Chapter 78
※ Words written inside 「」 are in a foreign language based on the Phaelon Empire.
After the funeral of the King of Karan concluded, Anette stayed in the Kingdom of Taran for two more days before returning to the imperial palace of Phaelon.
To think that her first official outing as the Empress of Phaelon was her father’s funeral. Riding in the carriage on the way back, she felt guilty even for glancing out the window or drawing in the fresh air and feeling a moment’s relief.
Somehow, the journey home felt more empty and deflating than the trip to the Kingdom of Taran upon first hearing of her father’s death.
Truga offered words of relief that she had returned safely and condolences for the loss of her father, but that was all. Her deeper longing for comfort didn’t reach him.
At least upon returning to the empress’s palace, her maids swarmed around her with their own consolations. Even so, the hollow ache in her chest persisted.
“Your Majesty, your face looks so drawn. Please, get some rest soon.”
At Jane’s words, Anette lay down. It wasn’t as if she’d ever shared the bed with anyone, yet the vast expanse felt emptily cavernous. A chill wind seemed to blow from her chest.
In the empty room after the maids had left, she finally drifted into sleep. But to be met with a nightmare, of all things.
“Hah!”
Anette jolted awake with a sharp intake of breath and hurriedly tugged at the cord by the bedside.
“Your Majesty!”
Today’s attendant, Natalina, swiftly opened the door and rushed in, helping Anette sit up. The touch of her hand met Anette’s damp back.
“Are you all right?”
After briefly assessing Anette’s condition, Natalina poured a cup of water and handed it over. Only after gulping it down did Anette’s mind begin to clear.
“I had a nightmare…”
At Anette’s feeble murmur, Natalina nodded with an expression of full understanding.
“I can imagine. How could your heart be at ease? Oh, dear. If only I could dream it for you instead.”
Natalina sighed deeply, as if the earth might cave in beneath her, her sympathy plain. Anette responded with a grateful smile that needed no words, then lay back down a moment later.
Having spent so long in the carriage, sitting upright had left her uncomfortable. As she settled her creaking body onto the bed, Natalina simply pulled up a chair and took her place by Anette’s side.
Anette didn’t try to dissuade her from watching over her until she fell asleep. It was a night when the wish for someone—anyone—nearby grew thick and wild within her.
* * *
The next day, Anette’s ears rang all throughout. It was because of the unpleasant dream she’d had.
Even after waking and drifting off again, even with Natalina keeping vigil by her bedside, she couldn’t escape the nightmare by a single step.
It was a dream from the time Anette had first come to the Phaelon Empire from the Kingdom of Taran. The nobles scorned the foreign princess who had bartered her homeland’s territory for a seat as empress, treating her like some exchanged good.
They pointed fingers at her pitiful state, unloved by the emperor’s attention, and wagered on when the divorce might come.
The mocking laughter, laced with jeers, battered her eardrums. It pierced Anette’s ears with particular sharpness. Anette whipped her head around, searching for whoever was ridiculing her so.
And there—Angela. With insolent eyes fixed on her, she mingled among the nobles, laughing derisively right at Anette.
Don’t mock me.
Anette tried to snap at her, but her mouth felt sealed shut; no words escaped.
Stop laughing!
Even her screams came out the same. It was as if she had no right at all, permitted only to witness Angela’s scorn.
‘「Your Highness is not yet the Empress of my country.」’
After such a dream, the voice from the past echoed even after her eyes opened. It was with Angela right before her. She had come to offer condolences, it seemed, upon Anette’s return from the Kingdom of Taran.
No words passed between them, but Angela’s gaze, scrutinizing Anette, was careful and attentive. And yet Anette could only see the image of Angela from the dream overlapping her like a lingering afterimage—giggling as if to say there was no one here on Anette’s side.
It hadn’t even been real, just something from a dream, but there was no stopping the hatred that seeped into her gaze toward Angela.
No—what did it matter if such a thing had truly happened back then? Angela and she hadn’t been on good terms at that time anyway.
“You must be exhausted.”
She must have sensed the prickliness in Anette’s eyes. But Angela mistook it for nothing more than the irritability of a weary empress.
“Partings are always like that, aren’t they? I couldn’t very well return from losing my father with a smile on my face.”
Anette let the words tumble out. Even to her own ears, the response sounded sharp-edged. Yet Angela merely replied, “Indeed,” as if that were all there was to it.
There was no malice in the hand that held the teacup. If anything, the deepening of Angela’s gaze upon her seemed laced with concern. And still, why did it feel so…
“I’m sorry, Lady Bilton.”
“……?”
“Would you mind leaving now? As you said, I seem quite tired. I’d like to rest alone.”
Angela erased the flicker of surprise in an instant and departed at once, assuming it was her own lack of consideration.
That night, Anette dreamed again. Angela was still mocking her. No matter how she tried, she couldn’t silence that mouth cackling about how Anette had no allies in this palace.
* * *
As Angela tilted her head, Kalian’s head tilted in kind toward her. When Angela’s head leaned the other way, Kalian’s followed once more, mirroring her exactly.
Only then did Angela realize his face had been tracking her every movement, and she snapped her gaze forward.
“What are you fretting over?”
Their eyes met squarely out of nowhere, yet Kalian asked without a hint of evasion. It seemed he’d been deliberately shadowing her little head tilts after all.
Angela leaned forward, bumping her forehead lightly against his.
“You know,”
She murmured, their foreheads pressed together.
“Yes.”
Kalian answered softly. But Angela’s words flowed on like a soliloquy.
“How should one comfort someone who’s feeling down…?”
It was the moment she pulled her forehead away, as if resolving to mull it over herself and drifting apart. Kalian caught the nape of her neck in a swift grasp and drew her in, pressing his lips to hers.
Angela’s toes curled tight at the sticky, clinging kiss. The surging heat felt like it would scorch her cool skin.
Before long, their lips parted, but the sudden depth of that kiss left Angela frozen like ice. Kalian, a graceful smile playing on his lips, offered his advice.
“When I’m feeling down, this is what you should do.”
Only then did Angela, emerging from her frozen state, shoot Kalian a sidelong glare.
He was always like this, seizing every opening.
When had he said absolutely not until after the marriage?
This lecher…!
Angela halted her train of thought just as she was about to reproach him. It was because of the stories she’d heard from the maids. Just a few days ago, she’d summoned Jo and Hilda and sternly warned them not to say anything unnecessary to Mary.
Even as she’d brought it up, she’d felt embarrassed, but it was better than the humiliation of hearing such things from Mary’s mouth again. Yet Jo and Hilda had grinned and giggled even as they agreed they understood, leaving Angela with little faith in their discretion.
“We’ll be more careful from now on, miss. Everyone’s just so amazed by it—forgive us.”
Hilda’s gentle apology was immediately echoed by Jo, who nodded vigorously in agreement.
“That’s right, exactly. His Grace isn’t like that normally, but whenever he’s near you, he gets so worked up—it’s all just so fascinating and amusing to us, that’s why.”
For someone who wasn’t like that… Angela fixed Kalian with a dubious stare. The moment their eyes met, heat flooded back into his gaze. The dark burn in his pupils was pure, unadulterated desire.
Kalian tilted his head as he drew closer and brushed a featherlight kiss to the corner of Angela’s mouth before pulling away.
“If you look at me like that, it makes me want to pretend I’m melancholy.”
There was no falsehood in his calm words.
So… the face that so readily kindled with passion, the hands that revealed their greed in an instant, the gestures that poured affection without end—they were all like this only for her?
In that moment, an impulse surged within Angela to make Kalian melancholy whenever she pleased. She’d start by kissing the heavy droop of his eyes. As a comfort, of course.
“Her Majesty the Empress seems to be struggling quite a bit.”
Kalian’s sudden remark snapped Angela out of her reverie.
“Huh…? Oh, yes.”
Realizing it was a continuation of the conversation she’d left hanging earlier, Angela startled and awkwardly strung together, “Yes, that’s right, yes.”
Feeling a pang of needless guilt toward Anette, Angela began the consultation in earnest.
“I saw her earlier, and her mood and complexion both seemed off.”
“That’s hardly surprising.”
It wasn’t just her complexion that had been poor. Her demeanor toward Angela had been different from the norm, too—cold enough that Angela was glad she’d decided against bringing Mary along.
“Will time be the remedy?”
Angela uttered words she herself didn’t much care for. Time had been no balm for her own wounds. No matter how it passed, if the hurt ran too deep, it inevitably left a scar. And yet, to hope for a miraculous healing effect in others felt like a contradiction.
Did Kalian think the same? He rubbed his forehead in silence, offering no reply. As Angela raised an eyebrow at the ambiguous gesture, Kalian spoke in a voice that had settled into quiet gravity.
“If it were simply a matter of her heart being in turmoil, that would be fortunate enough—but I’m worried something might have happened in the Taran Kingdom.”
“Something, happened?”
“Grace is there, isn’t she?”
Angela’s eyes flew wide. She’d been so caught up in thinking about Anette’s sorrow that she’d completely forgotten. The possibility that Anette might have encountered Grace.
* * *
How could she have forgotten? They’d received word of King Kanak’s death on the very road to meet Grace.
It must have been the recent absence of Grace invading her dreams that had her so buoyed. Enough to forget so carelessly.
Angela bit her lip as she made her way to the Empress’s palace. If Anette had been influenced by Grace, it was undoubtedly because of her.
“I said I wanted to rest alone, and that wasn’t limited to yesterday.”
Angela was led to the greenhouse in the rear garden of the Empress’s palace, where Anette was said to be. It was the same place where the tea party had been held not long ago.
Women from noble families, come out of concern for the Empress, sat gathered around. Lady Matterson—the one who had clashed with Angela before—was occupying one of the seats as well.
Angela alone stood without a place to sit. From the way the cheerful atmosphere didn’t falter, it seemed she alone hadn’t grasped the hint, earning her a silent rebuke for showing up uninvited.
“Since you’re here, why don’t you sit.”
At Anette’s gesture to a distant servant, a seat was soon prepared for Angela. It was positioned at some distance from Anette.
Even though it was hardly different from the spot she’d chosen for herself last time, Angela felt a strange discomfort as she lowered herself into the chair.
While her teacup was being filled, Angela couldn’t tear her eyes from Anette. Yet their gazes never met, not even for a moment—Anette had no intention of sparing her a glance.
Impatience finally pried Angela’s lips apart.
“I’m relieved to see your complexion looks better today than yesterday.”
It was a remark tossed out because Anette was even smiling at the other women. Yesterday, when she’d sat with Angela, her face had screamed of a headache that might kill her; today, it seemed otherwise.
But at Angela’s single comment, Anette’s features twisted as if a shattering migraine had assailed her. The look she turned on Angela was as chill as a blade’s edge.
“Is that so? Do I look better?”
The question was icy.
“Then I must be a wretched daughter. How long has it been since I lost my father, and already my color’s returning?”
The self-rebuke was frigid.
“That’s not what I……”
Angela opened her mouth hotly to correct the misinterpretation. But words that failed to clarify were severed by Anette’s tongue.
“Enough.”
Anette spoke with sharp irritation, averting her eyes from Angela to take a sip of her tea. The clink of the cup returning to its saucer clawed across the now-silent table before fading away.
The women watched the two of them with curious glances. Lady Matterson was no exception. Seeming to relish Angela’s discomfort, she curled her lip in a smirk, her curiosity plainly on display toward them both.
But nothing else registered in Angela’s eyes. She focused solely on Anette. The one emotion captured in those green irises was worry.
That was when it came.
“Well, of course.”
Anette’s lips parted like a dam giving way.
“How could Lady Bilton, who’s never known love, possibly understand the pain of losing someone precious?”
Loathing poured forth like a flood.
