Chapter 18 · A Vicious Trap

Bang!

The door of the office slammed shut roughly.

Isadel roughly wiped her bloodstained hand on the hem of her dress and walked forward with bold steps.

Red bloodstains spread grotesquely across the pure white silk, but she paid it no mind and wore a faint smile.

Viscount Sillon.

She had not intended to kill him.

She had merely needed an example.

Though this bloody spectacle would not make the ministers retreat, one fact had surely been engraved clearly in their minds.

‘That the seal of the Lacent family is still in my hands.’

No matter how they pressured her to sign the declaration of support, a document without the official seal stamped upon it was nothing but a scrap of paper.

The fact that she had struck a blow against Erhan and his arrogant followers, who believed they had Rastain completely in their grasp, brought a strange satisfaction.

Isadel crossed the corridor with steps that felt lighter.

But before she had gone a few steps, a strange sense of incongruity caught at her ankles.

She did not hear the footsteps of the imperial guards who should have come running like beaters driving game to seize her.

Instead, cutting through the stillness, she heard a single leisurely pair of heels.

Isadel stopped and turned around.

At the end of the empty corridor, having dismissed all attendants and guards, Erhan revealed himself in a leisurely manner.

“Do you still have something to say?”

Isadel spat with a cold sneer.

He had tried so hard to force her signature, only to be struck at his blind spot—it was quite a sight worth seeing.

Yes, go on. Beg before me. Get down on your knees disgracefully and grovel, if you can.

Expecting his face to contort with defeat, Isadel raised her chin even higher.

But the reaction that came back completely defied her expectations.

“Do you really have to make such a fuss?”

Far from being cowed, Erhan even wore a faint smile at the corner of his lips.

“…A fuss?”

Isadel’s eyes sank coldly.

“I’m asking if you really had to draw blood. Can’t you please resolve things with words?”

Isadel’s lips twisted slowly.

A sneer she could not swallow flowed out through her throat.

“Ah, I hadn’t thought of that.”

She took a step closer, right up to Erhan.

“I should have handled it more gracefully, as you say. For instance…”

“……”

“Like you, who plays the noble gentleman after slaughtering my entire family.”

No sooner had Isadel’s words fallen than Erhan’s face hardened.

However thick-skinned he might be, it seemed some trace of guilt remained, for he could not endure Isadel’s fierce gaze and turned his head away.

Isadel suppressed the fury surging from deep in her core and quietly glared at him.

‘Loathsome bastard. Who do you think you are to lecture me?’

The silence was brief; Erhan continued as if grinding out the words.

“Sign it. That is the only way I can keep you alive.”

“I don’t need it.”

“Don’t be stubborn, Isadel. This isn’t something you can avoid by refusing.”

“I’ll decline.”

At her firm refusal, Erhan’s brow contorted horribly.

“Isadel, please…!”

He roughly approached and seized her shoulders.

Isadel glanced at his hands gripping her shoulders as if they were filthy, then stared intently at Erhan.

“Please what? Please sign it? Then get down on your knees and beg. Slam that clever head of yours against the floor and beg for my signature.”

“…!”

“What, you can’t do that?”

Isadel snorted and met his eyes directly.

“I thought so. A weak man like you would never have the guts for that.”

Even at the mockery that pierced like a dagger, Erhan did not retreat.

Veins bulged on the back of his hand as his grip tightened.

“You think the ministers will let you live? They’re all people who want to drag you to the plaza and kill you at every opportunity!”

“So what?”

“…So what?”

It was the tiresome talk of her life again.

Isadel shoved him away, wiping even the sneer from moments ago from her face.

“I never asked you to save me. So stop threatening me with my life. It’s truly sickening…”

Whether it was him or them, she was sick of everyone trying to make deals as if her life were some great weakness.

Erhan looked down at Isadel without a word.

His eyes, sunk piercingly blue, were strangely calm.

“Do you really hate living that much?”

“…Yes.”

“Liar.”

At his unhesitating certainty, Isadel burst into hollow laughter.

With an expression that said it was not even worth rebutting, she tried to turn away, but Erhan seized her and forced her to look at him.

“You are right now living more fiercely than ever. I saw your eyes when you stabbed Viscount Sillon without hesitation. Those were not the eyes of someone desperate to die.”

“What?”

“They were the eyes of a starving beast trying to survive somehow and sink its teeth into the other’s throat.”

“…Don’t make assumptions.”

“Admit it, Isadel. The truth is, you don’t want to die. Stop deceiving yourself with words you don’t mean.”

“Shut up.”

Unable to overcome her fury, Isadel’s hand sliced through the air, but Erhan quickly caught it.

“Let go.”

Isadel struggled to pull her caught arm free, but Erhan did not budge.

“Listen carefully, Isadel. You are not that weak a person.”

“Shut up, what would you know…!”

“Just because your world collapsed and you lost everything does not make you a weak soul who would throw away her life. You are the stubborn kind who will survive by any means, clawing your way through, and bring the bastards who trampled you back to their knees beneath your feet.”

Isadel felt a nausea as if her blood were running backward.

That arrogant tone, as if he knew everything inside her.

‘What do you know about me… to dare spew such words so carelessly.’

The feeling of having the very bottom of her soul read by the man she hated most was utterly filthy.

Erhan caught his ragged breath and opened his mouth again.

“In a few days, Sis will come to you again. Find the seal and sign before then, no matter what.”

Isadel snorted as if it were absurd.

“Fool. I told you I don’t know where the seal is.”

Originally, it was an item that would have been bestowed upon her by her father on her nineteenth birthday upon coming of age and revealed to the world, but now no one knew its whereabouts.

It was surely buried in some dust-covered palace storage.

Erhan stared intently at Isadel for a long while, then slowly parted his lips.

“Your maid, Roshe.”

At the unexpected name, Isadel’s brow twisted finely.

“…What about her?”

“That girl. You haven’t seen her lately, have you?”

Isadel’s face turned pale.

“…Wasn’t she just running away?”

“Running away? She was caught by the imperial guards loitering near the princess’s palace some time ago. Whether she had taken precautions for her master beforehand, she had made off with your seal and hidden it, and she would not open her mouth to the end.”

Isadel’s breathing grew increasingly ragged.

“Of course… it was your doing.”

“Yes, for now I’ve had her locked in the imperial underground prison. Go and persuade her yourself. Tell her to hand over the seal.”

Isadel fell silent for a moment.

Clutching the hem of her dress to hide her trembling fingertips, she suddenly twisted the corners of her mouth upward.

“…And if I refuse?”

“Isadel.”

“You think holding that girl’s life over my head will make me submit?”

Erhan brought his lips right to Isadel’s ear.

A voice chilling to the bone scraped at her eardrums.

“Then trade that child’s life for your seal.”

In that instant, Isadel’s thoughts flashed white.

As if the air had been sucked from her lungs, her breath caught.

“The choice is yours, Isadel.”

He slowly withdrew from the Isadel who stood frozen like a stone statue.

“Think carefully. About what is truly precious to you.”

Having finished his cruel ultimatum, Erhan turned and leisurely disappeared.

Left alone, Isadel glared piercingly at the trajectory where he had vanished and clenched her fist tight.

Her whole body was consumed with fury, so much that she could not even feel the pain of her nails digging into her palm.

The strange tenderness he had shown last night had indeed been a meticulously calculated illusion.

The fleeting warmth she had felt for a moment while carried on his back was disgusting.

And she loathed herself even more for having briefly mistaken that monster for a human.

Only now did Isadel realize she had been caught in the vicious trap Erhan had laid.

If she handed over the seal, Roshe would be saved—but that would mean abandoning all authority and right of succession as a princess and giving Erhan’s usurpation a legitimate justification.

Leave her loyal subordinate to die, or acknowledge her enemy as emperor.

There were only two choices.

“Damn it…”