Chapter 85
Chapter 85. It Must Not Be True
“You…”
Watching Taleum overwhelmed with shock, Eurene giggled softly.
Sensing an unimaginable madness and obsession in that playful demeanor, Taleum deliberately swallowed a gasp.
“I’m joking, Brother. It’s not even certain yet whether I’m pregnant or not.”
“It’s not too late, Eurene. Let’s go to Her Majesty the Empress and beg for forgiveness. If you’re afraid to go alone, Father and I will gladly accompany you, okay?”
“No, it’s too late to turn back.”
“How could you possibly—!”
“I’m hurt. Did you think I’d come here with nothing?”
Eurene lifted the teacup in front of her. The fragrant flower scent tickled her nose, making her feel slightly elated.
“Her Majesty the Empress used Sefitiana. She plans to use it to cloud His Majesty’s mind and shake the empire.”
“Ha, such absurd words…”
“I’ve already confirmed the circumstances through the temple. They were already suspicious, and my eyewitness account of His Majesty’s hallucinatory state turned their suspicion into certainty.”
Through Asha, she had been able to secretly contact the High Priest of the temple. Asha, who had committed sins, couldn’t refuse her request.
Asha might be dismissed for revealing the temple’s secrets to outsiders, but Eurene no longer cared about Asha’s well-being. She had realized that even Asha, whom she had saved, was not on her side.
She was now merely a pawn to bring down the Empress.
Eurene silently set down her teacup. Just in case, she had chosen a tea that wouldn’t harm the child if there was one, and fortunately, it suited her taste.
“Only you should know this, Brother. The Sefitiana that was secretly kept in the temple disappeared. It was after that that His Majesty ignored my contact and began purging the Emperor Emeritus’s forces indiscriminately. When I last saw His Majesty, he was in a state where he couldn’t even properly recognize me standing right in front of him.”
At first, she suspected that poison had been added to the medicine he was about to drink, but considering what the aide had said then, it was likely just a simple sleeping draught.
Then how could he be so blindly devoted to the Empress? What reason could there be for him to side with a woman from an enemy country, even betraying his blood-related father?
“Are you saying Her Majesty the Empress did all that?”
“If it’s about using Sefitiana, what’s so implausible? It’s a treasure called God’s miracle. Bewitching a man’s heart and manipulating him at will would be nothing.”
The temple had pointed that out too. They said His Majesty’s behavior when threatening the priest seemed like that of a completely different person.
“…What you’re saying is treason, Eurene. Words that could potentially lead to the extermination of our ducal family. What on earth are you trying to do?”
“I told you. I’m going to become the Empress. The child in my womb will become the future Crown Prince.”
Eurene carefully stroked her flat belly. She didn’t know yet if she had conceived, but if she did, she was willing to take responsibility.
She would spend her lifetime devoted to the child as payment for daring to deceive heaven and the empire’s people. Wishing for the child’s happiness rather than her own, giving it a brilliant future while atoning to God for the rest of her life.
She had also prepared for the case where she wasn’t pregnant. She would do exactly as the Empress had deceived the world. A woman who lost the imperial heir due to the Empress’s schemes. It wouldn’t take long to create a pitiful story.
If the Empress’s evil deeds were also revealed, at least she wouldn’t have to live with her head bowed in shame. Perhaps she could even create a tragic ending for two people who truly loved each other.
Now that she had decided not to hold anyone but Brother in her heart for the rest of her life, what a noble atonement this was.
Eurene smiled softly.
“What if His Majesty wakes up?”
“Haha, Brother.”
Eurene let out a small laugh and tucked her sky-blue hair that had fallen forward behind her ear. Her gentle eyes curved softly, half-hiding her green irises stained with pitch-black desire.
“His Majesty is dead. I saw it clearly.”
“…What did you say?”
Facing Taleum with his shocked eyes, Eurene repeated once more.
“His Majesty is dead, Brother. The paternity confirmation magic can only be used on living people, right? The truth will never be revealed. Never.”
Taleum spoke with an incredulous face.
“I heard you were with His Majesty when he collapsed, don’t tell me you…”
Eurene’s gentle expression instantly turned cold. The gap was so incredibly large that Taleum doubted whether the vicious woman before him was truly his younger sister.
“Watch your words, Brother. I truly loved Brother, His Majesty. I won’t tolerate such unpleasant misunderstandings. I… I’ve done nothing wrong.”
“Ah, Eurene…”
Taleum felt dizzy. Perhaps it was fortunate that Father hadn’t met Eurene. How great would his heartbreak be if he saw the daughter he had cherished and protected so much fall like this?
“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of everything. I’ve suffered from baseless rumors all my life. I’ll use that to bring down the Empress. It’s a very easy task for me.”
Eurene, who had been recalling her future plans, finally raised her head. Her gentle smile once again showed no trace of shadow.
Taleum lifted his lowered head.
“The Castallo ducal family won’t help you, Eurene. If necessary, we’ll abandon you to protect the family’s honor.”
“It hurts to hear it directly. Well, what an unworthy daughter I must be to you both. Having to live confined in a villa who knows where, unable to even show my face properly for a lifetime, and now coming out like this.”
Sharp thorns were hidden in her calmly spoken words. Taleum was astounded by Eurene’s attitude of blaming everything on her surroundings, but he struggled to speak the words he hadn’t yet said.
“I came here today not only to hear your circumstances but also to tell you the truth. The truth about Mother.”
“If it’s about her being the Emperor Emeritus’s mistress, I know it’s not true. I heard our parents arguing when I was young.”
Father’s voice leaking from outside the study, asking how long they would let Eurene suffer from such baseless rumors, Mother’s sobbing.
‘Why don’t you just get public certification that she’s my biological child! Don’t you pity our daughter?’
‘How could we! Even that process would be on the lips of gossips, what about the wounds the children would receive!’
From that brief conversation, she could confirm that the Emperor Emeritus and Mother truly had no relationship.
She thought it must have just been the Emperor Emeritus’s twisted interest in Mother when she was young. He was the Emperor of Tessibania and Mother was just a low-ranking noble lady, so thinking that Mother would suffer the most from the false rumors, she sympathized with and forgave her.
“I know Mother did it to protect me from useless rumors. It was painful, but I could understand. Until she terribly opposed my relationship with His Majesty. Those petty rumors, even if the very act of testing would be dishonorable, it would have been enough to prove that I was Father’s biological child.”
“You’re greatly misunderstanding something, Eurene.”
Taleum exhaled a long breath and pulled out a letter from his chest.
“This is a letter Mother wrote for you. She wrote it staying up all night in tears and then collapsed from exhaustion, so please make sure to read it this time. And then you must realize how futile your dream is. For your sake, our family’s, and… for His Majesty’s, who you said has passed away.”
Taleum stood up and turned away without lingering.
Thud, the door closed and Eurene, left alone in the reception room, stared at the letter on the table with cold eyes.
“Mother…”
She didn’t know what kind of appeal was intended to change her mind, but things had already gone too far to turn back. She would no longer be confined to the narrow garden in her mother’s embrace.
She would bring down that wicked devil who had blinded Brother Tatar, the Empress, and avenge him.
She kept thinking. Who was the cause of all this?
Tracing back one by one, in the end, there was only one person at the root of it all.
The Empress. Vinea de Tessibania, that woman.
“If it weren’t for that woman, Brother wouldn’t have died. It’s not my fault. It’s not my fault.”
Recalling his cooling body temperature again, a deep anxiety gripped her throat. Eurene bit her nails and lowered her gaze.
“That’s right. It was strange from the beginning. How could Sefitiana disappear on the very day those two visited the temple?”
Brother had become a completely different person, and everything went according to the Empress’s will. People praising the Empress, the flood of laudatory articles, the relationship between the two that was unbelievably solid for a couple who had just married.
“They said the two had been intimate in the prayer room right after leaving the basement. That didn’t make sense from the start. Unless Brother had gone mad.”
A man and woman married for just two days mixing bodies in the sacred temple? Not unless the Empress had used some strange trick.
All circumstances pointed to one thing.
“The Empress must have used the Sefitiana that was kept in the temple.”
The contents describing God’s miracle tend to be exaggerated, so it’s not strange even if there wasn’t the brilliant pillar of light of Sefitiana written in the scriptures.
“What wish did she make? For Brother to fall in love with her? No, maybe she asked for the power to swallow the empire.”
Terrible woman. In the end, it was as good as that woman killing him. She, being innocent, had fallen into the Empress’s scheme.
Eurene’s eyes sank darkly.
“It’s all because of that woman. Isn’t that right, Brother? I only tried to protect you. I only tried to save you from that woman’s clutches…”
Eurene, who had been biting her lower lip until it almost bled, finally picked up the letter Taleum had left.
When she opened the tightly sealed envelope, she found a long text written in shaky handwriting unlike Mother’s usual neat script, stained with tears.
[I’m sorry, Eurene. This is all my fault. I should have let you be disappointed in me. Even if you were shocked, you would have eventually overcome it…]
After a series of apologies, the truth that the Duchess had wanted to hide for a lifetime finally entered Eurene’s eyes.
As she read further down, her fingertips, which had been pressing harder and harder, trembled so much by the end that she could barely hold the letter.
Eurene, blankly lifting her gaze from the letter, stuttered out the unbelievable truth.
“No. It’s a lie. It all, it all should be lies fabricated by the Empress…”
The letter fell from Eurene’s hand to the floor.
