently sipping her wine. That stark contrast made him feel uneasy.

‘Why does that woman always look so glum?’

At first glance, the two women looked so much alike that one might have believed they were twins.

If Talia had tried to charm people with a beaming smile like the Empress, probably no one of the opposite sex could have resisted her.

However, she was always busy pushing everyone away, her defenses bristling like a hedgehog’s quills.

For a while, she had seemed to be putting considerable effort into her role as Grand Duchess, but in recent days, she hadn’t even made a show of trying to socialize. Even the nobles who had shown her favor had grown fed up and turned their backs on her.

‘Could her health have taken a turn for the worse again?’

At the sudden thought, Lucas narrowed his eyes. Talia Roem Shiokan, her complexion paler than usual, was staring blankly at the candle on the table with empty eyes.

She certainly looked unwell.

Just as he was feeling a vague sense of unease and shifting in his seat, Varkas suddenly strode into the banquet hall.

Lucas tensed up without realizing it. His mere appearance seemed to instantly freeze the excited atmosphere that had been lingering in the banquet hall.

It seemed he wasn’t the only one who felt this way, as everyone gathered around the table watched the standoff between the Empress and Varkas with tense expressions.

“It’s so hard to catch a glimpse of you—I’m starting to feel a little disappointed.”

It was Senevere who broke the strange silence hanging in the room first.

Raising her wine glass to moisten her lips, she feigned a look of disappointment.

“It’s nice to catch up with old colleagues after so long, but please pay some attention to me and my daughter as well.”

“I am truly sorry if I have caused you any discomfort.”

Varkas, having reached the seat of honor, replied calmly before taking his seat.

“Quite a lot has happened at the Imperial Palace in the meantime. We got caught up in various conversations and lost track of time. I humbly ask for your forgiveness.”

At those pointed words, a chillingly smooth smile played at the Empress’s lips.

Lucas inwardly shook his head at her composed demeanor.

The Empress was essentially in the heart of enemy territory. On top of that, half of the envoys who had escorted her here were knights belonging to the Roem Knights. In short, the Empress was effectively surrounded by her political rivals. Yet how could she remain so calm?

The Empress, whose eyes curved like crescent moons, spoke softly.

“I hope you’ve had a meaningful conversation.”

An awkward silence once again weighed heavily on the banquet hall.

The Empress seemed well aware that Varkas was scrambling to stop her. Varkas, for his part, made no attempt to hide it.

Lucas glanced sideways at Talia. With a stiff expression, she was clutching her wine glass tightly and biting her lip. She had clearly already heard that her husband was devoting all his efforts to rescuing his former fiancée.

Lucas raised his goblet to his lips and glared at his brother’s inscrutable face.

After their father’s sarcophagus was interred in the mausoleum, he had been officially appointed as the Grand Duke of Shiokan’s aide-de-camp. Thanks to this, over the past few weeks, he had gained a thorough understanding of the political currents not only in the East but also within the Imperial Palace.

A rift had begun to form between the East and the conservative nobility. And the northerners were trying to wedge themselves into that gap.

The problem was that their ambition wasn’t limited to simply expanding their political influence.

The people of Balto had recently been bolstering their military strength and expanding their power at an alarming rate.

That was not all. Evidence had even been uncovered that they were secretly raising military funds through various merchant guilds.

If their goal was Balto’s independence, in the worst-case scenario, Ayla Roem Guirta could end up being used as a hostage to pressure the imperial family. The First Princess’s new marriage proposal had the potential to become a spark that could ignite a schism within the empire.

For this reason, Varkas had set aside his duties as Grand Duke and was devoting all his energy to persuading the Crown Prince and the conservative nobles.

“If my brother had married Ayla Roem Guirta from the start, there wouldn’t have been any problems, would there?”

Lucas grumbled to himself.

If Varkas had upheld his loyalty to the Crown Prince instead of succumbing to the Emperor’s pressure, he wouldn’t be running around frantically like this now.

The atmosphere in Raedgo Castle would likely be much more harmonious than it was now.

Perhaps even Raina would have coped better with her father’s death.

Ayla Roem Gurita was renowned as a lady of gentle disposition, so she would surely have taken good care of that child.

Talia, too, wouldn’t have needlessly harmed herself in a foreign land.

‘No, it doesn’t matter whether that woman gets hurt or not.’

Lucas hurriedly put the brakes on his thoughts.

The only things he needed to worry about were the Shiokan family and Raina. The Empress and her daughter were nothing but a nuisance threatening the East.

Having gathered his scattered thoughts, Lucas quietly slipped out of the banquet hall. If he kept watching his cold-hearted older brother, that fox-like Empress, and his ghost-pale sister-in-law, he felt as if his head would explode.

He tugged at the collar of his stifling doublet as he crossed the hall.

He already missed the days when he could ride his horse across the fields without a care in the world. He even felt a twinge of sympathy for his older brother, who had been plagued by such headaches his entire life.

Rubbing his stiff neck, he looked down at the rear garden through a window in the hallway.

“Should I go check on Turgan?”

As he thought of his beloved horse, which had been neglected for nearly a week now, and massaged his stiff muscles, the shadows of two people standing in a corner of the courtyard caught his eye.

Although servants loitering in the backyard was nothing out of the ordinary, Lucas stopped in his tracks and watched them closely.

A woman with a vaguely familiar face was having a serious conversation with a young man who appeared to be an envoy. It took Lucas quite a while to remember that the woman was Talia Roem Guirta’s personal healer.

‘Do they know each other?’

He tilted his head in puzzlement.

Judging by his attire, the man appeared to be part of the Empress’s entourage.

Since the healer was also said to be from the Taren family, it wouldn’t have been particularly strange for her to run into someone she knew among the Empress’s inner circle. Yet, a strange sense of unease tugged at the back of his mind.

“What are you doing in a place like this?”

As he stared intently at the two people’s mouths, a deep voice came from behind him.

Lucas turned his head. Tyron, wearing a tunica made of black satin loosely draped over his shoulders, was strolling down the long corridor. It seemed he had followed Lucas, who had silently slipped out of the banquet hall.

He opened his mouth to explain what he had just seen. Then, realizing there was nothing particularly suspicious about the scene, he closed it again.

When he turned his gaze to the window, the two had already vanished without a trace. Lucas, who had been scanning the garden with an uneasy expression, shook his head as if to say it was nothing.

“It’s nothing.”

***

The imperial delegation stayed for exactly one week before departing.

Talia, who had been sitting on the windowsill watching the procession recede into the distance, soon drew the curtains.

Even right before leaving, Senevere repeatedly urged her to follow her wishes. Talia never responded, but the Empress seemed confident that Talia would not dare defy her orders.

No. Or perhaps she wasn’t entirely certain. She had left after thoroughly stirring up her loyal follower’s hopes.

“You absolutely must consummate the marriage tonight.”

The nanny, pulling out the piece of translucent fabric the Empress had handed her as a “gift” from inside the chest, spoke in a firm tone.

“Now that the funeral rites are over, there’s no reason to put it off any longer.”