Eriel tried to recall her memories of Damian, but he was absent from most of her fleeting recollections.

Both when there were no children, and when there were.

After marriage, when Eriel was struggling, it was Lucy by her side, not Damian.

How many tears she shed holding a newborn who couldn’t even speak.

Eriel remembered Damian’s eyes looking at her. Eyes that held the sea, and something even greater.

Yes, on the day he returned from the long conquest war, didn’t he fight with his daughter who was only 7 years old?

Calling her ill-mannered, treating his daughter like personal property!

Eriel frowned and rose from her seat.

Right, I don’t have time for this.

I must go find the child quickly.

Eriel moved her steps towards an even darker place. It was in the completely opposite direction from where Damian had called.

*

“Let’s go up.”

Blake, who had roughly shoved the rattling doorknob into the door crack, lifted Lucy into his arms.

“Uh, where? To, to mother?”

As Lucy stammered in confusion, Blake frowned.

“The one sister wants to see most is none other than her niece. Looking at it now, the niece might not be able to wake up because she’s not going to sister.”

At Blake’s words, Lucy carefully bit her lip. Lucy’s long eyelashes drooped weakly.

“But… would mother… want to see me? Mother ended up like that while entering the forest to look for me…”

As Lucy lowered her gaze with an uncertain voice, Blake glanced at the child while climbing the stairs.

“That’s of no use to sister.”

“…Huh?”

“You could kill someone, and sister would never let you go for the rest of your life. That’s… because she’s sister.”

Blake nodded to the butler.

“The physician?”

“He’s by the lady’s side now.”

Blake nodded and went up to the bedroom.

Beyond the door that opened with a click, the physician was concentrating, sweating coldly as he examined Eriel’s condition.

“Mother…”

Lucy, getting down from Blake’s arms, slowly approached Eriel.

Lucy’s fingertips trembled at the sight of Eriel’s peaceful appearance, as if she might wake up and call for Lucy at any moment.

Mother.

Mother.

A living mother.

“Mother.”

Lucy held her mother’s hand.

Though it had a faint warmth, the hand that wouldn’t grasp back even when she held it lay limply on top of Lucy’s hand.

Lucy fiddled with Eriel’s fingers, trying not to cry.

But tears welled up, and her breathing quickly became uneven.

She wiped her blurry vision with her sleeve, again and again, tried to hold back her ragged breaths, again and again, but it didn’t work as well as her heart wanted. It only became harder.

“Hic… Mother, mother…”

Holding Eriel’s hand tightly and pressing it against her cheek, Lucy closed her eyes.

Lucy’s tears flowed down Eriel’s fingers.

“Please… hic… don’t go. Okay? I did wrong.”

While Lucy held and rubbed Eriel’s hand, Blake examined Eriel’s condition.

The physician, who had stepped aside to wait momentarily, organized his bag.

“The wound?”

“It’s healing well. Actually, the external wound wasn’t that deep. It’s also completely unrelated to any vital points, so it wasn’t a life-threatening injury.”

“But she’s not waking up. Is there a possibility of poison?”

“There’s no necrosis, and no signs of blood clotting. As you can see from the clean wound site, it’s not poison. Just in case, I checked everything related to poisons in the empire, but there was nothing. As for the reason she’s not opening her eyes, even I…”

The physician bowed his head and swallowed his words.

As the ducal family’s physician, he couldn’t dare say he didn’t know when the duchess had collapsed.

Blake nodded and examined Eriel’s condition.

He spread Eriel’s closed eyelids with his fingers to check for any reaction inside, and checked if she was breathing.

Despite the wound not being life-threatening, sister lay there as if dead, breathing with shallow vitality.

If this state of lying down continued, she might die from secondary reasons rather than the arrow wound.

Blake recalled his experiences from the battlefield.

Sometimes, there were guys who felt the pain when they saw the arm of the guy next to them fly off.

Since it was a place no different from hell, Blake didn’t look too closely at what they felt or what antics they did.

Because it was a place where impossible things happened, and impossible sights unfolded before one’s eyes.

But among such knights, there were sometimes knights who simply wanted to bid farewell to the world without wounds.

Such guys usually tried not to wake up from sleep at some point.

At first, he thought they had been poisoned, but seeing only specific individuals doing so, he realized it wasn’t poison.

Blake looked down at Eriel and thought of the knight from back then.

Either they had no will to live or…

They couldn’t accept that their comrade had died.

Whatever the problem was, sister had such an accident while looking for Lucy.

“Hmm…”

Blake, who had been looking down at Eriel with his chin propped up, slightly turned his head to the side.

He saw his niece crying while holding Eriel’s hand.

The deliberation wasn’t long. Blake swiftly slipped his hand under Lucy’s arm and lifted the child.

Then he brought the child close to Eriel’s face.

“Niece. Call her.”

“Huh?”

“Call her mother.”

Lucy, flustered, placed her hand on her mother’s face and called out while sobbing.

“Mother… hic.”

At Lucy’s small trembling voice, Blake told her to speak louder.

“Sister might hear. Call louder.”

“Hic, sob… Mother.”

That’s when it happened.

As if responding to Lucy’s voice, Eriel’s fingers twitched slightly.

Lucy, startled, cried out urgently.

“Mother! Mother!! Can you hear my voice? Huh? Mother!!”

*

At that time, in front of Damian heading towards the imperial palace, dozens of imperial knights surrounded him and pointed their swords.

“You cannot enter the imperial palace in an armed state.”

The one who appeared to be the knight commander stood in front of Damian.

“If I give up my arms, can you also lay your sword on the ground?”

“We are knights tasked with preventing the criminal from escaping elsewhere. Don’t you know that it’s not proper etiquette as a subject to see His Majesty in your current attire, Duke?”

At the knight commander’s words, Damian chuckled.

“Is that so? Ordering me to deal with the church from behind, while treating me as a criminal in front, which order should a subject follow?”

The knight commander flinched. However, he quickly regained his senses and retorted to Damian.

“That is not something for me, a knight, to be concerned about.”

“It’s the same both ways. Don’t worry about my armament either. I don’t want any more bloodshed, so step aside.”

“Duke, you are currently entering the imperial palace after ruthlessly massacring the believers of the Terios Church and receiving an imperial order as a criminal.”

“Is that so? The imperial palace sure finds it easy to make criminals. Don’t you think?”

Strangely, Damian’s words were getting longer.

The knight commander found it odd.

Though he hadn’t encountered him often, he knew Duke Genova to be rather taciturn, but now he was exchanging pointless words with him over this matter.

“If words don’t get through, we have no choice but to subdue you by force and take you in.”

“Do you think it’s possible with just this number?”

The duke once again chose to drag out the knight commander’s words.

“…Is there a separate reason you’re stalling for time like this?”

At the knight commander’s words, the corners of Damian’s mouth turned up. The knight commander was certain this too was part of the duke’s scheme.

Silence is an answer, he was certain of that. The knight commander ordered the knight standing behind to go to the imperial palace in front of Damian.

Damian just stood still, watching the knight go to the imperial palace.

“Duke.”

The knight commander called out to Damian.

“What happened to your wife is certainly a sad affair, but you know that solving it this way won’t solve anything, don’t you? Do you know how much innocent blood of the empire’s people you’ve spilled? In the church…”

“Innocent?”

Damian, whose mouth corners had been turned up, was no longer even smiling with his lips.

The knight commander faltered at Damian’s raised voice.

“Do you think the wars outside have any guilt? Do you think the lives of countless knights were blood spilled because of guilt?”

Damian’s eyes stared directly at the knight commander as he asked.

“You don’t seem to know what a conquest war is. You too are standing on someone’s blood.”

Just as Damian was about to draw his sword, Charles’ voice rang out from behind.

“Duke!”

Damian’s head turned back. Charles had attached himself to Damian’s back along with the elite troops.

“…I’ll take care of this place. Please go up to the imperial palace.”

Damian nodded.

The knight commander quickly came to his senses and tried to block Damian from moving forward, but was instantly restrained by Charles’ sword.

Damian, easily passing the knight commander, rode his horse.

The gates of the imperial palace were open due to the knight who had briefly passed through the imperial palace just before to report news of Damian.

“The gates must be closed! Close them! The duke must not be let in!”