“It’s too late.”

The wife quietly replied to her husband who wanted to know everything.

“It’s too late to say such things. If you wanted to hear my words, you should have listened when I was trying hard to speak.”

I cried out in anguish until my throat bled, you should have listened then.

“Do I have to answer if Your Highness asks me to speak?”

You didn’t answer my words. Blue eyes filled with unspoken words stared directly into the dragon’s eyes. The lady who stared straight into the dragon’s eyes, which even those of considerable skill could not look at directly, resembled a fragile light. If one looked at her quietly, she seemed like a weak and harmless existence that would melt away into the air. If grasped, she would disappear even faster.

“No.”

That’s not it.

“I’m glad Your Highness has many questions. I did too. Why were you so mean to me, why did you ignore me, why didn’t you treat me like a person, I was so curious I almost went crazy.”

It would have been better to go crazy. Kaella recalled the painful times without crying as she maintained her sanity. She had even forgotten how to cry.

“No one answered me. So I learned just one thing.”

Purple eyes, bloodshot, remained fixed on her without wavering. Though every word she spoke pierced through him like a knife, he didn’t even blink, as if determined not to miss a single thing.

“To live as a human being, you have to ignore and mock people like this.”

And she, who was ignored and mocked by them, was not human. She was less than human.

“Since I’ve been forced to live anyway, I might as well try to live like a person.”

She quietly thrust the knife into him with a monotone voice.

“Don’t worry. I was incapable and never knew anything until the end, but Your Highness is competent. You’ll figure it out well on your own.”

If it doesn’t work out, you might even open this useless head. It didn’t matter.

“I hope Your Highness becomes as desperately curious as I was.”

To live each day withering away, assigning meaning to trivial things, paying attention to every glance and gesture, wondering if this means that or that means this.

Kaella sealed her lips in front of the man who was as curious as she had been. Silence was the only weapon she had found. Somehow, she felt like crying.

*

Kaella walked quietly, as quietly as she could, through the Kline Imperial Palace where her father had once died. Due to recent events, she wanted to avoid drawing people’s attention as much as possible.

But there were always so many people in the palace, and her husband was always there to escort her and pick her up. Moreover, the Duchess of Schroez, whom she was about to meet, tended to like having many people around her.

People were swarming even on the path to where the Duchess of Schroez was.

“It’s Lady Ostain. Are you feeling well?”

“Even the Duke of Lysenford is with her.”

The gazes staring at them were uncomfortable, as the Emperor had called them here to clean up the engagement party that the Duchess of Schroez and her close associates had made a mess of. It was her fourth day entering the palace, as promised to the Emperor.

“You can go now.”

Kaella turned to Peon and said softly.

“I can go alone from here. You’re busy, aren’t you?”

“I’ll take you just to that entrance over there.”

Peon, who had declared he would keep his mouth shut for four days and actually did so, didn’t ask his wife anything more or force her to answer. He just followed her with eyes that never lost their heat, as he always had, checking if she was breathing properly.

“How long do you think it will take?”

At his words implying he would come pick her up, Kaella shook her head. No matter what, it would end earlier than Peon, who was in charge of political affairs.

“I think I’ll be back first.”

“Well, I heard the Duchess of Schroez has turned even the Ministry of Foreign Affairs upside down, so you might be later than me.”

Strange person. Kaella thought as she looked at Peon smiling and answering kindly. He’s really a strange person.

How can he be so kind to a wife who cursed and tormented him? He seemed angry too, but was he not showing it, or had his anger subsided? Well, Kaella never knew much anyway.

“Don’t work too hard. No matter how much you try, the credit will go to the Duchess of Schroez anyway.”

“If it fails, I’ll be the one blamed.”

“Who would dare?”

His smile as he looked down was cold. Right. Her husband was not in his right mind and was not human. He seemed a bit more generous when it came to Kaella, but not when it came to others. Hadn’t she barely stopped him from doing something to the Emperor in the audience chamber four days ago?

“I won’t care at all if I’m criticized and I’ll do the work moderately.”

“Good. That’s a good idea.”

The entrance had suddenly approached. The door was wide open, with representatives from all departments eagerly waiting for Kaella. They were probably half sobbing.

“I’ll come pick you up.”

“I told you I don’t know when it will end.”

“I know.”

“Then why did you ask how long it would take?”

“It’s a gentleman’s courtesy.”

He murmured as he bent down to kiss Kaella’s cheek.

“Do it moderately and eat a lot of delicious food. The smell of food is overwhelming.”

Whether it was the day to decide on the food for the engagement party, the smell of roasting meat and spices was mixed together.

“Taste everything and eat a lot.”

After kissing her once more, he gently pushed his wife into the entrance. Behind her, Cecil and Sir Renard followed quietly at a proper distance.

They were maids and guards, as well as supervisors Peon had assigned. Their role was to prevent Kaella from harming herself while Peon was away, and to make sure she ate her meals properly.

Kaella was walking in when she suddenly turned back. Peon was still standing there, looking at her. He nodded slightly as if telling her to go on.

Suddenly, the image of the grown man standing quietly and nodding overlapped with that of a fifteen or sixteen-year-old boy whose features were just beginning to mature. When she was eight or nine years old. When she first learned to ride a horse and was scared sitting alone on a pony, he told her to try walking alone along the path for a bit.

It’s okay now, so try going there and back by yourself. I’ll be watching.

Back then too, when she turned around, Peon had nodded like that.

‘So there was a time like that.’

It was a forgotten memory. No, it was a memory she had discarded after realizing it had no meaning to Peon.

So he had watched me ride a horse. I was so scared of horses that I started riding late. There was a time like that once. He was still the same.

Kaella stopped walking. The same? He forgot in the middle, didn’t he? When something black started to cloud his eyes, he spoke as if there had never been such times.

‘Have you still not come to your senses?’

Then, does that black shadow in his eyes even blur memories? He had said he was ‘forcibly suppressed’ too. Is that what he meant?

‘Stop being curious! You decided to keep your mouth shut. What are you going to do if you find out? Are you going to sympathize again? Are you going to betray me like that?’

Me, who was imprisoned without any crime.

‘Don’t care and don’t forgive! That’s enough! That’s what that person did too!’

Peon, who had imprisoned her, calling her a dangerous woman.

“Oh my, you’re finally here!”

What broke her thoughts was the Duchess of Schroez with her very high voice. In her early 40s, she was dressed so elaborately that she was buried in feathers, pearls, and glittering silver silk.

Of course, she was beautiful, but if she toned down her outfit a bit, her face could stand out more. Moreover, such an outfit was not at all practical for working.

“Hello. It’s been a while.”

“Come in, come in. I’ve been waiting for you. I really don’t know what to do with these…”

Sir Renard swallowed a groan as he looked at the enormous hall. Cecil opened her eyes wide in surprise.

Several documents were scattered on the floor, new shoes and fabrics were strewn in the left corner as if choosing outfits, all sorts of etiquette books and records of past events that had clearly not been properly looked at were stuffed in the right corner, and tiara designs were piled up between the right and left sides.

Meanwhile, on the table set up near the entrance, all sorts of delicacies were gathered. Everyone seemed to be in the middle of tasting a bit. In short, the hall looked as if it had been hit by a bomb. The staff members were sitting down tiredly, eating some food, while the Duchess of Schroez looked around the hall and said,

“I don’t know what to do. There’s so much to do, I wonder how I can do it all.”

She seemed to have realized that she couldn’t handle the important task she had been given for the first time, as well as her role as the Crown Prince’s mother, although she was very excited about it.

“I think it’s because it was decided so suddenly.”

No, that’s not it. All the staff members present were saying with their expressions that that wasn’t it.

“Have you eaten? Come here and let’s choose the menu first. Try this. I think everything is delicious, so I don’t know how to choose.”

Receiving the plate and new fork handed to her by the Duchess of Schroez, Kaella started by choosing the engagement party formal dinner menu, and soon realized what the Duchess of Schroez’s biggest problem was.

“Which one is better?”

“You’ll want to include meaning in the menu too, do you have a theme in mind for the engagement party?”

“Well, I haven’t decided yet. Should I use roses as the theme, but then I want to use lilies of the valley too, but that doesn’t match well? Then if I use lilies of the valley, the ceremony changes again…”

She had too many things she wanted to do.

“There’s the wedding later too, so you could change the theme then.”

“But I heard that since the wedding will definitely be grand, we need to do well for the engagement party…”

Moreover, her ears were fatally thin. Instead of sighing, Kaella looked at the staff members who had been dragged along by the Duchess of Schroez, who couldn’t get her bearings. Everyone was saying with their eyes, ‘Welcome, welcome to hell’.

“I want to do well for our Gregory as he welcomes his future empress. The Duchess must know well since she recently got married, right?”

Above all, the Duchess of Schroez had one dangerous aspect.

“It must be a big, splendid engagement party that will go down in history and be talked about for a long time.”

She seems to want to use this opportunity to vent the frustrations she suffered as the Emperor’s mistress. Kaella, who had been in social circles for a long time, searched her hazy memories from four years ago and beyond.

Duchess of Schroez, Dorothea Angelique Finois, was of low status but sang well, was pretty, and had a wealthy family.

Because her family was wealthy, she could enter the court by pulling strings, and because she was pretty, she caught the eye of the Emperor who touched all women here and there, and even bore him a son. Up to that point was possible in an era if you had money and were pretty.

But she couldn’t maintain her position as the Crown Prince’s birth mother and wield power as well. No matter what, the Duchess of Schroez had only received the plausible title of Duchess of Schroez to save face.

Even that wasn’t bestowed upon her, but she had hurriedly married the dying Duke of Schroez, and after the Duke of Schroez died, her marital relationship had never been officially tied to the Emperor.

It was natural in this country where monogamy was the law, but the fact that she was made a married woman in this way and given the title of someone without descendants clearly revealed the Duchess of Schroez’s position.

“I want to do everything I can for my son.”

The Duchess of Schroez was dreaming alone. As the Crown Prince’s birth mother, and with the Empress falling into a coma, she thought she could step up as the acting Empress by taking charge of this engagement party.

“I’m counting on you, Duchess.”

The fact that a mere duchess was casually calling her ‘Duchess’ already showed she was hopeless. The beginning of all social circles is that no matter what you say behind people’s backs, you must strictly adhere to etiquette in front of them.

“Yes. I’m counting on you too.”

But there was already too much to do to argue about etiquette with the Duchess of Schroez, who was old enough to be her mother, so Kaella let it pass moderately.

*

In just 30 minutes, the staff members sprawled around the hall came to deeply respect the Duchess of Lysenford.

She sat the Duchess of Schroez in the middle of the hall with a smile, gave her snacks and her pet dog to hold, and then had only two staff members stand in front of her.

She made her choose just one thing from what the staff members were holding, like roses and lilies of the valley, emeralds and sapphires, pink satin and blue satin.

“Hmm, blue. No, is pink better?”

When the Duchess couldn’t decide, Kaella gave a formal smile and said the magic words.

“Then let’s decide this later.”

The Duchess made decisions without even knowing what she was deciding.

She had been at a loss, her head full of etiquette and formalities she couldn’t understand, the scale of the huge event, people’s gazes and rumors, but now she just had to simply choose one of two things.

And if she couldn’t decide, she could do it later. How comfortable!

It was obvious that if the engagement party went well, the credit would go to the Duchess of Schroez, but Kaella didn’t mind at all. For now, making things look plausible was the best option. She took the etiquette books and records of past events from the Duchess of Schroez, hid them so the Duchess couldn’t look through them, and came out.

The day had barely ended. The staff members would have to work again based on what had just been decided.

“Your Grace.”

And the one who greeted her as she stepped outside was not Peon as promised, but a servant from Soleil Palace.

“His Imperial Majesty is currently in the Sacred Forest with His Grace the Duke of Lysenford.”

Everyone except the Emperor called that place the Monster’s Garden.

“His Grace the Duke asked me to inform Your Grace that he apologizes for not being able to come and escort you.”

“Is that so.”

“And…, this is a separate instruction given by His Majesty after His Grace the Duke’s message.”