“……No way.”

That afternoon, when Ilarid returned after finishing a short interview with reporters, the head maid of the Imperial Palace was waiting.

The document the head maid brought contained the content ‘Will return the power of final approval, a unique privilege of the Empress, to her’. Cledius’s signature and seal were also included.

“I didn’t actually think he would return it.”

Would things go a bit smoother from now on? Ilarid rolled up the document that came down from the Imperial Palace intact and tied it with a string. What remained was to use the power of final approval in the right place without regrets.

‘I’ve already thought of one. As for the other two……’

For now, she decided to save them. Ilarid’s pen glided smoothly across the paper.

**

A commotion broke out at the Military Academy.

News spread throughout the campus that those who led the exposure of corruption at the Academy would receive medals.

An award given in the name of the Emperor and Empress. Cecilia and the students who joined her had blank faces when they heard Professor Aruel’s words.

“It’s true, I tell you?”

Aruel shrugged his shoulders and grumbled lightly about having lived being fooled.

If this happens, Cecilia’s path to the advanced academy is gone. A faint disappointment lingered on Aruel’s face. Your Majesty the Empress, you’re really merciless. To try to take away the talent I was going to nurture.

But hadn’t a path opened up where it seemed to be a dead end? It was thanks to the help of the Empress and many others who worked together. Aruel looked around at the students overjoyed with a brief smile.

Cecilia wondered if this was a dream.

After the exposure, so many things had happened in the past few days that it was even burdensome to properly gather her thoughts.

On the day the newspaper article came out, she couldn’t even go outside the dormitory.

Starting with a barrage of questions from reporters demanding additional interviews, people from the Icastel family barged into the dormitory and caused a fuss.

Thanks to that, her roommates had to drag furniture over to block the door.

Pol came first. Even though she cautioned that it was a women’s dormitory, he didn’t even pretend to listen.

‘You made me look like a complete fool because of you!’

Pol shouted at the top of his lungs outside the door that she had made him look like an idiot who couldn’t even answer properly in front of His Majesty the Emperor and Her Majesty the Empress. He kicked the door and tried to break it down, so in the end, the dormitory supervisors had to drag him out.

It would have been really fortunate if it had just ended like that. After Pol was dragged away, Riwena came.

‘You betray your family and your younger brother?’

That was the point. For about half a day, Riwena’s screaming filled the hallway. Madam, please calm down a bit. Do I look calm right now! After such shouts were heard for quite a while, it finally quieted down.

The friends who had used up a day’s worth of energy trying to block the door muttered with deflated voices.

‘……Lady Icastel, she’s got good stamina. Where does that strength come from? The greed of not wanting to let go?’

‘It must be guts.’

At Cecilia’s casually thrown words, the friends sprawled out in all directions burst into laughter.

‘Right, only you could say that.’

‘What are you going to do now, Cecilia? If… all this doesn’t continue in the right direction and goes back to how it was? If we’re trapped in injustice forever?’

If that happened, Cecilia planned to submit a withdrawal form to the Academy and leave. She was planning to leave the Icastel mansion altogether.

‘Well. Where should I go?’

Rosen, which came under the Empire’s rule? Would the hometown people still be there?

But she was worried about her father still trapped in the Empire’s prison tower. Just as she was debating whether to settle in the capital, the news of the medal was truly good news.

It was a medal that even the Icastel family had to keep their mouths shut about. It was an award on par with the military medal Jin had received not long ago, so what more could be said? They hurriedly called for Cecilia.

The elders gathered at the mansion exchanged rather displeased glances.

They too knew to some extent about the manipulation of Pol’s grades. It was because they thought it was better to show off and look good if Pol was advancing rather than Cecilia, who had been taken in as an adopted daughter.

“It’s… an honor for the family.”

Their distorted expressions were quite a sight to see. They seemed displeased yet resigned to accept the fact that Cecilia was the one who fit the family motto of ‘Live for the country’.

She worried that it might be a dream until the moment she entered the palace with the family elder. But as soon as she faced the Emperor and Empress again, her anxiety melted away like snow.

The Empress looked the same as during the inspection. Had she recovered well after collapsing? Except for the slightly more comfortable formal attire, she looked similar to that day.

“To Miss Cecilia Gwynne Icastel, who did not yield to injustice and took the lead in revealing the truth, this award……”

The award ceremony was conducted modestly. Cecilia glanced at the Imperial Guards standing in a row. But even at the moment of receiving the award, Jin was nowhere to be seen.

He must not have heard the news, or he must be busy. She just thought that way and let it go.

And there was one more award given to Cecilia Gwynne Icastel.

Everyone in the hall, including Cecilia, was shocked by Ilarid’s words. Cledius frowned, apparently displeased with the Empress’s statement.

Cecilia, who couldn’t find words for a moment, barely managed to speak.

“Do you mean… right now?”

“Yes.”

As if she had anticipated this ripple, Ilarid shouted again to the hall in a loud voice without changing her expression.

“I will use one of the Empress’s powers of final approval. I will commission Miss Cecilia Gwynne Icastel as an officer of the Imperial Guard.”

It was truly a shocking move that could shake the Empire.

**

What Selina had considered the worst thing in her life was not receiving any attention at her first social debut. But that was nothing compared to what happened today.

The scene she witnessed on her way to the Empress’s Palace, all dressed up from the morning, kept coming back even when she closed her eyes.

Cledius trying to kiss Ilarid while embracing her. Did the Empress respond to that move? Selina muttered weakly.

“You said you didn’t love her.”

Selina had been constantly imprinting that.

Cledius does not love Ilarid.

‘Your Majesty… have you erased the Empress from your heart?’

What words were heard after that? The assurance that he didn’t love her had disappeared from her memory.

Finally, Selina recalled Cledius’s chilling silence.

“No… He told me he loved me. He definitely said so.”

Golden pink hair. The hair that Selina cherished so much became disheveled under her hands. Every time she shook her head violently, her lingering attachment scattered with a crackling sound.

If he didn’t love her, how to explain the Selina flowers abundantly arranged in the Empress Consort’s Palace? And all the things prepared for the Empress Consort? The act of placing the Empress Consort’s Palace below the Emperor’s Palace to escape the Empress’s surveillance?

“Was it really… just using me?”

Selina recalled the numerous artworks that had passed through the Empress Consort’s Palace over time. And the numbers on the receipts that she had slightly corrected at the request of noble ladies flashed before her eyes.

“No, it can’t be. How could he spend every night together and whisper sweet words if he didn’t love me……”

But words were just sweet to the ears.

The language she thought had touched her heart just lingered around her earlobes before dispersing into the air, yet she hadn’t noticed at all.

Selina glared at the pink flowers in the vase. They were still fresh as new flowers had been sent from the greenhouse of the Imperial Palace this morning when the old ones withered.

She, who had been sitting quietly biting her nails, suddenly stood up and called for a maid.

“Go to the Empress’s Palace and call for the maid named Alice. Right now.”

She wanted to run to the Empress’s Palace right away and confront her. How could you fall into His Majesty the Emperor’s arms when you said you didn’t love him? Didn’t you consider him no different from your mortal enemy?

‘Don’t trust His Majesty the Emperor too much.’

The warning Ilarid had given once was certainly not words to be taken lightly.

“Could it be she knew everything?”

It was Selina herself who had dismissed the Empress’s caution. But her rational thought process had long since stopped. Since she couldn’t dare raise a hand against the Empress, she needed a target to vent her anger on.

Alice took a deep breath and entered the reception room of the Empress Consort’s Palace.

Crash!

Instead of a greeting, water and flower petals splashed with a loud noise. Soon, a few flower petals rolled pitifully onto the carpet. Alice, suppressing the urge to crumple her face, greeted Selina, who was both the Empress Consort and her younger sister.

“I am Alice, a maid from the Empress’s Palace.”

“Tell me. You know who comes and goes to the Empress’s Palace, don’t you, sister?”

“Has Count Diobe not told you yet?”

Alice’s words were only indifferent. It was an attitude as if dealing with a complete stranger.

“I am no longer a person of the Diobe family.”

“What?”

“I requested so when I met Count Diobe last time. Since I am no longer part of the Empress Consort’s household, there will be no more trouble from me. Please don’t worry.”

“How can you say that… As my sister, of course you should help me, how can you stand by the side of Her Majesty the Empress who opposes me? How can you do this, sister?”

Well. How can I do this? Then how have you been doing this all along?

Once, Alice had worked through the night without sleep. When she collapsed at the entrance still in her work clothes and came to her senses, she saw Selina looking down at her with a pathetic expression.

‘Why on earth do you live like this……’

It was ridiculous. The dress Selina was wearing at that time was something Alice had emptied her entire week’s wages to buy. When did she so carefully empty her pockets, and now she asks why she lives like this.

What made you like this, Selina?

“I am a maid of Her Majesty the Empress. I deeply ask for your understanding that I cannot carelessly mention things that happen in the Empress’s Palace to others.”

“So it’s betrayal, is it?”

The end of Selina’s words trembled. Alice noticed that Selina had come right in front of her.

And at that very moment, a short and intense pain was felt on Alice’s cheek. What is this? Before she could even process the situation, her sister’s cry was heard immediately.

“We’re family! How can you stick with the person I hate the most… and say you’ll take her side? Do you hate me so much you want revenge?”

Who wants to cry when you’re the one in tears? Alice quietly looked at Selina, who was crying her eyes out, with her hand on her swollen cheek.

“Are you done venting your anger?”

There was nothing more to say. Getting angry or venting at the Empress Consort here would damage the image of the Empress’s Palace.

Above all, she just didn’t want to deal with it.

Alice’s indifferent appearance was enough to confuse Selina. She quickly escaped the Empress Consort’s Palace, taking advantage of the moment when her sister couldn’t say anything and stuttered.

Why doesn’t it feel refreshing?

Walking aimlessly, it was another garden somewhere. They really did make these artificial gardens relentlessly inside the Imperial Palace. It’s tiring, but it’s good at times like this. She could hide her body adequately, and it didn’t seem bad to sit down and organize her thoughts.

Alice sat down right in the shade of the tree in front of her. Her slapped cheek was gradually swelling up, bringing a stinging sensation and heat.

“……What are you standing there for?”

At the nonchalant voice, Eddie flinched and stepped back. He was hugging a paper bag, seemingly on his way back from somewhere.

“Is this your first time seeing someone get hit?”

Having seen hundreds of corpses, would this be the first time seeing someone get hit? Eddie quietly shook his head. And he carefully approached Alice’s side.

Alice sat with her knees drawn up and her head buried. Although she had been hit while working outside before, why does it hurt so much today?

“When strangers hit me, I could just let it go.”

A mumbling voice was heard from within the tightly curled body.

“I guess I really did love our family a lot.”

No matter how much she was broken outside, if she heard one warm word from her loving family, she could recover as if nothing had happened. But the very existence called family, which should have hugged and comforted her, always left only raw wounds.

If she goes in crying, it will show right away. Just as she was thinking she should at least let the swelling go down before returning, there was a rustling sound.

“Take it.”

Eddie abruptly held out a tube of ointment in front of Alice.

“I bought it as a first-aid medicine while I was out, it’s good for reducing swelling.”

And he quickly turned around and left the artificial garden. Alice, stopping mid-cry with a bewildered expression, alternately looked at the ointment placed in her hand and Eddie’s retreating figure.

“I guess this makes up for tattling last time……”

Very occasionally, there are times when a complete stranger recognizes and embraces your wounds. A small smile appeared where the tears had stopped.