Chapter 254

[To my beloved daughter, Valentin.

It has been so long since I last saw you. How did I end up in a state where I can’t even hold my precious daughter in my arms? I miss you. Are you healthy and doing well?

I know you will be very surprised to receive this letter. You must have thought your father was dead. But let me tell you something even more surprising than the fact that your father is actually alive.

The one who tried to kill me and ultimately drove me out is your brother, Nellusion.

From a young age, he was smart and devoted to his parents, so I trusted him without a doubt. I was going to pass everything on to him someday. But he couldn’t wait and turned against me! Against me, who gave him everything!

If some kind person hadn’t helped me, I would truly be in a coffin by now. Fortunately, my life has lasted long enough for me to reveal the despicable nature of your brother.

Still, your father forgives him. That is a parent’s heart. I want our family to get along again, just like before.

There is a way for our family to return to what it was. A way for you—our precious daughter—to reclaim the position of Crown Princess Consort that should rightfully be yours, and for me to return with dignity. The Imperial Family has already asked for you, and I have made every preparation I can.

You only need to do one thing. Spread the news that I am alive. Then the lords who have decided to follow me will rise up all at once…]

After reading her father’s letter several times, Valentin crumpled it up. She felt suffocated.

‘Brother… to Father?’

That couldn’t be true. Absolutely not. Weren’t they family? Didn’t they love and cherish each other more than anyone else? The brother in her mind could be frightening, but never—never—

Thump.

The crumpled letter slipped from her limp hand, fell to the floor, and rolled away.

Valentin couldn’t say with certainty that Nellusion would never do something like that.

The world swam. Panic flooded her, and she collapsed into a chair, remembering the day she’d received news of her father’s death.

It had been a few months ago, while she was still at the Noble Academy. Without warning, a servant arrived with the obituary. Her father—the former Duke Elandria—had passed away, and her brother, Nellusion Elandria, had inherited the title. In the chaos, the funeral had been handled swiftly, and the coffin had been laid to rest in the family cemetery on their territory.

She didn’t even know how she made it through the semester. The reality she couldn’t fully grasp—because she hadn’t been allowed to attend the funeral—came crashing down when her request to return to the territory the moment vacation began was rejected.

Crying and throwing a fit, Valentin had been dragged to the Imperial Capital. They said a young lady couldn’t live alone on the territory, and that she had to stay with her brother, the head of the family.

In a small house—like a barn—that she had never set foot in before.

Only a few months ago, she had been buying the finest rubies in the Imperial Capital and wearing them with pride, but now there was no trace of that wealth. And the way people looked at House Elandria had turned sour.

That alone was hard enough. Valentin was already unhappy.

And now, even her memories of a happy family—memories she had clung to—were collapsing, the last traces crumbling away.

‘Scary.’

The fear she’d felt when she searched Nellusion’s office was nothing compared to this. Valentin didn’t have the confidence to face her brother with a steady mind.

‘Scary.’

She wanted everything to go back the way it was. She was tired. That was all she could think.

Her mother had written that she wanted to live with Valentin, but Nellusion hadn’t listened. He insisted on keeping Valentin at his side.

Valentin had told herself it was his way of showing he was human—that he didn’t want to be alone.

But was that really the case?

‘He never told me the Imperial Family wanted me.’

With Natasha gone and Megara gone, Valentin had naturally believed she would be next. Nellusion only told her—when she was secretly looking forward to it—that “it’s not time yet.”

But to think the position of Crown Princess Consort had been right in front of her, and she hadn’t even known.

Fear of Nellusion. Confusion over her father’s words. Valentin felt like the most pitiful person in the world.

And she wanted to escape this misery.

‘If I tell Mom…’

After the separation, Valentin’s mother—the former Duchess Elandria—had come to hate her husband more and more as her own family continued to collapse. Unable to accept that the life she had always controlled had become clouded, she chose someone to hate.

Even so, the former Duchess still loved her son. She never came to see him, but Valentin could feel that affection in the letters she received from time to time. If she heard Nellusion had tried to kill his father, she would be shocked and devastated—

But in the end, she would take her son’s side.

And then the day Valentin became Crown Princess Consort would be pushed even farther away.

Which meant her escape would be pushed farther away, too.

She didn’t have the ability to analyze politics. As long as she believed the words of those close to her, things had always worked out. With cunning Delma gone, Valentin had no one left to judge how realistic her father’s letter truly was.

Valentin picked up her father’s letter again.

Then, with a hardened expression, she held it to the candle and burned it.

A few days later, on the day Valentin Elandria boarded a carriage back to the Noble Academy,

the newspaper that spread throughout the Imperial Capital carried a single explosive accusation:

Nellusion Elandria had faked his father’s death and falsely inherited the title of Duke.

❖ ❖ ❖

The patricide scandal in House Elandria—splashed across the Imperial Capital for days—soon reached White Swan Castle in Maindulante.

Nerys set down the newspaper that had been delivered as quickly as possible through the Shadows’ cooperation and the secret passage, and smiled. She was glad she had kept the former Duke Elandria alive.

After all, she had used him at the perfect time.

Cledwyn’s voice came from the chair beside her.

“When Nellusion thinks everything is going well? I don’t want to give them even a sliver of hope. I don’t want to increase the chance of even one more of our people dying. The fact that House Elandria is still alive, still clinging to its lineage, is pathetic.”

The Imperial Family might want to preserve the roots of House Elandria.

Nerys did not.

She was sick of Nellusion. Sick of the bad blood that never ended.

Cledwyn said it with a sigh.

Nerys stared at him as if he’d lost his mind.

“What part of what I just said was kind?”

“I’ve decided not to waste my energy on those thoughts anymore. I only want one thing.”

Nerys’s eyes sharpened, cold and clear.

“The safety and happiness of my people. For that, I have to collapse the Imperial Family and its lackeys as quickly and thoroughly as possible.”

Cledwyn’s words trailed off, ambiguous.

Nerys waited, expecting more, but when nothing followed, she continued.

“Even if House Elandria is a mess, Nellusion would have been able to catch his breath after this year’s harvest thanks to the vast territory and the many subordinate lords. But that path is blocked now. As long as the former Duke is alive, the entire territory will be swallowed by a fight between father and son, and they’ll have to worry about a civil uprising first—just like the Tipian Marquesate.”

The former Duke Elandria still didn’t know the one who had saved him and protected him all this time was a Shadow sent by Nerys.

And now, he didn’t need to know.

Not only the subordinate lords who had chosen to follow the former Duke, but also nobles who feared setting a bad precedent for their own successors would shield him.

The final task of the Shadow operatives who had guarded the former Duke was finished the moment they delivered his letter safely into Valentin’s hands.

“Nellusion is really left with only himself now. The title of Duke will be confiscated without question. So he’ll cling to Abelus by pushing increasingly forced policies. He’s heading down the same road as Megara.”

Conspiracy to slander a direct member of the Imperial Family. Deceiving the Crown Prince. Attempting to kill his own father.

Each charge alone was enough to strip Nellusion of everything.

But Abelus would keep him anyway. By now, Abelus must have realized he couldn’t wage this war without Nellusion.

That made Nellusion no different from Abelus’s slave. He could scheme all he wanted behind the scenes, but on the surface, it would look as though Abelus was magnanimously protecting him despite every disgrace.

And Nerys—who had learned politics from Nellusion—already knew where he would reach next.

It wasn’t a hard guess.

“The domestic nobles were lukewarm to begin with. And since Talfrin is spreading suspicion that Princess Camille was involved in the Nellusion incident, the nobles’ antipathy has swelled to the point of no return. So what’s left is foreign countries.”

Bistor—the warrior who, alone on this continent, rose to the position of Monarch by his own strength—and his descendants still received the “loyalty” of foreign kings and nobles who became Monarchs with his approval.

It was only formal loyalty, an old phrase in history books that served as the basis for diplomatic custom.

But it was also a convenient excuse: when the Empire faced crisis, the Bistor Imperial Family could demand soldiers and supplies from foreign Monarchs.

Why would those Monarchs bleed themselves for the Bistor Imperial Family?

Because the people they ruled believed the story of the Three Heroes.

A pure, absolute belief: that it was right to lend strength to the descendants of the Three Heroes.

But if that belief vanished, which Monarch would be eager to accept losses?

By coincidence, Nerys had been taught by an expert—someone who could read a Monarch’s heart and lead them to choices favorable to her.

Someone who believed it was best not to fight useless battles in the first place.

‘Sir Voltaire said that.’

Sir Henri Voltaire—diplomat before he became a teacher at the Noble Academy—was still a legendary figure in Verlaine. Nerys had learned much from him after becoming Crown Princess Consort in her previous life.

‘Your Highness, you must use anything if it’s necessary. But don’t trust other people’s hearts too much. Do you know why?’

‘Why is that, sir?’

‘Because goals are always arbitrary. No matter how important a goal is to you, it may be worthless to someone else. Don’t assume others will naturally share your values.’

Sir Voltaire truly had been capable. As he said it, he glanced at Nellusion.

Perhaps Sir Voltaire had known.

That Nerys, foolishly, had believed Nellusion wanted the same thing she did.

‘A Monarch’s goal is to keep the people’s support without suffering losses. My goal is to stop them from joining in harming my people.’

The Bistor Imperial Family had milked the tale of the Three Heroes and the Evil Dragon for far too long.

Now it was time for the power of that story to crush them.

❖ ❖ ❖

“I love you today, too.”

After murmuring those sweet words, Cledwyn left the barracks.

Across the vast plains, Count Berta’s coat of arms fluttered on a raised flag. The camp was orderly enough, but it looked small compared to the army Cledwyn now commanded.

‘My wife said she won’t waste her energy thinking about enemies?’

His wife really was simple.

Cledwyn had only heard pieces of what she’d gone through in her previous life—told calmly, without embellishment—but he was furious.

When he remembered the screams she’d made under that curse, his blood still boiled.

But if she had decided not to exhaust herself with such thoughts, then fine.

He would take revenge.

He would repay everything that had tormented her tenfold—no, a hundredfold.

“I heard some of my wife’s classmates from the Academy have been assigned to Count Berta’s army?”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

Aidan answered.

Cledwyn narrowed his eyes, staring at Count Berta’s forces.

Then he raised his hand.

At once, the Maindulante signalman lifted the flag high, signaling the advance.

The ground rumbled.

Cavalry in black cloaks burst forward like arrows.

That day, the Grand Duke’s army claimed yet another victory.