Chapter 286
“Nellusion is dead.”
Nerys, who had been eating grapes with Diane, paused at Dora’s report.
It was a gathering of women. The late Grand Duchess’s greenhouse was enchanted, warm enough for tea parties even in weather like this, and Nerys had invited the important women staying in the castle so they could enjoy themselves.
With glass candle holders hanging prettily from the trees and bright tea tables set up everywhere, it wasn’t exactly the right setting to hear that a prisoner had died in the dungeon. In fact, Dora had never intended to interrupt the party with news about a mere prisoner.
Nerys was the one who brought it up first. She’d suddenly remembered seeing several bodies being carried out of the castle last night.
Diane spoke casually. After living through war, she’d grown used to hearing about death.
“Well, wasn’t he going to be executed anyway?”
“He was. The vice-duke was part of the Crown Prince’s faction, and the duke had committed many sins.”
As far as Nerys knew, Cledwyn had planned to execute the Elandria Family before deep winter set in. There were too many prisoners in the dungeon, and they couldn’t afford to waste food and firewood.
If the whole family had died together before their execution date, something must have happened. But Nerys didn’t want to care about it, so she decided to focus on the grapes instead.
“More, please.”
“Wow, it’s the first time I’ve seen Riz ask for more like that!”
Diane laughed at something so trivial, then Ellen came over and started nagging.
“Your Majesty, you should only eat a few grapes. Moriér’s mother only ate ten grapes a day during her pregnancy.”
“Then you don’t know what happens if I eat more, do you?”
“But what if Your Majesty’s health deteriorates?”
Diane hesitated, half-wondering if Ellen might be right. The people who had once watched Nerys collapse right in front of them were still overprotective of her.
Nerys, the one enduring it, finally made a troubled face. As her belly grew, her patience seemed to wear thinner, too.
A Maindulante noblewoman at the same table chuckled. She was a woman who had given birth to three healthy children.
“Everyone says something different depending on the region. It’s true that too many sweets aren’t good for you, but I ate heaps of those little ones, Your Majesty.”
“See?”
Nerys pouted at Ellen at last and reached for the grapes again. Ellen, who knew she could nag as much as she liked thanks to her mistress’s generosity but that pushing beyond that would be rude, fell silent, discouraged.
Amused, Diane fed Nerys grapes herself. Nerys accepted them like a spoiled child, then suddenly glanced toward the corner of the greenhouse.
Princess Izet—or rather, Lady Izet now—sat there with Grand Duchess Moriah.
Nerys didn’t hate Izet, but she didn’t like her either. Izet was one of the people who had stood by and watched Nerys be abused in her previous life, so she couldn’t bring herself to feel warmly toward her. A few years ago, she would have still had hatred left, without question…
‘There’s no life to waste on that.’
Nerys understood it now. Revenge was not the end.
To affirm herself—so she could trust her own judgment the way everyone else in this world did, and finally see hope in the future she would live—she had to let them go from her heart.
That didn’t mean she had to understand what they had done. What they had done was still a chilling memory, even after she’d taken her revenge. But she couldn’t live with her mind fixed on it forever.
What she needed to think about was—
‘It’s not really over until I’m happy.’
Nerys’s hand briefly caressed her belly. Lately, the baby had been kicking often enough that those close to her liked to rest their hands there.
‘Baby.’
She whispered to herself.
‘You’ll have hard times too. You’ll have terrible memories too. There may come a day when you’re so exhausted you lose yourself, and you think it doesn’t matter what happens to you as long as you can make others suffer.’
‘But don’t forget that you are precious.’
‘Because you will know someday. That this hardship will surely end, that there are people in the world who will love you, and that happiness will come to you too.’
‘That even if you think you’re completely broken, those wounds will eventually become insignificant before the people who love you.’
Izet would live a life where she couldn’t easily meet people. Somewhere in this vast empire, there would surely be madmen trying to rebuild the Bistor Family. For the same reason, Izet had decided to withdraw from the Noble Academy as well.
Nerys was willing to turn a blind eye if the Grand Duchess occasionally gave the young princess a little room to breathe.
“I’m glad I can attend your wedding.”
Diane said it as if it had just occurred to her because the wedding had come up. Nerys smiled back.
“Yeah, I’m glad you can come, too. The wedding itself was held at the temple, so technically it’s a reception…”
“That’s that, and this is this. You’re getting a new dress made, right?”
“Yes. The first one was pretty, too, but this time it’s also the Empress’s coronation ceremony.”
At Cledwyn and Nerys’s coronation ceremony as Emperor and Empress, they’d decided to hold the new wedding ceremony they’d talked about before. The dress Nerys would wear then was a magnificent purple robe with an impossibly long train, decorated with embroidery and diamonds.
The Bistor Family wore a golden dress that bared the shoulders to display the dignity of the direct imperial line. But Nerys had no intention of wearing something gold and glittering.
It wasn’t because Valentin had stolen the Crown Princess Consort’s dress and worn it in her previous life. That incident no longer mattered. It was simply that such clothes didn’t suit Nerys.
Still, they’d decided to hold the ceremony after the baby was born and Nerys had recovered to some extent. Nerys suddenly chuckled as she thought of her husband frantically handling state affairs so his late-pregnant wife wouldn’t overdo it. Busy as he was, he was still checking whether her robe was being made properly.
A moment later, her eyes sharpened slightly.
‘He’s not working that hard just because he’s worried I’ll be tired.’
The news that the Elandria Family had died should have reached Nerys as well. The family was ruined, but they were still important prisoners. The fact that she’d had to ask Dora separately meant someone had deliberately suppressed the report along the way.
Nerys also knew Cledwyn had been meeting the enemies who had influenced her previous life behind her back. She even knew exactly when he met them. Other than those times, Cledwyn was never far from her side—like now.
‘I should check what he’s doing.’
It would be a problem if a massacre was happening somewhere without her knowledge.
❖ ❖ ❖
Cledwyn wasn’t orchestrating a mass slaughter. Of that, he was certain.
But he was deciding the future of many people.
“Among our Empress’s former classmates, the report confirms that three died in the war. Four died or went missing for reasons other than war, as listed below. Two survived but their families were destroyed, so they’re drifting between relatives’ homes and inns, and the rest have returned to their families.”
“Most of them got away without punishment. Aside from the two who are drifting around, I don’t think the rest should be allowed to walk away like that. Weren’t they active as officers in the enemy army during the war?”
It sounded as though they had enlisted out of sheer enthusiasm, but it wasn’t exactly wrong, either. Talfrin, who had finished reporting in the office with only the two of them present—without Nerys knowing, as Cledwyn had ordered—wore a strange expression.
“Did they do something to our Empress?”
“Well, not this time.”
“I don’t understand at all. You mean not this time… but last time?”
“Anyway, anyone who served in the Imperial Army is having their crimes investigated if they held even a junior command position. Their families supported the enemy with money and troops, so as victors we’re trying to give them appropriate punishment. Why is that something we shouldn’t consider?”
“That’s true, but you specifically had ‘the Empress’s classmates’ grouped together for investigation… Well, I understand. It’s right to punish the families that supported the late Crown Prince. So should the punishment be severe enough that the main family can barely support their children?”
“I don’t like it, but for now. If it’s certain they were forced to support them because they were taken hostage.”
Cledwyn grumbled and tapped the report.
“Look at this. The Count Isalani Family didn’t suffer much damage. The Baron Nine and Count Berta Families are such a mess after the war that they’ll have to sell their titles. Make the Count Isalani Family look like that too. They tried to keep one foot in both camps until the end, even after being defeated and subjugated by our army, so it’s good to make the rules of the new imperial family clear. Keep a close watch on those three families so they can’t receive help from aristocratic relatives.”
Talfrin couldn’t understand why he hated such trivial things so much. It wasn’t wrong in principle, but…
“Then I’ll take care of it. The aristocratic society will be hollowed out.”
The great nobles—the so-called nine families—had become little more than names.
The Grand Duke Family would soon formally become the imperial family, and of the two duke families other than Ganielo, one had been wiped out while the other had its head imprisoned during the war. Even that family’s heir was someone Cledwyn seemed to hate, so he intended to strip him of his title for hostile acts.
The Marquis Tipion and Marquis Lykeandros Families had disappeared. The head of the Marquis Odroy Family, an active supporter of Camille, had been stripped of his title and sentenced to life imprisonment. Most of the Marquis Wells Family had been beaten to death by creditors before the war ended, and even the few who survived had recently died in prison.
The Kendall Marquis Family was still relatively intact, but considering they were scheduled to meet Cledwyn today, it didn’t look as though a bright future awaited them, either.
“People with merit can fill the gaps. Those old families strutted around too much for people who weren’t anything special.”
As soon as news came that the Kendall Marquis had arrived, the office door opened.
“I greet Your Majesty.”
The Marquis was gaunt. He wore plain black, his hair barely tidy, with no trace of grooming beyond the bare minimum.
Cledwyn stared at him expressionlessly for a moment, then spoke.
“That’s why you didn’t exercise your right to vote as Prince-elector.”
“Haha.”
The Marquis let out a hollow laugh, his eyes shining with pain.
“Yes. I received word immediately after the late Emperor’s execution. Aidalia, my daughter, no longer absorbs even divine power.”
Aidalia, who had taken the poison of Pope Omnitus III, could neither eat nor drink. She lay cold as a corpse, time passing with her body unmoving. If not for Nerys warning the Kendall Marquis that she had taken such poison and that he should not bury her yet, he would have already held her funeral.
The only way to know Aidalia was alive had been for a priest to pour divine power into her. The dead cannot absorb divine power. The Kendall Marquis had regularly summoned a priest to confirm her survival and to cling to the hope that, when she woke someday, her body wouldn’t be too damaged.
But how could a person live on divine power alone? After spending too long truly ‘neither eating nor drinking,’ Aidalia had finally died for real.
Cledwyn didn’t feel sad about Aidalia’s death. She had received exactly what she had tried to do to others, so why should he sympathize?
The Marquis continued, his face twisted as though he could barely control himself.
“I was going to hold a funeral and execute my daughter’s maids, but they seemed to come to their senses and confessed everything. What my daughter was trying to do, and what Your Majesty the Empress did to that child.”
“Yes. Then you know there’s no reason to resent the Empress.”
“Yes. However, please allow me to relinquish my title and leave.”
Cledwyn had no intention of letting the Marquis remain in society anyway. It would be better for him to be cast out in disgrace. He nodded.
“Do as you please.”
The Marquis bowed his head and left the office. Watching his back, Talfrin shook his head slightly.
He didn’t sympathize, either.