Chapter 63
As soon as they entered the infirmary, Alice felt all eyes focusing on her.
One priest even approached and asked:
“Has the Duchess been injured somewhere?”
“It’s just a broken shoe, don’t worry about it.”
Unlike Alice, whose face was flushed bright red, Kylus answered very gently.
Carrying his wife because of a broken shoe.
Alice clearly saw the priest’s face turn sour.
Prion must have had the same expression.
Alice couldn’t bring herself to raise her head towards Prion, who must be watching this scene.
The only fortunate thing was that Kylus’s steps were quick.
But leaving the infirmary wasn’t the end of it.
They had escaped Prion’s gaze, but as evening prayer time approached, the temple was bustling with people.
“Oh my.”
“Goodness.”
“That’s Duke Dearrut, isn’t it?”
“Then the person he’s carrying must be…”
Alice heard every single exclamation from the people they passed by.
How embarrassing!
Alice was at a loss with embarrassment, but Kylus walked straight ahead without even glancing at the whispering people.
In the end, Alice, unable to bear the embarrassment alone, had no choice but to hide her face in the crook of Kylus’s neck.
Please pass by quickly.
As she squeezed her eyes shut, wishing only to leave the temple soon, she heard what sounded like an amused chuckle from above.
For some reason, Kylus let out occasional laughs throughout their walk through the temple.
Proportionally, Alice’s face turned even redder.
Finally, just before leaving the temple, Alice suddenly raised her head from his neck and said to him:
“We’re almost there, right? Please put me down!”
“I’ll help you into the carriage.”
“Duke!”
That absolutely cannot happen.
The coachman of the ducal family is standing in front of the carriage!
If the coachman sees this sight, rumors will spread throughout the ducal residence before tomorrow’s sun rises.
No. Anything but that.
The people they brushed past in the temple were just occasional acquaintances, but the servants of the ducal family were faces she saw every day.
She didn’t want to become the noble lady who whined to her husband to carry her just because of a broken shoe in front of such people.
Of course, Alice had neither whined nor asked to be carried, but…
Rumors tend to get distorted, after all.
Alice strained her eyes while wriggling her legs.
As if to say she absolutely wouldn’t yield on this.
But despite her quite vigorous wriggling, Kylus’s body didn’t shake at all.
I’m not that light, am I?
In the face of his unwavering demeanor, the movement of her legs slowed, as if deflated. At that moment, Kylus muttered lowly:
“Well, we’ve already shown the person I wanted to show.”
“Pardon?”
What did he just say?
Alice tilted her head at his muttering.
“It was nothing.”
Kylus, wearing a relaxed smile, carefully set her down and then took her hand.
Her shoe heel was still broken, after all.
As Alice glanced around and took Kylus’s hand, he spoke in a voice tinged with amusement:
“You’re surprisingly shy.”
Who? Me?
Who created this embarrassing situation in the first place!
Alice lifted her chin, not hiding her incredulity.
“It’s because you’re too shameless, Duke.”
“Is that so? I suppose I don’t particularly care about others’ gazes. But you should get used to it. From now on, wherever we go, we’ll receive many gazes.”
“…Surely you don’t mean you’ll do this often?”
Somehow, his meaningful words gave her an uneasy feeling.
He’s going to do this kind of cheesy act again?
As Alice asked in a trembling voice, Kylus lightly shrugged his shoulders.
“Well, depending on the situation.”
“What kind of situation…?”
This time, instead of answering, Kylus just chuckled.
Then, taking her hand, he left the temple.
“Duke, please answer…”
Just as Alice was about to persistently ask what kind of situations he meant, Kylus’s steps halted.
The strange smile that had been lingering on his lips disappeared as well.
“Davit.”
Davit?
That was the name of the captain of the ducal family’s knights.
Why is he here?
As she turned her head forward, Davit was approaching.
They had brought two knights from the ducal family, but… Davit hadn’t come along.
“Your Grace, My Lady.”
Davit, stopping in front of us, gave an informal greeting.
Alice noticed that his ash-gray hair was quite disheveled.
Evidence that he had ridden here in a hurry.
Has something bad happened?
Alice’s face hardened, just like Kylus’s. Davit opened his mouth with a grim expression.
“Your Grace, news has arrived from the imperial palace that Lady Quillian and Young Master Edellm have taken their own lives.”
* * *
Lady Quillian and Edellm were dead.
They had slit their throats with a dagger from who knows where, wasn’t it?
She was so shocked by the news of Lady Quillian’s death that she hadn’t properly heard Davit’s subsequent words.
But one thing she had heard clearly.
It wasn’t murder, but suicide.
“…This is nonsense.”
How could Lady Quillian, a person with such a strong will to live, commit suicide?
No matter how cornered she was, she was absolutely not the type to take her own life.
And they had escaped Kylus’s grasp and gone to the imperial palace.
Since the Emperor disliked Kylus, they should have been happy, seeing it as an opportunity to turn misfortune into blessing. It didn’t make sense that they would secretly obtain daggers to commit suicide.
Moreover, the most unbelievable part was Edellm rather than Lady Quillian.
To think that even Edellm, who was no more than Lady Quillian’s puppet, had slit his own throat.
Edellm didn’t even have the courage to commit suicide.
Yet the method of suicide was so bold.
Alice didn’t believe they had committed suicide. Kylus didn’t seem to believe it either.
As soon as he heard Davit’s news, his face had hardened like frost.
It definitely wasn’t a face of shock.
It was an expression of deep contemplation, as if gauging the situation.
Throughout the journey back to the ducal residence, Kylus remained lost in thought without uttering a single word.
By the time they returned to the ducal residence, the bodies of the two had already arrived.
Along with two small daggers they had supposedly used to slit their throats, and suicide notes.
The person who brought the daggers and notes was none other than Hasis.
Upon examination, the handwriting on the suicide notes indeed matched that of Lady Quillian and Edellm. But even so, Alice didn’t believe it.
She had clearly seen the sneer that flashed across Hasis’s lips for a brief moment.
Others might not have noticed it, focused as they were on the bodies and notes, but Alice had seen that sneer, and because of it, she could be certain.
Lady Quillian and Edellm hadn’t committed suicide, but were murdered.
And the person who killed them was… the Empress.
She was certain enough to bet her life on it, but it wasn’t something she could voice out loud.
There was no evidence, after all.
Alice let out a short sigh as she gazed at the flames burning under the pitch-black sky.
In the courtyard in front of the main building.
There, the coffins of Lady Quillian and Edellm were burning.
Their names had been cut out from the family tree, and stripped of the Dearrut name, they couldn’t be interred in the ducal family’s columbarium.
Moreover, Kylus had declared that he wouldn’t hold a funeral for them.
Hence, Alice was watching the coffins burn from her bedroom.
Since no one in the ducal family dared pray for their souls, they couldn’t even keep vigil.
Only Kylus, Tessiri, and Davit stood in front of the coffins.
Davit threw another burning log onto the fire.
The flames intensified, and she could see the coffins breaking apart.
Hadn’t they said they would burn the bodies along with the coffins and scatter the ashes like garbage on some distant mound of earth?
It was a truly miserable end for people who had so desperately tried to seize the Dearrut duchy.
To the point where their deaths in the original story might have been better.
At least in the original story, they were beheaded while still bearing the Dearrut name.
It was a wretched end, losing even the Dearrut name they had so coveted and being discarded like trash, but it didn’t feel satisfying.
All the evil deeds Lady Quillian had committed were now buried and forgotten.
There had been evidence of Kylus’s poisoning and various corruptions, but with the criminals dead, a trial couldn’t be held.
The imperial family had taken Lady Quillian away arbitrarily, so they couldn’t even conduct a proper investigation.
If Alice felt this unsettled, the feelings of Kylus, the person directly involved, must be even worse.
No matter how miserable their deaths were.
“…Empress.”
Alice thought of the person who had created this situation.
The Empress’s actions had completely diverged from the original story.
Revealing her forces to her, killing Lady Quillian in one swift move.
None of it was like the perfectly calculating Empress.
It was impulsive rather than meticulous.
For someone who had kept herself hidden until the very end to make such a rash move… was it because of Kylus?
It seemed that Kylus’s survival itself had become a major variable for the Empress.
Now, she couldn’t even guess what the Empress might do next.
So I need to use the information that hasn’t changed as best I can.
First, the Third Prince.
Before the Empress makes any other moves, I need to make Kylus support the Third Prince.
We can’t know what results the rapidly changing flow of the original story might bring.
The Empress might even kill the Third Prince in case Kylus chooses him.
Before that happens, we must absolutely put forward the Third Prince as a candidate for Crown Prince.
As Alice was planning for the future, the flames that had been burning the coffins were already dying down.
When the roaring flames were completely extinguished, only pitch-black ashes remained.
Alice gazed at the black ashes with a strange look in her eyes.
Lady Quillian and Edellm.
To think that people who had been moving about in front of her just days ago had become a handful of ashes.
She had known they would die, but… still, facing it with her own eyes felt strange.
Of course, she didn’t feel any sympathy.
It just felt a bit scary.
A world where people die overnight.
The cruelty of this world, where you must kill your enemies or be killed yourself, truly sank in.
This was now her world.
Regardless of the original story.
“My Lady, I’ve prepared your bed.”
Aileen’s voice sounded from behind her.
“Mm.”
“Have a peaceful night, My Lady.”
Alice answered without turning around. Sensing her heavy mood, Aileen left the room without further words.
The sound of Aileen leaving the room echoed.
In the room now enveloped in silence.
Alice stared at Kylus’s back, still gazing at the black ashes, for quite a long time before slowly turning away.
With a determination to survive, no matter what.
